OBJECTS ALIVE
A review of Resting Places Living Things: Designs by Michael Cross
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Kansas City, Missouri
October 18, 2008 — April 5, 2009
Michael Cross, "Resting Places Living Things" installation view in the Project Space gallery of the Bloch Building at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. Visitors may walk on the waving floor and interact with other works, which will be on display through April 5. "Flood" is visible at the far right, and "Lunuganga" on the rear wall at left. Image: courtesy of the museum
Today we expect many of our gadgets to multitask. Think of the cell phone — sometimes it’s also a camera, an mp3 player, a Web browser, or a global positioning system. Why can’t it be a work of art as well? That question, it seems, is in the back of Michael Cross’ mind when designing his functional household objects.
The young English designer has articulated that his goal is not to make better versions of objects as they already are, but to consider “how they might be entirely something else.”* In the sparse but engaging exhibit, Resting Places Living Things: Designs by Michael Cross, shelves, light fixtures, tables, and chairs ride a fine line between being utilitarian objects and objects of aesthetic contemplation.
Setting the stage for an experience that defies expectations, viewers are encouraged to take trapezoidal cards that ask questions rather than offer the usual explanatory text. And an undulating wood floor, specially built for this show in the Project Space of the Bloch Building, physically throws viewers off balance.
Flood is the electrifying main attraction. Considered simply, the glass cylinders containing light bulbs and tangles of brightly colored wire immersed in water are just lamps. More than providing a source of light, however, these lamps tickle the imp on our shoulder that delights in the hazardous cocktail of electricity and liquid. Created in collaboration with Julie Mathias, whom Cross met at the Royal College of Art in London while pursuing his master’s degree, this delicious display is possible through a hush-hush technical trick.
Seeming to grow in and out of the gallery walls, Lunuganga presents an understated beauty. Inspired by the vegetation in the garden of the influential Sri Lankan architect, Geoffrey Bawa, shelves and hangers appear in the form of twisting, white polyurethane tree branches. Propped up and hung on the branches are journals and stuffed animals. In much the same way Bawa’s architecture blurred the distinction between outside and inside, Cross’ design brings a little wilderness into civilization.
"Could a table grow like a child?" asks nearby wall-text about this Cross design a young museum visitor is investigating. Image: courtesy of the museum
Providing a welcomed punch of intense yellow, a classroom desk showcases its functional flexibility along with its sculptural intrigue. A gently curved belly under the lift-lid desktop doubles as a storage compartment; metal legs with industrial machine characteristics allow for height adjustment. Text on a nearby wall asks: “Could a table grow like a child?”
Regrettably, another table fails to sweep viewers away from the safe and ordinary. Mounted on what look like two sawhorses, a pristine tabletop is interrupted only by a rutted hollow at one end. A companion stool likewise provides little reprieve.
Although finding an indent in the surface of a table falls short of riveting, discovering intentionally caused pockmarks in the gallery walls does not. Wall text anthropomorphizes the architecture by asking: “Do walls hold memories?”
Overall, there could have been fewer branch shelves and more variety of works from Cross’ oeuvre. For instance, it would have been fun and interactive to include Sprinkle, a carpet composed of hundreds of independent tufts you throw on the floor in random patterns. -re-
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