Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
By: Frances Lord
Frances Lord explores Michael Marriott's career and practice which involves exhibition design, curating, writing, product and furniture design and installation.
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Michael Marriott, ‘Courier Shelving’.
for Established & Sons.
Michael Marriott trained in furniture design at the London College of Furniture and the Royal College of Art, and now works and collaborates on a wide range of projects that span exhibition design, curating, writing, product and furniture design and installation. From its beginnings in the mid 1990s, his work attracted press and media interest.
Marriott refers to himself as a ‘strict Modernist’ in terms of his approach and philosophy to design. This he explains is a different experience from twentieth century Modernism, yet also concerned with “the honest and appropriate use of materials”. His take on modernism is both in terms of general approach, as well as in terms of methods of production and process. He aims to design “truly modern objects”, using whatever materials and approach are “appropriate for the project in hand”. He has been called a post-modernist but feels this term is inaccurate, preferring that of ‘strict Modernist’.
“I spend a lot of time observing and studying things and the world, analysing objects consciously and unconsciously in terms of material, function, use, misuse, form, colour, texture, finish, fixings, age, patina, junctions of line and material.”
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Michael Marriott, ‘Economy of Means’.
Camden Arts Centre.
Marriott has great respect for what he refers to as the ‘freedom of craft production’, and when asked how he describes himself he says “as a designer”, but “always keeping a toe in the craft world”. He speaks about the value of a making background and what a craft approach can offer an object compared with industrial production. He says that he does not consciously follow a particular route and prefers the flexibility of working on a wide variety of projects spanning product and furniture design, exhibition design, curating, writing and designing and creating installations. This lack of categorisation is important in how Michael defines his approach to his work. He rarely says no to projects – (“maybe I should say ‘no’ more?”). He feels the lack of categorisation is an important factor in interesting projects coming his way, and has been surprised by his contemporaries occasional questioning: “what are you doing that for?”
Since leaving the RCA in 1993, Marriott has designed a wide range of domestic and household objects, often incorporating a humorous, surprising or unexpected element. An early example of such an approach is the ‘Sardine Tin Collectors Cabinet’ utilising recycled sardine tins, first made in 1989, and the “Chip Chop Slice Serve’ cheeseboard/serving platter doubling up, after cheese, as a ping pong bat, with a “free ping pong ball with every purchase”, designed more recently in 2007. He seems to relish a brief and the opportunity to be creative within the confines of that brief. Although some design projects have been self-initiated, particularly in the early stages of his career, the majority have been commissioned.
He ventured into batch production post college, but found dealing with the pressures of manufacturing demanding and, at that stage, product quality to be poor and unsatisfactory. For example, an order for 250 metal candlesticks made following their launch at 100% Design in 1995 turned into “a nightmare” and “lots of running around”; demonstrating the challenges an individual can face in coordinating small-scale batch production with the attention to detail required. This experience led Marriott to make a conscious decision, contrary to the path taken by many of his college contemporaries, to find other ways of making and funding work; commenting that the batch production approach to design was not best suited to his temperament (you “need to be hard”) and, rather self-deprecatingly, that he is “not a good business man”. At this later stage in his career, however, he is interested again in taking on more mass production projects, as long as the integrity of the work can be maintained.
Early designs such as the “XL1” kit chair (and table), shown to much acclaim at his MA show in 1993, have been revived and revised: for example, the Japanese company Trico commissioned a reworked “XL 1.2” kit chair for their Tokyo showroom.
Marriott designs for industrial production include the ‘Missed Daybed’ and ‘Croquet Shelving’ for the London based manufacturer SCP, and work for Inflate and Established & Sons.
After a gap of about five years, when he mainly designed for industry, Marriott returned in the mid 2000s to ‘making things’ for specific projects.
A recent example is the ‘Chip Chop Slice Serve’ cheeseboard/serving platter made for the curated ‘SuperDesignMarket’ at Truman’s Brewery as part of the London Design Festival, organised by Scarlet Projects. Thirty designers were selected by a panel of curators. The brief for the project was to design an object for limited edition batch production of between 50 and 100, selling between £5 and £50, and to ‘test’ the product. All 100 ‘Chip Chop Slice Serve’ sold and, gratifyingly, orders for more were taken. ‘Chip Chop Slice Serve’ is typical of Marriott’s approach to design: incorporating inexpensive, simple, readily available components, such as wing nuts or ping pong balls, with everyday objects produced in multiple quantities.
