In the West oval room of the museum two playful tapestries and recent additions to the museum’s collection are on show. They are two tapestries by different artists, from different times and with very different representations. And yet they are related. Baletto Geometrico was created in 1980 by the Italian designer Andrea Branzi and Koen Taselaar created the wall hanging Radical Furniture for Radical Times five years ago.
In the one tapestry you see four dancing figures perform an abstract ballet and at the other you discover squids in a postmodern design interior. So very different, but each makes reference to other works of art. How are the two works of art connected?
Andrea Branzi
The tapestry on the right is by the Italian designer Andrea Branzi (1938–2023), a member of Alessandro Mendini’s circle. Branzi took the German Bauhaus artist Kurt Schmidt’s sketch for The Mechanical Ballet as his starting point. In Schmidt’s 1923 design, the dancers hide behind movable abstract planes. Schmidt wanted to bring an abstract painting to life on stage. Branzi, in turn, combines three art forms here: abstract art, theatre, and the craft of weaving.
Koen Taselaar
Koen Taselaar’s (b. 1986) Radical Furniture for Radical Times was purchased in 2020 but has just gone on display for the first time in the museum. Taselaar took inspiration in part from the Groninger Museum’s postmodern Italian design collection. The numerous recognisable items include furniture and lamps by Ettore Sottsass, Michele De Lucchi and Peter Shire – the “radical furniture” of the title. As for “radical times”, Taselaar had read that octopi could thrive in a warming world and hence might ultimately survive longer than humans. If the Groninger Museum should ever end up entirely under water, the creatures would find a cheerful home here.
Displayed on the opposite wall are previously acquired modern tapestries by Peter Struycken and Wobbe Alkema, all from the museum collection.
Ruud Schenk
Curator of modern art