Dysfunctional

Must form still follow function, as Martin Gropius, Le Corbusier, and their followers proclaimed? Dysfunctional invites a reconsideration of the conventional relationship between artistic expression and functionality. In an exhibition organized by the Carpenters Workshop Gallery in the stunning setting of the Ca'd'Oro in Venice, site-specific works by 17 established and emerging artists explore the boundaries of art, architecture, and design. These contemporary artists draw on the rich heritage of Venetian craftsmanship and the museum's exceptional collection of Italian masterpieces to create a meaningful dialogue about the 20th century mantra of form following function. With work located in the realm between craft and art, each of the artists in the show challenges preconceptions about what is beautiful and what is useful, what is historical, and what is modern. Included here are site-specific installations and furniture-sculpture by Nacho Carbonell, Studio Drift, Vincent Dubourg and Virgil Abloh, organic benches by Wendell Castle and Mathieu Lehanneur, and inhabited clocks by Maarten Baas, among others.

Glenn Adamson is a curator and writer who works at the intersection of craft, design history and contemporary art. Former director of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York and head of research at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, he is currently a senior scholar at the Yale Center for British Art. He is the author of numerous publications including Fewer Better Things: The Hidden Wisdom of Objects, 2018, The Invention of Craft, 2013, The Craft Reader, 2010, all published by Bloomsbury. He contributes regularly to Art in America, Crafts, Disegno, Frieze, Antiques magazine and other publications.