Club culture as we know it today began with the emergence of nightclubs as spaces for experimentation with interior design, new media, and alternative lifestyles throughout the 1960s; from architect Charles Forberg’s NYC counterculture venue The Electric Circus to the decadent Italian clubs it inspired such as Forte dei Marmi beach club Bamba Issa—its theme interior overhauled each summer by radical design outfit Gruppo UFO—and Florence’s Space Electronic, its space-age interiors courtesy of collective Gruppo 9999.
DJ Larry Levan in Paradise Garage, New York, 1979.
© Bill Bernstein, David Hill Gallery, London
Opening this week at Weil am Rhein’s Vitra Design Museum, Night Fever: Designing Club Culture 1960–Today marks a sequence of critical cultural zeitgeist where these epicentres of underground culture stand as pantheons of nocturnal frivolity; nightclubs presented as as spaces that merge architecture and interior design with sound, light, fashion, graphics, and visual arts in a contemporary Gesamtkunstwerk.
From the legendary Ian Schrager-founded, Andy Warhol-frequented Studio 54, to Area or Mudd Club—spaces where Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat forged their careers—and to Europe, where Manchester’s Haçienda defined a generation and Berlin’s Berghain stands as a modern sanctuary of alternative lifestyle, the exhibition follows a chronological concept with a music and light installation created specially by exhibition designer Konstantin Grcic and lighting designer Matthias Singer offering visitors the opportunity to experience all the many facets of nightclub design, from visual effects, to sounds and sensations.
Studio 54, Calvin Klein Party, 1978 © Hasse Persson
A vital journey through a world of glamour, anti-glamour, crossover and subcultures, Night Fever: Designing Club Culture 1960–Today presents a display of record covers that range from Peter Saville’s designs for Factory Records to Grace Jones’s Nightclubbing, alongside a collection of films and vintage photographs, posters, and flyers—contemporary works by photographers and artists such as Mark Leckey, Chen Wei, and Musa N. Nxumalo completing a multidisciplinary ramble through the significance of art and design in club culture and its music.
Presenting evidence that the nightclub is so much more than simply a music venue, the exhibition thoughtfully reveals how—for those in search of the night that never ends—club culture is an all encompassing immersive environment, a place for intense experiences, and spaces that intrinsically link cultural disciplines.
Showcasing work from talent like Keith Haring; Grace Jones; Ben Kelly; Miu Miu; OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture); Andy Warhol; Hasse Persson; Peter Saville; and Walter Van Beirendonck, Night Fever: Designing Club Culture 1960–Today runs at the Vitra Design Museum from 17 March—9 September.
Poster for the Discotheque Flash Back, Borgo San Dalmazzo, 1972. Design: Gianni Arnaudo / Studio65
An evening at the Space Electronic, Florence, 1971. Interior Design: Gruppo 9999. Photo: Carlo Caldini, © Gruppo 9999
Gruppo UFO, Bamba Issa, Night Shelter for the Beach Rescue Camels, Bamba Issa, 1969.
© photo: Carlo Bachi / Courtesy of Gruppo UFO
Palladium, New York, 1985. Architect: Arata Isozaki, mural by Keith Haring. © Timothy Hursley, Garvey|Simon Gallery New York
Roger Tallon, Swivel Chair Module 400 for the (unrealised) Nightclub Le Garage, Paris, 1965. © Vitra Design Museum, Foto: Thomas Dix
Discotheque Flash Back, Borgo San Dalmazzo, ca. 1972.
Interior Design: Studio65. © Paolo Mussat Sartor
Interior view of Tresor, Berlin, 1996/97
© Gustav Volker Heuss
The backlash against disco peaked at the Disco Demolotion Night at Comiskey Park, Chicago, in the summer 1979.
© Diane Alexander White Photography
Nightclub Les Bains Douches, Paris, 1990.
Interior Design: Philippe Starck. © Foc Kan
Bureau a, DJ booth inside The Club, Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2016. © Mariana Lopes
Volker Hinz, Grace Jones at ‘Confinement’ theme, Area, New York, 1984. © Volker Hinz
Poster for the Nightclub The Electric Circus, New York, 1967. Design: Chermayeff & Geismar © Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar
Newcastle Stage at Horst Arts & Music Festival, Belgium, 2017. Architects: Assemble. © Jeroen Verrecht
Dance floor at Paradise Garage, New York, 1978.
© Bill Bernstein / David Hill Gallery, London
Martin Eberle, Tresor außen, Berlin, 1996. From the series Temporary Spaces © Martin Eberle
Akoaki, Mobile DJ Booth, The Mothership, Detroit, 2014. © Anya Sirota and Jean Louis Farges, in collaboration with Bryce Detroit
Despacio Sound System, New Century Hall, Manchester International Festival, July 2013. © Rod Lewis
Walter Van Beirendonck, fashion show of Wild & Lethal Trash (W.&L.T.) collection for Mustang Jeans, Fall / Winter 1995/9 © Dan Lecca / Courtesy of Mustang Jeans
Musa N. Nxumalo, Wake Up, Kick Ass and Repeat!, photograph from the series 16 Shots, 2017. © Musa N. Nxumalo / Courtesy of SMAC Gallery, Johannesburg
Chen Wei, In the Waves #1, 2013
© Chen Wei / Courtesy of LEO XU PROJECTS, Shanghai
Guests in Conversation on a Sofa, Studio 54, New York, 1979.
© Bill Bernstein, David Hill Gallery, London
Vincent Rosenblatt, Tecnobrega #093 Tupinambá, 2016. From the series Tecnobrega – The Religion of Soundmachines. Metropoles Club, Belém do Pará, Brazil. Inkjet print on Baryta paper (2018), 100 x 66 cm © Vincent Rosenblatt
