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Design Blog Design Blog » Design Triennial » What a Mess

What a Mess

  • By: Ellen Lupton
  • | Saturday February 3, 2007
  • | 3 Comment(s)

When creating Design Life Now: National Design Triennial, the curators decided not to organize the exhibition by discipline (graphic design, product design, architecture, and so on), or by theme (green, social, formal, technological, etc). Instead, the show is more like life, where diverse objects and images sit beside each other in loose affiliations. Some rooms in our exhibition focus loosely around a topic, such as medical innovations, large-scale technology projecs, or social media, but by and large, the exhibition likes to mix things up. (The visual flow was determined largely by the exhibition designer, Sandra Wheeler of Matter Practice Architects, working with the curators.)

Not everyone likes the mix. A review in the Architect’s Newspaper, for example, asked, “How do you look at Chip Kidd’s book covers next to Alison Berger’s lamps?” (January 17, 2007).

But I like seeing Chip Kidd’s work near domestic objects (and I like seeing them in our very domestic museum space). In real life, you might find a book in a bookstore with lots of other books, but you can also find a book at home, with tables, lamps, furniture, and many other things.

About the Author: Ellen Lupton is Curator of Contemporary Design at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

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Comments

  1. The exhibit had some really great stuff, and I like the idea behind the organization of the show, it’s new. However I would like a more catagorized display. If I’m looking at the design of the last three years for graphics I’d like to see it in contrast to other graphics, etc.

    Micke | Oct 29, 11:31 AM

  2. The museum has an open mind about how the exhibition might be organized in the future. The first Triennial was organized around themes (such as Fluid, Physical, Minimal, etc). Since then, we’ve decided not to have categories. There have been three design Triennials at Cooper-Hewitt, and one thing we have never done is separated the show by discipline (graphic design, architecture, product design, etc). But you can look at the exhibition by discipline on this Web site by viewing our tag cloud.

    Ellen Lupton | Oct 29, 11:32 AM

  3. Personally, I find it refreshing to visit an exhibition in which objects are removed from isolation. All to often museums treat its subject(s) as artifacts, and not objects of usage. Within the current exhibition I found that I questioned my own interaction with these objects and the ideas that they address. In doing so I found the experience more significant, personal, and closer to the designer’s vision.

    Christopher Jackson | Oct 29, 11:32 AM

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