Phantom Offices

KANAL 鈥� Centre Pompidou

Brussels | Belgium

Jan 23, 2019 - Jun 30, 2019

This new exhibition, in what used to be the offices of the Citro毛n garage, features design objects from the collections of the Mnam-Cci, Pompidou Centre, and the Brussels Design Museum, ADAM. The Centre Pompidou design collection covers a vast area of creativity, which amounts to a comprehensive history of design spanning the entire 20th century up to the present day. It interacts here with the ADAM collection and its Plasticarium, a collection which provides an original and unique history of design in plastic.

The exhibition presents the work of over 70 designers in a dozen spaces that act as 鈥渟tages鈥� where each office can be seen as a light-hearted re-creation of imaginary work spaces. But instead of presenting a utilitarian discourse, the constellations of objects reflect the mechanics of dreams, nostalgia, and the concepts of uselessness and anachronism, imbued with tongue-in-cheek humour.

The President鈥檚 Office and his Lounge, The Human Resources Office, The Union Office, The IT Room, Co-working, The Phantom Office, The Radicality Office, and The Interrogation Office point us towards a surrealist fantasy.

Functionalism and standardised spaces are left behind in an exhibition trail where the irrational, the obsolete, and free association are given free rein to furnish a history of design that has a 鈥渞esemblance鈥� to reality.

The offices are merely spaces that 鈥渞esemble鈥� offices, in a kind of mental archaeology, a mise-en-abyme of a 鈥渕ystery鈥� in Magritte鈥檚 sense of the word. The offices are a paean to anti-design, a critique of functionalism. Work has been subordinated to sleep, to play and the re-appropriation of objects. The offices function by 鈥渆lective affinities鈥� or pretence, trompe-l鈥檕eil or cadavres exquis.