A Wild Move at the Design Museum Ghent

Following their first-prize win at the Provincial Award for Design, Ghent’s 019 is now occupying a wing in the city’s Design Museum.

The collective originally runs from a working space in a former welding factory in Dok-Noord, but it has temporarily closed its doors to move until September to the —aptly named— Museum of Moving Practice. “It’s an exercise in moving, because the building where 019 is temporarily housed will get a different destination someday, and our organisation will eventually have to move,” said the founders. Their agenda at the Design Museum Ghent follows that view of temporarily and stability, with a constant twist of the host and guest played by the institution and the invited artists —such as graphic designer Karel Martens with Motion, an exhibition 50 years in the making, and installation artist Filip Dujardin.

The institution is also hosting A Wild Thing, the second exhibition based on Hilde Bouchez’s book on the work and philosophy of late Belgian designer Maarten Van Severen. In Maarten Van Severen & Co the Design Museum presents links between the output of the namesake designer —the most famous of his generation—, and several other contemporary designers and artists. “This exhibition finally does away with the notion that Maarten Van Severen was a minimalist designer”, explained the Design Museum. “Instead, the designer referred to himself as a maximalist, because stripping designs down to their essence requires a maximum effort.”

The Museum of Moving Practice is, indeed, in practice until September 17, while Maarten Van Severen & Co is part of the museum’s collection.