Schwarz
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When the Ouroussoff article came out I had just made my second visit to the revamped MoMA. My first visit involved one of the many opening galas when, sometime late in the evening after several vodka and sodas, two self-proclaimed "bloggers" asked me how I liked the new building. I told them I loathed it. "What do you mean?" one sputtered. I couldn't articulate an answer, but what I meant is I hated the grandeur of the place, how much it seemed to celebrate not the art or the objects but the exalted cultural role of the institution.
On my second visit I made peace with the building. I still don't care for the bombast of the communal spaces, but I'm happy with the contents of many of the galleries, especially the smaller ones housing prints and drawings, architecture and design. Granted the design gallery is no longer a sparsely populated hideaway on the top floor of the museum. And I'm nostalgic about the days when I would have the collection all to myself, but the bigger, brighter space surely reflects the new status of design in American popular culture.
About that same time I was also thinking about how hard it is to mount a really innovative contemporary industrial-design show these days. The problem--and it's not specific to MoMA--is that the products one can find on the shelves of almost any store are likely to be as varied, sophisticated, and inventive as the objects a museum can pull together. Stores can change inventory faster and with much less planning than a curator burdened with two-year lead times. When I visit the Cooper-Hewitt now I spend more time in the shop than in the galleries. Director of retail Gregory Krum was once the product manager at Moss, a Soho design shop that appropriated the aesthetic of a museum design gallery. Because he is a merchant, Krum can put his ideas into action without sitting through countless committee meetings. As a result the store is generally a better place to view fresh design.