How Art a Design can be?

What is art, what is design? Where is the boundary between art and design? The network meeting on November 1 was dedi­cated to these ques­tions, which appar­ently have no easy answers. “How Art a Design can be” is the theme of the evening that guest curator Teodora Kotseva led through. Various formats — lectures, discus­sions and a design talk — offered poten­tial for expla­na­tions. In a get-together, inter­na­tional actors and members of the Meis­terrat discussed the big and small chal­lenges of contem­po­rary design. Labinac, Chmara.rosinke, Vaust and Judy Rambags were part of the talk moder­ated among others by Katja Kleiss.

 

 

The lines between art and design are blurred. One way to look at this rela­tion­ship is to ask if art and design belong to the same system: manu­fac­turing, produc­tion, organ­i­sa­tional, market. With the blooming of galleries dedi­cated to selling art with func­tional char­ac­ter­is­tics we witness a sepa­ra­tion, albeit, not so clear from the typical design field. Young designers, as they are also repre­sented in the Meis­terrat, neces­sarily have to find their posi­tion between commer­cial, aesthetic and func­tional require­ments. The idea behind this talk is to bring together various players in the face of estab­lished artists and design studios, gallerists, academy profes­sors, and discuss the main char­ac­ter­is­tics of the two fields, the current market dynamics and trends, as well as the posi­tioning of emerging prac­ti­tioners within the existing art and design markets.

 

 

The range of topics included the taste-makers and the gate­keepers in the design-art markets, the commer­cial­i­sa­tion of galleries, the role of collec­tors and Berlin’s place in the market of limited edition design. Topics, there­fore, from which the present members of the Meis­terrat and partic­i­pants could also profit. As creative cultural actors, they are also in daily contact with gallery owners, exhibitors and collec­tors. In the end, the results of the discus­sions and the personal exchange among them­selves have helped the members of the Meis­terrat to ques­tion their belonging and posi­tioning on the design or art market.