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ROBERT STADLER | OMG-GMO

ROBERT STADLER | OMG-GMO

The Glass House by Philip Johnson, Connecticut | September 24th - December 9th 2022

Carwan Gallery presents a much-anticipated new commission by Paris-based designer Robert Stadler this September, inside Philip Johnson’s signature Glass House pavilion in New Canaan, Connecticut. More than two years in the making, Robert Stadler’s OMG-GMO project is a series of whimsical ceramic functional objects created in a tripartite collaboration between the designer, the gallery, and leading Italian manufacturer BITOSSI Ceramiche. The project will later travel to Europe, for an exhibition at Carwan’s flagship space in Greece, in March 2023.

Known for his diverse work — which includes industrial design, installation, curation, and performance — Austrian-born designer Robert Stadler has been engaging with current issues in a critical and intellectual way throughout his decades- long career. For his special commission from Carwan Gallery, the designer offers a witty comment on the relationship between humans and their environment, as seen through the genetic manipulation of fruit and vegetables. Spotless yellow bananas, fleshy avocados, leeks, carrots, and many other staples of our shopping baskets are transformed into humorous functional objects, in what is perhaps the designer’s most playful work to date.

The history of representing fruitage and other produce in art and design is probably as long as the history of art itself. From ancient vessels shaped as their contents, to fanciful Arcimboldo paintings and Renaissance still lifes featuring cornucopias of food, the relationship between produce and aesthetics has been very strong, and persists to this day. In dialogue with this tradition, Robert Stadler’s OMG-GMO highlights the artificiality of the tame fruit and vegetables we cultivate and consume, highlighting the fact that their current form is the result of a very long process of agricultural domestication, selective breeding, and bioengineering. Patiently “designed” over thousands of years, farming products such as tomatoes, bananas, aubergines, and many more have little resemblance to their wild, undomesticated relatives. In more recent years, this engineering has become even more extreme, incorporating genetic modification and sophisticated cultivation techniques that give fruit and vegetables of almost artificial perfection and symmetry — such as square watermelons, straight cucumbers, seedless oranges, calibrated cherries, white strawberries, and more.

For the OMG-GMO project, Robert Stadler borrows the forms of these engineered fruit and vegetables to create nine ceramic, hand-painted objects that ironically transform the organic into something structural and functional. Conceived as a series of small-scale monuments, these objects both criticise and mock human manipulation of nature: a slice of a Japanese rectangular seedless watermelon becomes a stool, zucchini bend in a perfect L shape to create a set of shelves, and wheel-like aubergines support a glass coffee table, as a reference to Gae Aulenti’s Tavolo con ruote. Each object transforms a fruit or vegetable in a functional and clever way, with the master ceramicists at BITOSSI copying in detail their colour and texture.

OMG-GMO is being presented at The Glass House as part of a survey exhibition dedicated to Robert Stadler’s oeuvre. The OMG-GMO objects will be presented as an installation inside the Glass House pavilion itself, transforming the iconic modernist landmark into a greenhouse for alien-looking fruit and vegetables, in contrast with the natural landscape around it. Many other pieces from the designer’s entire career will be installed across the museum’s grounds. OMG-GMO is sold exclusively via Carwan Gallery.

Exhibition details
The Glass House, 199 Elm Street New Canaan, CT 06840
For further info visit: https://theglasshouse.org/visit/

Robert Stadler, OMG-GMO at The Glass House - © Michael Biondo

Featured designer

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Robert Stadler

Paris, France

Robert Stadler was born in 1966 in Vienna, Austria. He studied design at IED/Milan and at ENSCI/Paris. In 1992 he cofounded the Radi Designers group which was active until 2008. The group created limited edition pieces for Galerie kreo and also major industrial design commissions for Air France or Moulinex. In 2001 Robert Stadler set up his own design studio in Paris. He works for clients such as Hermès, Lobmeyr, Thonet and Vitra and also has created a number of limited edition pieces for Carpenters Workshop Gallery. His work is included in the permanent collections of the MAK - Museum for Applied Arts / Contemporary Art in Vienna, Les Arts Décoratifs in Paris, Fondation Cartier pour l’Art contemporain, Fonds National d'Art Contemporain and Vitra Design Museum. Stadler has also curated several exhibitions amongst which QUIZ at Galerie Poirel in Nancy and at MUDAM Luxemburg.

In 2017 the Noguchi Museum in New York presented his first institutional exhibition in the US in dialogue with Isamu Noguchi’s works. In the same year his first survey exhibition was shown at Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau in Dresden, Germany. He designed and curated the exhibition "Typecasting - An Assembly of Iconic, Forgotten and New Vitra Characters" at La Pelota during Milan Design Week 2018. Robert Stadler intervenes in diverse fields, obliterating hierarchies between — as he puts it — Duty Free proposals, and industrial or public commissions. He regularly explores the exhibition context in order to question the identity of objects.

Prix Liliane Bettencourt pour l'Intelligence de la Main (2012)

Major Museum Exhibition
Fondation Cartier, FNAC, FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais



Email: info@carwangallery.com
Phone: +852 3008 5615
Website: Explore the collection on the Carwan Gallery Works page

EXHIBITED WORKS

EXHIBITED WORKS

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VITAMIX

VITAMIX

VITAMIX VITAMIX

By Robert Stadler
Gay Gae

Gay Gae

Gay Gae Gay Gae

By Robert Stadler
Buttercut

Buttercut

Buttercut Buttercut

By Robert Stadler
LOL

LOL

LOL LOL

By Robert Stadler
Tiptoe

Tiptoe

Tiptoe Tiptoe

By Robert Stadler
Sunny Sally

Sunny Sally

Sunny Sally Sunny Sally

By Robert Stadler
Mute Mix

Mute Mix

Mute Mix Mute Mix

By Robert Stadler
Juicy Josef

Juicy Josef

Juicy Josef Juicy Josef

By Robert Stadler
Tetra Yum

Tetra Yum

Tetra Yum Tetra Yum

By Robert Stadler
Size Matters

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By Robert Stadler
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I-MIRROR

I-MIRROR

I-MIRROR I-MIRROR

By Robert Stadler
VITAMIX

VITAMIX

VITAMIX VITAMIX

By Robert Stadler
REST IN PEACE CHAIR #2

REST IN PEACE CHAIR #2

REST IN PEACE CHAIR #2 REST IN PEACE CHAIR #2

By Robert Stadler
Gay Gae

Gay Gae

Gay Gae Gay Gae

By Robert Stadler
Buttercut

Buttercut

Buttercut Buttercut

By Robert Stadler
LOL

LOL

LOL LOL

By Robert Stadler
Tiptoe

Tiptoe

Tiptoe Tiptoe

By Robert Stadler
Sunny Sally

Sunny Sally

Sunny Sally Sunny Sally

By Robert Stadler
Mute Mix

Mute Mix

Mute Mix Mute Mix

By Robert Stadler
Juicy Josef

Juicy Josef

Juicy Josef Juicy Josef

By Robert Stadler
Troublanc

Troublanc

Troublanc Troublanc

By Robert Stadler
Richard

Richard

Richard Richard

By Robert Stadler
Rest In Peace Table

Rest In Peace Table

Rest In Peace Table Rest In Peace Table

By Robert Stadler
Tetra Yum

Tetra Yum

Tetra Yum Tetra Yum

By Robert Stadler
Size Matters

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By Robert Stadler
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