Design 99 is shifting gears. Husband & Wife team Gina Reichert & Mitch Cope are currently undertaking a series of museum exhibitions and have closed the retail location, after which they will focus on the ongoing work in their Detroit neighborhood.
Design 99 seeks to break the notion of contemporary design as expensive and inaccessible. From tricking out multi-family immigrant homes to posh downtown lofts, we approach each project with the same contemporary mindset- albeit different budgets- making contemporary art, architecture and design available to a wider public through over-the-counter design services.
Design 99’s work explores the edges of art practice, utilizing, design, architecture, found materials and utilitarian objects to propose creative solutions to complex problems. Their practice has at its core the belief that transformation can happen in a natural way, if we only take a look, think out-of-the-box and take action.
-- Luis Croquer, MOCADetroit Director and Chief Curator.
I want to suggest, without growing too rhetorical, that [Design 99 is] working on a new kind of artistic agency, in which relational art and site-specific production (even US land art traditions) are combined... more modest, less openly artistic, crossing disciplines and often just about being in the world in this place and time.
-- Charles Esche, Director of Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
