The Imaginary World of M/M (Paris)

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“I have always admired them; they are brilliant” – Miuccia Prada

Artists who make history are those who somehow are able to push the boundaries of their medium, and this is what M/M (Paris) have been doing for almost 30 years, defying all forms of categorisation and blurring the lines between graphic design and art. Michaël Amzalag and Mathias Augustyniak founded the studio in 1992, after they met at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, understading the potential of working as a duo at once.

Over the years they have collaborated, both in France and abroad, with fashion designers and brands (such as as Alexander McQueen, Loewe, Louis Vuitton, Miuccia Prada), musicians (Björk, Madonna and Kanye West among others), photographers, journalists, writers, and many other figures spanning an impressive variety of artistic and cultural fields. The creations born from these collaborations, heterogeneous in their nature and disparate in their formats, are nevertheless seen as a whole: that's how M/M (Paris) have been building an ever-expanding imaginary world, sparkling right next to reality. Looking back at the beginning of their career, the world has now undergone many changes and there are many new challenges to face. However, M/M (Paris) have never backed down and their most recent projects prove it. This is precisely the heart of M to M of M/M (Paris) – Volume II, published by Thames & Hudson eight years after Volume I: this 456-page book completes the monographic study of the art and design duo, deepening it through a new selection of projects created over the last three decades and a set of interviews with personalities from the creative world. Leafing through it is like opening a pandora box, full of wonders and treasures, food that nourishes eyes and mind.

But as always their work goes beyond the dimension of the book and that is why, on this occasion, a double exhibition entitled From one M/Museum to another is taking place at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and the Musée d’Orsay. Joining forces for the first time, the two institutions invited M/M (Paris) to take over their galleries and insert their work within their permanent collections. In parallel, M/Made in Shanghai, the first retrospective exhibition of M/M (Paris) in China, is presented at the Power Station of Art, reinterpreting their works on the scale of the Asian megalopolis.

We talked with Michaël and Mathias to learn more about their practice and the vision behind M/M (Paris).

M to M of M/M (Paris) – Volume II

pagina 1 / 9 Cover from M to M of M/M (Paris) Volume II, 2020 Thames & Hudson

pagina 2 / 9 Spreads from M to M of M/M (Paris) Volume II, 2020 Thames & Hudson

Spreads from M to M of M/M (Paris) Volume II, 2020 Thames & Hudson

pagina 3 / 9 Spreads from M to M of M/M (Paris) Volume II, 2020 Thames & Hudson

Spreads from M to M of M/M (Paris) Volume II, 2020 Thames & Hudson

pagina 4 / 9 Magnifying and convex mirrors in various sizes with bushed metal, wood and memory foam. Edition of 6 + 2 AP. M/M (Paris) Citronnier ou Laurier 2016. Photography by Delfino Sisto Legnani. Courtesy Plus Design Gallery, Milan

pagina 5 / 9 Silkscreened poster M/M (Paris) The New Alphabet—A, 2016. After photographs by Inez & Vinoodh. Courtesy Galerie Air de Paris

M/M (Paris) Loewe 2014 Identity and packaging Photography by Thue Nørgaard © M/M (Paris) M/M (Paris). Photography by Thue Nørgaard

Laser-etched multicoloured plexiglass case containing 14 bird call flutes in wood, metal and rubber, 1 USB stick and a folded poster. Bird call flutes by Quelle est Belle Company M/M (Paris), Björk, Utopia Bird Call deluxe edition box set, 2019. Photography by Thue Nørgaard

pagina 6 / 9 M/M (Paris) TV 70: Francesco Vezzoli guarda la RAI 2017. Scenography by M/M (Paris). Exhibition views, Fondazione Prada, Milan Includes material from the RAI Teche archives and works by Carol Rama and Paola Mattioli. Photography by M/M (Paris)

Mathias Augustyniak & Michael Amzalag captured by Paolo Roversi

When I looked at your website, the fact that I couldn’t find a proper showreel or a portfolio made me very curious. Also on your Instagram bio there’s written only “We do things”. Of course, you don’t need any kind of introduction, but how would you describe what you do to someone who doesn’t know your work? Michaël: On the website we have the complete version of the mission statement that tries to summarise in the shortest possible form everything we tackle, but it’s difficult to describe, to limit what we do and what we can touch. “We do things” became de facto the most open description of what we do, and these things can be of any nature: they can be still or moving images, they can be signs, they can be spaces... they all happen in the real world and this is where we decided to operate when we created the agency almost thirty years ago.

