Extremely Hungary Presents:
Soft Is The New Cool: Emerging Hungarian Design
Curated by WAMP Budapest
May 16 – 19, 2009
Opening Party presented by Extremely Hungary and I.D. Magazine With DJ Zeljko http://www.shinkoyo.com/ Saturday, May 16, 7 – 10 pm As part of the yearlong Extremely Hungary festival, the Hungarian Cultural Center will present 17 emerging Hungarian designers during New York Design Week, from May 16-19. As they showcase their newest products, the designers will invite New Yorkers to discover a sensual approach to interactive, graphic, furniture, jewelry, glass, ceramics, fashion and accessories design and architecture. All the designs in the exhibition are inspired by softness in various fashions. Softness may refer to the material—its touch or visual aspect, or to the concept.
Kitchen Budapest, a hot new media lab interested in the convergence of mobile communication, online communities, design, and urban space, will create a virtual exhibition space with their interactive animation software, Animata. kitchenbudapest.hu
After stints at Satellite Milan, 100% Design London, and Interior Lifestyle Tokyo, the experimental design group Geppetto will participate with an interactive lamp which senses movement and transforms it into light. www.geppetto.hu, www.g-labor.com
Bence Ádám Kiss will present jewelry featuring a “bug” that converts heat into light. www.superbence.fw.hu
Experimenting with new techniques, Andrea Heged?s creates clean, light, and airy patterns for her home textiles. www.hegedusandrea.hu
The six Budapest-based fashion designers who founded Artista in 1993 are receiving much attention in Vienna and London with their uniquely styled fashion shows. Their one-off pieces are said to evoke special moods in the wearer. www.artistafashion.com
Beatrix Fehér of Camou artfully applies her photographs via silkscreen to jackets, skirts, dresses and bags to create vibrant street wear.
Réka Vágó, a graduate of the London College of Fashion, created her own brand ‘reka vago’ in 2005. She has participated in a number of fashion shows and received several awards. www.rekavago.com
The fashion designer group Aquanauta was founded in 1999 by five designers and is now run by Bernadett Pallai. Aguanauta is known for its joyful colors and motives, combined with an elegant, feminine style and soft lines. www.aquanautadesign.com
Kriszta Mátrai is a fashion, costume, and accessories designer famous for her extravagant and colorful style and great sense of humor. Mátrai’s items, which she distributes under her own brand, Crixdesign, are of high quality and perfectly executed. www.crixdesign.hu
The metal jewelry of Noémi Gera is inspired by natural shapes like plants and humans. She says, “each emotion is transformed into a thought and then into a form.”
Richárd Menyhárt is known for his high quality jewelry design and clever structural solutions while combining atypical materials, such as metal, ceramics, and fur.
Szofita is a young talent who creates her own universes by combining jewelry design with graphic design and animation. www.szofita.com
Playfulness, flexibility, and symmetry are recurrent motives in Regina Kaintz‘s jewelry. She uses modular structures, so one piece of jewelry can turn into an entirely different one. www.reginakaintz.com
Zoltán Tóth’s refined and exclusive jewelry can be found in several galleries and museums in Hungary. He combines soft and hard materials with unusual design solutions.
Originally a designer of public places, Szilvia Haber has become an expert in ceramic and porcelain design both in Hungary and abroad, especially in Japan. In this exhibition, she will appear with her sophisticated lamp design.
Originally a landscape, glass, and product designer, Szilvia Kauker gained a lot of experience in silicate design. She invented a special concrete cover which she is producing in her own factory in Hungary. www.moza.hu
Judit Dora meticulously studies the qualities of silicate in order to push the limits of this material, creating peculiar one-off forms.
The exhibition is curated by WAMP Budapest (www.wamp.hu) and Corinne Erni. Extremely Hungary is a yearlong festival showcasing contemporary Hungarian visual, performing, and literary arts at leading cultural institutions in New York City and Washington, DC, throughout 2009. www.extremelyhungary.org.
Fair Hours: Sat, May 16, 12 pm – 6 pm Sun, May 17, 12 pm – 6 pm Mon, May 18, 10 am – 6 pm Tue, May 19, 10 am – 6 pm
Location: Hungarian Cultural Center 447 Broadway, 5th Floor New York, NY 10013 T 212-750-4450 N/Q/R/W/6/J/M/1/A/C/E to Canal Street www.extremelyhungary.org