Paola Antonelli: if you look at the world through design, you can never be bored

PF: I am Paolo Ferrarini and this is Parola Progetto.

Parola Progetto is a podcast of conversations with people whose lives are made of projects, where we explore design in all its forms, without objects or images, simply through words.

And here we are.

Today we are in Brooklyn, hosted by our friends at Salotto, to kick off a series of three very special live events of Parola Progetto, for the first time in English. And I’m honored to begin with Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator at the Department of Architecture and Design at the MoMA, where she also serves as Director of Research and Development.

Paola joined MoMA in 1994 and since then she has curated internationally renowned exhibitions that explore design in all its forms, from architecture to video games, from materials to design classics. She has curated shows at several international institutions, lectured at conferences ranging from TED to the World Economic Forum in Davos, and written numerous essays and books. Her most recent projects include Design Emergency, the podcast and Instagram project she co-founded with Alice Rawsthorn in 2020, and MoMA R&D Salons, thematic gatherings focusing on the potential of museums as research and development departments for society.

PA: Thank you for this great introduction. I’m learning a lot. I don’t have music in my podcast.

PF: So, hello Paola.

PA: Hi Paolo.

PF: Welcome to Salotto and welcome to Parola Progetto.

PA: Thank you.

PF: So, 30 years at MoMA. Congratulations!

PA: I don’t know if you should congratulate me or tell me what the hell.

PF: Are you planning to celebrate this milestone?

PA: No. It’s already happened a few months ago. It was in February. I got a great massage at the Peninsula Hotel as a gift, which it’s better than a watch for sure. And I got a great dinner, but the celebration was more like inside of me for having survived all these years. I like to say that I’m like a cucaracha, I’m a cockroach. They’re not going to kill me.

PF: I’m curious. How did you come to join MoMA? Was it a goal you had or was it something serendipitous?

PA: Absolutely not a goal. I had never thought of living in New York, of working in a museum. It all happened because I’m a good surfer. That’s what I always use as a metaphor. But at that time, I was in California. I was teaching at UCLA and I saw an ad in a magazine for the position at MoMA. So I answered an ad in a magazine. And then when MoMA called me back and said they were interested, I was [like] when you put yourself in a situation where you can’t say no. So it was not a goal at all. It was like a challenge or a bet.

PF: Let’s start from one of the latest things that you’re doing at MoMA. You are the founder and director of Research and Development at MoMA, but it’s not the kind of R&D that we expect in big companies. You have a vision to turn museums into the R&D department for society. How is this initiative structured and how does it work?

PA: It’s not that I want to turn them into R&D of society. They have already been and they could be seen as that. So I just want to surface that. And the way to do it, we tried many different ways. The department has been alive for about 12 years. The idea came in 2008 when there was the financial crisis and I wanted to prove that the cultural sector is much more reliable than the financial one. And amongst all the different tests and experiments that we’ve done, the most successful one has been a series of salons that deal with topics that are very relevant to people in their daily lives. So we had salons on death, we had salons on angels, salons on dogs. I know that it’s kind of funny, but when you have a salon about dogs, there’s so much that gets discussed, like how do we live in the city with dogs? What does it mean to have friends that rely on us completely and that we have power of life or death on? There’s really many topics that come alive. So by having these salons, we can show that museums are not just places where you come and look at art on walls, but you can have serious discussions and you can really talk about things that matter. The last one that we had was very recently, I think two weeks ago, it was ”The age of the bully”. Now, this podcast is coming out just a few weeks before the elections in the United States and bullies are everywhere in our high schools, but also in our governments all over the world. So see what I’m talking about? There’s always at least one artist or two or curators in the panel. And you realize that art, culture helps. It really helps live life and ask yourself better questions.

PF: And this is also the demonstration that your take on design and culture in general, I would say, is always to find an excuse to talk about our daily lives somehow. How do you select the subjects that you present to the public? Maybe sometimes in the form of an exhibition, sometimes in the form of a salon.

PA: I like to think that ideas are so easy to come by. You and I could talk for 10 minutes and have 20 ideas for a salon and for exhibitions. It’s the ones that you choose to develop and the kind of effort that goes into them that really show the sweat and tears of your career. Right now, my collaborator, Christina Moschoul, and I have at least 40 salon topics that are there waiting. And you just feel them. A salon comes together in a month and a half, an exhibition comes together in two and a half years at MoMA. So you have to kind of pick and choose. An exhibition is almost like a gamble, because especially when it comes to contemporary design, you feel that it’ll be relevant still in two and a half years. But still, you really have to make that choice. And that’s where your chops as a curator are really relevant.

PF: And is it the subject that determines the medium that you will use to transfer this kind of information? You use exhibitions, discussions, podcasts as well, Instagram accounts. So is there a specific subject that calls for a specific medium?

