“The Utility of Emptiness” was a 2008 exhibition at the Museu de les Arts Decoratives (Barcelona), curated and designed by Uli Marchsteiner.
This exhibition shows the fascinating relation between matter and non-matter, full and empty, positive and negative form. Through a selection of about 120 pieces from the visual arts, architecture, design, natural sciences and industrial engineering an important bunch of architects, industrial designers and artists were shown, as like Gijs Baker, Günther Beltzig, Manolo Blahnik, Luigi Colani, Charles & Ray Eames, Antoni Gaudí, Judith Höfel, Thomas B. Lamb, Ross Lovegrove, Enzo Mari, Marc Newson, Verner Panton, Man Ray, Oscar Tusquets, Victor Vasarely, Henry van de Velde, Marcel Wanders, Rachel Whiteread.
A notable exhibition catalogue was also published, detailing the history of emptiness, including it’s alternately revered and vilified status between Daoist philosophy and the early Catholic church.
