,Stefan Sagmeister & Ken Miki, New York 2004, digital prints auf Papier, aufgezogen auf Aluminium, 6teilig, je 80 x 100 cm. (DRAX)

Unikat

Provenienz:
Stefan Sagmeister, New York

Ausgestellt in:
Stefan Sagmeister. The Happy Show, Wanderausstellung ICA, Philadelphia 2012 - The Jewish Museum, New York 23013 - MAK, Wien 2015/16 - Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt am Main 2016 - Museum für Gestaltung, Zürich 2017 - MAAT, Lisboa 2018

Lit.:
Stefan Sagmeister. The Happy Show, MAK, Wien 2015, herausgegeben vom Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Abb. pp. 26-37, p. 183

“I have lived on three hundred dollars a month and spent thirty thousand over the same time span with little perceivable difference in happiness. My overall well-being seems to exist largely independent from my income.” (Stefan Sagmeister)

The Story I am usually rather bored with definitions. Happiness, however, is such a big subject that it might be worth a try to pin down. It’s the one thing we all want, but never seem to have for very long. Some people reach it when they are floating about in a boat on a lake; other people experience it when there baby utters “Mum” the first time; others encounter it during that first bite of banana chocolate cake … (Stefan Sagmeister, The Happy Film. A Pitchbook, p. 25)

Stefan Sagmeister is a designer who blends typography and imagery in striking, fresh, ambitious, and unsettling ways. Born in Austria, he moved to New York in 1993 and worked briefly for the influential designer Tibor Kalman’s M&Co before starting his own firm. Having profoundly influenced the culture of design over the past decade, he is perhaps best known for his album covers for Talking Heads, David Byrne, Lou Reed, OK Go, and The Rolling Stones, to name only a few, and innovative public campaigns, for companies like HBO and Levi’s, that have entered the public consciousness. He is the recipient of many awards, including two Grammys for his packaging design work, the Lucky Strike Designer Award, and the Communications Award from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

What is happiness? How to find it? And what do we really do to be happy? The Happy Show, one of his most iconic projects, is the result of intense research carried out for over ten years about the concept of happiness. Through the means of video, infographics, sculptures and interactive installations, as well as humor, provocation and interaction, this exhibition takes us on a journey through Sagmeister’s mind and his innovative, seemingly simple perspective on how we can be happier. He appeals to a more active approach to our search for happiness – including the idea that it can be trained, just like we train our body. (MAAT Lisboa)