Alessandro Mendini, 2007
Tabourets, Galerie Kreo Parigi, settembre 2007

Cher Didier,
Tu sais combien j'admire ta galerie Kreo. Je te prie donc d'accepter cette lettre comme une réflexion sur le design, occasionnée par ton exposition sur les « Tabourets ». Je l'envoie aussi à Icon, et j'aimerais que tu la montres à Julia Lohmann, dont je connais et estime l'engagement original et particulier : une recherche sur les moments critiques des métamorphoses génétiques, la mémoire de l'animal vivant dans la forme du canapé mort (“memento mori”).
Je lis aujourd'hui sur le numéro de septembre d'ICON l'article d'Anna Bates, “The inside of a calf", qui décrit le tabouret de Julia justement, intitulé “The Lasting Void”. Je vois que le tabouret en plastique, en douze exemplaires, est réalisé en utilisant comme moule l'intérieur vidé de la vraie carcasse d'un animal mort. La designer affirme avoir été “always been interested in the transition of an animal to the product”. Je suis content d'avoir dessiné mon tabouret "Enigma" dans la collection des vingt-cinq auteurs qui forment cette exposition. Mais l'objet de la Lohmann provoque en moi un fort malaise, je que doit t'exprimer. C'est un objet très négatif, comme le montrent les trois images cruelles publiées par ICON. Je sais bien qu'actuellement la recherche dans le design traverse une phase de décadence, et moi-même j'en fais partie. Je sais aussi que le design, à cette époque fugace, n'est pas motivé par des éthiques et des valeurs. Je sais bien que le design aujourd'hui n'est pas une idylle. Et je sais aussi que nous sommes obligés d'accomplir des gestes extrêmes pour trouver des nouveautés et des langages. Mais l'énergie créatrice de Julia, dans le cas de son tabouret, me semble vraiment mal orientée. Je ne comprends pas ce qu'elle peut démontrer à travers tant de méchanceté. Si la photo de son tabouret entrera dans les livres d'histoire du design elle représentera un des exemples les plus durs, un moment très triste de l'histoire des objets. Parce qu'il évoque plutôt les gadgets en peau humaine réalisés dans les camps de concentration que la chaise longue de Le Corbusier en peau de cheval ou les tabourets en pattes d'éléphant ou les tapis tribaux en peau de léopard. Je ne trouve aucune raison théorique, esthétique, méthodologique ou anthropologique qui justifie l'hypothèse d'arrêter l'instant du souffle manqué d'un animal mort pour le proposer sadiquement comme un objet de morgue d'usage commun, exprimé directement dans sa souffrance. L'idée est cynique est sans issue, c'est la spectacularisation de la torture d'un cadavre. Peut-être dans le domaine de l'art l'épopée sacrificielle accomplie sur l'animal exprime-t-elle les mythologies de la violence humaine la plus ancestrale, et peut se transformer en langage, en dénonciation et en représentation (Hermann Nitsch, Damien Hirst, Marina Abramovic, Gaetano Pesce). Peut-être Julia évolue-t-elle sur ce terrain délicat. De toute façon elle affirme : “stools are funny objects, they're the last one to be sat on at a party, you have to engage with this one to know what it's about...”. Et cela me met mal à l'aise.
Tu connais bien mon ouverture vers toutes les choses, mais j'ai trop d'attention pour la vie, pour la mort et pour la douleur des êtres vivants pour renoncer à l'instinct de t'écrire ces quelques lignes. Mais peut-être celui de Madame Lohmann est un amour pour les animaux, la démonstration d'un amour cruel que je n'arrive pas à percevoir.
Alessandro Mendini

