艺术类文献翻译英文原文

原文：

•Update:2009-12-08

•Justin 0'Connor

•Source: No.199 | November2009

[…]The basic difference between a creative artist and an industrial designer lies in the tasks they perform and the environment in which they operate. The creative artist is respon-sible only to himself. On the work of the designer, however, depends the

commercial profit of his factory, and thus the welfare of the workers in this factory. His world is the world

of businessmen and technicians. His language must be the language of businessmen and technicians. Artistic arguments are not subject to proof. The artist is allowed to dream. The designer must be awake at every minute of his working day. He is a manager. Objectivity and clear thinking determine his actions. He must make all his dispositions with a sure hand. The artist works alone. The designer is a member of a team. The artist is silent. The designer needs to talk about his ideas. He must be able to communicate with his partners.

[…]

[…]We must say goodbye to the familiar image of the artist in industry who, dreaming of good design, tinkers round with his spoon, the last craft worker in industry, as he was once called. We shall have to accustom ourselves to a new type of designer, one who is hard-ly to be distinguished from a clever manager –the word ›manager‹ being meant in a positive sense here. It is natural for this designer to be as familiar with

questions of production and sales as his client is. Design alone is nowadays only a part of his work. […] The industrial desi gner of today must be put in much greater touch with the values of commerce and mar-keting if he is to be successful in his work, if he is to conceive the right product for the right market at the right time.

Industrial design is the creation of industrial products. The industrial designer must have the knowledge, the abilities and the experience needed to grasp the facts governing the pro-duct, to conceive the design, and to carry it out in collaboration with all those involved

in product planning, development and manufacture, up to the finished product. In his coor-dinating design activity he will benefit from his knowledge of the sciences and of

technology as a basis. The aim of his work is to create industrial products to serve society in both a cultural and social aspect.

The industrial designer is the advocate of the people. It is amazing that the user or con-sumer is only indirectly involved in the decision process governing things he requires to satisfy his needs. So, in the first place, the desig ner is the user’s or consumer’s advocate. But at the same time this makes him a product of the people. Everyone has his own yardstick. Everyone makes their own decision. The particular task of the designer is to anticipate the de-cisions which others will make in the future as if they were his own. […] The difference from previous occupational descriptions [of the industrial designer –Editor’s note] is this – that German designers speak of coordinated design work and include the social aspect to which industrial design must be subject. I do not believe that this occupational description will be the last one. This profession, which is constantly involved in a dynamic devel-opment, is seeking new fields of work and new orientations.

This service, from designs by Sigrid and Günter Kupetz, is not without its charms. Excellently finished ebony handles, a straight upper camber with a flat cover and counter-sunk ebony handle, a rather higher three-cor-nered spout (useful when carrying full pots) and an idiosyncratically curved body. One would perhaps enjoy it without reservation if there were not already an ›m‹ service. But

it provides enjoyment enough. For whether this careful transfer of a ›stile cristallino‹ to silver really signifies the ultimate solution, or just an attractive preliminary stage – the fact remains that WMF has been honestly en-gaged in producing something genuine, some-thing of high quality.

This monograph is the first comprehensive overview of the creative work of designer Günter Kupetz. At the same time it presents a picture of the development of industrial design in Germany. There are few other personalities in the design world whose profession-al career reflects as well as Kupetz’s does, the sense of being one of the founders of a disci-pline in the fifties and sixties of the twentieth century. Against the background of the completely changed social and economic contexts of that time, Kupetz and, with him a whole generation of young German designers, frees himself from the artisanal image of the industrial artist imposed by the Bauhaus tradition, enters into an international dialogue about contemporary industrial design and ends up by creating the profession of industrial designer in Germany.

Even though Kupetz’s debut was as an artist. Bernhard Heiliger’s outstanding student de-cided, after his first successes in sculpture, to take up a position with WMF in Geislingen/ Steige. He became head of the design studio and in subsequent years created