Dagobert Peche took the formal language of the Wiener Werkstätte away from geometry and in a completely new direction. Whether working with silver, glass, ceramics, leather, fabric or paper, he drew his opulent decorations from nature. The MAK Vienna is dedicating an exhibition to the Austrian designer.
It was Josef Hoffmann who described Dagobert Peche (1887-1923) as ‘the greatest ornamental genius Austria has had since the Baroque’. So wrote the journalist Berta Zuckerkandl in her 1923 obituary for the artist. Peche did indeed take the formal language of the Wiener Werkstätte (WW) in a completely new direction. The ‘ornamental genius’ exploded the formal language of the WW: he responded to the geometry of the founders, Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser, with opulent ornaments borrowed from nature. He gave everyday objects a complexity that deliberately undermined their logic and utility. Peche worked with silver, glass, ceramics, leather and paper, designing fabric patterns, jewellery, furniture and exhibition displays. He underpinned his approach with the essay ‘The Burning Bush’, in which he called for a ‘transcendence of utility’ to achieve a new artistic expression.
After more than a quarter of a century, Vienna’s MAK is once again devoting a major exhibition to the visionary and ‘enfant terrible’ of the Second World War. Around 650 objects will be on display in ‘PECHE POP. Dagobert Peche and his traces in the present’, from 11 December to 11 May 2025, will present the unmistakable Peche cosmos and the fascinating influence of his work on 20th and 21st century design: from Art Deco to Postmodernism to the present day. The exhibition explores the Peche universe not chronologically, but thematically, in chapters such as ‘Arcadia’, ‘Boudoir’, ‘Metamorphosis’ and ‘The Uncanny’. For Peche, artistic influences have always led to solutions that acknowledge references but create something completely unique. He transforms space into surface – and vice versa. Wood looks like fabric, sheet metal like ceramics, metal like paper. Ornaments appear as wallpaper patterns, wood grain or printed on silk. It is no coincidence that the nymph Daphne from Greek mythology was the favourite figure of the trained architect Peche, who, as the saying goes, ‘could not be one, because architecture demands permanence and transformation means movement’. The ephemeral architecture of the exhibition was therefore particularly suited to him.
According to one of the exhibition’s theses, the ‘playful moment’ in Peche’s work is of particular interest to posterity. Postmodernism is directly related to this: When Berta Zuckerkandl describes a silver goblet as a flower with leg-like stems, “as if it wanted to walk”, it recalls “Philippe Starck’s stalking lemon squeezer (1988)” as well as “Ettore Sottsass’s waving Casablanca cabinet (1981)”. At the same time, these objects serve ‘the bizarre and uncanny aspects that interest contemporary artists as much as the exuberant ornament that devours everything’. The result is shown in works by numerous artists who have entered into a dialogue with Peche – from Richard Artschwager, Christine and Irene Hohenbüchler, Hans Hollein, Alessandro Mendini, Olaf Nicolai, Gio Ponti and Robert Venturi to Vivienne Westwood and Heimo Zobernig. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication (German/English, 304 pages with numerous colour illustrations. MAK, Vienna/Verlag Walther und Franz König, Köln 2024).
‘PECHE POP. Dagobert Peche and his traces in the present’
MAK Vienna – Museum für angewandte Kunst
11 December – 11 May 2025
Share on Social Media