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Michael Marriott, ‘Mies meets Marx/MMM’.
Geffrye Museum.
Another strand to Marriott’s work is exhibition design, which started with ‘a conversation’ with the then Head of Exhibitions at the Crafts Council, Louise Taylor, who had included his work in the ‘Recycled’ exhibition shown at the Crafts Council Gallery in London. A casual conversation about sourcing ‘interesting’ graphic designers and general approaches to exhibition design led to a commission to design ‘Handmade in India’ for the Crafts Council Gallery in 1998. Following this he was invited by long-term collaborators and graphic designers Alex Rich and Jon Hares, to make benches and shelves for an exhibition they were working on for the Design Museum. This led to an invitation from one of the Design Museum curators to make a pitch to design a whole exhibition. This succeeded and he went on to design several exhibitions for the Design Museum, the most recent being Jean Prouvé, a collaboration with GTF (Graphic Thought Facility). In addition to the Design Museum work, he has designed exhibitions for Flow Gallery, Amnesty International at St Paul’s cathedral and the RCA.
In 2004 Marriott was asked to work with the FRAC furniture collection of approximately 90 chairs and tables, based in northern France. This culminated in a curated exhibition for the Camden Arts Centre, London entitled ‘Economy of Means’. For this project Michael decided to focus on the nature of the trestle table and created an installation, and accompanying text, comprising ad-hoc trestle tables made ready-made structures.
Contact with the curator at Camden led to an invitation in 2006 to be ‘in residence’ and create an installation to coincide with an opening of a new gallery in Auckland, New Zealand. However, in between the time of setting up the trip and arriving in New Zealand the curator had left, and the project was subsequently facilitated and funded by the British Council. The project expanded and developed and Marriott, with Alex Rich, made installations for the St Paul Street Gallery (‘One Radiata Pine’) and the Snowwhite Gallery ‘Forest Floor’) in Auckland and for the Tea Gardens in Wellington Museum (GMT+12.00 and Track 1 Side 2). During the project planning Alex moved to Tokyo and Marriott’s thoughts about the similarity in landmass between the UK, Japan and New Zealand, became the start of the research which informed the four exhibitions.
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Michael Marriott, ‘Chip Chop Slice Serve’.
Photo: Stafford.
Marriott has shared a studio block in north London for over ten years with a creative mix of graphic, product and other furniture designers. Despite the long hours that often come with self-employment he considers himself lucky to be doing “something I love” and enjoys the collaborative aspect to his work, especially with graphic designers.
Another example of a successful collaboration, again with graphic designer Alex Rich, is the ‘Mies meets Marx / MMM’ exhibition catalogue, which Alex designed to accompany Marriott’s installation for the Geffrye Museum in Hackney, London in 2002, where the writing about the exhibits became a critical aspect of the show.
The aim of the exhibition was “to make an installation that responded to the content of the museum and use this familiar framework to illustrate and discuss issues to do with the nature of the design, making and use of objects”. The installation juxtaposed furniture designed by Marriott and his contemporaries with early Twentieth design classics by designers such as Yanagi, Breuer and Aalto.
The ‘Quest’ project, 2007 is another recent project whereby ten Dutch and ten British designers were brought together to work collaboratively, organised by Brigid Haworth. Each designer had the opportunity to visit the host country, run a series of workshops and then pair up with a designer from the other country to make joint work or devise a joint project.
Marriott has taught, with a gap of a few years, one day a week on the Design Products course at the RCA which he remains committed to and enjoys and provides regular income.
Frances Lord is a consultant and curator based in East Sussex specialising in public art and commissioning. Her background is in the crafts and she worked at the Crafts Council from 1984 – 1994. She co-curated ‘Jewellery is Life’ and ‘Prickings’ for Fabrica, the contemporary visual arts gallery in Brighton.
Frances now works with a range of individuals and organisations including local authorities, environmental agencies, museums and galleries initiating, developing and managing projects. Frances runs seminars on ‘Negotiating Public Art Commissions’ and mentors visual and applied artists wishing to gain experience and develop their practice in public art.
She is Public Art Advisor to West Sussex County Council, an Associate for Artpoint and a Commissions Advisor for Axis. In April 2008 she was invited to lecture on public art at the Meiji University, Tokyo as part of their ‘Foreign Scholar Invitation Programme’.
First published: a-n.co.uk June 2008
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