Eva Maria Hoyer (ed.)

A gold brooch by Renate Heintze consisting of sweeping lines and folds, and the ‘spiral lamps’ by Verner Panton; a dancer made of Meissen porcelain and the famous ‘Snow White’ combi radio/record player by the Braun company – the new book on the GRASSI Museum of Applied Arts Leipzig presents objects in off-beat, mostly double-page juxtapositions from its exceptional in-house collection, and in addition to highlights there are also objects that due to lack of space only rarely or have never succeeded in being presented to the public until now.

The categorisation of the book follows neither chronology nor specific realms of collecting or groupings of materials.

For the editors it is more about awakening personal encounters with the objects and promoting the joy of contemplation – occasionally also with a distinct wink of an eye. This has proved very successful for them, for the gaze of the beholder instantly traces the colour tones and structures or establishes playful individual connections on a content-related and functional level over and above traditional contextualisation.

A more active view is provoked, allowing the treasures of one of the oldest applied arts museums to be seen in a completely new light and showing the museum, which was founded in 1874 primarily as an exemplary collection for craft and industry, for what it is: a treasure trove of the citizens of Leipzig whose aim has always been not just to document history but also to directly determine it.

With its mostly double-page juxtapositions of objects, the current book provides surprising insights into the diversity of the treasures in the GRASSI Museum of Applied Arts collection. A comprehensive and equally unusual overview from antiquity to the present. And a book that invites you to discover anew the applied arts and design in individual interactions.