PA: Definitely, yes. I like to think that there are many different ways to be a curator. It’s not only the gallery. Books, videos, podcasts, public programs are also ways to let it all out. And sometimes I’m not aware of things, but like many years ago, when the 3D printed gun was released, I remember that I was shocked and I started thinking that I wanted to deal with the contemporary forms of violence. So together with Jamer Hunt, who’s a really great colleague, we put together a list of objects that have an ambiguous relationship with violence and then we presented to MoMA a proposal for an exhibition about design and violence that had things like a Kalashnikov. Great piece of design, but lethal or like a roller coaster for suicides. Now, it was not an exhibition for MoMA, but we didn’t know. We were all feverish. So MoMA rejected it and we decided to make it happen anyway. So we started a website, a WordPress website, and it was a great program, went on for two years. And it was better than an exhibition. So sometimes you know, sometimes you don’t, but somebody else tells you, but there are so many different ways to talk about whatever you have inside of you, in my case, design. And it’s wonderful to have them all at our disposal because of technology right now.

PF: You mentioned technology. I’m sure that throughout your career, you’ve surely witnessed the emergence of many new technologies in materials, in production systems, devices, sometimes. Some have endured, some have evolved, and others have disappeared. 3D printing or maybe mycelium leather or strange materials that come and go, they seem like the future, but then after a while, they disappear. Some technologies are exciting, some others are scary. For example, this is what’s happening today with AI. Is there a way to understand what the real impact of a new technology will be in everyday life?

PA: I don’t think so. Or at least there are some intuitions that you can have. It was clear that computers and especially websites would have a tremendous impact. It’s less clear sometimes with biomaterials. I’d like to give you two examples. When I started at MoMA for my very first exhibition, I wanted a website, but it was ’95 and people didn’t really know what a website was. So they gave me a budget of 300 and some dollars for the website. I used it to buy dinners to the student from the School of Visual Arts who taught me HTML. So I coded it and it’s still there, you can see it, ”Mutant materials in contemporary design”. It’s on the MoMA website. So that was clear. But then another example instead is biomaterials. There’s a conference that’s, what’s it called? ”Biofabricate”, great conference. It started out at this point, I think it was about seven, eight years ago. And at the beginning, I’ve seen the whole progress. At the beginning, it was, let’s talk about materials like mycelium leather. Then some companies began in the years, then some companies went bust and changed their whole aim, target. And now they’re coming up again, but instead of doing the leather, etc., they do some like back up materials. So you see the evolution.

I think that any kind of technology or for instance, NFTs. I was talking to this great internet artist, Rafaël Rozendaal, and he was saying NFT, it’s like everybody was having a great time and looking gorgeous at a club, and then somebody turned on the lights, right So it’s really, it’s interesting, but I feel that every technology has to be dealt with: there’s a moment of drunkenness and then sobriety kicks in. And then you see what needs to stay and what needs to go.

PF: Do you use AI in your work?

PA: All the time. I use chat GPT continuously.

PF: How?

PA: Well, I use it. My husband taught me. I use it sometimes to turn my emails from angry to positive. And then, and sometimes I use it to break the ice with an idea. It’s very funny, like, for instance, for the salon for the Age of the Bully, I was looking for the poster image for the salon. And so I asked chat GPT, I said, what are the movies, the greatest movies that dealt with bullying? So of course, he gave me ”Mean Girls” and he gave me several others. And then he gave me ”Carrie”. And I was like, oh, my God, Carrie. I hadn’t thought about the other side of the metal. So it’s interesting. Then I decided not to use Carrie because there’s been too many school shootings, it wouldn’t be a good idea in this day and age. But still, I was surprised by the way it responded. So I use that. And then we’ve been using Firefly, the Adobe one, because it’s all from copyright co-share materials. So we’ve been using it at MoMA right now. There’s an exhibition there and I’m trying to plan other things. So personally, I use chat GPT mostly and then other AI to transcribe things. Those are the ones that I use the most.

PF: Any technology can be used for good and for harm. This is a topic you have addressed many times throughout your career. Are there antidotes to protect us from design that seeks to destroy rather than create? Are there forms of design that can solve these problems?

PA: I don’t think so. But I think there are forms of culture that can. So it’s almost as if you were doing an immunotherapy. You help people build their antibodies. I believe that the work of a curator, not all curators are the same, but the work that I like to try and project is not to tell people what’s good and what’s bad, but rather to help people develop their own critical tools. So I believe that it should be us. I know that it’s maybe a dream, but it’s the only defense that we have is a stronger spine and a moral compass.

PF: And how do you face rejection? You mentioned that before. Sometimes it seems like you’re a successful curator, you had a brilliant career, but I’m sure you face rejection very often. So how do you face that? Because this is something that in particular young designers, they face a lot. So I wanted to know, how do you face rejection? And if you have some suggestions for young designers to approach this kind of feeling?

