Cooper Hewitt Museum Review
The Cooper Hewitt Museum is situated Uptown on East 91st Street right next to Central Park. Roughly an hours commute from my humble dwellings in the East Village, but worth the trip to a cleaner, less crazier and fresher aired area of New York. Upon arrival at the Cooper Hewitt the entrance door was closed with two women sitting outside on plastic chairs, took me a while to realise that was the entrance and they were in fact checking Id’s,Vaccination cards and tickets. They had free entry for students which was quite a surprise as not much comes free in this city. It wasn’t the most clear entry and did seem somewhat uninviting.
Although that did change because the big front doors open up directly onto the Willi Smith Exhibition. Willi Smith was an American Fashion designer (1948 – 1987) whom merged fashion with other artistic mediums including film, avant-garde performance, design and art. All of which were displayed through out the exhibition which meant there was never a dull moment and always something to catch ones eye, a tactical design element by the curators of the exhibition. The displays were rather hectic but in fact it worked due to bold and loud aesthetics of Willi Smiths work. Unfortunately what was also hectic but not in a good way was the space its self. In terms of space, it was a lot smaller than most of Cooper Hewitts exhibitions but unfortunately was the busiest. I wasn’t there during a peak hour, so if it was busy for me at 4:00 on a Thursday, I can’t imagine the carnage in there on the weekends. I feel as though the curators could have took this in consideration more and swapped the space with a less popular exhibition from the Museum. There was slight comfort in one of the rooms which allowed a bench for you to sit and watch one of the films, of course this was great but it did prohibit flow of the room and created a bit of a build up of people trying to get into the space. What was very notable about the exhibition and something I have not seen before in any other exhibitions else where, was upon leaving the exhibition before you enter the gift shop you walk through an Archive area. It had all the books on display which were used for research for curation of the exhibition which you were allowed to touch / read, there was an interactive TV which offered a digital version of the research and fora more permanent element a QR code that once scanned would take you to a page of the same information.
The other exhibition to note was the “Suzie Zuzek For Lilly Pulitzer: The Prints That Made The Fashion Brand” on the 2nd floor on the Museum. Suzie Zukek was the relatively un known print designer for fashion designer Lillu Pilitzer from 1962 to 1985. The prints are very bold, vibrant colours, detailed and whimsical. Greatly contrasting with the dark and Erie space of the museum, thus bringing in the audience and creating a warmer environment with the loud prints. Compared to the Willi Smith exhibition, this space was far larger making it easier to roam about and far more accessible to look at all the pieces up close. I used this time to create do a sketch inspired by 2 of Zuzek’s prints whilst peacefully sitting on one of the many benches on offer completely undisturbed. My drawing is displayed below. There was a huge table in the centre of the space with Zuzek’s original screen prints and it also displayed her physical wooden screen print she used to create these pieces. I thought having that on display really helped emphasise the hand made and technical element of her designs. There were two attaching rooms which fed off Zuzek’s floral prints that were about Flowers called “Nature by Design: Botanical Lessons and Expressions”. This demonstrated different mediums of art including sculpture, pottery, china, furniture, quilts all based around the theme of flowers.
Throughout the rest of the museum I noticed many interactive displays, one of which you could create your own textile design that would then be displayed on a huge screen and were also able to email the design to yourself for keeping. There was a TV showing the history of the building before it was converted in to a museum, which again had a QR code if you wanted to read through it all at a later date. There were plenty of hand sanitisers discretely placed around the museum creating the comfort of a clean environment during our covid era. The staff were very friendly and chatty which was lovely as more often then not one feels on edge in museums in fear your about to get told of for something. The vast variety of collections, pieces and exhibitions at the Cooper Hewitt was very impressive because they differentiate greatly from each other it must help to generate a range of audiences visiting the museum.
