Muebles Manuel

Mendes Wood DM Brussels
19.1. – 7.4.2018

Mimolette is a process of the fermentation of ideas. The process consists of holding one’s breath, especially in those moments when one has so many thoughts and ideas that one’s head is about to explode. It is in that moment of almost explosion when the Mimolette effect has its best results.
– Mariana Castillo Deball

A book is not a vaguely flat, neutral support for the mere documentation of someone’s work. A book is a physical experience with mass, size, flexibility and readability, that develops over time and space. If this just sounds like common sense when said like that, why are there so few designers that actually have a sense for this? Each design by Manuel Raeder is a surprise in itself, exploring how the sensuous attributes of the design can correspond to the specific nature of the featured work, always with astounding sensibility, invariably tending to create an open completeness rather than a closed partiality.
– Daniel Steegmann Mangrané

Do you really want to work with this guy? Or does he really want to work with me could be the other way of putting it. Sometimes spending up to 4/5 hours on Skype glancing at each other’s screen going through the possible 280 pages till one of us says I am hungry! Let’s continue tomorrow? What time? We had many deadlines but made it happen against all odds. Each page of the book brings back memories of jokes, reflections, solutions, comments that we made. But all that was worth it.
– Otobong Nkanga

valley mountain arm
mountain leg valle
mountain leg mountain
arm valley leg
mountain
arm
– Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster

In spring 2002 I was in full preparation for my presentation at documenta11 with the film which I was about to premiere there – Shoes for Europe. At that time I was at the Jan Van Eyck Academy and Manu was helping me out. I didn’t have much experience with such big shows, and neither did Manu, yet because he had his degree from London, for me Manu was an expert. The first thing Manu proposed was a poster: if there is a film – you must have a poster! And Manu made a great poster! Then Manu said: Man, you need a business card, and he made a limited edition of very nice, two times foldable 11x18cm cards, with my contacts silkscreened on fragments of the poster. Some other friends advised me that for such occasion you need a suit, so I got a new suit. And so, for the opening in Kassel, I was very well equipped with my new suit, with pockets stuffed with cards, ready to be asked for my contact details. The film was received very well and it got many reviews in the press, etc… Well, my suit is still there and the pockets of that jacket are still full with our limited edition business cards. d11 was the first documenta that used email and probably that was the reason I didn’t get the chance to impress anybody with my first ever business cards. We are still laughing with Manu about all that.
– Pavel Braila

An exemplary transition, a padded woven membrane of straw between you and a perfectly designed chair is like the interior of a knot. Let’s sleep on it.
– Nora Schultz

Read more on Mendes Wood DM website. Available at Muebles Manuel.