Ron Arad also designed the Design Museum Holon. In Reverse focuses on three decades of Ron Arad’s work in metal. A major highlight of the exhibition would be a major new project which explores the way in which automobile bodies, specifically the Fiat 500, behave under compression through physical experiments and digital simulations.
The upper gallery of the museum will feature six crushed Fiat 500s installed on white walls by Arad. Each of these has been flattened to resemble the outcome of an accident in a cartoon or a child’s drawing that lacks a sense of depth. The crushed vehicles surround a curved wooden forming buck, a mould that was used to shape and fit the metal panels of the 500.
In Reverse also features Roddy Giacosa, a new sculpture created by positioning hundreds of polished stainless steel rods on a metal armature in the shape of a Fiat 500. Each contoured section takes the shape of one of the vehicle’s panels with the parts fitting together to form the body of the car.
Behind the walls displaying the crushed Fiats is a group of Arad’s designs, primarily chairs made from steel, tracing his experimentation with the medium from his earliest works in the 1980s to more recent pieces. Additionally, Arad is displaying a group of crushed objects, such as a toy police car that he found 40 years ago in the street in Tel Aviv, as well as other objects that were studies and tests, including a bottle rack that he had flattened by a steamroller.
The lower gallery features Arad’s digital simulation of the crushing process, using the most recent model of the Fiat 500. Digital prints on paper capture the results of simulated digital compressions of the Roddy Giacosa. Also on view is a selection of Arad’s recent work, sculptural forms that are designed with the aid of digital technologies.
Brought to international fame with Rover chair and Bookworm bookshelf, Ron Arad has collaborated with leading brands such as Alessi, Vitra, Swarovski and Kenzo and designed Yohji Yamamoto’s Tokyo flagship amongst many other critically acclaimed projects. Arad has also presented solo exhibitions at Centre Pompidou in Paris, MOMA in New York and the Barbican in London.
