Vienna Design Week

16 – 25 September 2022

Rahlgasse 8

Vienna, Austria

Vienna Design Week Official Website

Hardly anything in design was so euphorically welcomed and vehemently rejected at the same time as ornament. While ornament does not serve a utilitarian purpose as a purely decorative element, it is nonetheless essential in many respects—social, ritual, and commercial. They not only create relationships between aesthetics and function, but through their narrative potential, ornaments can even become the driving force behind design. And where better to approach this area of ​​tension than in Vienna, the ground zero of the clash between the Wilhelminian period, Art Nouveau and modernism, i.e. the place where - mediated by psychoanalysis - the opulence of historically inspired ornaments, their avant-garde counterparts and their opposing anti-ornaments into the 20th century.

The group exhibition Fokus/Ornament, curated by Liv Vaisberg, brings together contemporary works that examine the role of ornament in design and as part of our daily lives. With a look back and forward, the show shows ornaments as a means of the pleasurable, critical, functional - meaningful! – expressive.

“Serotonin-Sertraline” Floor Lamp

Silk, hand-embroidery

Part of the Ordinance of the Subconscious Treatment collection

The work juxtaposes functional and decorative elements in Chinese Buddhist temples: crown, parasol, and draping banners. The silk embroidery features questions asked during a therapist conversation, and chemical symbols of serotonin (related to happiness) and sertraline (an antidepressant).

Embroidery text translation:

Which emotions do you feel and why do you have these emotions?

So do you want to call and chat now or do you want to spend some time alone?

So have you done each thing on the checklist and are these things satisfactory?

How do you each feel? If you feel not satisfied, why?

What were you thinking at the time and what did you do in the end?

Did you do something you don't want to do and did you ask the other person to do something you actually don't care about?

Is the decision you made based on your state at the time that suits you?

What factors led to your decision at the time and how do you make a better decision next time?

If you don’t consider external conditions, what is the state you want?

Is the choice you made because of what you want or what feels more appropriate?