Cuts a fine figure as a rapper, too: Michael Erlhoff (right) read texts by German Baroque poets and Dirk Kels, as DJ Fangkiebassbeton, set the recordings to music. The final product was the 2004 CD “Barockin’Furio”. Photo © Martin Langhorst
So much could be said, told, remarked about him. Although, and this should be taken to heart given the occasion, one should not talk overly seriously about him. But hey, today, what does serious mean anyway? To make sure there are no misunderstandings from the outset, it bears noting: Michael Erlhoff’s habitual, decidedly leisurely sense of gaiety, closely bound up with the serenity of the Ancient Greeks, has absolutely zero to do with a lack of seriousness. On the contrary. Everything he does, he does very seriously. Whether he is speaking, writing or listening, his gaiety is suffused with the seriousness of a thinker who closely and lovingly addresses the present in all its diverse aspects. Whereby the way he always and unflaggingly does this involves a higher-level seriousness, which only those will grasp who now and then themselves tackle the opacity and contingency of human endeavors with wit, irony or cunning. Or laugh heartily at all constipated forms of intellectual bean-counting. For the mind-bureaucrats this has inevitably always been very annoying.
So it can’t be a coincidence that Michael Erlhoff wrote his PhD thesis on Dadasoph Raoul Haussmann of all people. After all, that monocled anarchic terror of all overly civil citizens balanced his thought on the fine line between philosophy and politics. There was a time when they stood all around Dada, and there they still stand, “those spatulas who take intellectual practices out of the pan and use little sticks to extract fiery sparks from the big black nothingness to kindle the scattered fire of their brains.”
Anyone whose stance in the world was formed by taking such statements to heart is well prepared – for art, for design, and for much more besides. Today, it certainly can’t do any harm to think and feel a little more eccentrically. After all, for Michael Erlhoff science has always been gay in the sense that Nietzsche so advocated. Science is, and here Erlhoff would concur with Heinz von Foerster, at least and usually quite simply everything that creates knowledge. Erlhoff trained his keen mind not only with the multiple uses of words, very much enjoying the process, and still does, preferably deep into the night – which is why we called the columns he has penned for Stylepark (to be continued) “Erlhoff’s Nocturnal Agenda” – with a sideways nod to those radiophonic role models. He has also addressed the “appearance of words”, turned them now this way now that, until more than their customary meaning was revealed. When, to mention but one example, in 2008 he teamed up with Tim Mashall to publish the “Design Dictionary” in order to explore the “conceptual perspective of design”, Erlhoff kicked off the lexical oeuvre (and it approaches its object from all manner of angles) with a quote from Georges Bataille as his model: “A dictionary would start the moment when it no longer records meaning, but the status of the words.”
No surprise then that Erlhoff (together with Uta Brandes) invented the term “non intentional design” (NID) to approach the “everyday redesign of the designed” and draw attention to the fact that only through use do we ascertain the value of the cultural diversity of the “otherwise usually globally organized and accessible product world”. Fittingly, to talk about some of Erlhoff’s publications and projects (where long before all the fashionably commercial debates about “sharing”, wrongly dressed up with philanthropic foundations), he championed simply using things instead of insisting on owning them (“Buying is fun, but owning is frustrating”).
Erlhoff has a superb ability to see things very practically, to critically view and reflect on their cultural uses and benefits. It was therefore only logical that the duo Erlhoff/Brandes (Michael Erhoff was founding dean of the Dept. of Design from 1991 to 1996 at what was later the “Köln International School of Design” (KISD), where Uta Brandes also taught) headed off when term time was over in Germany to teach in Australia, Hong Kong, China and the United States, during a period when many people here were still busy trying to work out how best to spell “global” in academic terms. This had nothing to do with some ardor for buzzing around. More to do with the zest to encounter other academic cultures and in dialog with others consider one’s own limitations.
The enjoyment of pondering and reflecting is just as much part and parcel of Michael Erlhoff as are his cigarillos. Which, since smoking has started increasingly to be prohibited inside and outside all over the world, has incidentally often prompted cunning responses on his part. And here again we can see: Instead of getting caught up in contradictions, he prefers to dream up a cunning stratagem and it works, confusing not only the bouncers but all the metaphysicians and administrators who insist we abide by the letter of the law, for example when it comes to re-accreditation of an academic course.
Someone like him exclusively duels with a foil, and, where others desperately resort to big guns or practice depressive tolerance, he quite consciously relies by experience on the one or other piece of cunning. He’s read his Hegel, and no doubt Oskar Negt gave him the one or other bit of advice while Erlhoff was studying in Hanover; whereby I fondly remember a meeting at the Brandes/Erlhoff apartment in Hanover where, not with but sitting next to the collected works of Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel, in the wee hours we were busy playing ping pong in good Dadasophic fashion. If Dieter Roth had not already turned the 20 Hegel volumes into so many slices of salami, then Michael Erlhoff would probably have done so. Today, such intellectual flexibility is all too hard to find.
