Extraordinary Ordinary Things

Extraordinary Ordinary Things is the new reinstallation of the Carnegie Museum of Art's Ailsa Mellon Bruce Galleries, the museum's home for decorative arts and design. It's the first significant update the space has seen since 2009, and it's a big one: around 300 functional objects are on display, about half of them shown for the first time. The collection spans three centuries, running from modernism through the hand-craft revival and into the emergence of digital design.

Rather than a chronological walk-through, the galleries are arranged in thematic categories. The goal is to highlight the social histories of everyday objects and the people who made them, so you'll see things grouped by how they were used and who they were for rather than just when they were made. A huge part of the show comes from the George R. Kravis II collection, a gift of 347 items the museum received in 2018.

There are local connections woven throughout the hanging, too. One is Edgar Kaufmann Jr., a Pittsburgh native who studied with Frank Lloyd Wright and went on to lead MoMA's first 'Good Design' program. Another is the museum's own industrial design department, which was the forerunner of Carnegie Mellon University's first degree-granting industrial design program. A communal workshop space rounds out the installation.

You can find it in the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Galleries at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh.