Bovist (“Lacemaker” model) pouf

Description

Gallery Rotations Spring 2013
Hella Jongerius
Netherlands, born 1963
Bovist “Lacemaker”
2005
Viscose, linen, embroidery, and polystyrene bead filling
Museum Purchase, 2013/1.289
Its strong resemblance to a pincushion is only one of the witty references to handicraft found in Hella Jongerius’s industrially manufactured Bovist (“puffball” in German). There is also the figure of Jan Vermeer’s lacemaker, embroidered in blue and positioned so that her hands seem to be stitching together the Bovist’s contrasting halves. Jongerius excels at such rich, contradictory layers of materials and allusions, which she hopes will imbue her designs with the emotional resonance of a treasured object.
Jongerius graduated from the celebrated Eindhoven Design Academy, and soon gained attention in association with the Dutch design initiative Droog (“dry”). Both these influences can be seen in the conceptual strength and humor of her designs, but Jongerius pays equal attention to material qualities and processes. This material knowledge feeds into her postmodern taste for elements once dismissed as superfluous and obsolete, whether citation, decorative pattern, or the imperfections of handicraft. In unique or mass-produced objects, Jongerius argues that form should not follow function so much as feeling.