Action! Design over Time

The Museum of Modern Art announced Action! Design over Time, a new installation of the contemporary section of The Philip Johnson Architecture and Design Galleries, beginning on February 5, 2010.

Organized by Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator, and Patricia Juncosa-Vecchierini and Kate Carmody, Curatorial Assistants, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art, the installation brings together some 85 examples from the collection that reveal the dynamic and evolving nature of objects, providing a deeper understanding of contemporary design.

Objects are not still, and yet design is often appreciated in terms of its static presence - both aesthetic and functional - in any given instant, without much consideration of the process of its making, trajectory in time, life cycle, or relationship with people.

Some of the objects in the exhibition embody frozen moments in time, whether crafted by hand (like Ingo Maurer's Porca Miseria! Chandelier (1994), which is made of broken dishes) or crystallized by a computer using a digital manufacturing machine (as with Ammar Eloueini's CoReFab chair from 2006).

Instead of a single moment, other featured objects capture entire life cycles: Christien Meindertsma's book PIG 05049 (2004-06) tracks all 185 products made from a single pig, while Michele Gauler's Digital Remains (2006) comprises urns containing the images, music, and documents from dead friends' and relatives' computers.