PA: I get angry and no, I don’t have any suggestions. Because I know, but it’s really, it hurts every time and it makes you angry. And you can get a revenge. That’s the beautiful, that is what I can tell young designers you’ll get your comeuppance.

So for instance, I did the Triennale of Milan in 2019, it was called ”Broken Nature”. I had proposed that exhibition to MoMA in 2013 and they had rejected it. And maybe it was for the better, because frankly, I had the whole Triennale, it was fantastic. And then part of it came to MoMA, so don’t get angry, don’t let them see it. Use your anger to make it into something better. Like ”Design and Violence” became that website. It was fantastic. Other things have been shelved, but they never die and then they can be recycled, used in an even better way if the situation is ripe for it. So yeah, no, I don’t have any suggestions, just enjoy, embrace your anger and turn it into a project.

PF: And what about criticism? Any person that does like a public service, a public job like you do, will face criticism sooner or later. Sometimes it can be helpful, but sometimes it has to be rejected. Where is your limit?

PA: It’s not easy. I was talking to a friend just a few minutes ago about how much it can hurt in some cases. It depends where it comes from and who gives you this criticism. Like in 2012, I started with my colleagues, of course, collecting video games for MoMA and I remember that the art critic of The Guardian, Jonathan Jones, came out with this article that was in theory searing saying, ”Oh, MoMA, you’re wrong. Pac-Man cannot be near Picasso.” And it’s very funny because instead of being hurt, I was thinking, ”Oh”, I was cringing for Jonathan Jones saying, ”Oh, I’m so sorry.” Because you know what? You’re going to be like the people that told Picasso at the beginning of the 20th century that he was a charlatan. And then I was also thinking, first of all, we’re acquiring Pac-Man as design. And then secondly, there are three stories, the three, like a difference between the two. It’s really three floors. So in that case, I was cringing for the person.

Criticism, I try to make it be really helpful if I can. There’s no in between. Usually, it’s either helpful or it’s like, ”Yeah, whatevs, sorry for you.” But really, there’s some criticism that is tremendously helpful. And there are some rejections that are tremendously helpful. So I try to take it in stride.

PF: Let’s talk about fashion. In 2017, you curated ”Items is Fashion Modern,” MoMA’s first fashion exhibition since Bernard Rudofsky’s seminal ”Are Clothes Modern?” that was held in 1944. Rather than focusing on clothes, you chose to explore items, stripping away the usual glamour and drama often associated with fashion. Yet, this approach didn’t diminish the significance of the clothes. In fact, it highlighted the role in society, allowing them to shine even more. It was a very interesting take on fashion. What criteria did you use to select the 111 items in the exhibition?

PF: Thank you for saying that. It was a wonderful show. First of all, it was not my idea. The idea of how it happened was mine, but it was the director of MoMA, Glenn Lowry, that wanted a fashion show because there had been the Alexander McQueen show at the Met. It had been such a success and so [he asked me] ”Paola do me a fashion show.” And I’m like ”You know, Glenn, I’m not a fashion curator.” And I’m very aware of that. So I said, ”I can do a design show with fashion as the subject.” That’s why it was items, because I tried to look at them as objects of design. So looking at the context, the materials, the impact they had on culture, and especially the impact they had on New York. So the criteria was items of clothing or accessories that had a very important influence on New York City or in the culture in New York, which pretty much reaches all the world in the past 100 years. I had the most wonderful curatorial team, I have to say, really great, great, great people. And together, we started making the list. We went from 400 – first, we wanted to have 99 – and then we had to raise it to 111. And since I want numbers that can be divided by three, so we got to 111. And 112 was the tube socks, I remember that was like cut out. But anyway, the criteria was really that, it was the impact, it was the ability of telling a story. What I feel is amazing about design is that you can always tell a story about every single object. So some of the objects were the Air Force One, so we talked about the I-95 corridor, the Baltimore-Philadelphia-New York corridor, and what happened with this whole revolution in culture. Then we had the burkini, we had the kippahs, we had the dashiki. We could talk about the Harlem dashiki, the interpretation. So every single object was a story. And the catalog was fantastic because every single object had a little mini essay. So in the end, it became a collection of stories that talked about New York and that really resonated with people. And the little black dress was there too, because of course, New York is the place where you can dress up and dress down at the same time. So it was, in the end, a joyful celebration of what it means to express yourself through clothing in a city that is as vibrant and as chatty as New York is. So that’s what I think really resonated with people. It was a different take on fashion.

PF: And how did the fashion world react to that?

PA: Well, it’s really fascinating because I got a sense of how the silos that we always talk about exist. So the exhibition was reviewed amply, like incredibly, but not by the fashion critics and the fashion writers, which maybe wanted to, but were not assigned that story by the desk. I know all the fashion critics, but they were not the ones that reviewed the show. So it’s funny, it’s very much New York that way.

