Ingo Maurer

Before getting to the Cooper-Hewitt, I was skeptical about going to see Ingo Maurer's work. I thought I was going to spend an afternoon looking at designer light fixtures. As soon as we arrived however, and I saw a poster in the lobby of a hanging lamp made out of exploding porcelain Buddha's and chopsticks, I knew I was in for something a little more interesting. This feeling compounded upon arriving upstairs and looking at Maurer's "sketchbook" of interesting objects haphazardly arranged in sort of chunky, vague idea-forms.
The actual exhibit exceeded all of my expectation. Maurer takes lighting and transforms a space, creating a kind of electric sculpture that compliments and maintains synergy with the surrounding space. The most fascinating thing about his work is its general stylistic inconsistency. While certain motifs were repeated, like explosions and hearts, the works themselves echoed everything from Asian-style paper work, to art deco, to hypnotic blue installations. Knowing nothing about Maurer beforehand, I was quite impressed, and will keep an eye out for his work from now on.