A show with this sort of range is bound to seem like a smorgasbordy mess. Nevertheless, we thought we discerned a couple of themes among all the gewgaws assembled by the Cooper-Hewitt’s Ellen Lupton and her team of curators. One is that technology, as the catalog says, has been “internalized,” meaning that designers now take electronic miracles as much for granted as their pencils. Another is that–as Joseph Holtzman, editor of the baroquely elegant shelter magazine nest told us–“Ornament is back, and we’ve got to relearn how to use it.” (He said this while he took a break from installing the show’s reading room, where the chairs are upholstered in 17-color marijuana-leaf chintz.) Finally, some designers rebelliously indulge in deliberate mistakes–like a one-of-a-kind woman’s jacket sewn in such a way that the lining hangs a foot below the hem.
More than trends–some of which will be passe by the time the show’s taken down–what emerges from “Inside Design Now” is attitude. Some designers let their wit out to play: the L.A. firm Superhappybunny’s white plastic table looks like a Chinese takeout container. Others–like milliner Kelly Christy, who offers a hat with a miniature ice-skating party on top–are militantly twee. And New York’s Asymptote shows an almost Oedipal defiance in creating a bulgy orange office-furniture system for the austerely modern manufacturer Knoll. The attitude you don’t see much of is non-ironic social concern: Bryan Bell’s clean, safe and attractive manufactured housing for migrant agricultural workers is a rarity among all the hyper-postmodern froufrous. (Did we mention hoof-shaped drinking glasses inspired by hoof-and-mouth disease?) So what is the proper balance among practicality, responsibility and just plain fun? While a few astute designers in this exhibition struggle passionately toward their own answers, the rest seem to have trouble even posing the question.
