Acquired! Shaping the National Design Collection | Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

EXHIBITION

Acquired! Shaping the National Design Collection

March 16 - September 2, 2024

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York City

This March, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum will present “Acquired! Shaping the National Design Collection,” an exhibition highlighting how the museum acquires new work to shape the collection to better reflect current issues and design’s evolving role in daily interactions. Presented on the second-floor galleries, the exhibition will feature more than 150 works, including objects that represent the museum’s collecting legacy, as well as works brought into the collection since 2017 that demonstrate what it means to be a design museum today.

Jay Sae Jung Oh’s Savage Chair (2021) is highlighted, composed of found household objects and discarded everyday items that she has meticulously bound together and laboriously hand-wrapped in leather cord.

“What design meant in the late 19th century when Cooper Hewitt’s collection was started is not what design means now. That’s why our collection continues to grow and change as new works and ideas that better define our times are added to it,” said Maria Nicanor, director of the museum. “The entirety of the collection, with both historic and new acquisitions interwoven together, allows Cooper Hewitt to tell more nuanced stories about who we are. Sometimes those stories will embrace the past and sometimes they will confront it to help inform our possible futures.”

Savage Chair | 2021 | Image courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Savage Chair | 2021

Savage Chair | 2021