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Thursday, March 20, 2014

Fifty years from now: Rasmus Bækkel Fex

I'm not usually drawn to anything I perceive as gimmicky, so when I saw the Weeds table and chair designed by Rasmus Bækkel Fex, I was a bit skeptical. It seemed a bit too much like art masquerading as design for my taste.


Weeds table and chair
bfex.dk


But there was something about his 9,5˚ design that I liked, even though I couldn't quite put my finger on the reason. 


9.5˚ chair and  8.5˚ table
sharedesign.com


After visiting Fex's website and listening to him explain the way he works,  I have to admit that I'm a convert.
He explains that his products "are the result of a long, winding conceptual process...developed following the process tool 'Art with function--Design without.'" He said he developed this method to push his thinking outside the box and to propel him along new paths.

In 2005, Fex received a B.A. in Furniture and Spatial Design from the Danish Design School and a M.A. in Furniture in 2009 from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Design.

Nominated in 2012 for the Danish Design Award for his thesis project, the Impact wall seat, Fex was described as a "broad and multifaceted designer" who "moves in the borderland between design and conceptual art," but Fex explains that he has to deconstruct the traditional in order to create something new. He says, "I have to make mistakes, and by doing that, I find new ways of seeing." In 2013 his work was included in three important exhibits.

Even though Fex says he doesn't know what he'll be doing in 20 years, I predict that he has the potential for being remembered much longer than that.

From bfex.dk and ddc.dk


Thesis project: Impact wall seat
ddc.dk

Impact under-seat storage
ddc.dk

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youtube.com
Uploaded by DanskDesignCenter

4 comments:

  1. I have not heard of him before Dana. Thanks for the insight!

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    1. Gemma, I wasn't familiar with him either. I just happened upon an article about him and went to his website. He seems to be a very talented young man going through an experimental stage in his design career. It will probably be very interesting to see what he discovers.

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  2. Like the bench. Not so much the chair, maybe an attempt for proper posture. Wright did a three legged chair for the same reason, but changed to four legs eventually.

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    1. I'll be honest. Although there's something about the optical illusion created by that chair that fascinates me and is pleasing to my eye, it doesn't fit the aesthetic of my home at all, and I'm still not at all fond of the deconstructed look of the tables. That storage bench is another story. I'd take one of those in a heartbeat.

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