Models for vessels and vases stand on the table and floor, and remains of white model-building boxes, from which geometric forms have been cut out, lean against the wall of the guest studio. Frédéric Dedelley touches the pliable model of a forty-centimeter-high cylinder, thus disrupting the strictly geometric form. The circular outline changes into a free, organic form. «I’m interested in deviations from fundamental geometric forms, for example cylinders, which as a result of the model-building technique selected, slightly lose their symmetry in the process of being made,» according to the Zurich designer. He speaks of dynamic beauty, of the imperfection in the form that makes it vibrant and sensuous. He will translated this theme through casting the models in the direct burn-out method. «I’m also interested in vessels as a typology, one of the first typologies invented by man. An ur-thing,» says Frédéric Dedelley. At the same time, he is nevertheless trying to distance himself from the utility of objects. «That’s the guiding idea for the seven weeks here in the Sitterwerk: distancing myself from the functionality of objects, which is one prerequisite of design.» Weight, for example, serves him as a means of doing so. The objects—cast in bronze—are so heavy that it is barely still possible to lift them. The vessels are a continuation of the free artistic series Objets mélancoliques, vases and vessels in crystalline forms that he had cast in tombac by the Kunstgiesserei in 2009 and 2011. What he retains is the raw patina of the cast objects. As a result, this series also retains a moment in their production that cannot be foreseen.
Another project on which Frédéric Dedelley is working during his guest stay is a type of laboratory of forms involving purely formal experiments. «Two years ago, I started collecting remnants of model building material from the studio. Some of them had interesting forms, forms at which one would not arrive if one wanted to design them.» He will now work with the Kunstgiesserei’s new 3D printer. The forms have been digitalized, and volumes will be created from the surfaces through his rotating them. Every vertical thus serves as an axis of rotation. «The forms thus created will then be produced with the 3D printer. What will come into being based on them is still unclear.» These volumes will serve him as a repertoire of forms for future projects. Frédéric Dedelley found an important inspiration for this project while browsing in the Sitterwerk’s Art Library, where he came across photographs of the mathematical forms of the Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto.
Frédéric Dedelley was a guest in the Sitterwerk from the middle of April to the end of May 2015. He has had a studio for design in Zurich since 1995. Frédéric Dedelley designs furniture and objects, has staged exhibitions for various museums and institutions, and has furnished various sacred spaces.
Open studio
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
starting at 6pm