Helena Kåberg (red.)

Nationalmusei utställningskatalog, 651
ISBN:	9789171007629
Soft cover:	244 pages
Published:	2007
Language:	swe

There have always been people who think differently. People who have seen, and still see, something absolutely delightful in the dreadful. With the book “Dreadful Delight”, Nationalmuseum highlights a design style where modern, progressive and exemplary can mean a lavish, creative and imaginative mixture of materials, techniques, colours and shapes. A formal universe is described where design was based on historical knowledge and scientific discoveries – a universe that consciously used motifs from different eras and geographically disparate cultures.

“Dreadful Delight” also poses questions that impel us to consider the modern ideals of design in the 20th and early 21st centuries. To show that the ideas of modernism have not ruled supreme in the 1990s or indeed today, works by contemporary designers and craftsmen are included in the exhibition, to widen the perspective. They serve as a modern-day commentary and reveal that an approach to design related to that of the 1800s is still relevant.

Authors: Anders Ekström, Helena Kåberg, Karin Linder, Kajsa Rosenblad, Solfrid Söderlind, Penny Sparke and Christina Zetterlund.

This book was published in conjunction with the exhibition “Dreadful Delight”, Nationalmuseum 24 April 2007 – 24 February 2008.