Artium Quaestiones (Dec 2021)
Design jako próba przywrócenia kanonu? Pojęcia, metody i dyskursy a niemieckie i śląskie wzornictwo pierwszej połowy XX wieku
Abstract
In the article, the concept of canon is related to the process that has been defined as the transition from applied art to design. The thesis is then put forward that this processcan be seen as the canonisation of products intended for mass production. The above statement suggests that a (qualitative?) change has taken place between designing and producing artistic and also utilitarian objects and the phenomenon called design. However, an answer to this problem first requires a clarification of terms. If we understand design and production historically in the context of the transition from handicraft to machine production, i.e. within the narrative socio-economic history, and if we place design in the ontology of visual culture, its pictorial representations and materiality, we will see a shift of focus to aesthetic values, related to form and materiality, and thus canonisation – the establishment of icons (of design). The canon will in this sense be a defence against aesthetic relativism. Escaping into the canon is art history’s way of dealing with the social, economic and knowledge and technology arts was included in the research on searching for connections with Bauhaus as an exemplification of the canon. Design as historically understood industrial design and design as a creative activity, as the energy needed to produce a canonical utilitarian object, i.e. one whose aesthetic or artistic value will go far beyond utilitarian, form the framework in the text for methodological discussion, reflections on defining concepts and critical analysis of scientific discourses and their possible junctures. transfer issues that are indispensable in the study of crafts, arts and craft and design. The history of art (but also popular culture!) has canonised many works and phenomena. One example is the Bauhaus, widely seen as the canon of 20th-century design, although Gropius himself defined its purpose in the words: “das ziel des bauhauses ist eben kein ‘stil’, kein system, dogma oder kanon [...]”. Similar phenomena took place concerning the design of the first half of the 20th century from the Lower Silesia area: the slogan “Breslauer Moderne” referred, in part, to the Werkbund exhibition in 1929 (WuWA), and the activity of the Wrocław Academy in the field of applied arts was included in the research on searching for connections with Bauhaus as an exemplification of the canon. Design as historically understood industrial design and design as a creative activity, as the energy needed to produce a canonical utilitarian object, i.e. one whose aesthetic or artistic value will go far beyond utilitarian, form the framework in the text for methodological discussion, reflections on defining concepts and critical analysis of scientific discourses and their possible junctures.
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