Audax Textile Museum Tilburg

A chair made of cowhide, a stove of ceramic textile, an ‘emotional’ flower bouquet, the interior of a villa in the Swiss mountains, a visitors’ shed for a museum … these are only a few out of the many products and projects undertaken by the designers duo Van Eijk & Van der Lubbe. They are conspicuous by their diversity: from product and interior design to mini-architecture and the lay-out of exhibitions.
For the first time a retrospective exhibition is organised of the entire oeuvre by Niels van Eijk (1970) and Miriam van der Lubbe (1972). It is no mere accident that this will take place in the Textile Museum. The museum has been following the development of these two designers with the greatest of interest. It has acquired several of their products in its collection, quite a number of these having been produced in the museum’s Textile Lab.

More than ten years ago, after graduating at the Design Academy Eindhoven, the designers started their own studio. Since 2000 they have had a joint atelier in Geldrop, their town of residence. They work with a team of freelancers and trainees. Van Eijk & Van der Lubbe each design work both under their own names and under the name of their studio. Larger projects are developed by both of them together. But also in the case of individual designs there is always the critical eye of the partner. By now their work has been included in museum collections both in the Netherlands and in America, England and Korea. They work for international clients such as Rosenthal, Droog Design, Habitat, Royal Leerdam, Moooi, Friedman Gallery (New York), Premsela Dutch Platform for Design and Fashion and the Audax Textile Museum Tilburg. Their work is shown in exhibitions all over the world.

Hidden histories
Van Eijk & Van der Lubbe’s design cannot be encompassed in one glance. It leads to reflection and at first glance causes confusion. Behind the work there is always a history. Moreover experimenting with media, materials and techniques is a must. An example from the collection of the Textile Museum is the ‘Multiply’, a lamp produced per metre in the Textile Lab. By weaving a fabric in several layers a three-dimensional cloth is made, which in less than no time can be fitted with metal rings and formed into a lamp. ‘La Divinia Commedia’ is a continuing project in which high and low tech, but also histories come together. So far a chaise longue and a lamp have been developed, both realised in polypropene and enhanced by means of laser beams and manual cut-outs. This sculpture, in its material expression strongly resembling marble, was inspired by drawings which the artist Gustave Doré made in 1860 for an edition of Dante’s La Divina Commedia. In this epos (14th century) Dante describes his fictitious journey through the hereafter, meanwhile referring to actual, political situations.
More light-hearted are the flower projects which have been in production since 2005. In the Salone del Mobile in Milan of that year Van Eijk and Van der Lubbe surprised the visitors with a large flower wall consisting of 4500 live Calandiva plants. The following year there was a theatre with enormous flower dresses and trays which, like stackable Lego stones, were filled with plants. Another example is the Fleurop project ‘Bouquets of Emotions’, in which bouquets are composed at the hand of emotions such as love, jealousy or sorrow, associated with specific flowers.
A recent architectonic project is the Construction Cabin, designed and realised for the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, roofless since 2008. This pavilion, which can be visited and moved from one place to the other, has been given the form of a closed black box. In the façade a high-gloss stainless steel eye peers at the visitor. Also the intimate inner space is coated in steel.

Classics
During their career of more than ten years Van Eijk & Van der Lubbe have put several classics to their name. Products which are being shown worldwide in exhibitions. One of these is the ‘Cow chair’ (design Niels van Eijk 1997). It is a chair made of cowhide. After the wet hide has been stretched over a chair, it is allowed to dry in that shape. Another ‘classic’ is the ‘Bobbin Lace lamp’ (design Niels van Eijk 2002). This is lamp of glass fibre, woven into bobbin lace, in which the light is spread by the glass fibres. The lamp, which has taken four years to complete, has the form of a chandelier. Recently it has been produced in an adapted version for the Academic Hospital in Leiden. A classic by Miriam van der Lubbe is ‘Me and my Beretta’ (1999), a ladies’ handbag in the form of a pistol. The form suggests that the bearer is carrying a weapon, not quite unexpected in this day and age. Two years ago this design, originally realised in leather, was produced in textile by the American firm Kikkerland Design, thus bringing it within payable reach for many people.

Exhibition in Tilburg
The objective of the exhibition in Tilburg is to show the many ‘faces’ and subjects of the work of Van Eijk & Van der Lubbe. This not by merely portraying their entire oeuvre. In the exhibition products and projects are clustered according to design. This means that all works in which the concept was the most decisive for the design are clustered together. The same is true for work in which the form was the point of departure, work in which material experiments are of importance, works focusing on the production process and finally the group in which a representation or decoration is predominant. In this way the visitor views the works through the eyes of the designers and the ideas behind the work are made visible. Not only end products but also first drafts, models and studies of materials are to be seen in the exhibition. The lay-out of the exhibition is from the hands or the designers themselves.

Simultaneous with the exhibition an extensive oeuvre publication (192 pages, mostly full colour) of the work of Van Eijk & van der Lubbe, is published by publishing house 010