Breathing Colour, Design Museum

'I rebel against the flat colours of the colour industry', says the Berlin-based Dutch designer Hella Jongerius.

This is not a melodramatic contestation but a highly calculated scientific response to the way colour has been standardised by industry experts into colour charts. An industry-wide commercial demand for consistency has eliminated subtle variations of pigment, previously employed by artists and designers, to enhance aesthetic value.

Our perceptions and connections to colour are the premise of Jongerius' first solo exhibition at the Design Museum. Through a series of newly commissioned installations, Jongerius explores, above all, a technical 'phenomenon in colourimetry called metamerism'.

Put simply, metamerism is the way in which colours appear to change depending on different lighting conditions. You're experiencing metamerism, for example, if you've ever bought a piece of clothing or furniture from a shop thinking it was blue and, on arriving home, discovered it actually looks green.

Jongerius celebrates this phenomenon, or what she terms ‘unstable’ colour in the show, by playing with light, material, and shape. Split into three sections – morning, noon, and night – the exhibition guides visitors through the changeability of colour on any given day.

The designer's ‘colour catchers’ make up the central element of the exhibition; cleverly angular and multi-faceted ceramic works are painted in one colour but look as though they have been painted in many, due to the ways in which they catch the light at different times of the day. Similar colour play can be seen in Jongerius’ hand-woven textiles and also in her ‘colour vases’.

While you may need to brush up on your colour theorists including Goethe, Ewald Hering and Anni Albers to really appreciate Jongerius' subtlety and technical expertise – Breathing Colour has drawn on 15 years of studio research – it's well worth catching this daring and innovative exhibition before it closes on 24 September.