Michael Young: Passion for Aluminium

Solo exhibition Al(l) by Michael Young at Grand-Hornu near Brussels, displays a wide array of the designer’s aluminium works and highlights the potential of the material: it’s flexibility, aesthetics, lightness and solidity. The exhibition aims to give a broad overview of the designer’s career through extensive presentation of objects and potential of the material.

Despite working on and testing several materials and processes along his career, aluminium has stayed as a long-term passion for the designer. He uses aluminium extensively in his experimental practice in both mass-produced works and limited editions.

Michael Young was born in Sunderland, Great Britain and graduated from Kingston University in 1992. Today, he has set up studios in Hong Kong and Brussels. In Asia, Young has tested advanced design manufacturing processes on different kinds of materials for over a decade.

The exhibition, curated by curator and journalist Maria Cristina Didero, consists furniture and objects displayed on twelve installation islands in the UNESCO World Heritage site Grand-Hornu in the vicinity of Brussels in Belgium. The installations include The Pendulum, a scenographic device that demonstrates the hidden qualities of carbon fiber as well as a 1.1 Moke car by Michael Young.

The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive publication with texts by Max Borka, Aric Chen, Hugues Wilquin, Marie Pok and a conversation between Michael Young and Maria Cristina Didero. •

Al(l) by Michael Young at Cite du Grand-Hornu, Brussels, Belgium, on 31 January–29 May 2016.