Mathias: Looking at it back from distance now, I think what we tried to achieve is to make our world as real as the real world, so that when going through the world we create people can stop and think about the world we’re living in. When we decided to work together as a duo, it was also to be able to experience the projects at the same time both as the maker and as the viewer. When you are two persons you can share the idea you have with the person you’re working with, and that was a very important part. That’s why right at the beginning, instead of establishing our own design or artist studio, the idea was already to have four

pagina 7 / 9 eyes and four hands for each project. You have been working together for 30 years now. How would you define your collaboration? Michaël: It’s like an old couple, there are unwritten rules on who does what and how we split the work and we to make the association still productive. Sometimes one can be more tired than the other, sometimes one can have quicker reflexes to jump into a project. Of course, there are some habits that are different between us but there’s always the possibility for each of us to dive in or take the lead or propose how we can operate. In your opinion, what’s the advantage of working as a duo? Michaël: Being less precious about what you do, it isn’t about your own ego. It allows each of us to be able to communicate on a more global level. Talking about collaboration, is there any reference or model you looked at to take inspiration when you started? Mathias: There are many things that did inspire us, but in our field I don’t think our model existed. Of course, there were design studios and artists working together like Fischli & Weiss and Gilbert & George, but i don’t think that how we operate really existed before. It is linked to the fact that we lived in Paris—that’s also why the name is M/M (Paris)—and it’s linked to the moment when we started, the end of the 20th century, in an era when television was still the dominant media, before mobile phones and social networks. So, what we did try first to answer the context both in geography and in the time we were living in, and also the economical context. Throughout your career, you have been working a lot with fashion brands. What’s the thing you like most working within fashion? And what do you like less? Michaël: I think what we like most is when we have a good conversation with the designer, and when we can establish trust, so there’s a way for us to push images and ways of communicating in a creative way that goes in pair with what is done in the collections. The perfect example in this case is of course is LOEWE: we have established a very good relationship with Jonathan Anderson since the very beginning, we’ve been able to grow together and to write the story together. In these cases it’s not about ego, it’s not about marketing; it’s like a bigger entity where everybody has a voice. If I have to say what we like less, for sure when we are approached for the wrong reason and people just think they can borrow a style or they want us to replicate something we’ve already done. In these cases is very hard for the conversation to take place.

