IKEA on Acid

NYC – You expect to be wowed by a design exhibit 13 years in the making, particularly when it promises to deliver provocative home décor that challenges the way people think about everyday objects like the toilet. But Simply Droog doesn’t live up to expectations.

The Dutch design exhibition, which opened Sept. 21 and runs through Jan. 14 at the Museum of Arts and Design in Manhattan, certainly has its gems, but overall feels disjointed and complicated. The show features some 150 pieces – ranging from dishware to patio furniture to a toilet made out of silicon. Several of the installments incorporate audio and video: a coffee machine talks; a video of a woman scrubbing a floor plays on a TV screen; Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” floats out of speakers next to an idle record player. The exhibit comes with a small, 35-page booklet. Reading this is absolutely essential to understanding each installment.

The exhibit is the brainchild of designer Gijs Bakker and art historian Renny Ramakers. In 1993, the duo started Droog Design in the Netherlands – an ongoing collaboration that aims to pull together the work of mostly European designers with similar styles and philosophies.

Droog designs are intended to be simple, austere and clever. (“Droog” means dry in Dutch; think dry wit.) Many also have a social, political or environmental message. For instance, one of the show’s star pieces is artist Tejo Remy’s “Rag Chair,” a rocker made of tightly stacked and bound flannel shirts, floral tablecloths and other textiles you might find at a thrift store. The message is, of course, that adaptive reuse can generate good design.

The exhibit’s most eye-catching piece is a small red and white staircase. Each of the four stairs is marked with the calories spent walking up them (0.004 calories per stair; who knew?). The most thought-provoking installment features a mannequin covered in labels plucked off designer clothing, accompanied by a video of a woman unraveling a ribbon of labels wrapped around her nude body. As for the oddest object, the crown goes to the Rubik’s Cube-sized block of dried cow manure (a commentary on Netherlands’ dung problem).

Overall, in Simply Droog, it’s hard to know what to take seriously and what to pass off as fun and whimsical. In one moment, you’re studying a rather blasé porcelain pitcher, and in the next, an absurd bathroom sink made out of felt. The intended spirit of the show is functionality – you can even buy reasonably priced replicas of several items in the museum gift shop – but many of the pieces seem purely conceptual. I, for one, won’t be displaying the “Artificial Houseplant” – a mound of folded rubber with floppy green spikes—anywhere in my home.

The exhibit does present some thought-provoking and innovative pieces that give new meaning to ordinary objects. But the collection as a whole feels a little too tripped out. Simple and dry, Simply Droog is not.

For more info, visit the
Museum of Arts & Design.
(JM)