PF: Fashion design and other forms of design, of course, are deeply interconnected. In the first issue of Domus Moda, May 1981 – the director back then was Alessandro Mendini – and in the editorial of the first issue, he was saying, ”Wouldn’t it be nice if architecture too had its fashion shows, a seasonal character, and changed like the patterns on a dress?” So Alessandro Mendini was saying fashion has something more than architecture and design, in a way. So, Paola, what can the world of design learn from fashion and vice versa?

PA: It’s very complex, because if you had spoken to me about this 15 years ago, I would have told you, ”Oh, so much”. There’s a rhythm. You change, you let people express themselves. But now that we’re so aware of the environmental cost of fashion, I’m not sure that I would be so lackadaisical and cavalier about it. So I think that we can still learn a lot about self-expression, about what really matters to people when it comes to form and aesthetics and pleasure. But I feel that at a time when so many architectural curators say that not building is architecture too, I feel that this kind of restraint is something that maybe fashion could learn from design and architecture. But it’s too complex and it’s too deep. 

We could talk for hours about the exchange that should happen among disciplines. I think that all disciplines have been transformed, not only by the COVID pandemic, which gave us this moment of reflection, but also from the catastrophes that are happening in the environment right now that are so blatant that cannot be dismissed. So I feel that it could be a great conversation to be had. I’ve been trying to push for Milan to not have a Salone del Mobile, but rather a Salone of Design that brings together all forms of design, including fashion and architecture, to have conversations that really span the whole scale. So that would be a great conversation to have.

PF: I didn’t know that, but before we started this recording, you told me that you kind of started your career in fashion, did you?

PA: I don’t know if I would call it a career. So I was 15 and I was going to high school in the center of Milan. My sister’s best friend’s mom was Armani’s PR. So I was every day finishing school, grabbing a piece of focaccia, walking a few blocks to Via Durini, where the Armani showroom was at that time. And for three years, I was an unpaid intern in the Armani PR. Maybe they paid me something, I don’t know, focaccia. But yeah, but it was great, I had an amazing experience. I really used Milan well.

PF: Let’s go back to design. What is the first design object you ever purchased?

PA: It’s so hard to remember because it could have been actually that piece of focaccia. I think that also food is a form of design. So when I think of design, it’s so pervasive of everything. I think that probably since I was a very, how can I say, food friendly kid, probably the first piece of design that I purchased was either figurine, to put in the album, or it was a piece of food.

PF: And have you ever thought of becoming a designer yourself?

PA: No. 

PF: Maybe an architect because you studied architecture.

PA: Yeah, I studied architecture, but I worked as an architect for like all of six months before realizing that no, I really sucked and it was not for me. So no.

PF: Not as interesting as being a curator.

PA: No, it’s much more fun. This way you get to criticize designers. And I also had Castiglioni as my teacher and I remember that he did not show me respect at all. That year, it was about means of transportation, so I decided to give him as a muscular energy form of transportation. And I’m not kidding you. Years before Nike did it, I had designed these sneakers with little springs that you could see, and he told me that they were like pathetic. He said they kind of sucked. And so then I made an exhibition on him, right, and then I had so much fun because I was like, not letting him do anything. I was just like putting him in his place, not letting him smoking the galleries of MoMA, just torturing him.

PF: In the past decade, design has begun to decentralize a little bit alongside major events in Milan, London, Paris, New York. Smaller design weeks and events have been flourishing worldwide. Small design weeks, festivals. Do you have a preference? Where do you see a stronger connection between design and societal change? Still in the big centers or maybe more in the peripheries of design?

PA: Of course, in the peripheries, frankly. Having all of these design weeks and design festivals is fabulous because they tend to deal with more local issues. And by doing so, they show how design is embedded in the way we live and in the way we can make progress happen. I’m thinking, for instance, Ljubljana has one of the best, I don’t know if it’s, I never know if it’s biennials or triennials, but BIO Ljubljana has been fantastic every year after year after year. I think that one of the last one was about the vernacular, so the idea of understanding what local culture is. It’s been really great. Gwangju in Korea is excellent. Even the Doha Biennale, Triennale, whatever it is, was excellent. There was a great exhibition about Arabic design today. So these, or Singapore, everywhere you go, you get to see what’s happening there. Now, of course, it’s also important to have the big centralized one. It’s good to have Milan, London is ebbing and flowing. It depends on the year but I think that having so many is fantastic because they really galvanize local people. Not all of them are visited by international design critics, but it’s okay, so long as the people understand the importance of design.

PF: And you have more time to understand also, as a visitor, you have more time also to talk to designers and you have deeper relationships, for sure.

PA: I’m sure you go to, they’re wonderful.

