Good Artists Make Good Design

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The New York Sun

There is a misconception out there that artists and designers approach form differently; that if you cannot sit on a work of art, then it is not functional or useful, and if you are unable to touch a work of art, then you are involved in passive (rather than active) viewing.


Out there also is the misconception that if curators do not pose “thoughtful questions” for visitors to ponder while they look at art, then, left alone with the work, they will be lost. The misguided, neatly packaged (though at times surprising) show “Design Art: Functional Objects from Donald Judd to Rachel Whiteread” at the Cooper-Hewitt is based on and perpetuates both of these misconceptions. Yet, having brought together some spectacular furniture, lighting, and house wares from the last 30 years, it is a worthwhile show in spite of itself.


With over 100 objects – most of which have never before seen a museum setting – from roughly 20 Minimalist and Post-Minimalist artists, the “deliberately controversial” exhibition, highlights works that “blur the boundaries” between art and design. In some of the works the blurring is intentional or subversive. At others, it is inherent, simply because the objects were designed by artists who make more art than furniture.


If you have followed the art world even peripherally over the last decade, then you are already familiar with the ubiquity of curatorial interest in “blurring” boundaries. For those who are not up to speed, it is a Duchampian idea that has become the battle cry of the new academy. When Duchamp put a snow shovel in a gallery, he was “blurring the boundaries” between art and everyday objects, and he was questioning the role of authorship and of the roles of art and mass production.


“Design Art,” curated by Barbara J. Bloemink, asks the question: Is it design or is it art? The better question would be: Is it good or is it bad? But asking that question would acknowledge the validity of tradition, judgment, taste, and aesthetics – the backbone of the establishment that a number of the contemporary works in this show purport to “blur,” or to question. And it would demand that the show take a stance about what the function of art, whether in the form of a chair or a painting, really is. The show would then be focusing its efforts on enabling the public to engage with works of art because they are worth the effort. Instead, this show pushes viewers to ask the same lame questions some contemporary artists are asking, such as “Is it a chair or is it art?,” a question that steers viewers toward labeling rather than experiencing the objects on view.


Design Art opens on the first floor with a small set of 2-D designs by artists such as William Wegman, Andy Warhol, Charles Dana Gibson, Matta, Calder, and Matisse. The grouping establishes the fact that, yes, many artists have also done design work. It also establishes that, more often than not, good artists make good design; lesser artists, lesser design. An artist’s art and design are proportionate in quality. This unintended thesis proves itself during the course of the show.


The exhibition moves up the stairway with Robert Rauschenberg’s “Tire Lamp” (1971) and a live-feed monitor, attached to the banister, showing “Creativity: Furniture Reversal” (1998), an interactive work by Franz West, situated in the last gallery of the exhibition, a piece that I am sure will draw a lot of children to the museum. “Creativity,” a table, a lamp, and two chairs, which viewers are encouraged to wrap with colored duct tape, poses questions that are at the core of the show’s theme: questions about authorship, functionality, and resolution of a work of art. Questions that, while interesting in theory, tend to be less captivating when faced with a chair you cannot sit in or a hideously ugly table.


The view posed by Mr. West, that art and design are interchangeable and should be physically interactive, is also held by Scott Burton, whose furniture designs are positioned between those of Donald Judd and Richard Tuttle in the first room of the show. Judd, who believed that art and design could differ from one another depending on the maker’s intentions, created some of the most successful works in the exhibition. Next to Mr. Tuttle, whose oversized furniture and loony lamps – like his painting and collage – feel goofy and only half serious, and Burton, whose furniture is often a comment upon furniture designs by other artists, Judd’s Minimalist wood and metal cube-furniture comes across as classical and purist works of art.


There are wonderful pieces here and there throughout the exhibition – including a striking set of nesting dishes by Dan Flavin (1990), black basalt ware by James Turell (1998), weird porcelain plates and a salad bowl that resemble car parts by John Chamberlain (1996), colored glass floor lamps by Jorge Pardo (2003), and a set of four engraved crystal glasses by Sol Lewitt (2002). However, Judd’s designs carry the weight of the entire show. His sleek furniture illuminates the beauty of stainless steel, copper, wood, Formica, and the sandwiched layers seen in the edges of plywood. His exacting feel for proportion could make the right angle feel as natural as the curve. Included in the show are works he designed for the Army base he converted into studios and installation spaces in Marfa, Texas. Also in the show is a beautiful, elliptical stainless steel sink he designed in 1970 for his Spring Street loft. The sink, no doubt, will be the envy of stainless steel kitchens everywhere.


The New York Sun

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