Word: scandinavianism
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...dazzling exhibit sheds fresh light on Scandinavian modern...
...smart newlyweds of a generation ago, their home, the first rung on the ladder of upward mobility, was almost inevitably furnished with "Danish modern," complete with Marimekko textiles, stainless-steel cutlery and plain white tableware. There was no better way to show modernity. Recently, however, modern Scandinavian design seems to have vanished from public awareness in the U.S. Much of it has been poorly adapted and absorbed by U.S. mass culture. In addition, it is no longer modern to be modern...
...Scandinavian Modern: 1880-1980," the dazzling exhibition that opens this week at New York City's Cooper-Hewitt Museum, hits us, therefore, like a massive surprise attack. Some 330 masterworks of furniture, ceramics, glass, metalwork and textiles show that Scandinavian design is not so much a style as a visual morality, a powerful force for beauty and meaning. Nor is the modern mode of Scandinavian design frozen into an abstract machine aesthetic. It is a creative way of meeting changing practical and emotional needs. Seen in this context, Danish modern is fresh, exciting and timeless. Like Finnish Architect Alvar...
...Cooper-Hewitt, which is the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Design, has organized and displayed this exhibition with its usual flair. Scandinavian design, says the museum's sumptuous exhibition catalogue (published in hard cover by Harry N. Abrams, Inc.; $45), "scatters flowers before your feet and lays the pale colors and mild beauty of the Nordic summer before your eyes. Less apparent is the truth that this sunny effect is achieved against a background of darkness, cold, ice and snow...
...intransigence may be shortsighted, but it is understandable. To be sure, Scandinavian countries are making a go of punishments other than prison. But the U.S. has a murder rate five times that of Denmark, 19 times Norway's. In the U.S., an inmate stands a 1-in-3,300 chance of being killed during a year in prison, but the appalling fact is that the average black man outside prison faces about twice the risk (1 in 1,700). Those data do not argue against figuring out new kinds of punishments. They do explain why people in this country...