Masters in Design Criticism
Just by chance, we decided to drop in on an event that caught my eye yesterday. It was a reading at KGB bar in the East Village arranged by the new MFA in Design Criticism at SVA. The topic was food and 3 professors from the new department read their criticism from a podium near the bar. To my surprise the Senior Curator of the Design Dept in MoMa, Paola Antonelli was there and she read her article on Pasta, Paul Lukas read about the butcher meat chart design, and Akiko Busch read about the vegetable peeler, which we missed since we arrived after her reading. Overall I thought is was a great idea that should be carried over to art criticism. I mean, wouldn’t it be so much different if the art critics would have to face a crowd and read their criticism? I would figure that it would make critics a bit more conscious of their writing given the fact that it would be presented in front of a live audience, an audience who can immediately react to their words or not.
I also happen to be watching CoolHunting the other day when again, Paola Antonelli was in one of their videos, a video discussing “Design and the Elastic Mind”, her recent curatorial project at the MoMa. I didn’t mention this earlier but I think she will also be teaching in the department, this just adds to the list of heavy weights over at SVA. By the way, the department is still accepting applicants for fall 2008. And I think that the next DCrit reading will be at the end of June , check back on their website for more info. (I almost forgot to mention, there is a big conference on Design, The Arts and The Political being held in October at SVA. More about that later)