, produced by Kevin O’Callaghan, New York, 2012, room installation with a bicycle on an aluminium pedestal, neon writing, metal fittings for mounting the neon glass, neon writing approx. 546 x 965 cm. (DRAX)

A unique object.

Provenance:
Stefan Sagmeister, New York

Exhibited:
Stefan Sagmeister. The Happy Show, ICA travelling exhibition, Philadelphia 2012; The Jewish Museum, New York 2013; MAK, Vienna 2015/16; Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt am Main 2016; Museum für Gestaltung, Zurich 2017; MAAT, Lisbon 2018

Lit.:
Stefan Sagmeister. The Happy Show, MAK, Wien 2015, published by the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, pp. 113-116, pp. 174/175

If you pedal long and hard enough on this bike, you will create the energy needed to light up the neon typography.

“Every single time I think “I should do this” or “I should try that” and then don’t follow through and actually do it, the uncompleted action creates a little nagging but otherwise empty space in my mind. I’ll also miss out on the satisfying feeling that comes with the completion of a project.” (Stefan Sagmeister)

Stefan Sagmeister is a designer who blends typography and imagery in striking, fresh, ambitious, and unsettling ways. Born in Austria, he moved to New York in 1993 and worked briefly for the influential designer Tibor Kalman’s M&Co before starting his own firm. Having profoundly influenced the culture of design over the past decade, he is perhaps best known for his album covers for Talking Heads, David Byrne, Lou Reed, OK Go, and The Rolling Stones, to name only a few, and innovative public campaigns, for companies like HBO and Levi’s, that have entered the public consciousness. He is the recipient of many awards, including two Grammys for his packaging design work, the Lucky Strike Designer Award, and the Communications Award from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

What is happiness? How to find it? And what do we really do to be happy? The Happy Show, one of his most iconic projects, is the result of intense research carried out for over ten years about the concept of happiness. Through the means of video, infographics, sculptures and interactive installations, as well as humor, provocation and interaction, this exhibition takes us on a journey through Sagmeister’s mind and his innovative, seemingly simple perspective on how we can be happier. He appeals to a more active approach to our search for happiness – including the idea that it can be trained, just like we train our body. (MAAT Lisboa)