Domesticating the Transnational: Dutch Conceptual Design, International Cultural Policy and Conceptual Art

Today, the idea has become dominant that Dutch Design is conceptual, minimalist, and hand-made. This association was first suggested by the 1980 traveling exhibition Design from the Netherlands, which showcased products that resonated with conceptual art. Ever since, design discourse has explained the conceptuality of Dutch Design as the result of a ‘typically’ Dutch cultural identity. Leaving behind this implied methodological nationalism and inscribing Dutch Design as a global phenomenon instead, this research examines the relevant actor-networks implicated in the construction of Dutch Design as conceptual. As a case study, it traces the production of the exhibition Design from the Netherlands. Based on archival research and oral history, this paper argues that the association between Dutch Design and conceptualism was the result of the restructuring of policies concerning the international promotion of design in the 1970s, and the reverberation of conceptual design’s materiality with the transnational channels of conceptual art.