Installation view of title wall for the exhibition Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects

Many of the works featured in the exhibition Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects are represented on the title wall wallpaper as small, abstract pixel icons. Read more

I’m a big fan of words; letters and the written word to be a little more precise.  And not just the sound and meaning, but actual words—their physicality, their shape and form, and how they look. I have a nephew who was crazy for the letter “u”; specifically the lower case “u,” with serifs. Read more

Kacie Kinzer, Interactive Telecommunications Program, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. Tweenbots. 2009. Cardboard, paper, ink, batteries, motor, and wheels. Photo Credit: Kacie Kinzer

Many serious and portentous things could be said about the exhibition Talk to Me. I don’t intend to say any of them. Read more

Aaron Straup Cope of Stamen Design. Prettymaps, Manhattan. 2010. Polymaps, Mapnik, and TileStache software. Photo Credit: Stamen Design, base map data. © OpenStreetMap, CC-BY-SA

In the spirit of the exhibition Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects, we have invited a remarkable group of designers, thinkers, and writers to talk to us on the evening of October 18 and all day on October 19 at The Museum of Modern Art. Read more

Hobie Alter. Expert Model Hobie Surfboard, view of deck. 1958

In its August 1997 issue, Longboarder magazine ran a story on MoMA’s Hobie surfboard with the tag line “MoMA’s Got a Woody: Yes, But is it Art?” Fun hook, but perhaps the wrong question. The better question might be, why a surfboard? or better still, why this surfboard? Read more

Installation view of Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects at The Museum of Modern Art, 2011. Photo © Scott Rudd

The exhibition Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects is up and running in our Special Exhibitions Gallery on the third floor. The public is behaving just the way we dreamt they would, not only diving into individual exhibits, reading, taking pictures and videos, clicking and dragging, and listening, but also taking full advantage of the interactive features in the galleries and beyond. Read more

Creating designs that eventually disappear is both a relief and sad at the same time. It’s like rehearsing for a play for months and months, and then—poof!—the performance is over and only photos and memories are left. Exhibition graphics are similar. Read more

Raymond Loewy. Lawn Chef Portable Grill. c.1950. Galvanized and enameled steel. The Museum of Modern Art, Architecture and; Design Purchase Fund

I’ve been thinking about how the Fourth of July is as much a monument to summertime culture as to the ideals of equality, and what a disappointment it would be if Independence Day didn’t happen in the summer. Read more

Installation view of Holding Pattern by interboro Partners, winner of the 2011 Young Architects Program, 2011. Digital rendering courtesy of Interboro Partners

Each year, MoMA renews its commitment to experimental architecture and architectural display with a full-scale installation of a project chosen from a competition among virtually untried architects. In the galleries of the Museum, architecture collection masterworks and temporary exhibitions of computer- and hand-drawn architectural renderings, models, photographs, and films are regularly shown. But each year the outdoor spaces of MoMA PS1 provide a unique temporary outdoor gallery where emerging talents can turn projects and drawings into spaces and palpable experiences. Read more