Design Omnipresent: Design Fulfills a Need: Cy Twombly and Merch Art

*Image sources below.

I was confronted with a question today that baffled me because it was the same question I had posed to myself earlier, but was unable to come up with an answer to. The question was: Is art design, or more specifically is a Cy Twombly painting, a great American Abstract painter, considered design? At the time I firmly said “yes!” and went on a rant about how Twombly uses the elements of design and mark making to convey an idea or thought. However, I was unable to see what societal need this painting fulfilled, that is, design is purpose driven and is used to fulfill a need according to legendary designers Charles and Ray Eames. So, if this was true then what need did this painting fulfill?

The answer came to me during a visit to the Richard L. Nelson Gallery at UC Davis in the shape of a mug in the gallery’s exhibition of Merch Art. Merch Art is an exhibition of ordinary objects with prints or images of famous paintings on them that were made in collaboration with the artist for use in museum gift shops and auctions as a way for the artist to make more money (Nelson Gallery). These ordinary objects ranging from beach towels to key chains were all created by prominent 20^th and 21^st century artists such as Picasso, Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, and even CS Twombly who contributed a mug. It was a regular white coffee mug with a print of Twombly’s Untitled 2008 painting from the Retrospective Exhibition at the Tate Modern in London.

Something about seeing and cup and the idea of holding the painting in my hands rather than admiring it from afar, made me realize what Ray Eames was talking about; it’s not that design is good if fulfills a need in the sense of an everyday object, but rather it is about people and how they use design or art to fulfill their own need. Scott McCloud in his book, Understanding Comics, sums up my revelation quite eloquently by stating that art is not an either/or proposition. The same can be said about design. Everything we see in society has an element of design to it from airplanes to people we are all designed whether by engineers or our DNA. So the answer to question I posed to myself and the one posed to me is always “yes”; all art has some element of design and it is not about whether it fulfills a need for everybody, but whether it fulfills a need for you, the viewer.

After long day of classes, viewing Twombly’s painting fulfilled my need of distraction!

Images courtesy of: (in order)
http://www.geocities.com/thedaffodilgarden/g-nodogs.jpg