Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum

As the seventh curators in this exhibition series, the Brazilian design team of Fernando and Humberto Campana mined the Museum’s collection departments and chose a diverse group of more than thirty objects, dating from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. The selected pieces, which range from book illustrations and jewelry, to furniture and wallpaper designs, blend unexpected media, layer varied forms, and weave intricate patterns and lines. The exploration of interwoven ideas and unconventional materials has been a hallmark of the Campana Brothers’ work, and the exhibition will feature a new piece of furniture designed by the brothers specifically for Cooper-Hewitt. The newly commissioned work completes their TransPlastic series, which documents the battle between nature and plastic.