Jan Kath - Contemporary rug art

WITH HIS
MODERN DESIGNS, JAN KATH (BORN 1972) IS CREATING A COMPLETELY
NEW PERSPECTIVE ON CARPETS. GUIDED BY A BOLD APPROACH IN HIS
WORK, KATH, ORIGINALLY FROM BOCHUM, COMBINES CLASSICAL ELEMENTS
OF ORIENTAL CARPETS WITH CONTEMPORARY, MINIMALIST
DESIGN. He consciously breaks with traditional ways of seeing and throws strict rules of
composition out of the window. While an entire generation once ro

lled up their
grandmothers’ Persian rugs and exiled them from the living room, Kath’s designs
are now bringing them “back to the floor.” “Nobody feels really comfortable in
clinically styled apartments with highly polished concrete floors,” Kath explains.
“Our carpets are an organic dotting of the ‘i’, islands of wellbeing with a healing
effect in cool interiors – without destroying the overall style.” With his interpretation
of the modern carpet, Kath has developed an unmistakable signature that
defines style and is one of the most important carpet designers on the international
stage today. His concepts have earned numerous accolades, including the
Red Dot award and Carpet Design Award. More and more of his work is now appearing
in museums that showcase art and design such as the Frankfurt Museum
of Applied Art, the Beijing International Design Triennial, Art Museum Riga
Bourse and the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich. The matrix
for his innovative designs is formed by a relationship to carpets with deep emotional
roots: he is from the third generation of a family of carpet dealers who have
branches in the Ruhr District and in Berlin. When he was just a young boy, he and
his father, Martin Kath, used to visit manufacturers in Iran and Nepal. These experiences
trained his eye and awakened a fundamental understanding of color
combinations and proportions. At the same time, Kath never wanted to follow in
the footsteps of his parents, and he never intended to continue running the business
for them. In order to find his own way, he traveled through Asia and the
Middle East when he was 20 years old. There, friends of his family offered him the opportunity to
start working as a quality controller in their carpet production business. His “connection
with the world of carpets” was reestablished. Later, Kath took control of
the manufacturing process and began to produce his own designs. Inspired by
numerous trips through vibrant world cities such as Paris, Istanbul, New York,
Tokyo, Beirut, Sydney, and, last but not least, his home – the Ruhr District, with its
archaic industrial culture – he quickly developed an individual signature. Although
the allure created by imperfection, erosion, and transformation plays a central role
in his designs, Kath is “uncompromisingly conservative” where quality is concerned.