Choosing an artist from the list that we had been given, I quickly googled a few names and crossed that of Jaime Hayón who, during the 90ties, had studied at a Design Academy funded by Benetton (among others in Madrid, Paris and San Diego). He there had worked “closely with the legendary image-maker and agitator Oliverio Toscani” as is explained on his web site.[1]; (You might remember this one – made a few very critical commercials for the company, also the one displaying the anorexic girl)
Thrilled, I decided to go for Hayón only to find out that there is unfortunately nothing very controversial about him. With his 37 years, living practically all over in Europe, he is quite an internationally popular designer. Or artist?
Very hard to say, since he clearly works on both sides of the road.
He graduated as an industrial designer and has – until now – designed a whole range of, and very, industrial products such as for instance a bathroom collection for ArtQuitect, all kinds of domestic furniture for b.d ediciones, Established&Sons and Moooi, lighting fixtures for Metalarte and Swarovski, vases for Gaia and Gino, ceramic objects for Bosa Ceramiche and so on and so forth.[2]
There are however those other pieces he created, often marking major break-troughs in his career, that are more likely to be linked to the Fine Arts.