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And what do you collect?

There are people who collect matchboxes. Others hoard million-dollar race cars. But what may be more important than the objects that are being collected is the person behind the collecting — as an exhibition by designer Stefan Sagmeister proves…

There are plenty of automobile collections in which every major icon is present, from the Ferrari 250 GTO to the Bugatti Veyron — and they are often, dare we say it, boring. They tend to lack a common theme — other than insanely expensive — and the courage to break from the established view of what is ‘valuable’. And then there are some collections that truly amaze their audiences — with their clever and unfamiliar combinations of seemingly everyday automobiles, making them both unique and interesting. The exhibition MyCollection by Austrian graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister, which is currently on display at the Zurich Museum of Design, proves that collections tell us more about its curator than they do the individual pieces involved. After being given access to the museum’s archive over 500,000 pieces, Sagmeister has selected specific pieces based on nothing but his personal design preferences — which begs the question: what does the Michelin Man have to do with a Chinese ceremony costume? 

Photos: Museum für Gestaltung

The exhibition MyCollection: Stefan Sagmeister can be seen until 11 March 2018 at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich.