Ron Arad

By Elizabeth Marchetti
06/03/2010

Architect-turned-designer Ron Arad is a man who blurs the line between aestheticism and functionality. Israeli-born, London-based Arad designs buildings and home commodities like bookshelves, lamps and chairs, as little gems of engineering art that resonate with fierce personality and individualism.

From the work on display at ‘Ron Arad: Restless’, his major retrospective at Barbican Gallery (until May 16), we get the sense that his creative force is embedded with the notion that beautiful doesn’t necessarily mean useless, and that these two aspects can merge together in unexpected ways through a fun process of experimentation, adventure and substantial absurd thinking outside the box in furniture and industrial design.

Starting from the upper level, the exhibition takes us through Arad’s main obsession: chairs. Starting from the 1980s, we see his work progressing within different themed rooms. These give the imprint of the technical process behind each biomorphic piece, such as ‘Scavenging’, ‘Tinkering’, ‘Rolling’, ‘Superforming’ and so on. Arad muses with his personal accounts on a TV screen, along with images of sketches and work in progress. The feel is high-tech‘2001: Space Odissey’, with the spiraling chandeliers Lolita, displaying text messages and projecting them onto the numerous LED screens.

The chairs are true sculptural gems of sensuous curves, exploding colors and unconventional use of materials, which seem to be molding along with space and energy, while remaining perfectly still and defying gravity. Like Frank Gehry, Arad has a penchant for curves rather than angles: the pieces occupy space in a delicate and non intrusive way, following patterns of ergonomic comfort with eye-popping details: some go up, some roll down like carpets and others curve inside like shells. Like scribbles and doodles, they break the rules of strict angular formats in favor of smooth, shiny and slippery surfaces made of elastic aluminium, steel, carbon fibre and fiberglass. These painfully stylish beauties seem to be howling for you to sit on them. But security doesn’t loosen the grip, reproaching you if you get too close.Sigh.

My personal favorite was the Gomli (2009), an homage to the designer’s friend, British artist Antony Gormley, who uses his own body as a model for his art. In contrast, the Gomli is a sculptural piece which represents the universal seated figure: here is a hegative outline of a body, sinking into shiny red material, reminiscent of a giant drop of magenta paint falling the sky. This really looks like the most comfortable place to rest your bosom. Next to it is the Rod Gomli, which took nine months of strenuous artisanship to make by bending individual metal roads by hand and assembling them around a complex metal armature. Imagine an enormous bowl of thick metal spaghetti.

The highlight of the day was seeing Ron Arad himself wandering around the gallery in his pixie hat and combat boots. He wants to demonstrate to his friend the comforts of the Rod Gomli, so makes himself comfortable on it with nonchalance and looks up at the celeing: “See, this just follows the body” he says. Then he gets up, looks around and adds with a knowing smirk: “Guys, don’t do what I just did.”

Downstairs, it looks like a department store, where viewers are invited to sit and roll around in mass-produced chairs: some couch-like are more comfortable, some are more for fun, like the rocky seesaw that makes you feel like you’re falling, or in the middle of a sea-storm. And if you fancy a game of ping-pong, you can use Arad’s very own table made of steel, with curved ends to slow down the pace. In the same area we find lamps and bookshelves. A nice touch is provided by motion of the Teeter Totter: a motorized steel rack with rotating wheels as bookshelves, which roll from one side of the room to the other, without ever falling.

Lastly there is a section dedicated to his buildings, with models of his studio in Chalk Farm, the Tel Aviv opera house, a shopping centre in Belgium called Mediacite’ and private homes.

Speaking to Arad for a moment, I learn that his experience at the Barbican was great because of the organization and the people he has worked with: “To my surprise, it’s been really great: much better than the Pompidou centre and the MOMA”. The exhibition oozes sophistication and style at high levels of design and doubtlessly confirms Arad’s status as a true marketed style maverick of our times.

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Elizabeth Marchetti

Lifestyle editor artslondonnews.co.uk
Free-lance journalist