muller van severen celebrates 10 years at design museum ghent

10 years muller van severen. in dialogue with the collection

muller van severen, the belgian designer duo of international acclaim, celebrate their tenth anniversary with an exhibition at design museum ghent that presents a stimulating dialogue between pieces from the museum’s collection and their own work. on view until march 6, 2022, the show marks the duo’s first major exhibition in their hometown, and the last exhibition in design museum gent before it closes for approximately two years.

‘after a ten year interval, we are staging our first major exhibition in our home city of ghent. we are bringing our work back home – a great way to make it more tangible here,’ note fien muller and hannes van severen, who received THE DESIGN PRIZE 2017 golden madonnina in the category ‘best design newcomer’ (more here).

all images by bart van leuven

muller van severen’s design decade in two parts

the exhibition celebrates muller van severen’s design decade in two parts. at the request of design museum gent, the design duo started working with the museum’s collection, selecting about one hundred collection pieces that enter into a dialogue with their own work. the dialogue is presented in a large installation on the ground floor, designed specifically for this exhibition space with a focus on harmony and proportion. the selection reads like an anthology of design history, with works by alvar aalto, ron arad, harry bertoia, marcel breuer, gaston eysselinck, huib hoste, marc newson, jean prouvé, studio alchimia, léon stynen, linde freya tangelder, willy van der meeren, henry van de velde, albert van huffel, maarten van severen and many others. the pieces were selected by muller van severen on the basis of a ‘kindred spirit’ approach. they recognise a similar vision and way of working in these objects, and a ‘design attitude’ that ties in with their practice.

the installation is made up of vertical strips of paper that define the space similar to an architectural composition

in the historic salons of the hotel de coninck, the second part of the exhibition will present the design duo’s progress, referring to ten key figures who helped determine their path. this route meanders through time and approaches their work from ten different angles. it opens with a prologue in the salons on the ground floor with early autonomous work that hannes van severen and fien muller created individually. the sculptures of hannes and photographic work of fien were produced before 2011, in a period in which their own visual language as artists was developing.

each salon embodies an important moment and a link in their oeuvre and shows how chance encounters can lead to new creations and projects. the memories of these moments and collections are recounted by ten figures who have played an important role in the development of their oeuvre: jan hoet junior, delphine bekaert, veerle wenes, lowie vermeersch, clémence & didier krzentowski, james mair, andreas murkudis, massimo de carlo, kersten geers & david van severen, mette & rolf hay. finally, a new book entitled ‘muller van severen. dialogue’ (2021, walther koenig) will also be launched on the occasion of their tenth anniversary. using conversations and visual references, this publication goes in search of the origins and complexity of the DNA of muller van severen’s oeuvre. collection pieces enter into a dialogue with muller van severen’s work