“Living in a Box: Design and Comics” exhibition at the Vitra Design Museum

With the exhibition “Living in a Box: Design and Comics”(from 24 May 2019) at the Vitra Schaudepot, the Vitra Design Museum is taking a fresh look at its collection by exploring the world of comics and their relationship to design. Iconic furniture features prominently in comics such as “The Adventures of Tintin”, “Peanuts” and “Diabolik” while, at the same time, countless designers have taken inspiration from comics to create pieces informed by stories of superhuman strength, lightning speed, and razor-sharp irony.
The exhibition deals with both of these tendencies in the museum’s first-ever study of the comics medium, and through the illustrated world of the comic strip and graphic novel, objects from the museum’s collection jump off the page and come to life.
Design has continuously appeared in comics because design is a part of our daily life, that comic artists have always mirrored.

cover image: Guido Crepax, Valentina (detail), 1975 © Guido Crepax, courtesy by Archivio Crepax.

Left: Angela and Luciana Giussani, Sergio Zaniboni and Saverio Micheloni, Diabolik (detail), 1974 © Astorina srl. Right: Pier Giacomo and Achille Castiglioni, Taccia, 1962 © Vitra Design Museum, photo: Andreas Jung.

Left: Tove Jansson, Moomin (detail), 1958 © Moomin Characters™. Right: Grupo Austral, B.K.F. Chair/Hardoy Chair, Butterfly Chair, 1938 © Vitra Design Museum, photo: Jürgen HANS

Winsor McCay, Little Nemo in Slumberland (detail), 1907

Gaetano Pesce, Tramonto a New York, 1980 © Vitra Design Museum, photo: Jürgen HANS

Maurice Calka, No. 6462, Boomerang, 1969 © Vitra Design Museum, photo: Jürgen HANS

Charles Schulz, Peanuts (detail), 1953 © 1953 Peanuts Worldwide LLC

Images courtesy of Vitra

“Living in a Box: Design and Comics”
24 May / 20 October 2019
Vitra Schaudepot
Charles-Eames-Strasse 2
79576 Weil am Rhein, Germany

www.design-museum.de