Cold War Kids

Jose Ruiz, Placemakers.

This is a goofy conceit for a show. Sure, you might attribute design in the second half of the twentieth century to Cold War competition. Or you might also say that the world's two superpowers wound up designing a lot of the great design in the second half of the twentieth century. To prove that the Cold War prompted a design arms race, you need to identify an ideological component, communist or capitalist. One is especially evident on the Soviet side in the first half of the twentieth century and sort of evident on the Western side in the second half of the twentieth century, but not strongly or simultaneously evident at any point. Only the space race really counts toward this thesis, and how many of the objects manufactured by the space race do you count as design alongside an Eero Aarnio chair? Sputnik—fine. What else?

Meanwhile, this exhibit was to follow "Postmodernism" at the Corcoran, for a design hat trick ("Modernism," "Postmodernism," and "Cold War Modern"). As I'm told, plans for that show are dead in the water.

UPDATE: The Corcoran's press director Kristin Guiter writes in to say that the museum never had plans to show "Cold War Modernism." (My source says that at one point this plan was in the works.) Guiter also notes that I have not interviewed curator Sarah Newman or Corcoran officials about "Postmodernism." (That is correct. I am told that plans for that show are frustrated. The Corcoran's Web site reads: "Currently, Newman is working on an exhibition of contemporary British painting as well as a major exhibition on Postmodernism, scheduled for 2011.")