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Against Design |
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On With The Show |
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The depth of cleverness found throughout "Against Design" manifests itself at the very beginning -- in the exhibition's title.
About this, the show's catalog explains, "The word 'against' ... can have two meanings. Is it adjacent to design or in opposition? Similarly, individual works in the show display a distinct duality. Are they fine art or is their function more practical?"
Unfortunately, the exhibition doesn't answer the questions it poses. It's not even a very clearly articulated question.
What is meant by design, for example? And what is "fine art?" It's clear that the kind of 'design' this exhibition and these artists deal with, whether adjacently or in opposition, is of a very narrow type --entirely low-brow and common; either originating in or deriving from the sort of working-class home furnishings that have been part of American life since the 1950s, if not earlier.
Angela Bulloch, "Bean Bag Set," 1996
This is definitely not "design" as practiced by Charles Eames, Louis Comfort Tiffany, or the Alessi Studio.
It's almost exactly the opposite -- as close to non-design, or perhaps un-design, as you can get and still have a human-made product.
It should come as no surprise that when "fine art" places itself "adjacent" to this un-aspiring quality of design it finds itself sharing similar traits; seeming as close to non-art, or perhaps un-art, as it can get while still remaining somehow "art."
One slender thread that prevents this work from falling entirely out of art's realm is the works' consistent denial of utility. A sculpture by Bernini or David Smith doesn't "do" anything, right? Thus, few of the show's art works function as the practical things they appear to be.
More important, however, is the thread provided by the context in which the works appear; i.e., in a museum, the very bosom of art.
"Against Design," its concept and its art, collectively clings to this thread as though it were rope.
