When fellow students Mathias Augustyniak and Michaël Amzalag dropped out of ENSAD, the prestigious national school of decorative arts in Paris, that didn’t exactly stop them in their tracks. The duo eventually joined forces in 1992, founding one of the most acclaimed and influential design agencies on the planet: (M/M) Paris. Known for its unique and quirky style, the agency effortlessly forged ties within the realms of music, fashion and art, lending its expertise in graphic design and visual language to many striking projects. And now, for the very first time, Augystyniak and Amzalag present the full spectrum of their work in China. The immersive exhibition, entitled M/Made in Shanghai, is presented at the Power Station of Art, and puts on display a slew of exemplary works from the duo’s prolific 30-year career. Concept and graphics are two key elements in the work of M/M (Paris), and the show not only sheds light on the production place of the participated works, but also the relationship between works and their contexts.
All the artworks in this exhibition are ‘former works’ by the design agency, but the majority is presented in magnified proportions in order to provide visitors a flexible space to decipher and reinterpret the works. Upon entering, two clocks can be found, facing each other and magnified a hundred times. One of them displays Paris time, and the other Shanghai time as metaphors of a conversation between two people, in two different time zones, confronting left and right brains, and as it were, anchoring the colourful M/M (Paris) universe which unfolds all around. Additionally, the exhibition features more than 200 posters by M/M (Paris) which showcase how intertwined the agency is with the world of fashion, featuring artwork with influential brands and magazines such as Balenciaga, Vogue USA, Prada, Interview, Givenchy, Arena Homme+ and Loewe (on through Apr 18). During this exhibition a range of exclusively designed products by M/M (Paris) can be purchased at pop-up store on the premises.
Power Station of Art
678 Miaojiang Lu (Huangpu)
200011 Shanghai
Telephone: +86 21 31108550
Tue-Sun 11-7
Publishers Note
Just to be clear – superfuture® is a design blog and not a political commentator. No surprise there. The scope of our content has always been global and borderless, however that can often mean covering projects in countries where we will not agree with the politics or actions of those countries. In a world that’s as screwed up as ever right now, the focus of our support is to those designers, architects and other creatives who aim to make the world a more liveable one – as opposed to people that try their hardest to destroy it. So if a project hits our desk and we like it based on its design credentials, we may choose to publish regardless of its location or creators nationality. superfuture® has always been inclusive and hopes for all current wars, aggression, violence, hate and extremism to end.
