Every month or so I get an email invitation to attend a one-of-kind MoMA R&D Salon, introduced, moderated and curated by MoMA’s veteran Senior Design Curator, Paola Antonelli. Launched in 2012, this unique R&D department (as she notes, it’s “a lot more R than D”) is the museum’s conceptual hothouse “to explore the potential and responsibility of museums—MoMA in particular—as public actors, with the vision of establishing our institutions as the R&D departments of society.” This includes intimate forums to encourage lively discussion on issues that intertwine art, society, science, psychology and venerable institutions—high and low culture—that often reach beyond the museum’s usual boundaries.
The forthcoming invitational Salon 45 on Dec. 4 is devoted to “Egg.” As Antonelli’s enticing email states: “The egg is the universal symbol of life across cultures and religions—and then of hope, purity, prosperity and engineered perfection. Its natural simplicity goes without question, and its design is a ‘feat’ of fragility and strength.”
You might think there is nothing new to be said about the topic beyond the chicken and egg riddle, but Antonelli and her guests (see below) will surprise you. There are many contentious and inspiring debates to be had about motherhood, decadence and economy, among them.
For those who cannot escape their own shells to venture to MoMA on Salon nights, all the episodes are available online in full. I just finished watching the salon on “Anger” (illustrated by the Howard Beall character below), which I urge you to see. I never realized how fraught with pain and joy our commonplace yet explosive emotion can be.
The salons listed below are viewable on the MoMA R&D site.
Participants in the homage to the egg:
- Roger Benson is the Macaulay Curator and the curator-in-charge of fossil amphibians, reptiles and birds and fossil plants in the Division of Paleontology at the Natural History Museum in New York.
- Lori Gruen is the William Griffin Professor of Philosophy and professor of feminist, gender and sexuality studies and science in society at Wesleyan University, where she coordinates Wesleyan Animal Studies.
- Camille Henrot is a French artist who lives and works between Berlin and New York.
- Camari Mick is the executive pastry chef at The Musket Room, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Manhattan’s Nolita neighborhood, and executive pastry chef and partner at the newly opened Raf’s, a French and Italian bakery, restaurant and all-day café.
The presentations will be accompanied by the screening of a series of short videos cut specifically for Salon 45 by Tim Birkhead, Chow and Lin, Nicola Twilley, Emelyn Rude, Ashanté Reese, Amander Clark, Mary Caswell Stoddard and Teman Evans.