PF: Yes, absolutely. I agree with you totally, totally. Let’s talk a little bit about past and a little bit about the future. Many design companies, they focus on classics, probably for financial reasons: Masters, re-editions, or maybe old items, new colors. Sometimes it seems that the innovation is just there. How can we avoid being trapped by nostalgia?

PA: Nostalgia is good, it just depends on what you make of it. For instance, I don’t want to do any commercial endorsement because it’s prohibited by MoMA, but I like what Vitra has been doing by hiring Hella Jongerius first and now Sabine Marcelis. So even though I remember many years ago, I was very outraged – when I was still very much of a militant modernist – I was outraged by the fact that Vitra would change the color of the Eames furniture. Now I’m thinking it’s interesting. So to have a different color palette could be really a fascinating way to go. For instance, Zanotta right now took the Sacco, the beanbag chair, which is definitely my favorite piece of furniture ever, and made it with Bottega Veneta into these kind of like animals for children. And I know there are so many places, so many museums that want to have that for their children. So I think that it really depends. There are some staples of our design history that are so good that they deserve to be improved upon. When instead it’s nostalgia for the sake of nostalgia or exploitation of familiarity, people are not stupid, they kind of sense it, I don’t think that those items have longevity. And in general, furniture is not the epicenter of the world of design anymore and I feel that sometimes furniture manufacturers know it and become a little agitated with what they do, and they resort to this.

PF: Speaking of the future, you don’t consider yourself a futurologist, you’ve said that several times, but you are a big fan of science fiction. So do you use science fiction purely for entertainment, or do you find useful elements for your work as well?

PA: I definitely don’t use science fiction only for entertainment. It really informs what I do. But I don’t tell people ”Oh, do this, do that with science fiction”, because I think it becomes a little tedious. But there is some science fiction that is really useful. For instance, we just acquired in the MoMA collection, this video by Liam Young, that’s called “Planet City”. Planet City is a platform, it is a movie, but it’s also a whole theory. And it comes from E.O. Wilson, I’m sure you know, the scientist Half-Earth theory, the idea that to have some way forward, we should put all humans in one side of the Earth and the other side should be rewilded and left to nature. So Liam speculates this whole city for like, I think, eight billions or more for like all the population of the Earth and the rest is nature. The city is kind of joyful because there are all these people from all over the world, so there’s always some kind of like local celebration or festival, it’s always pervaded by festivals. And it really gives you a sense of a way forward, so science fiction has a lot of wisdom in it. Some of that wisdom we’ve seen realized. Of course, we always talk about the internet and about AI being just foreseen by a neuromancer. William Gibson maybe was a futurologist. I’m not, but I like to reflect on how things could be.

PF: And what is the future of design thinking?

PA: Design thinking has no future and I don’t want to talk about it. I hate design thinking! I always hated it and I’m glad it’s dead. No, seriously, whenever people were telling me, I think design thinking is to design what the scientific method is to science, so it’s the steps without any content. It became a recipe for consultants to make money. So…

PF: This is the kind of answer I was expecting from you anyway. So let’s talk about the future, but something that is more tangible. “Pirouette. Experiments and turning points in design” is the title of the next exhibition you’ll be curating at the MoMA opening in January 2025. First of all, the title is great.

PA: Oh, you like it?

PF: I love it! But tell me what’s going to happen in that exhibition.

PA: Well, as I mentioned before, I find objects really filled with power and with history and with story. There are some objects in particular that have changed the way we behave, they really have, completely, I would like to give them the pride of place that is usually missing in design shows, because all design curators, myself included, tend to make this accumulation of objects. We always are so feverish, we want to put as many things as possible. And instead, I would like to isolate people’s attention so that they can look at a Sony Walkman and understand what a revolution that was, when all of a sudden we could bring with us this bubble of metaphysical space, even if we were tight like herrings in a subway car, or the Macintosh 128K. All of a sudden we had this little pet, this little computer on the table at home, and it was not just something that happened at work. Or the Margiela Tabis, or it doesn’t have to be something that changes all of society, but it can be something that changes design and therefore it percolates, like Martino Gamper’s chairs that are made with all of these different components. So I want people to really focus on objects and understand each one without looking at the others. It’s an exhibition that treats all of the objects as stars, as étoiles in a ballet. It’s rather theatrical. It has curtains that really isolate them. It has an extended label that tells the story. That’s what’s going to happen in it. It’s a selection of objects that were turning points in our collective life.

PF: How do you organize all the material that you gather? Do you have a system, a method? Is it physical? Is it digital? Because I’m sure that also in the preparation of such a wide spectrum of things that you will involve in the exhibition, it takes time, but it also takes some kind of space somehow. So what’s your method for organizing knowledge?

PA: It’s chaotic, but digital. I bookmark things in 15 different platforms from Pinboard to Instagram to send myself emails to, it’s like it’s a gigantic mess, the Google Drive, etc. I make PowerPoints with everything I found. So it’s very chaotic, but it’s my method. I sift things down all digitally with people in my team, but then I go back to the cork board, it’s very funny. At some point, you have to go to the board with the pins – which I hate because they always hurt your fingers – to the physical model. It’s very funny. I’m an architect, I can imagine space, but when I’m having conversations, the model always helps. We go to Rhino, we go to PowerPoints and everything else and the model and the cork board and then back and forth, and then the galleries are the last barrier. But I always think spatially so I can start in a very wide way accumulating and then I start sifting by quality and then immediately I think of the galleries and I also get rid of even more.

PF: In preparation for the Parola Progetto events here in New York, I reached out to previous guests and asked them if they had questions for you.

PA: Oh, that’s so nice.

PF: Because I wanted to take them with me here in New York in a way.

PA: So I’ll take that idea to.

PF: Sure, absolutely. I’m happy! So questions for you, for Debbie Millman and Massimiliano Gioni, the next guests. I received so many responses and the following questions are just a selection of the questions that are just for you. The first question is from Alberto Cavalli, director of Fondazione Cologni and Homo Faber. And he’s asking, is the artisanal method of respecting traditional materials, small production, limiting waste to a minimum, a good alternative to the most innovative and sustainable materials?

PA: It’s not even an alternative, it is a sustainable methodology. I feel that artisanal methods are already in tune with so many centuries of our history, so they contain a wisdom that we might not have. And also, as a person, I don’t like the word consumer, I never use it. But as a citizen, as a person, when you adopt one of these objects, you feel a different kind of responsibility and you are more respectful and keep them for a longer time. So absolutely, we’ve been discussing the role of crafts in the collection of MoMA for a long time because MoMA was founded with this idea of the machine age and industrial production, so in a way, it’s about breaking with tradition. But craft is extremely important.

PF: Next question from Marco Sammicheli, director of Design Museum at La Triennale di Milano. What should never be missing in an exhibition to give visitors contents and emotion at the same time? Is, for example, good captions still a form of respect for your visitors?

PA: For sure, but it should happen before people get to the captions. I know from being in an art museum where people come to take their vitamins of Picasso and Matisse, I know that when you do a design show, you have to grab visitors immediately with some kind of attractive environment, like architecture and space. And then you get to the greatly written labels. So I completely agree. In every museum, there’s a label war going on always between the curator and the learning and engagement department and the editors. They give you only 100 words and you’re like, “How can I tell this story in 100 words?” “Oh, but visitors cannot read more.” And we think visitors can read much more if they want to. So this is always ongoing, but I do believe that you have to do everything well, but it has to start from the mise en scène.

PF: The next question is from Francesca Ragazzi, director of Vogue Italia. And of course, she asks, how would you describe the style of the visitors of MoMA? Is there a way to describe their style?

PA: Actually, we asked them to describe their style. When we did “Items”, we had this beautiful thing where we asked people to describe the way they were dressed without images. So exactly as we’re doing today so it was really funny. People were asked to describe themselves in 10 words, and then we would project those words on, they kept on rolling. It changes a lot because more or less 60% [of visitors] – I can’t remember the exact percentage – are tourists, and then there are the New Yorkers. The style changes a lot, the hours of visitation change a lot, and the attitudes change a lot. There’s such diversity that it’s better to catalog them. There was also this wonderful artist that unfortunately died way too young, Jason Polan. He had done this beautiful books with all the art at the Museum of Modern Art. He had sketched them quickly and also the visitors, and it was beautiful with these like few lines. He could capture so much and you could tell whether one was a New Yorker or not.

PF: Next question from Angelo Rinaldi, art director and deputy director at La Repubblica. Sometimes people say it’s wrong to copy. I can agree in principle, but if you copy something beautiful, as all great artists have done, you can become a multiplier of beauty. It’s also about the patience you invest in observing and the humility to recognize a master in order to learn. So the question is, do masters still exist today?

PA: Well, first of all about the copy, it’s great to copy. Just say that you copied and give credit to the original person.

Masters, well, my husband is a real estate broker. The main bedroom in a house used to be called the master bedroom. You cannot call it anymore because master is something that has to do with a hierarchy. Actually, it has to do also with slavery and it’s this idea of having this all powerful, usually white guy that would rule over everything. So I think it’s very healthy to think that there are not masters today. There are fabulously talented beings that inseminate, if you wish, or like fertilize or have or generate the world and reverberate with their ideas without gender, without any kind of arrogance and just putting it out there. I don’t know if it’s just something to dream, but I don’t think I would use the word masters anymore. Even architects and star architects, they are withering away.

PF: Next question from Luca Nichetto, designer. What is the role of collectible design in the broader design landscape? Has it replaced industrial design?

PA: I don’t know what he means by collectible. If he means the kind of design that is sold in galleries and that can be purchased only by art collectors that are a little bored and want an amuse-bouche, then yeah, it has a role. I’m not really interested in it, but it can still exist. I don’t think it can replace more than industrial, serially produced design simply because not everybody can afford it. And so the most beautiful thing would be to make very inexpensive objects collectible because of their beauty.

PF: Paola, it’s time for La Raffica.

PA: How do you translate La Raffica?

PF: La Raffica is bursts. La Raffica means burst. This is a classic segment of Parola Progetto.

PA: I’m scared now.

PF: Of course, you have to be. It features a rapid-fire set of 10 either/or questions. We’re looking for sharp answers.

PA: Okay, oh my god.

PF: But there are two bonuses. You can pass once and once you have the opportunity to elaborate.

PA: Okay.

PF: So you have these two bonuses.

PA: Okay. 10 questions.

PF: Can we start?

PA: Yeah.

PF: Anonymous design or design with a signature?

PA: Anonymous.

PF: Documentaries or movies?

PA: Movies.

PF: You have a free Tuesday all of a sudden. Stay home and read or head out into nature?

PA: Stay home and read.

PF: An impossible dinner, with Coco Chanel or Le Corbusier?

PA: Coco.

PF: Next live concert, jazz or classical music?

PA: Classical music.

PF: Next curation, an exhibition about deep space or deep sea?

PA: Oh, wow. Deep sea.

PF: Kitsch or chic?

PA: Chic.

PF: Nomadism or settling down?

PA: Nomadism.

PF: Milan Design Week as a biennale or two weeks of Milan Design Week?

PA: Two weeks of Milan Design Week.

PF: Are you sure?

PA: Yes, I am.

PF: Okay. A lot of people gasped here in the audience.

PA: No, I would love it actually. I was thinking about it. I was like, oh, fun. But I don’t need a hotel, so that’s why maybe I’m being very selfish.

PF: That’s a good point. Last question of La Raffica. Optimism or pragmatism?

PA: Let me elaborate, I can elaborate here. Neither. I like to be a pessimist because I like to be pleasantly surprised, so I don’t know what that is. But I’ve never been an optimist and pragmatism it’s like, what’s the point? So I like to be skeptical. So then it’s really optimism, but without saying it.

PF: Okay. Wow. Thank you. So La Raffica is over.

PA: Thank you.

PF: You did great.

PA: That was fun. Do you change the questions or you always use?

PF: Yes, I do.

PA: Ah, okay.

PF: They’re a bit different, because they’re toned [on the guest].

PA: Otherwise people would prepare.

PF: Of course. Sometimes they’re meaner. I haven’t been that mean today.

PA: That was not mean at all.

PF: Next time I’m going to be meaner. I’m sure there’s questions from the audience.

GUEST: Hi. You said that a show typically takes two and a half years to curate. Have there ever been times where the context of the theme of the show is completely different in a positive or a negative way?

PA: So two and a half years at MoMA. Elsewhere it can take less. It depends on the schedule, etc. Luckily, the themes that I choose tend to be elastic enough that I can kind of tweak them and they remain relevant. I have not had an instance where it completely flunked yet.

GUEST:  Hi. So if I understand correctly, you say that the epicenter of design is not furniture anymore. So simple question, what is now?

PA: There are many different epicenters. Furniture is still one of the epicenters [in] this idea of de-centering everything. We’re at Acurat, visualization design and information design is so important, so that is one. Then there is interface design, then there is all sorts of design of infrastructure. There are so many types of design that to think only of furniture is really so reductive. But I would like them to all have a discussion. When I say design, I also mean architecture, by the way. I consider architecture a branch of design. So really, there are so many different forms that could benefit from talking to each other that I find the furniture industry too isolated.

GUEST: Thank you for having this talk, wonderful talk. We just touched base on AI very shortly on ChatGPT. Maybe it’s a question a bit long to answer now in five minutes, two minutes. I wonder since, as you know, AI is influencing architecture and design enormously as we speak, we’re using it in order to evolve the profession of such a thing. Since you plan exhibitions in two years, three, five years, you already have something planned about how this technology is and will influence architects and designers in the curation world type of exhibition?

PA: Thank you for the question. I consider AI a tool, so I’m not planning an exhibition on the use of AI. I’m just taking into account the fact that it will be used, but I think that concepts can guide also how you do the exhibition. At MoMA, we had an exhibition not of design, but it was Refik Anadol. It was this installation that lasted for a year and I was part of it. It was generative AI, it was a real elaboration of the collection. It still will be alive and relevant five years from now, I believe, because the metadata that it was founded on and the concept that it was founded on was strong. The technology will migrate, we’ll have new computers and it will need to be adapted, but concepts guide technology, not vice versa. We’ll see what happens and we’ll take it into account when we’re at the exhibition time.

