i had no idea it existed until i saw it cited as a reference for
the new st. vincent album art back when that came out. reports from this year's milan design week indicate that the postmodernist aesthetic that emerged 30+ years ago is having a moment again.
The Memphis movement began in 1980 after Postmodernist designer Ettore Sottsass gathered together a group of like-minded designers working in Milan. The group allegedly took its name from the 1966 Bob Dylan track "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" that was played throughout their meeting.
The designers, including Sottsass, Alessandro Mendini, Michael Graves, George Sowden and Nathalie Du Pasquier, debuted a range of pieces designed to communicate ideas rather than being based on forms at the 1981 Salone del Mobile in Milan.
"It was probably the beginning of a new era," Du Pasquier told Dezeen. "Form did not have to follow function any more, and design was about communication. Even though very few of the things were actually in production, it was a big mass-media event."
These products included Sottsass' unconventional Carlton bookcase, which featured colourful angled shelves and bookends, disconnected from one another. It aimed to question why a bookcase needed to look like a typical bookcase.
This notion fell under the Postmodern cultural style - a reaction to the functional aesthetic of the Modernism movement prevalent in the years before - and resulted in a series of pieces created from geometric shapes in bright colours. (via)
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