THE STORY OF SUPER LAMP

Its name is of course ironic – especially because when it was designed fashionable domestic lighting was tending towards the brutally industrial.

Bedin was one of the youngest members of the Memphis Group and one of the only two women next to Nathalie du Pasquier. In describing her experience she has said, “At that time, to be the only woman in a group was not something we gave much thought to, we treated it as something completely natural. I did not feel deprived of rights or participation, I was not barred from going anywhere.”, which has become closely associated with Postmodernism. Martine Bedin's (b.1957) contributions to Memphis were primarily in the area of lighting and graphic design. Born and raised in Bordeaux (where she was a friend of Memphis colleague Nathalie du Pasquier), Bedin moved to Florence in 1978 to study architecture with Adolfo Natalini of Superstudio. In 1979 she contributed an installation entitled La Casa Decorata to the Milan Furniture fair, and she met Ettore Sottsass Jr. the following year, leading to an invitation to join Memphis; she also introduced du Pasquier to the group. Among Bedin's contributions to Memphis in its first year (1981) was this iconic Super lamp. This version is the initial prototype and was shown at the first Memphis exhibition at the gallery, Arc 74 in 1981.

Bedin described the lamp’s unique design as "like a small dog that I could carry with me." The bold forms and bright colours endorsed by the Memphis Group and present in the Super Lamp drew a large amount of media attention and a very mixed response from the public. Martine Bedin's Super Lamp Martine Bedin's 1981 Super Lamp, also the main image "We thought we were producing products that made people's lives better, society happier, which of course did not happen," Sottsass told the New York Times in 2002." But we did open up the possibilities of design".

"It was like opening a window to reveal a new landscape. Why should laminate veneer be only for the kitchen and bathroom and not for a luxurious living room?"

“That kind of vocabulary was very new to me, but in a way very close to me. I'm a Mediterranean girl, I like colours, and probably something touched me. It was something I could work with easily.”

Martine Bedin on Modernism

Sottsass and his wife Barbara Radice also visited Bedin in Paris, and spotted the design for the Super Lamp while flicking through her sketchbook." He came to my house and he looked at my book," said Bedin."He said: 'Wow, I love that lamp, we should make it'. And I ripped out the page of my book and I gave it to him, and I said: 'Sign it. Sottsass invited her to work in his studio, so Bedin moved to Milan where she turned the design into a realised product under her name.

The Super Lamp was one of a variety of lighting designs that Bedin created for Memphis. Her later Western, Holiday and Charleston design all floor lamps carry the same graphical simplicity, but never gained the same attention.

After several years, Memphis members began to lose their enthusiasm as they had to spend more time on finance, production and showroom liaisons than on design." It was like a real job and not avant-garde any more," said Bedin."Very soon we got very bored with that". Bedin, like many other architects and designers, disassociates herself from the Postmodern label and disagrees that Memphis was never part of the movement because its members did not use historical references in their work.

Martine Bedin's 1982 Lodge bookcase Martine Bedin's 1982 Lodge bookcase "It was very clear that we took the distance far from Postmodernism," she said, citing Radice's book about the group to back up her stance."She writes that Memphis was not Postmodernism. Despite this, a host of Memphis pieces were included in the V&A's 2011 Postmodernism exhibition and are listed within curator Glenn Adamson's Dezeen guide to the movement. Design critic Justin McGuirk described Memphis as "Postmodernism's boldest force" in an article for the Guardian, and Denise Scott Brown who helped to pioneer Postmodernism in architecture with husband Robert Venturi also considers Memphis to have close ties with their work." I think there is a spirit and a seriousness around [Memphis]," she told Dezeen in an exclusive interview." I think of those people as pretty talented and pretty interesting". Its pet-like attributes allow a more personal connection to the product than some of the more abstract designs from the group." I cannot say myself whether it's an icon or not," said Bedin." Anyway, it was not designed for that purpose".

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