Joey Huaiyu Dong
Professor Eric Wilson
PUFY 1011 Int. Seminar 2: Fashion
22 February 2017
Analysis of the Pillola Suite of Lamps
When I first came across the “Energizing the Everyday” exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt Museum, the Pillola Suite of Lamps immediately intrigued me. This exhibition consists of gifts from the George R. Kravis II Collection. It mainly showcases day-to-day objects with great design that enhances people’s lives at home, workplace, as well as during travel and leisure. The objects are organized in various groups, according to their theme, time period, and materials. Together as a whole, a strong connection across time and geography is well demonstrated. We can clearly see how design and technology enhance the society to move forward and improve people’s lives.
The suite contains five lamps in total. The lamps all have the same oblong shape of prescription pill while they are much bigger than life-size. The upper parts of the lamps are white, while the lower parts have different bold, saturated colors: yellow, red, blue, emerald green and white. The lamps are fully covered by a layer of thin, transparent ABS plastic and acrylic and all have a small, transparent base made of plastic as well. The plastic material on the surface demonstrates a beautiful smooth and reflective quality, and creates a beautiful light outline for the shadow. In the exhibition, the lamps were bent in different angles and were casting rhythmic shadows of varying levels of darkness. According to the captions in the museum, these angles demonstrated the haphazard look of pills accidentally dropped. There is a vertical line made up of little circles on the lamps and a white cord attached to each lamp. The suite is innovative, clean and undeniably elegant.
One big question that I had when looking at this object was whether it was designed for home use or just for display. For this essay, I imagine that it is placed in a home in the late 1960s. The owner is probably a white male among the affluent or middle class youth. He is from Italy since I pick 1960s when the suite of lamps first came out. He probably loves hippie culture, is not a main-stream person at that time and is proud of being different. He is ironic about consumerism and the mass produced modernism design and was very interested in the “anti-design movement”. He listened to the Beetles, took drugs and embraced the old slogan of free love and sex.
In my opinion, this suite of lamps is very important in the owner’s house. On one hand, it functions as lamps and is used on a daily basis; on the other hand, it also symbolizes the belief against consumerism and the design norms of the owner. These lamps are representative of Italy’s anti-design movement from of the mid-1960s and 1970s. According to Sparke, the anti-design movement is a protest against the design formalism which characterized the Italian design movement in the early 1960s.[1] It is a post-modern critique of modernism. As Martland analyzed, “When modernism became established and henceforth the new generation of artists considered it to be ‘academic’”[2] .The designers of these lamps, C. Emanuele Ponzio and Casare Casati, are clearly among this “new generation of artists”. And the suite of lamps must also be placed in the home where the owner is bored with the “beautiful” modern design of dull colors. Because the original idea of modern design gradually became a marketing tool in Italy. Object were mass produced for mass consumption for mass media. “Anti design” movement was among the post modernism range and was idealistic and ironic at the same time. This suite of lamps demonstrates the features of anti design very well.
The pills are extremely oversized which links to the ironic scale distortion of anti design. The design shows a deliberate “bad taste” by its straight forward pill look and minimalistic elements. There is barely anything other than the necessary base and cord attached to the lamps. The color palette is also bold and striking. While modernism embraced dull colors which mainly consists of black, white and grey, post modernism usually go with emphasized saturated colors in order to show the opposition.
Another important thing I noticed is the design focus: drugs. The designers were apparently trying to address some social issues rather than focusing solely on the pure functional value of the lamps. The imagined owner of the lamps might be a drug addict or super into the rebellious mystical hallucination of drugs. In 1960s, drugs (marijuana, LSD and other recreational drugs) forms an important sub culture. It was a time when the typical bad connotations of drugs are shifted towards the middle. Drug abuse became extremely popular among psychedelic rock musicians such as Pink Floyd and the Beetles. Many people at that time are unaware of the danger of drugs. In my opinion, this Pillola Suite of Lamps is criticizing people’s dangerous fantasy towards drugs. However, it might be portrayed as a celebration of drug hallucination by its owner at that time. It is very ironic to imagine a hippie drug addict was staring at the lamps, feeling proud of its unique appearance, while the designers were actually trying to criticize him. In addition, this suite is also culturally channeled to other pill inspired pop artwork including works of Claes Oldenburg and Andy Warhol. They all depicted pills in an oversized, humorous and sarcastic way.
To conclude, the Pillola Suite of Lamps was important in its cultural context and demonstrated both functions and symbolism. It showed support to the anti-design movement against consumerism and the design norms in Italy and ironic attitude towards the drug subculture.
Bibliography
- 1. Sparke, Penny. “The Straw Donkey: Tourist Kitsch or Proto-Design? Craft and Design in Italy, 1945-1960.” Journal of Design History11, no. 1 (1998): 59-69. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1316163.
- Martland, T. R. “Post-Modernism: Or What’s Become of Us, Tarzan?” The Antioch Review49, no. 4 (1991): 587-98. doi:10.2307/4612467.