BEAUTIFUL NUMBERS | SAGMEISTER
Designer
Stefan SagmeisterManufacture
LobmeyrCirca
2021
Description
Hand-painted on Drinking Set No. 4 Beer tumblers, Stefan Sagmeister's "Beautiful Numbers" series depicts data visualizations of environmental developments from the past years that are either neutral or positive. The series comprises eight botanical illustrations by Raxenne Maniquiz, hand-painted on No. 4 Beer Tumblers by artisans at Lobmeyr. Beautiful Numbers, Sagmeister’s body of work created throughout 2020, considers how, despite media’s depictions of doom and pessimism, many facets of human life have improved over the past century. Sagmeister looks at data – from the number of females in Parliament to literacy levels, to suicide rates – and visualizes them by transforming 19th Century genre paintings, embroidered canvases, lenticular prints, and hand-painted water glasses with innovative graph forms to represent the progress made in recent history. For Sagmeister, Beautiful Numbers is emblematic of how the long-term approach he cultivates in his design practice alters perceptions from the here and now to a longer arc of history. “Short-term media like Twitter and hourly news create an impression of a world out of control, with democracy in peril, ubiquitous conflicts, and an overall outlook of doom. But if we look at developments concerning the world from a long-term perspective - the only sense-making way - almost any aspect concerning humanity seems to get better. Fewer people go hungry, fewer people die in wars and natural disasters, more people live in democracies - and live much longer lives - than ever before. Two hundred years ago, 9 out of 10 people could neither read nor write. Now, it is just 1 out of 10.” The J. & L. Lobmeyr glasses are a part of a more extensive exhibition by the artist, including a selection of works on canvas and a film. In the artist’s second collaboration with Lobmeyr, the centuries-old craftsmanship mastery of Lobmeyr merges with the timeless design inclinations of Sagmeister to create a series of glasses that depict positive or neutral data visualizations of environmental developments from recent history.
Stefan Sagmeister
Stefan Sagmeister
Stefan Sagmeister is a primarily graphic artist who brings new ideas in conversation in innovative and compelling ways. He received his MFA from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and a master’s degree from Pratt Institute. He formed the New York-based Sagmeister, Inc. in 1993 and has since designed for clients as diverse as the Guggenheim Museum, Brian Eno, The Talking Heads, and HBO. The work of Sagmeister is represented by Ateliers Courbet through the artisans at Lobmeyr who have collaborated with the designer on two series of hand-painted glasses.
His multimedia exhibitions have been exhibited widely in museums and galleries including the Venice Biennale in 2018. His work belongs to the collections of MoMA, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, SFMoMa, as well as other international institutions.
Stefan Sagmeister
Stefan Sagmeister is a primarily graphic artist who brings new ideas in conversation in innovative and compelling ways. He received his MFA from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and a master’s degree from Pratt Institute. He formed the New York-based Sagmeister, Inc. in 1993 and has since designed for clients as diverse as the Guggenheim Museum, Brian Eno, The Talking Heads, and HBO. The work of Sagmeister is represented by Ateliers Courbet through the artisans at Lobmeyr who have collaborated with the designer on two series of hand-painted glasses.
His multimedia exhibitions have been exhibited widely in museums and galleries including the Venice Biennale in 2018. His work belongs to the collections of MoMA, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, SFMoMa, as well as other international institutions.
