What’s art got to do with it?: Laufen

A long-standing cultural sponsor, premium Swiss bathroom manufacturer LAUFEN sees its contribution to the wider creative field as just another part of its commitment to collaboration and innovation.

By LAUFEN BATHROOMS, Alfredo Häberli, Patricia Urquiola and

Design Miami/Basel

September 12, 2017 | 10:00 pm CUT

Laufen's innovative materials and processes become a vehicle for artistic expression in its touring group show "A curated Art Show. What?", shown here at this year's edition of Design Miami/Basel

What is art?

Well, how long have you got? To be honest, this isn’t really the forum for an in-depth discussion of art’s motivations and meanings. But let’s agree that it can (or should?), with its calling into question of social, political and economic structures, be a means of affecting a conversation, and through this, the possibility of change. Given the turbulent times we live in (or at the very least the way in which we perceive them as turbulent), it could be argued that we need art now more than ever. Art speaks, encouraging us to speak to each other and speak out.

Dialogue at the 2017 Venice Biennale. German artist Franz Erhard Walther’s flat, elongated steel forms on the floor at either side of the expansive Arsenale building invite visitors to enter into a silent conversation with each other

If you’ve been to Venice already this summer for the Art Biennale, you may have entered into a conversation with a complete stranger. And without words. As part of the main exhibition – this year curated by Christine Macel and whose theme is “Viva Arte Viva”, a clarion call to the humanity of art and the art of humanity – German artist Franz Erhard Walther has, Carl-Andre-like, placed flat, elongated steel forms on the floor at either side of the Arsenale building. Visitors are invited to stand on them and face their unknown counterparts across the vast space, forming a visual, and possibly emotional, connection. A silent, human dialogue.

Laufen, the premium Swiss bathroom manufacturer that’s this year celebrating 125 years in business, is in conversation, too. The very essence of its brand – which sees a steadfast commitment to materials innovation combined with an ongoing collaboration with some of the brightest stars in the creative firmament – is about a fundamental dialogue between the design and art. Between the sobriety of the utilitarian with the poetry of exquisite and often surprising, almost architectural forms.

The Swiss Pavilion becomes the stage for curator Philipp Kaiser’s exploration of national identity through the lens of artist Alberto Giacometti’s concerns. Carol Bove’s abstract sculptures reference his semi-figurative sculptures

It should come as little wonder then that Laufen has for several years now been actively engaged in promoting a dialogue between design, art and architecture. Its sponsorship of the Venice Biennale’s Salon Suisse – the guest-curated programme at the 15th-century Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi, organised by Swiss arts council Pro Helvetia, which sees an internationally drawn body of artists, architects, specialists, academics and others converge to talk, create and play – is, of course, a smart move to position the brand within the wider creative field, to lend it cultural credibility and capital.

The partnership makes perfect sense. Architects, interior architects and interior designers are cultural animals, for whom art is an important source of inspiration. And architects are also a significant target group of specifiers for Laufen, whose products allow them to deliver their creative visions without compromise.

Giacometti’s refusal to show at the Venice Biennale functions as point of departure for Carol Bove's sculptural work at the Swiss Pavilion, which turns absence into material presence

But there’s more at stake here for Laufen’s Director Marketing and Product, Marc Viardot. While the company’s arts programmes are “a long-term effort to create a corporate culture that inspires innovation and intelligent risk-taking,” he also sees it as an obligation to contribute to the wider cultural field. “Culture is everything. It makes a difference in the world. Cultural collaborations make forward-thinking happen. At Laufen, we celebrate the culture of collaboration.”

Ask Pro Helvetia’s Sandi Paucic, who is responsible for both the Salon Suisse and the Swiss Pavilion at the Biennale, and he also sees Laufen’s engagement as a natural fit. “When we first started this project and put up the Salon Suisse on our site, within an hour Laufen was on the phone to us. It’s important to have a partner whose product is close to design, to aesthetics. A bank, for example, would be more abstract; it wouldn’t relate to us. It’s been a win-win situation from start, this collaboration.”

Artist duo Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler's film installation "Flora" reimagines the life of young American artist Flora Mayo, who studied alongside Giacometti in Paris in the 1920s and was his lover

Pro Helvetia is able to leverage Laufen’s community, drawing on the brand’s ability to bring the right kind of people – professionals, journalists and others – to the Venice events, connecting them with the projects and with each other. It becomes a platform on which the cultural and the commercial inform and benefit each other, multiplying the value and relevance of both.

Laufen sponsors the Venice Biennale’s Salon Suisse – the guest-curated programme at the 15th-century Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi – where artists, architects, specialists, academics and others converge to talk, create and play

That grandee of the art-exhibitionary world, Art Basel, has also for the first time become a platform for Laufen. Again, it’s about dialogue. As the traditional art collector with wherewithal increasingly expands his or her purview of acquisition to include limited-edition and product design, not to mention architecture (“Hello. I collect houses.”), so the profile of the Design Miami/Basel fair in Basel, which runs in parallel to the art event, continues to rise. Art and design set up their big-top tents on the same turf.

This year’s edition of Design Miami/Basel saw Laufen’s touring exhibition “A curated Art Show. What?” pitch up, having previously attracted audiences in Frankfurt, Milan and Copenhagen. Looking to mark its major anniversary in a way that would communicate the creative talent of its design collaborators while underscoring its position as industry innovator, the company turned to Zurich-based art director and curator Beda Achermann.

Konstantin Grcic, Patricia Urquiola, Alfredo Häberli and Toan Nguyen were among the names invited by Laufen to lend form to material as part of the company's "A curated Art Show. What?" exhibition, which has appeared in Frankfurt, Milan and Basel

The result is a conceptually and formally diverse body of works by, among others, Konstantin Grcic, Patricia Urquiola, Alfredo Häberli and Ludovica + Roberto Palomba, which use the medium of art to communicate Laufen’s prowess in pushing the materials and technology envelope. Laufen’s game-changing SaphirKeramik, for example, provides the stuff for Toan Nguyen’s “Water” – a reflection (no pun intended) on that most fundamental of elements and the one that, of course, gives the brand’s products their function.

Häberli’s piece – entitled “Open-Mindedness” and a pean to harmony, balance and cooperation – is also lent form by the wonder material. Throughout the collection as a whole, you’ll find casting, hand-modelling, as well as 3D printing, all mobilised. Even experimental material recipes not yet used commercially at Laufen are explored. These are objects that speculate as much as they dictate.

"A curated Art Show. What?" will be showing in September at the London Design Museum during the London Design Festival (see below for details) and at MAKK Cologne in January 2018

Perhaps it Grcic’s piece that’s most apposite, however. Called “Complete Bathroom Solutions” and 3D-printed, it draws on the archetypal formal language of bathroom sanitary ware in the creation of a singular sculptural mass. Recognisable, yet truncated, rounded forms, bends and hollows go to make up an artwork that speaks of the poetry of industrial production and the industrial processes of making art.

As Laufen might put it: we two are one.

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A CURATED ART SHOW. WHAT?

will be showing at:

THE DESIGN MUSEUM LONDON

16–24 September 2017

Open from 10am to 6pm daily

224–238 Kensington High Street

London W8 6AG

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Photos:

Andrea Avezzù (3)