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Dear Didier,
You know how much I admire your Galerie Kreo, so please accept this letter from me as a reflection on the design, prompted by your exhibition on “Tabourets”. I am also sending it to ICON magazine and I would also like you to show it to Julia Lohmann, whose original and unusual commitment to her work I know and admire: a search into the critical moments of genetic metamorphosis, the memory of the living animal in the shape of the inanimate sofa (“memento mori”).
Today, I read the article by Anna Bates, “The inside of a calf”, in the September edition of ICON. It describes the stool, by Julia, called “The Lasting Void”. I see that the plastic stool, of which twelve have been made, has been obtained using the emptied inside of an actual dead animal carcass. The designer says she has “always been interested in the transition of an animal to the product”. I am happy to have designed my stool “Enigma” as part of the collection of twenty-five artists forming part of this exhibition, but the item by Julia Lohmann leaves me with a feeling of great discomfort, which I must express to you. It is an extremely negative object, as demonstrated by the three cruel pictures published by ICON. I know full well that research in design is on the decline now and I am myself a part of that trend. I also know that design, in this fleeting era, is not motivated by ethics or by values. I know design now is not an idyll and I also know that one is forced to take extreme action to find innovations and new languages. However, Julia’s creative energy, in the case of your stool,
truly seems to be badly directed. I do not understand what so much unpleasantness is supposed to demonstrate. If the photograph of her stool enters into the history books of design, this will be one of the most bitter examples, an extremely sad moment in the history of objects. It brings to mind the items made out of human skin in the concentration camps, not the horse skin chaise-longue by Le Corbusier, elephant foot stools or tribal leopard skin rugs. I can see no theoretical, aesthetic, methodological or anthropological reason which justifies the idea of immortalising a dead animal’s last breath, in order sadistically to propose it as an item for everyday use, directly expressed in its suffering. The idea is cynical and pointless, it is simply turning the torture of a dead body into entertainment. Sometimes, in the field of art, the epic sacrifice of an animal expresses the mythology of the most ancient human violence and can be transformed into language, into a denouncement and a representation (Hermann Nitsch, Damien Hirst, Marina Abramovic, Gaetano Pesce). Perhaps this is the sensitive area where Julia is working. However, she says: “stools are funny objects, they're the last one to be sat on at a party, you have to engage with this one to know what it's about”...” And this troubles me very much.
You know very well how open I am towards everything, but I care too much about life and death and the suffering of living creatures to ignore the instinct to write this letter. Perhaps Julia Lohmann is expressing a love for animals, but it is the demonstration of a cruel love which I cannot understand.
Alessandro Mendini

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I would like to thank you for your letter. I too appreciate constructive dialogue and it gives me the opportunity to outline my thoughts towards the Lasting Void. You write in your letter that you don't believe my design to be motivated by ethics or by values - I disagree.
Is an object that has the death of an animal as its starting point more ethical if it hides its origin as best as it can? In response to this question I designed the Cowbench, an object linked as closely to its animal origin as to its object outcome, the leather couch. For the Lasting Void I am exploring a different design path to those normally condoned by our culture, going back to the source of these materials, the animal. I am hoping to develop objects that will raise questions about how we interact with the world around us, how we consume resources and to which purpose we design. I believe that research does not always have to be textual but can also be undertaken on an object level.
Design has to be more than merely `pleasant'. Our lives are increasingly mediated through objects and revolve around consumption. It is the responsibility of the designer to embed in objects an added emotional and ethical functionality. Design should stop us from becoming numb to the world and instead prompt us to rethink how we lead our lives.
You have also compared my work to art concerned with epic sacrifice - however, my subject is not art. I am concerned with design and its material origins. Some of these are derived from animals, which we have become used to seeing as expendable life forms, epic only in numbers. Thousands of cows are slaughtered every day in the EU alone, supplying us with 6.3 million tons of beef per year - in an accepted process of anonymous killing and docile consumption of nondescript products that often disguise their animal origin. The calf I used to make the Lasting Void was a waste product from this process. Deemed unfit for human consumption after it had died of natural causes in the field it was going to be incinerated. By casting the negative space inside it I preserved the memory of a single, discarded creature that was deemed of no value for conventional use.
To present the Lasting Void in an exhibition showing designers' interpretations of everyday design objects i.e. stools is in this sense attractive as the mundane nature of the objects is in keeping with our casual consumption of livestock. More importantly though the well-publicised limited edition gallery pieces give us an opportunity to communicate ideas - if we as designers are willing to leave well-trodden paths and engage in debate.

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