Provoking Magic: Lighting of Ingo Maurer
INGO MAURER AT THE COOPER-HEWITT
The Ingo Maurer show was a total blast. I was running late to get there, so i only had about 45 minutes to spend in the museum, but it was a great experience anyways. The best part of the visit was that Ingo Maurer was actually present in the museum giving a walk through with what i am assuming were graduate students. It was very interesting to see all of his models, some small, some really small, some a little bigger, and be able to peak into his process of both coming up with the ideas and starting to realize them.
He was talking about one of his pieces composed of broken plates and silverware, the one that in Italian says "Porca Miseria" (Damn). Someone had asked him if he made a model of that one as well, and he was explaining how for that specific chandelier it was more a matter of actually physically playing with the pieces making sure they were in harmony with each other. I believe he had sketches for that, but no prototype. I thought it was interesting to know that even such a designer, can fluctuate and change method depending on the nature of the object he is working with at that specific moment.
My favorite pieces:
