What’s Happening: A new show at Cooper Hewitt traces how attitudes toward design have evolved over time. From a niche pursuit boxed into the decorative arts to a continuously evolving field leveraging technological advances to address burning existential questions, the exhibition illustrates how objects of design can help us better understand moments in history.

The Download: As technology has progressed and new methods of creation have emerged, the word “design” hardly means the same thing today as it did centuries ago. Blueprints for buildings are no longer drawn in the sand or carefully traced on parchment with a quill; though few may admit to it, some architects are encouraged to use text-to-image AI programs like DALL-E 2 and Midjourney to spark early ideas for projects. Despite these shifts, objects of design can help better make sense of moments in history. That’s one of the takeaways from “Acquired! Shaping the National Design Collection,” at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, which has amassed holdings of 215,000 objects from around the world.

The evolution of design is immediately clear upon entry, where two objects—a 3D-printed model of a coronavirus particle and a turquoise cup from ancient Egypt, the most recent and earliest objects in the collection—are presented side by side. Even when the museum was founded, in 1897, its curators focused primarily on design from a decorative standpoint, dividing objects into textiles, wall coverings, prints and graphic design, or product design and decorative arts. Those categories provide a foundation but hewed largely to the ultra-wealthy and overlooked the impact of everyday objects on day-to-day life.

On that note, the show highlights the Cooper Hewitt curators’ shift in perspective over time. Last year, the museum expanded its holdings with a new section dedicated to digital design. It encompasses everything from websites (e.g. The Watercolor Map) and inclusive emojis to Tokujin Yoshioka’s printable, easy-to-make face mask. One standout is The Substitute, a video projection that depicts the virtual creation of a life-size male northern white rhino, the last of which died in 2018. Using AI, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg rendered the rhino as a blurry mass of pixels that gradually transforms into a lifelike specimen pacing around a white cube. The footage questions our role in mass extinction—and proves design’s potential to transcend the purely decorative and address the most urgent questions of our time.

In Their Own Words: “I’m interested in a very expansive definition of design that takes into account aesthetics and functionality, but also systems,” Maria Nicanor, the museum’s director, tells Fast Company. “I’m as interested in an 18th-century teacup as I am in highway infrastructure for the whole entire country—both things are designed.”

Surface Says: As Nicholas de Monchaux writes, the definition is shifting from the search for more beautiful shapes to the shaping of a more beautiful world.

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Jean Pelle recalls wandering through fruit farms and wet rice fields with hilly forests during her upbringing in a small South Korean town. “My father would bring his camera on our long walks,” she says, “and make my brothers and I pose in the tall grasses or thickets of the pine trees.” These vivid memories stayed with her, even decades after immigrating to the U.S. and launching the Brooklyn lighting and furniture design studio Pelle with her husband, Oliver. Now, thanks to a collaboration with her close friends and neighbors, the wall coverings mainstay Calico Wallpaper, she’s translating her father’s old photographs into an entirely new medium.

The collection, appropriately called Memoir, recalls the lush landscapes embedded in Pelle’s memory. Each of the six patterns represent scenes from her childhood, from the rich textures of tall pink-and-white cosmos flower beds to swaying grassy hills and dense pine forests. They were developed from drawings she made using oil pastels—a medium she gravitated to as a child. “I’m thrilled that together with Calico Wallpaper, we can bring these vivid memories and snapshots of the South Korean landscape to life,” she says. “It’s a large-scale representation of the albums my father put together of rich textures and memories of my first home.”

Last week, the art museum helped the multidisciplinary artist ring in a career first with the opening festivities for “Mickalene Thomas: All About Love.” The show, which will later reach London’s Hayward Gallery and the Barnes Foundation, is Thomas’s first international touring exhibition. In keeping with the magnitude of such a monumental career moment, the museum partnered with Dior to stage opening night festivities that included a DJ set by Linafornia, and a performance by Getting Better Every Day, choreographed by Thomas’s cousin Indigo Pascall.

When was it? May 23

Where was it? The Broad, Los Angeles

Who was there? Isolde Brielmaier, Law Roach, Aurora James, Lauren Halsey, Catherine Opie, Jeffrey Deitch, Yara Shahidi, Derrick Adams, Shantell Martin, Shaun Ross, Quinta Brunson.

When: Until July 31

Where: 10 Corso Como, Milan

What: Whatever you do, don’t call the Japanese designer’s 25-look exhibition at 10 Corso Como a retrospective. And, despite the show’s future-focused name, curator Alessio de’ Navasques emphasizes the designer’s “ambivalent and poetic relationship with time.” As a result, the show spans place, period, and theme, with influences ranging from French couture tailoring to Japan’s post-war years, shibari, and his characteristic celebration of the female form in his first show in Italy in nearly 20 years.

Arguably the chicest new launch in the refillable candle arena comes from the fashion crowd’s favorite summer label, Cult Gaia. The names and fragrances of each of the three candles, Mast, Zan, and Noor, are inspired by the Farsi language and Persian heritage of founder Jasmin Larian Hekmat, and are sold with sculpted travertine stone vessels. Once it burns through, reach for a refill in the same scent—or switch it up. From $58

Since 2016, Wrensilva has been producing handbuilt HiFi record consoles coveted by both design and audio connoisseurs alike. Rooted at the intersection of high design and technological innovation, Wrensilva sets a new standard for the home music experience. All Wrensilva consoles are made in San Diego with the finest American hardwoods and carefully selected materials.

Surface Says: HiFi purists know the importance of sound, but Wrensilva goes a step further by making console tables that also look worthy of your favorite records.

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