Affordance 

Mapping

Constraints

Blending

Material

Useful object

Prototyping

Crafting 

Mending

 

In his book Norman talks about the ideology behind the construction of every day objects. This notion is particularly interesting due to its similarity to the nature of adhocism. My question then becomes ; how does adhocism manifest in everyday life. Indeed , most of the mundane objects we use are based around joining and engineering multiple materials . The argument then becomes how an artist can use design to create a design, and build an idea or a context for an object. My goal is to analyze the relationship between craftsmanship , affordance , mapping and restrictions when it comes to an object. By studying how multiple materials can be combined to create a usable entity I am also proving how adhocism is essential in product design.

Oppenheim’s fur-lined teacup is perhaps the single most notorious Surrealist object. Its subtle perversity was inspired by a conversation between Oppenheim, Pablo Picasso, and the photographer Dora Maar at a Paris café. Admiring Oppenheim’s fur-trimmed bracelets, Picasso remarked that one could cover just about anything with fur. “Even this cup and saucer,” Oppenheim replied.
In the 1930s, many Surrealist artists were arranging found objects in bizarre combinations that challenged reason and summoned unconscious and poetic associations. Object —titled Le Déjeuner en fourrure (Lunch in fur) by the Surrealist leader André Breton—is a cup-and-saucer set that was purchased at a Paris department store and lined with the pelt of a Chinese gazelle. The work highlights the specificities of sensual pleasure: fur may delight the touch, but it repels the tongue. And a cup and spoon, of course, are made to be put in the mouth.
Following his inclusion of the work in MoMA’s 1936–37 exhibition Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., the Museum’s director, remarked, “Few works of art in recent years have so captured the popular imagination.... The ‘fur-lined tea set’ makes concretely real the most extreme, the most bizarre improbability. The tension and excitement caused by this object in the minds of tens of thousands of Americans have been expressed in rage, laughter, disgust or delight.”

Biermann was one of the major proponents of the ‘New Objectivity’ photography movement that developed in Germany in the 1920s, a movement that embraced the mechanical ability of the camera to capture the real world in a clear, objective manner. She was influenced by artists working at the time, including Albert Renger-Patsch and August Sander, and by the end of the 1920s was exhibiting her work alongside them. During her seven-year career, which was cut short by her early death in 1933, Biermann produced a large portfolio of work, ranging from portraits (see, for example, Untitled (Self-Portrait) c.1931, Tate P80258) and photographs of plants and flowers (see, for example, Amaryllis 1928, Tate P80260) to images of inanimate objects such as Ceramic Cup.

http://www.grizedale.org/contributors/deller.and.kane/jeremy.deller, accessed 1 September 2015).

The phrase ‘souped up’ generally refers to modified cars with increased engine power. Here it emphasises Dillon’s use of car body painting techniques to adapt the appearance of the urn and teapot, yet it could also refer to the idea of these objects being used to heat up soup. The work’s punning title therefore seems to emphasise its odd conflation of catering implements with car culture. As the art historian Hal Foster has noted, such incongruous combinations of signifiers are common in Deller’s practice (Hal Foster, ‘History is a Hen Harrier’, in English Magic, exhibition catalogue, British Pavilion, 55th Venice Biennale, Venice 2013, p.11). This can also be discerned in the juxtaposition of British tea-drinking culture with a painted design which, according to a text produced by Grizedale Arts, ‘directly emulated a style of American West Coast iconography which was itself influenced largely by Latino culture’ (Griffin and Sutherland 2009, p.167).

The work’s references to vernacular culture are characteristic of Deller and Kanes’ practices. For example, from 2000 to 2007 they collaborated on Folk Archive, which saw them collecting and documenting works of contemporary British folk art. Discussing Deller’s interest in ‘the vernacular’, the cultural theorist Stuart Hall has associated him with the principle that ‘people who are sometimes considered to be unimportant, or not worth listening to, matter. They are creative but often have their creativity denied or taken away from them. He believes they should be valued for what they are ... and that one way of doing that is to re-deploy them as sources of new artistic work’ (Stuart Hall, ‘Jeremy Deller’s Political Imaginary’, in Hayward Gallery 2012, pp.88–9).

Further reading
Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane, Folk Archive: Contemporary Popular Art from the UK, London 2005.
Jonathan Griffin and Adam Sutherland, Grizedale Arts: Adding Complexity to Confusion, Coniston 2009, p.167.
Jeremy Deller: Joy in People, exhibition catalogue, Hayward Gallery, London 2012.

David Hodge
September 2015