Man as machine

Cold War Modern: Design 1945–1970
V&A, until 11 January 2009

It’s difficult not to admire the ambition of the V&A in mounting exhibitions which summarise and explain the great historical movements in design. There have been notable successes in the past, particularly with their surveys of Art Nouveau and Art Deco, but the closer the organisers approach our own times, the more fraught with complication is the enterprise. It’s almost impossible to locate and maintain any degree of objectivity about very recent happenings — we have no historical perspective on them and find it difficult to view them except in terms of personal preference. Of course, like and dislike have become the bugbear and benchmark of contemporary criticism in a society in which standards of excellence have been vilified and impugned. Scholarship, however, demands more, though the rigours of its disciplines are all too easily cloaked in jargon and verbiage when dealing with the near-contemporary.