Filed under: Design, etc, News & Trends
Duffy-Marie Arnoult, Getty Images
Tobias Wong, the designer who coined the term and personified the movement "postinteresting", died in his Manhattan home on Sunday, May 30th. The 35-year-old's death was ruled a suicide, and he is survived by his mother, stepfather, brother and partner Tim Dubitsky.
A talented artist that found success in both the avant garde and commercial worlds, Wong brought his cheekily thoughtful parodies of the work of designers like Philippe Starck, Issey Miyake and Karim Rashid, offering a different -- often controversial, often brilliant -- perspective on what we traditionally consider design. By illuminating Stark's Bubble Chair, he not only turned the seat into a lamp, he opened up the possibilities of looking at conventional furniture in a decidedly unconventional way. "When I do pull a prank, it's my means of sending out a conceptual idea, it's not just laughing at them," Wong had said.
He also brought his lens to corporations like McDonalds and Burberry -- elevating the fast food giant's coffee stirrer by gold-plating it, and bringing the British brand's signature plaid down to earth by slapping it on buttons that he passed around. Wong even challenged the modern idea of shopping, co-organizing the "Wrong Store", a Chelsea gallery turned into a space that was anti-shopping in every way, from the "Come in, We're Closed" sign on the door to the fact that nothing was sold.
Of course his ideas could not be ignored by the art world biggies -- his work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the Cooper-Hewitt, the Brooklyn Museum of Art and Paris' Colette shop. And after inspiring an entire generation of designers, writers, thinkers and artists, his death has left the blog world saddened, shocked and just as Wong would have hoped, with a renewed vow to challenge ideas, reevaluate values and always look for new ways of looking at the world.
Some of our favorite bloggers remember Wong
Design Milk
If it's Hip it's Here
MoCo Loco
Core77
Apartment Therapy
and the official New York Times obituary.