Design Real

I always intend this blog to be positive, concentrating on good things, but i today i fear it may not happen. It all starts well enough at the design-real show at the Serpentine Gallery; nice broom, interesting bed.... but then its starts going wrong.  The exhibition is pitched so highly in the accompanying literature..."groundbreaking presentation of  contemporary design"..."'real' items all conceived in the last decade: mass produced products that have a practical function in everyday life" ...and it just does not deliver.  A Lamborghini spoiler, a digital trumpet and yet another reworked Herman Miller office chair; "'real' and practical"? maybe for supercar drivers who work in executive offices. And there are more automotive related objects, a taillight, body armour for motorcyclists, economy class seats, even Sebastian Wrongs' mirror is an oversized rear view mirror. You cannot have these objects sat next to a rolling water carrier, presumably designed for a struggling country, probably in Africa, suffering the ill effects of climate change. It's ill considered. There are some very correct/good choices, the one laptop per child for example, it is interesting to see manufacturing robots in a gallery setting, up close. The problem is the brief, Grcic (the curator) must have felt it was too obvious to include an ipod in the show,  but it should be. Once you have made an concious decision to omit THE most iconic (yet accessible) product of the last ten years,  the brief..  "highlighting objects that have had a significant impact on our lives"..is void, the show is flawed, and you may as well do something else instead.
Oh, a good thing - its free to get in!