Wunderkammer

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For its thir­teenth designer carte blanche, the mudac has given over two rooms to Marian Bantjes, who describes herself as a graphic artist. From 2 July to 5 Octo­ber 2014, she will be trans­form­ing the museum’s ground floor into a cabinet of curi­os­it­ies reveal­ing some of her most recent work.
She is «one of the most innov­at­ive typo­graph­ers work­ing today, » accord­ing to Stefan Sagmeister, who was himself invited to stage a carte blanche in 2011. Born in Canada in 1963, and currently living and work­ing on a small island near Vancouver, Marian Bantjes says she fell into graphic design by acci­dent; she is now one of its most prom­in­ent and influ­en­tial expo­nents. She star­ted out as a typo­grapher, co-running a design studio from 1984 to 2003, before dedic­at­ing herself full-time to devel­op­ing her own very personal and exper­i­mental style of visual commu­nic­a­tion.
Bring­ing together calli­graphy and the decor­at­ive arts, she read­ily combines natural mater­i­als and hand work with the most up-to-date computer tech­niques.
Marian Bantjes draws inspir­a­tion from art deco, rococo, pop art, roman­ti­cism and gothic styles, juxta­pos­ing them in unex­pec­ted ways to create a coher­ent visual universe. «I am indeni­ably play­ful, » she says (I Wonder, 2010).
Her carte blanche, inspired by her recent mono­graph Pretty Pictures, leaves us in no doubt. Visit­ors are invited to wander through a golden-walled labyrinth and discover her invent­ive works made of crys­tal­lised sugar, pasta, embroid­ery and metal. A large part of the exhib­i­tion is devoted to Valentine’s Day, and her long­stand­ing resol­u­tion to send out cards annu­ally for 14^th Febru­ary, rather than Christ­mas, which has given rise to a new creation every year: original graph­ical compos­i­tions, calli­graphy from old post­cards and reclaimed fan letters to the actor Robert Wagner are just some of the examples.
Marian Bantjes has an affin­ity with the fant­ast­ical, which makes its pres­ence felt through­out the exhib­i­tion, in its graph­ical design elements, which she created, and in the German title she chose to give it.