The Century of the Child

Abstract

The Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition, The Century of the Child (New York, NY; July 29, 2012–November 5, 2012), was a glorious revelation of how important children and their viewpoint were to the construction of modernism. It was a show that highlighted the twentieth century’s focus on things for children and on how adults tried to be “childlike” in their interpretation of simplicity. The two themes were brilliantly displayed at the entry to the exhibition. A Stokke Trip Trapp highchair (Peter Opsvik, 1972), with an adjoining table and chair, was exploded to a scale that reproduced how these everyday items appear to a small child. This was both a whimsical and chilling introduction to the exhibit. Adults had great fun climbing onto these high places to sit, a not inappropriate simulation of the joy that children bring to their daily discoveries. These chairs and table were also potent reminders that young folks experience the world in a very differentsometimes even terrifyingway than we adults do. The exhibition was effectively a “summer show” that could have appealed to families and/or tourists. This is not to say that it was trivial or light on content because the objects were presented