In a dialog tour of the MAK during VIENNA DESIGN WEEK 2020, Rainald Franz (curator of the exhibition and of the MAK Glass and Ceramics Collection), Mladen Bizumic (artistic exhibition design), and Maroš Schmidt (Slovak Design Center) discussed the history of the material Bakelite. A special exhibition in the Museum for Applied Arts examined the historical material and its role in design and cultural history. The exhibition marked the presentation of selected items from the Bakelite collection of the Viennese gallery owner Georg Kargl (1955‒2018), who was closely associated with the MAK. Kargl was not only an important protagonist on the Viennese and international art scenes and an expert on the Wiener Moderne in the area of the applied arts, but also a great authority on and a passionate collector of Bakelite. From clocks via telephones to crockery, visitors were able to marvel at a vast range of compression-molded objects.

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