Ken Krayer loves Dutch Design, and so can we
Dear Grand Rapids, you’ve got a friend in Ken.
Last week, I got into a conversation about nightlife and the difference between Grand Rapids and other cities I’ve lived in, like San Francisco and New York City. I shared that on any night, there were a million things to do in a metropolitan city, and that the infinite number of options was actually so paralyzing to me that I ended up doing nothing.
In Grand Rapids, there are significantly less options. As a guy who isn’t into hockey or live music, I cut out three-fourths of these available options and I’m left with art events, which is an incredibly manageable calendar.
I recently had the pleasure of attending the last lecture of the Iris van Herpen Lecture Series at the Grand Rapids Art Museum. Ken Krayer, one of the funniest characters I’ve met in Grand Rapids, shared his love affair with Dutch design in a talk titled “Dutch Design: Culture in Context.” The talk was sprinkled with memorable works of art, design, and fashion from his multiple visits to Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Oddly, his slideshow was stamped with titles written in Helvetica, the controversial default font from Switzerland. But his quick pace through these images was decelerated by meditative videos documenting some fascinating contemporary design.
Several designers were introduced throughout the presentation that wowed the audience at GRAM. Gijs van Bon’s text-based work played to an interest in ephemeral work and poetry — a robot was programmed to write words with sand on the walkways of public spaces, which then disappeared in the wind or under the feet of pedestrians. Fashion label Viktor & Rolf’s Spring 2010 ready-to-wear line revealed the presence of absence through cutouts in fabric. And the process of removal continued with Bart Hess and shaving cream — a playful and familiar material that enhanced the male body while acting as a tool for subtraction. With the intricate detailing exhibited in Iris van Herpen’s couture fashion, it was easy to see the cultural obsession with technique as beauty and beauty as technique manifested by these celebrated designers.
Krayer noticed an inherent curiosity running through the audience at Dutch Design Week. He took this home with him as his catalyst for hope for our city of Grand Rapids. What was first an introduction to Dutch design through his internship at Studio Dumbar in The Hague, Netherlands, became a great love for the creations of producers and the active participation of its consumers.
Suddenly, there was a clear relationship between Dutch Design Week and ArtPrize: the mass number of visitors, the challenge of creating interesting walking routes, empty buildings repurposed as exhibition spaces, and the highly active exchange of ideas and conversation between visitors and artists standing next to their work. The impatient ArtPrize visitor could learn from Krayer: he waited in line for 15 minutes to simply read a designer’s sketchbook.
The other day I went to Holland, MI to tour the Herman Miller Design Yard. I heard there’s a tulip festival in Holland, too.
I’m just getting started with my exploration into the Dutch culture here in West Michigan, and I’m super lucky to have Ken Krayer as a pal who can help me access the culture through visual information like design, art, and fashion. In fact, we’re all lucky to have him—and his hyper-Dutch aesthetic—here with us. We ❤ you, Ken Krayer!