GUEST: It’s a question that has been asked a lot of times, so you can also roll your eyes if you want. But as we all know, AI is fueled by all of us. Digital world that goes into a mass that gets mathematized. So do you consider that participatory or do you consider that stealing? Stealing in a way, or like copying?

PA: When you told me that it was a question asked so many times, I was afraid you were going to ask me the difference between art and design. So thank you for not doing that. I have to say, this is a great question. I don’t think it’s participatory yet. I think it should be and hopefully, legislators will help us make that happen. So far, it’s been a lot of stealing. So you think it should be regulated? Oh, yeah, I think it should be regulated, of course, I do. Absolutely, and I think it will. I get this newsletter from MIT Tech Review, and it was talking about new tools to watermark your work. It’s like a rat race and a rabbit race. They catch you and you move, and they catch you again, and then you move, you keep moving. But it needs to happen. I don’t think it should be something that blocks every attempt. There should be a way found that gives compensation. I don’t know how it is. It cannot be like everything is blocked, but I think there should be regulation. Absolutely.

GUEST: You create an exhibition that has an incredibly broad public, from experts that have studied design for decades, to people that maybe it’s the first time they see design in their life. How do you make sure that it’s relevant for everyone in the field?

PA: It’s an excellent question. First of all, I believe that people are extremely smart, so I never feel that there’s that much of a difference between the expert and the non-expert, especially when it comes to design, because design is for the people. But I’m going to tell you something that is a little corny, but it’s true. I don’t have children, so I’m corny at a distance. The toughest people to design, to curate for are like 11-year-olds, 7 to 13-year-olds. I think of them because I’ve had some searing criticism from kids that really I curate for them. I make platforms and pedestals that are at their height, because if I do, they’re going to be also great for people that are on wheelchairs. And if somebody tall has to bend, so be it. I speak to them without using a silly language at all, actually quite the opposite. So in a way, having that kind of frame of reference makes it so that I reach pretty much everyone. I also curate exhibitions so that people can either walk through in five minutes or stay five hours, and it needs to make an impact anyway. It needs to be registered. That’s why we were talking also about how you do the mise-en-scene and how you do the design of the exhibition itself. I feel that if you always design for and curate for the highest common denominator, not the lowest, you kind of reach everybody.

PF:  You said something that is not obvious, because you don’t lower the level of your audience.

PA: Never.

PF: You elevate them.

PA: And it’s so nice when you’re somewhere and you don’t know a word and you have to look it up. People love to learn. That’s the label wars that I was talking about, that’s where they happen. I remember once somebody in the museum asking me to explain what “code” is in a label. And I’m like, ”Are you kidding me?” No, seriously. Sometimes it happens. Curators are always fighting with L&E people.

GUEST: You touched on 30 years and you kind of hit like the apex of your career, like of this, of curating design, going to the MoMA. I was wondering how you keep yourself motivated and what keeps you going to keep doing great work?

PA: Oh, keeping motivated. But it’s so easy. Seriously, life and the world outside keep me going. Sometimes I get dragged down by some bureaucracy, etc., but design is an inexhaustible source of interest. If you look at the world through design, you can never be bored. And that’s what I would like to try and share. People have come to recognize what is behind a movie, what is behind music. They know what a director of photography does, they know what a producer of a music piece does. I would like them to understand the same about design because it becomes as more layered and interesting as a piece of music or a movie does. So, truly, I’m so lucky that I’m in this field because it’s never-ending motivation.

PF: For the final question of the podcast, could you recommend a book that has been important to you and that we should also read?

PA: Only one?

PF: Only one.

PA: Well, you should also read.. Okay. You’ll be surprised. One of my very, very favorite books is ”The Emperor of All Maladies” by Siddhartha Mukherjee. It’s the history of cancer in history and it shows how you can talk about something as horrible as cancer in a riveting way by looking at it through history. You told me that I cannot recommend others, but it’s almost like talking about those books like ”Salt” [“Salt: A World History” by Mark Kurlansky] or ”Cod” [“Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World” by Mark Kurlansky]. I don’t know if you’ve read those, and that’s how I feel also about design. So, if you take one lens and you go through the world and through history with that lens, you can learn so much about the world. And that book is beautifully written and riveting. And it talks about humanity. It’s only one of the many books that I like that make us feel what we really are, which is specks in the universe of history and of the world and of the universe.

PF: Thank you, Paola.

PA: Thank you very much. This was fun. And thank you for being here.

Episode recorded in Brooklyn at Salotto NYC on October 22, 2024, and published on November 1, 2024.

The transcription was generated using artificial intelligence tools and subsequently edited by the author.

Copyright © 2024

All rights reserved. Reproduction, even in part, in any form or by any means, is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.