Prada Meinhof
Lezing
Datum: woensdag 14 november
Locatie:
Gerrit Rietveld AcademieFred Roeskestraat 96
Amsterdam
In spring 2001, the fashion company Prada releases a collection under the title ‘Prada Meinhof’ – a clear assonance to the ‘Baader Meinhof Group’ which was the criminalist name of the self-attributed ‘RAF’ (Rote Armee Fraktion – Red Army Fraction). Just two years prior, an exhibition at the ica london established the use of both the name and the emblem of the German terrorists as a part of the radical chic then fashionable.
Although this style line was broken by the 9/11 events in 2001, the underlying notion of terrorism and design was well constituted by then, both from the use of signs and symbols as by the bourgeois professions of the terrorists after serving their sentences. Astrid Proll became a picture editor and released a family album of the raf under the title of a Grimm fairy tale Hans und Grete. Brigitte Mohnhaupt works as a photographer, and Christian Klar is offered an education as stage designer by Claus Peymann after his release in 2009.
As most of the Raf terrorists were professional media practitioners when diving into the political underground, they were fully conscious of their use of emblematic elements in the setting of victim photographs, in their snapshots among themselves, in their appearances before court, in the imagery of their prison life, and, most of all, in the allegoric utilisation of the Raf logo and typography. The lecture will meander through all of these elements and display the intrinsic relations of terror and design.
Rolf Sachsse (bonn 1949), holds the seat of design theory and design history at the Academy of Fine Arts in Saarbrücken (www.hbksaar.de) and is associate professor in the theory of design at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe. He is a trained photographer, has studied communication research, art history, and german literature, and has contributed to more than 200 publications.
Although this style line was broken by the 9/11 events in 2001, the underlying notion of terrorism and design was well constituted by then, both from the use of signs and symbols as by the bourgeois professions of the terrorists after serving their sentences. Astrid Proll became a picture editor and released a family album of the raf under the title of a Grimm fairy tale Hans und Grete. Brigitte Mohnhaupt works as a photographer, and Christian Klar is offered an education as stage designer by Claus Peymann after his release in 2009.
As most of the Raf terrorists were professional media practitioners when diving into the political underground, they were fully conscious of their use of emblematic elements in the setting of victim photographs, in their snapshots among themselves, in their appearances before court, in the imagery of their prison life, and, most of all, in the allegoric utilisation of the Raf logo and typography. The lecture will meander through all of these elements and display the intrinsic relations of terror and design.
Rolf Sachsse (bonn 1949), holds the seat of design theory and design history at the Academy of Fine Arts in Saarbrücken (www.hbksaar.de) and is associate professor in the theory of design at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe. He is a trained photographer, has studied communication research, art history, and german literature, and has contributed to more than 200 publications.
