The Cold War’s aesthetic revival

SB says the exhibition Cold War Modern fits in with the current nostalgia in parts of Europe for that old Communist aesthetic. For example, the East Germans produced a new car which drives like an old suitcase. SB says the nostalgia is hard to understand: it’s one of the big mysteries�why the poor East Germans with choice now want to get back to this aesthetic. (What are other examples?) The movie �The Lives of Others� is one such example. It had a chilly romance to it. there’s also the opening of a German Democratic Design Hotel where you can stay for nine Euros a night. I think part of it is a revulsion of the excesses of European culture. (Do you think the distaste for consumerism is focused on a distaste for American consumerism?) That may be a part of it. the reality of it all is that American consumerism in the 50s and 60s produced a litany of horrible and useless products. (What about now? Are people in Germany looking at products from, say, Walmart, which are made in China and reacting to it?) Yes, that’s a part of it. my own sense of things in general is that certain people in the West are getting fatigued by consumerism�by the idea that life can be improved by the continuous consumption of goods. People want to get back to the sentiments of, say, Thoreau. (What’s your reaction to that?) The whole issue of design is one of the great principals of the 20th century, but design can’t outlive the great companies of the 20th century. The great designs and their ingenuity could outlast those companies, and we don’t have that anymore. Most people who call themselves designers now are basically faking consumer pornography. The idea that design can reform popular taste is a lone gone notion. (Has Communist design won the final victory then?) Not at all, the Americans are better at making things, undoubtedly.