Mathias: We had a long history of relationships that created some completely other angles, for instance with Prada and then Miu Miu. We always had a kind of very creative relationship, where we almost invented our own personal relationship with those two brands. With Prada one of the first projects we did was a series of t-shirts that was depicting the brand in a peculiar way, and it had nothing to do with advertisement and it had nothing to do with product design, it was just a way for us to say “How do we articulate what Prada does in terms of culture, what is Prada’s cultural impact?”. The same thing was with Miu Miu, we started a creative conversation, when we worked on setting up the show for two seasons and then inventing an object, the Miu Miu M/Matching Colour Stool and its second edition, the M/Marble Stool, that kind of reinterpret the brand; it’s not a bag, it’s not a piece of cloth, it’s a way of expressing what it is. That kind of relationship explains very well the way we work and how we try to articulate our world. I think what we like most is when people have a vision of how they interact with the contemporary world, how you can have an impact on the here and the now. What does inspire you when working on a new project? Michaël: I think when there’s a completely new project we need to learn as much as possible about everything: the context, the people, the people in charge, the history, what happened before, what’s planned in the future and just to try to have a broader understanding of the context. There is really a lot of investigation on our side to try to understand all of the parameters, when we are commissioned, for instance, to do an identity for a brand most of the time it’s not about the identity, but it’s about strategy and how to make this brand appear in the world. To us, it’s about to unlock all of these questions and to try to define answers, and then to see how we can find the best possible solution. Your work is very material and, as you said, everything you do has a connection with the real world. Yet I’d like to ask you: what is your relation with the digital world and technology? Mathias: In our work we’ve always wanted to integrate materiality in dematerialization. The exhibition Les Immatériaux, at the Pompidou Center in 1985, curated by Jean-François Lyotard and Thierry Chaputand, which questioned the role of technology in modernity, had a big impact on us. We do believe that that the more we verge towards an immaterial world, the more we need to enhance the materiality of our work, for it to have a chance to permeate the digital realm, and for us to reach out to others. During the spring lockdown we were working on Volume II of M to M of M/M (Paris), which is a very material, physical object, we also worked on an exhibition in China called Made in Shangai, which is a complete extrapolation of our world, almost a M/M theme park oversaturated with signs and objects. And in Paris we opened two very small exhibitions, one at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and one at the Musée d’Orsay. While in China we are writing the 21st century, the collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs start from the 17th century, and the Musée d’Orsay is dedicated to the 19th century. The fact that our work can be presented in such different environments that each address different time frames somehow demonstrates both its materiality and immateriality. That’s also one of the reasons why we can operate in the fashion world. Since we started, fashion has been at the center of both digital and economical revolutions. In a way it has replaced music as ‘the first cultural interface’ we experienced growing up between the 60s and the 80s. Can you tell me more about the role of typography in your work? Mathias: Each time we work with someone, either a corporation, a group of people or a singular person, we try to give a visuality to the way they express themselves. The best way to visualise someone’s expression is via typography. It is as much a voice as it is handwriting; the typography becomes the image of the person that you’re working for. The best example, or maybe the purest one, is all the typefaces that we designed for Bjork, for each of her transformations. Typography is the smallest piece of design that can incorporate ideas. Typography and photography often appear to be in conflict: those working with photography tend to focus only on that, and vice versa graphic designers, while both are fundamental elements in terms of receiving and perceiving a message. What do you think about it? Mathias: When we did these series of anthropomorphic alphabets with photographers Inez & Vinoodh —one of which is being the topic of the exhibition at the Musee d’Orsay— we completely mixed typography and photography. Photography isn’t reality, but an idealization of it. It’s like a compression, a way to make a symbolic representation of reality. When we did these five anthropomorphic exercises of typography (The Alphabet, 2001; The Alphamen, 2003, Figures, 2005; Punctuation, 2010; and The New Alphabet, 2016), we tried to illustrate that matter of fact, to make people understand that photography is as sign as much as typography creates images. That’s one of the reasons why we did the exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay, around The New Alphabet, to illustrate that relationship between photography, typography and also decorative arts, as the exhibition is installed within the collection of art nouveau and arts déco pieces. What we have tried to produce is a kind of symphonic approach, and this is what we keep doing; within the complexity of the world we try to articulate some paths that are making sense or help people to look at it in a more comprehensive way.

Reading about your exhibitions in Paris, I’ve noticed you mentioned the Musée Imaginaire by André Malraux. Why? pagina 8 / 9 Mathias: We produce a lot of books, and books for us are a true space, as important as an exhibition space. The book is a very powerful tool to archive ideas or to synthesize a world. And then it becomes a portable world; so that’s why, I think, again, when we were students, Malraux’s concept of the Musée Imaginaire influenced us so much. The idea of the museum has imposed a new relationship with the work of art, removing the works of their original function—what Malraux calls a metamorphosis. And the confrontation of those metamorphosis implies all that is possible in art. The Musée Imaginaire summons up all the masterpieces in the mind or in the pages of a book, the idea of dematerialization not destroying culture but archiving it and making way for very complex articulations and confrontations. The last book you designed is the catalogue of Paolo Roversi's exhibition in Ravenna, curated by Chiara Bardelli Nonino. Can you tell me more about it? Mathias: This is a very good example of how books can solve very complex problems. Paolo Roversi designed many artist’s books himself, but in these books he never had a complete monograph of his work, and it’s very complex to do such a thing for a photographer who is still working. We actually came up with the right format, so maybe it’s not very expressive but there are many details. And the way it’s been designed makes it probably his first attempt at a monograph. It belongs both to him and us somehow, it’s more like as if we designed a fitting piece of garment for him or like a portable bookshelf, in which all his photographs are archived.

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