Hella Jongerius

Galerie Kreo, Parijs

Frog Table

2009
applied arts & design

For the Rotterdam designer Hella Jongerius, decoration is an essential element of today's design and can be seen as a reaction to the immaculate, ornament-free modernism. This frog table can be seen as a piece of furniture from a fairy-tale. An enormous frog rises from one of the corners. The three-dimensional décor detaches itself from the piece of furniture and literally and figuratively leads a life of its own.

object data

This object is in storage

Designer: Hella Jongerius (Vleuten-De Meern 1962)

Executor: Galerie Kreo, Parijs

material/technique: French walnut wood, paint and epoxy

type of object: table

Dimensions: 120 x 210 x 105 cm

creditline: Aankoop met steun van / Purchase with support of: BankGiro Loterij 2009

accession number: V 2597 a-b (KN&V)

about the maker

Hella Jongerius

Vleuten-De Meern 1962

What is design? What is craft? What is decoration? How can we strengthen the relationship between people and products? These questions underlie practically all the works of the Dutch designer Hella Jongerius (1963). She does not seek to give definitive answers to these questions, but explores the many possibilities.   In the 1990s Jongerius introduced ‘craft’ imperfections and individuality to the industrial production process. She explores the ‘misfits’, the individual deviations between different examples of a design and the visible traces of the hand of the maker. Jongerius also uses historical motifs and narrative decoration in her work. Sometimes the decoration becomes so important that it almost frees itself from the flat surface to take on an autonomous three-dimensional form. Research into colour is central to her most recent work, in which Jongerius seeks irregularities and a layering of perception. The qualities she is looking for are to be found not in the standardised colour palette used by industry, but in paintings.  Hella Jongerius is internationally regarded as one of the most important designers of her generation. Jongeriuslab was based in Rotterdam until 2008. Since then Hella Jongerius has lived and worked in Berlin.