David Rudnick & Tim Marlow

Meeting for the first time, graphic designer David Rudnick and Design Museum Director Tim Marlow discuss false dichotomies, paradigm shifts, 'junk layer' culture and the multifarious challenges and opportunities faced by artists and designers in a Web3 age.

David Rudnick and Tim Marlow talking in a brightly lit room on charcoal grey sofas
The problem of having such an extraordinary array of tools to work with is that we squander them, that we don't refine them, that we don't need to take any of them to the delightful, inspiring peak of their potential – because they're replaced, upgraded and refined before we get the chance to master them.David Rudnick
I think design is responsible for where we are to some extent, but is also the potential way forward – a way out. How we maintain our relationship or mediate our relationship with the planet and the world around us is obviously something that design will help us get through.Tim Marlow

Starting from the genesis of Rudnick's visual practice, the pair move through the how, the why, the what and the what next of his work, and of art and design more broadly – both on and off-chain. By way of conclusion, Marlow puts Rudnick on proverbial trial. The charge? "Some kind of nostalgia."

On the horizon

view through a large window to a balcony, a church spire is visible in the distance and a chartreuse perspex sheet leans against the window
David Rudnick wearing a white hoodie on the rooftop of his Ghent studio
large desk with a macbook and large vase of eucalpyptus

We recently visited David Rudnick in Ghent, where he was perfecting the physical and digital elements of his imminent Tomb Series – a number of which will be created and released in collaboration with Avant Arte.

While there, we also stopped by the construction site of a new space for his collaborative studio, Terrain.

dramatic upwards perspective of a brick building undergoing significant renovations
David Rudnick squats next to a window in a dimly lit building site

Photography and videography by Louis Mas for Avant Arte.

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