The Layman's Almanac

David McFadden

Currently the Chief Curator at the Museum of Art and Design in New York City, David McFadden has served as Curator of Decorative Arts at the Cooper-Hewitt; published over 90 books, articles, and reviews; received the Wittenborn Prize for Scandinavian Modern Design; been awarded the Presidential Design Award for Excellence three times; has been Knighted in Finland and Sweden; and received the Chavalier de l'Ordres des Arts et des Lettres by the Republic of France.

At the Museum of Art and Design in New York City.

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DM: Having the freedom in industrial design to seamlessly integrate 3 different skills and perceptions: craft, art, and design. That makes every aspect of design healthier too because you're bringing in the best of those worlds. I think people in general are very interested in things that are made well, and that there is a process involved, not just mass-produced stuff.

LA: What is your process as a curator and how has it changed since you started?

DM: My process is look at everything I can see. Try to meet as many artists, preferably in their own studios and talk to them about what they're doing. I do spend a lot of the time surfing the net, looking at interesting things. So every now and then you can put your finger on something very timely. If the time is right to do it, it has to be done fast or it's going to be too late.

LA: How do you get in touch with an artist, or do artists get in touch with you?

DM: There's a lot of cold calls (incoming), and a lot of cold calls on my part. Find their websites, or find them on Facebook, and I've done research on various shows on Facebook. You often find people in a catalog, and maybe the (total) work isn't good enough or just not right, but when you sift through that... and since the Cut Paper show, that whole file (a large cabinet next to David's desk) is filled with about 300 portfolios about paper that have been sent to me since that show. I pulled out 80 artists, that I think are first rate, and they're all contacting me now. Even just today, I received a letter about someone who was interested in the Cut Paper show, and wanted us to be aware of her work. She models it on her own computer, then cuts it out of paper. So it's the process I found fascinating. They find me, I find them, if you announce that you're doing a show on the internet, things just start running, and people tell each other.

The process twenty-five years ago meant that you did painstaking work in libraries, you had to travel everywhere to see everything, visit artists. Now if I write to someone, I'm basically in their studio, we're having a conversation reading an email, sending pictures back and forth, doing catalogs, it's a different world with digital photographs. Any good artist will already have high-resolution photos. We used to have to commission the artist first, (and) then hire a photographer, say the artist lived in Denver, had to fly the photographer out. It got really expensive. Books have become cheaper to do. And we have had some pressure from some people to go to ebook. But art and exhibition people don't want to. An ebook is for information. An exhibition book is for a feeling, a feeling and recollection of what the exhibition was about. And I think that's overall one of the key words, I've been making a list of key words that are important in the design world today, and I think this idea of emotion is really important. And your relationship with things, whether it be books, or furniture, emotion can be about memory, it can be about humor, all of these things, emotion is important.

LA: Has technology changed the way you conduct business?

DM: For me, it's been very positive. It allows me to do everything I want to do more efficiently, and quicker, but everybody spends so much time on the computer, in front of a screen, people really love to use the other half of their brain, which is often hands on. Maybe it's cooking, gardening, people learning to knit, people learning how to make stuff. And the phenomenon of Etsy, it's incredible. So I think that's the other half of the head, it's about the tangible, not just the virtual. Technology has been important in how we underscore how important it is to keep both aspects of your own life going.

I'm trying to think of any writers or thinkers who are having any direct effect on your generation. Popular culture, in general is just so pervasive. People get so much of what they think out of quick flashes, sound bites out of the television, and I think if there's one downside to this cultural phenomenon, or whatever you want to call what we're going through, is that there's a superficiality that we have to overcome; where it sounds interesting, but 5 minutes later, you've forgotten it. So I think the long-term memory may not be something that's important to your generation. And that may change, when you get into your 30's, 40's, 50', who knows.

Even the way people learn today, even in grade school, you used to memorize stuff, and very few people memorize things now. I mean, I don't know how it all will pan out, but we know that the need for people who create stuff is not going to go away. And however it amounts itself in art and design, it's still going to be around, just like a certain degree with Milton Glaser, it's something you know. You can't forget it, you take it for granted every now and then, you walk through the city, and then something visually strikes you. It happens every day I watch the sun go down 5th Avenue, it turns into this light power at the other side of the park. It's absolutely beautiful. So that once a day is my little fix.

LA: What experiences from your past helped formed how you work today?

DM: One of the humbling experiences after working in a museum and was taking my first class in pottery making. I was so humbled, I couldn't tell you what to do. I walked out of that classroom, and said, I finally understand what people go through, because I couldn't do it, and it was sort testing the limits. It was a memorable experience because it gave me a tremendous amount of respect for the skills that people who make things develop. And then there's always mentors, the people you have around you that inspire you, and challenge you, and bring up interesting questions can make a huge difference.

Actually to get ideas, I watch television. You can pick up on so many little interesting trends or ideas. It's a very quick turnaround for something in culture or trends to appear in a sitcom. Amazing how you see clothing changes, or the way people treat interiors, what things get emphasized, so I think any good designer is pouring over anything they can get their hands on. I remember the first version of Miami Vice, and the colors, incredible. No one had seen interiors, carpeting, and such, done in that much intense color. I think it generated a lot of interest in a lot of industries to rethink their color system, and certainly the clothing market. It's a developed skill, looking at the world around you and trying to gleam information from it.

LA: Does humor play into your process?

DM: Every show I feature a few artists who have a quirky approach. I love hearing people laugh in a gallery. I'm not one who is drawn to conceptual art, because it's so cerebral. It's all thought and not really about the process and seeing and looking and having a reaction. That includes fun, sadness and all these other emotions that a work of art can bring out. To me that is really important.