Dezeen Magazine

Menagerie at The Jones

Keep an eye on this page for the latest info on Menagerie at the Jones.

For press enquiries contact [email protected]

09/09/08: We are disappointed to announce that this exhibition has been postponed due to a flood at The Jones. More info when we have it.

28/07/08: Read Dezeen's story announcing the show and presenting several photos of the venue and works to be exhibited

25/07/08: Dezeen readers can get 50% off the normal room rate when staying at The Jones between September and December

09/07/08/: Press release:

MENAGERIE AT THE JONES

The Jones Hotel to host design exhibition of animal-inspired work

This September a ground-breaking design exhibition will launch as part of the London Design Festival, in the exotic surroundings of The Jones - a landmark hotel that will open in Bayswater, London. Menagerie at The Jones will be a design exhibition like no other. It will bring together a number of talented avant-garde designers and artists whose work is inspired by animals – forms that are simultaneously highly familiar but slightly disturbing; and radical yet nostalgic.

Curators Marcus Fairs and Rupinder Bhogal have selected a diverse cross-section of designers for the exhibition, including Swedish collective Front, leading Dutch designer Hella Jongerius and young London-based designer Julia Lohmann.

Front will be showing their spectacular Animals series of life-sized horses, pigs and rabbits that double as lamps and tables, plus other animal-inspired work that has not been shown before in the UK.

Jongerius will show a range of pieces in porcelain, leather, metal and fabric, including many new works. Lohmann will show a broad range of her animal-inspired works including her iconic Cow benches, a stool made from a cast of a calf’s organ cavity, and lamps made from intestines.

Other designers include jewellery designer Kelly McCallum, whose spectacular works explore life and death, and taxidermist Polly Morgan. Many designers will be showing new work, or work that has not been seen before in this country.

Designers will be creating installations of their work in response to the hotel’s opulent and idiosyncratic interiors. The Jones opens in September in a historic building that was reputedly built by King Edward VII for his mistress Lillie Langtry. Designed by celebrated architects Mewes and Davis in 1906 following the completion of the London Ritz, the hotel includes oak panelling, painted ceilings and a jewel-like Grade I listed theatre with gilded plasterwork and a domed ceiling.

The intention is to surprise and delight the viewer by placing objects in unexpected places and combining pieces for dramatic effect. Taken together, the works will give the effect of a menagerie – a spectacular private collection of wild animals that was a popular feature of royal and aristocratic palaces in the past, before the advent of public zoos.

Works on show will range in scale from life-size horses and cows to delicate, fragile works in porcelain and precious metals.

The exhibition will explore the current trend whereby contemporary designers are returning to figurative forms in their work, rejecting abstraction and instead taking their inspiration from living creatures and thereby imbuing their work with strongly emotive content that never fails to elicit a strong response from onlookers.

“We realized that people have a really strong connection with objects that are figurative,” say Front of their famous Horse Lamp. “So we thought we should make a Horse Lamp.”

As well as the exhibition, Marcus and Rupinder will work with The Jones to create a series of events including discussions, live podcasts, dinners and parties, making the hotel the vibrant heart of London’s cultural festival season this autumn.

Participating designers include:
Bodo Sperlein
Campana Brothers
Front
Harry Allen
Hella Jongerius
Jaime Hayon
Julia Lohmann
Kelly McCallum
Maxim Velcovsky
Michael Sans
Miriam van der Lubbe
Niels van Eikj
Polly Morgan
Richard Hutten
Stephen Johnson

Participating brands/exhibition partners:
Vitra
Nymphenburg
Lladró
Thorsten van Elten
Moooi
Albion Gallery
Gallery Fumi
Bosa

The graphic identity and exhibition design will be produced by award-winning graphic designers Boxill Alexander.

Menagerie at The Jones opens on Tuesday 16th September and will run until Sunday 19th October 2008.

The Jones
1-9 Inverness Terrace
London W2 3JP
www.guesthotels.com

Note to Editors: Guest Hotels is a new collection of London hotels which not only offer excellent services, fine facilities and excellent food and drink but a unique opportunity for guests to sample and enjoy London’s wide and diverse arts scene. Through membership to its Concierge Club, both guests and local Londoners will gain access to a series of partner London art institutions - currently institutions partnering Guest Hotel include the V&A, ICA, Tate, Photographers Gallery and the Gate Theatre. Access will be available to photographic and fine art exhibitions, live music shows – ranging from cabaret to classical to indie gig – to theatrical events, book launches and exhibitions within the Guest Hotels properties.

The first two newly converted arts club Guest Hotels, Nest and The Jones in Bayswater will open late summer 2008; they will join the existing Guest Hotels portfolio of Blakes and Guesthouse West and will be joined by Chiswell Street in summer 2009.

For more information, visuals and exhibition content for ‘Menagerie at The Jones’ please contact either Amy Dollamore or Pia Malling Pedersen at Camron PR.

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7420 1700
Email: [email protected] | [email protected]