Konstantin Grcic. Panorama

Konstantin Grcic (DE, 1965) is one of the most influential designers of our time. Serious and functional, unwieldy and occasionally disconcerting, his works combine an industrial aesthetic with experimental, artistic elements. Many of Grcic’s creations, such as Chair_One (2004) or the Mayday lamp (1999), are widely acclaimed as design classics. With Konstantin Grcic – Panorama, Z33 is now presenting in collaboration with the Vitra Design Museum the largest solo exhibition on Grcic and his work to date.

Specifically for this exhibition, Grcic has developed several large-scale installations rendering his personal visions for life in the future: a home interior, a design studio and an urban environment. These spaces stage fictional scenarios confronting the viewer with the designer’s inspirations, challenges and questions, as well as placing Grcic’s works in a greater social context. The highlight of these presentations is a 30-metre long panorama that depicts an architectural landscape of the future.

A fourth area of the exhibition takes a focused look at Grcic’s daily work. This section presents many of his finished objects, but also prototypes, drawings and background information along with artefacts that have inspired Grcic – from an old teapot and an early Apple computer to works by Marcel Duchamp, Gerrit Rietveld and Enzo Mari. In the shift of perspectives between larger and smaller scales, the exhibition demonstrates how design is more than mere problem solving for Grcic, but a highly complex process that integrates coincidences, ruptures, chance discoveries and a profound engagement with the visual culture of our time.

With Panorama Z33 presents the next in a series of exhibitions about the future. Z33 conducts an ongoing research about future thinking and imagining in which designers, architects and artists explore possible scenarios for living in the near future.

The exhibition is accompanied by a 320-page catalogue that comprises a catalogue raisonné of Grcic’s work as well as essays by such authors as Richard Sennett, Peter Sloterdijk, Paola Antonelli, Mario Carpo and others.

venues: Vitra Design Museum - Weil am Rhein / Z33 Hasselt