Metal, wood, paper, plastic, burlap, contact paper, and paint
Not on view
In the early 1990s, Remy and other members of Dutch collective Droog Design often adapted existing materials into new works, elevating the practice of using intentionally limited means to an aesthetic philosophy. Named after a lyric in the 1985 song “Knockin’ on Joe” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, this chest was made from salvaged drawers rehoused in custom maple housings and strapped together with a belt. The piece “symbolizes the way our memory works,” Remy explains. “You place something specific in each drawer; I’ll put papers in this one, or something precious in that beautiful drawer. That way you always know where you’ve put things. Since memory is a bit messy for me, I had to tie it all together.”
Pirouette: Turning Points in Design, January 26, 2025–November 15, 2025
Publication excerpt from The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Highlights since 1980 , New York: The Museum of Modern Art, p. 115.
Droog Design first caught the attention of international critics in 1993 with an exhibition at the Milan Furniture Fair in which the design group's founders, Gijs Bakker and Renny Ramakers, displayed the work of a number of Dutch designers who shared the same essentially minimalist approach. Among the first members of the collective were Hella Jongerius, Marcel Wanders, and Remy, designers who were featured in MoMA's 1996 exhibition Contemporary Design from the Netherlands and who have gone on to become contemporary masters.
Droog Design's first appearance had the strength of a manifesto. In the hangover after the exuberance and excess of the 1980s, designers all over the world turned to a new value system based on economy, simplicity, and responsibility. Many of their objects celebrated ingenuity and poverty of means and elevated them to an aesthetic philosophy; idealism and moralism were the politically correct attitudes of the day. Remy's 'You Can't Lay Down Your Memory 'Chest of Drawers is made of found drawers held together roughly by a belt. It has the visual impact and provocative intent of a Dada sculpture, minus a Dadaist sense of humor.
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