As regards the aforementioned higher form of seriousness, it is not as if his CV is not replete with projects and functions: What was at the time a complete novelty, and has remained so to this day, in 1987 Michael Erlhoff specially established a design section for the documenta 8 in Kassel – in the Orangerie – and it included a new cheeky design that set the customary furnishings dancing. He also spent a few years revamping the German Design Council in Frankfurt/Main, and, not to be forgotten, from 2000 to 2006 (again together with Uta Brandes) organized the “St. Moritz Design Summit”; it always took place just before Christmas and had no fixed agenda and prefabricated lectures but was in the literal sense a symposium (again into the wee, wee hours) debating topical issues, not just of design. This was again cunning (and linked to smoking, of course) – as the open and ad-free summit that ambitiously paralleled the World Economic Forum in Davos was financed by the tobacco industry. For Michael Erlhoff design is simply never just a discipline that in demiurgic fashion focuses on an object, but a social life-form under conditions of production and reception in a world characterized by the division of labor.
Anyone wanting to find out more about the septuagenarian should consult the volume that came out a decade ago to mark his 60th birthday: “Michael Erlhoff & Friends TXT & IMG” or “Theorie des Designs”, which he published in 2013 and, despite its dry title, is a really enjoyable read.
When Michael Erlhoff was still President of the Raymond Loewy Foundation he liked to talk about his plan to produce a Hollywood movie on the life and adventures of the famous designer – and write the script himself. A really big movie. Well, Michael, we’re still waiting. First of all, today, on May 27, the great Michael Erlhoff turns 70. And because that also means that a new decade starts and with it new projects, next Tuesday, May 31, at 6.30 pm he is holding his inaugural lecture as Honorary Professor at Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Braunschweig. The title is “Design in the midst of theory and practice”. And because we also know how joyous and cunning he will be, we cheer, in quite paradoxical manner: “Festina lente” – Hasten, but at your leisure. Cheers and congratulations, Michael! A bientôt.
PS. Here are the links to all the articles and columns that Michael Erlhoff has penned for Stylepark – for you to enjoy reading at your leisure.
Cuts a fine figure as a rapper, too: Michael Erlhoff (right) read texts by German Baroque poets and Dirk Kels, as DJ Fangkiebassbeton, set the recordings to music. The final product was the 2004 CD “Barockin’Furio”. Photo © Martin Langhorst
So much could be said, told, remarked about him. Although, and this should be taken to heart given the occasion, one should not talk overly seriously about him. But hey, today, what does serious mean anyway? To make sure there are no misunderstandings from the outset, it bears noting: Michael Erlhoff’s habitual, decidedly leisurely sense of gaiety, closely bound up with the serenity of the Ancient Greeks, has absolutely zero to do with a lack of seriousness. On the contrary. Everything he does, he does very seriously. Whether he is speaking, writing or listening, his gaiety is suffused with the seriousness of a thinker who closely and lovingly addresses the present in all its diverse aspects. Whereby the way he always and unflaggingly does this involves a higher-level seriousness, which only those will grasp who now and then themselves tackle the opacity and contingency of human endeavors with wit, irony or cunning. Or laugh heartily at all constipated forms of intellectual bean-counting. For the mind-bureaucrats this has inevitably always been very annoying.
So it can’t be a coincidence that Michael Erlhoff wrote his PhD thesis on Dadasoph Raoul Haussmann of all people. After all, that monocled anarchic terror of all overly civil citizens balanced his thought on the fine line between philosophy and politics. There was a time when they stood all around Dada, and there they still stand, “those spatulas who take intellectual practices out of the pan and use little sticks to extract fiery sparks from the big black nothingness to kindle the scattered fire of their brains.”
Anyone whose stance in the world was formed by taking such statements to heart is well prepared – for art, for design, and for much more besides. Today, it certainly can’t do any harm to think and feel a little more eccentrically. After all, for Michael Erlhoff science has always been gay in the sense that Nietzsche so advocated. Science is, and here Erlhoff would concur with Heinz von Foerster, at least and usually quite simply everything that creates knowledge. Erlhoff trained his keen mind not only with the multiple uses of words, very much enjoying the process, and still does, preferably deep into the night – which is why we called the columns he has penned for Stylepark (to be continued) “Erlhoff’s Nocturnal Agenda” – with a sideways nod to those radiophonic role models. He has also addressed the “appearance of words”, turned them now this way now that, until more than their customary meaning was revealed. When, to mention but one example, in 2008 he teamed up with Tim Mashall to publish the “Design Dictionary” in order to explore the “conceptual perspective of design”, Erlhoff kicked off the lexical oeuvre (and it approaches its object from all manner of angles) with a quote from Georges Bataille as his model: “A dictionary would start the moment when it no longer records meaning, but the status of the words.”
No surprise then that Erlhoff (together with Uta Brandes) invented the term “non intentional design” (NID) to approach the “everyday redesign of the designed” and draw attention to the fact that only through use do we ascertain the value of the cultural diversity of the “otherwise usually globally organized and accessible product world”. Fittingly, to talk about some of Erlhoff’s publications and projects (where long before all the fashionably commercial debates about “sharing”, wrongly dressed up with philanthropic foundations), he championed simply using things instead of insisting on owning them (“Buying is fun, but owning is frustrating”).
Erlhoff has a superb ability to see things very practically, to critically view and reflect on their cultural uses and benefits. It was therefore only logical that the duo Erlhoff/Brandes (Michael Erhoff was founding dean of the Dept. of Design from 1991 to 1996 at what was later the “Köln International School of Design” (KISD), where Uta Brandes also taught) headed off when term time was over in Germany to teach in Australia, Hong Kong, China and the United States, during a period when many people here were still busy trying to work out how best to spell “global” in academic terms. This had nothing to do with some ardor for buzzing around. More to do with the zest to encounter other academic cultures and in dialog with others consider one’s own limitations.
The enjoyment of pondering and reflecting is just as much part and parcel of Michael Erlhoff as are his cigarillos. Which, since smoking has started increasingly to be prohibited inside and outside all over the world, has incidentally often prompted cunning responses on his part. And here again we can see: Instead of getting caught up in contradictions, he prefers to dream up a cunning stratagem and it works, confusing not only the bouncers but all the metaphysicians and administrators who insist we abide by the letter of the law, for example when it comes to re-accreditation of an academic course.
Someone like him exclusively duels with a foil, and, where others desperately resort to big guns or practice depressive tolerance, he quite consciously relies by experience on the one or other piece of cunning. He’s read his Hegel, and no doubt Oskar Negt gave him the one or other bit of advice while Erlhoff was studying in Hanover; whereby I fondly remember a meeting at the Brandes/Erlhoff apartment in Hanover where, not with but sitting next to the collected works of Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel, in the wee hours we were busy playing ping pong in good Dadasophic fashion. If Dieter Roth had not already turned the 20 Hegel volumes into so many slices of salami, then Michael Erlhoff would probably have done so. Today, such intellectual flexibility is all too hard to find.
As regards the aforementioned higher form of seriousness, it is not as if his CV is not replete with projects and functions: What was at the time a complete novelty, and has remained so to this day, in 1987 Michael Erlhoff specially established a design section for the documenta 8 in Kassel – in the Orangerie – and it included a new cheeky design that set the customary furnishings dancing. He also spent a few years revamping the German Design Council in Frankfurt/Main, and, not to be forgotten, from 2000 to 2006 (again together with Uta Brandes) organized the “St. Moritz Design Summit”; it always took place just before Christmas and had no fixed agenda and prefabricated lectures but was in the literal sense a symposium (again into the wee, wee hours) debating topical issues, not just of design. This was again cunning (and linked to smoking, of course) – as the open and ad-free summit that ambitiously paralleled the World Economic Forum in Davos was financed by the tobacco industry. For Michael Erlhoff design is simply never just a discipline that in demiurgic fashion focuses on an object, but a social life-form under conditions of production and reception in a world characterized by the division of labor.
Anyone wanting to find out more about the septuagenarian should consult the volume that came out a decade ago to mark his 60th birthday: “Michael Erlhoff & Friends TXT & IMG” or “Theorie des Designs”, which he published in 2013 and, despite its dry title, is a really enjoyable read.
When Michael Erlhoff was still President of the Raymond Loewy Foundation he liked to talk about his plan to produce a Hollywood movie on the life and adventures of the famous designer – and write the script himself. A really big movie. Well, Michael, we’re still waiting. First of all, today, on May 27, the great Michael Erlhoff turns 70. And because that also means that a new decade starts and with it new projects, next Tuesday, May 31, at 6.30 pm he is holding his inaugural lecture as Honorary Professor at Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Braunschweig. The title is “Design in the midst of theory and practice”. And because we also know how joyous and cunning he will be, we cheer, in quite paradoxical manner: “Festina lente” – Hasten, but at your leisure. Cheers and congratulations, Michael! A bientôt.
PS. Here are the links to all the articles and columns that Michael Erlhoff has penned for Stylepark – for you to enjoy reading at your leisure.
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