"TAPIO WIRKKALA: EYE, HAND AND THOUGHT". Collectif, sous la direction de Marianne AAV. Editions Söderström Corporation en collaboration avec The Museum of Art and Design, Helsinki. 2002. Fort petit in-4, couverture toilée vert sapin sous jaquette photo. 408 pages. Textes en anglais, illustré de 497 reproductions photographiques noir & blanc et couleurs, in-texte et hors texte, par Rauno Träskelin. Ouvrage réalisé dans le cadre de l'exposition éponyme au Museum of Art And Design d'Helsinki du 25 Août au 14 Janvier 2001.

 

"Tapio Wirkkala is the symbolic figure of Finnish design. He was an artist of exceptional diversity whom no material was alien and who left no area of design unexplored. His work ranged in size from postage stamps to future cities, from salmon-flies to earthwork monuments. In his work, contrasting materials were imbiued with the incontestable forms found in natural phenomena. An object achieves perfection through the unity of thought and material, idea and realisation, form and purpose. For Wirkkala, the form of an object was not just an aesthetic goal or intelelctual perception, but the outcome of a dialogue between hand, eye  and material: "All material have their own unwritten laws… You should never be violent with a material you're working on, and the designer should aim at being in harmony with his material." Tapio Wairkkala combined craftsmanship with industrial mass production, artistic form with anonymous series, rustic simplicity with cosmopolitan elegance, emotion with perception, playful experimentation with responsibility. His objects echibit both a sculptural concept of form and a studied scientific utility, simultaneously unique and bound to tradition…"

 

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