A RESPONSE TO "THE WORLD OF INTERIORS"

“Where aesthetes wander, writers, thinkers and polemicists soon follow. Yet only interior design languishes in a critical desert.” - DAVID L. in (JUNE ISSUE)

AND IT DOES.

Frankly, it is a frustration that spawned “FOR SCALE”, including observations about the WORLD OF INT. itself: very good images, often generic-as-f*ck text.

A BRIEF “FOR SCALE” SUMMARY:

Critical opinions are not accepted, generally. To criticize closes a door, it is presumed. A celebrity would not subject themselves to an Architectural D*gest tour if they weren’t assured of the outcome.

And, there is , because the “Media” is nothing if not spin: i.e. we don’t need to CRITIC because we’ve filtered anything with a flaw out. Which is boring, and also which:

(a) is impossible to believe, if you look at something like Serena William’s flooring and art collection. You’re telling us that’s good?

(b) denies a HUMAN NATURE, i.e. that not everything is perfect. Yet décormedia, for the reason above, only presents décor as such. And in part this is because the mainstream Design Press, when covering a Homescape, seem to believe they employ any critical tools, i.e. they can’t compare and contrast. Nor can they simply take One Lesson from it and reject the rest. They must love it in its totality. – a film review is nothing if it doesn’t lend some subjectivity, some candor, some sense that any and all movies must SEARCH for perfection, but that perfection is impossible. The beauty is often actually in

By that Isamu N. meant a ‘: sculpture-”Design”-environment, et cetera. But, perhaps we mean it more as: WE MUST ASK (as we do of OTHER CATEGORIES OF CULTURE - art-film-food) Art is allowed to be abstract, where meaning is 100% subjective; Film is allowed to be ironic, comical, s*xual; Food is allowed to be social, entertainment, !!!bad!!!

And décor? Décor must be only Aspirational. And, to sell magazines, the version of “aspirational” generally adopted is “LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR”, and generally must be . Rich people can afford the things that make a major magazines perk up. .

With a desire for décor objects (such as furniture) to be seen as just as VALUABLE as “art” (market-wise), it has decided to mimic it. Décor as everything-is-sculpture. (And so it should be allowed to!!!!, it can be an Isamu N. blurring! but…) The homes of the wealthy now often CONVULSE under the psychedelic weight of VISIBLY COLLECTIBLE FURNITURE: entire homescapes of Insurables, where the Humble only survives if it is put on a plinth as if Artifact. Anything Simple must be acquired, in these homes, at gatekept vintage markets in foreign countries or at auction.

We appreciate the rarified, the one-off - SURE!!!!!! OF COURSE!!!! But, they carry with them the semiotics of exclusivity. And, that can quickly overpower a domestic scene; we are very sorry to report, it rarely reads as “GOOD TASTE”, it rarely even reads, generously, as “eccentricity”. A home can only be eccentric if you yourself are eccentric; but very rare is it that a home of collectible-only Furniture is occupied by a true eccentric. The eccentric tends to find magic in the many sorts of things, not just expensive ones.

(Long may décor-as-art live; we just simply warn against over-doing it in your own home, for those of you reading “FOR SCALE” for whom that is an option.)

The average writing on interior design seems completely seduced by such interiors. Gives them facts to repeat in an article (names of artists; “provenance”; etc.), without having to actually CONSIDER the interior. They seem “rich in story,” but they are often just “rich”, or rich in “fact”. A domestic story is rarely, if ever, in An Object, it is the ARRANGEMENT of them. A domestic story should be read like ABSTRACT ART: the inhabitant wasn’t always working towards a “meaning”, may not be aware of any “meaning”, but one can nonetheless be found in it.

If “Design criticism” considers the Object, interior criticism must consider how they are put into Context, and so must focus on the picking that context apart. David L. is right that interior criticism practically does not exist, but that is because interior writing rarely tries to PSYCHOANALYZE. We ask what was in the mind of an artist; we don’t ask “What was in the mind of décorator”. Because most décorators also sort of can only describe their work like “we wanted to mix Art Deco with Japanese elements. The clients love traveling to Japan.” or whatever the f*ck. WHO CARES.

Interiors have an INCREDIBLE DEPTH OF MEANING… and décor writing always flattens it. It’s totally infuriating.

SUBSTACK is a great hope - or is it?

But it is also, as we have read, “being crushed under its own weight”. Subscriptions to each individual writer you want to read? Tough. (You can read many in a MAGAZINE SUCH AS THIS.)

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THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION. We know that it is f*cking precious.