The exploration of interwoven materials and ideas is the binding thread of the Campanas’ work, and the exhibition will include a new piece designed by the brothers specifically for the museum’s permanent collection. “Campana Brothers Select” will be on view from Feb. 15 through Aug. 24, 2008 in the Nancy and Edwin Marks Gallery. “The Campanas are two of the world’s most inventive and talented designers.

Their unique design ‘eye’ casts new light on Cooper-Hewitt’s vast collection and has created an exhibition that is as evocative and unpredictable as their own designs,” said museum director Paul Warwick Thompson. “In turn, the museum has commissioned the Campanas to create a new work specifically for the permanent collection, in the same manner as the 2005 commission of guest curator Hella Jongerius.”

After numerous visits to the museum’s storage vaults, the Campana brothers chose more than 20 objects, dating from the 16th to 20th centuries, from all four collection departments and the National Design Library. They selected a diverse group of works, including book illustrations, jewelry, chairs, textiles, bowls and wallpaper designs based on the object’s ability to elicit an emotional response from viewers. “Our goal is to create a bridge between design and poetry, design and hidden desires of well being and the fantasies of daily life. All of the items we selected share a certain dreamy state of mind, a touch of humor and an intrinsic relation with the materials,” said Fernando Campana.

The objects will be installed to encourage visitors to discover the connections between them and nature. “Like witnessing a growing process, the exhibition will start with two-dimensional surfaces, take on a third dimension with the embroidery works and then evolve to objects that suddenly emerge to express a variety of scales and textures,” Fernando Campana added.

Highlights of the exhibition include the following:

• Robert John Thornton’s “Cupid” illustration from the book “The Temple of Flora.” For the Campana brothers, the “Cupid” illustration symbolizes the purity, passion and love that are an intrinsic part of their creative process.

• Walter Crane’s illustration in the book “A Floral Fantasy in an Old English Garden,” expresses the power of nature, as a human figure is morphed into floral forms. Believing everything they create is rooted in nature, the Campanas were drawn to the illustration for its idea of man existing as an extension of nature.

• A 17th-century French book cover with raised embroidery, silk, metal wire, metal strips and coral beads, shows the ability of embroiders to achieve dramatic sculptural effects using a material as simple as thread. The book cover relates to the brothers’ manipulation of common materials to create unexpected designs.

• An 1830 English dyed horsehair necklace, based on the European practice of creating sentimental or remembrance jewelry from human hair, appealed to the brothers. By interlacing and twisting, a banal material is transformed into a precious piece of jewelry.

• A late 19th-century Longhorn armchair, attributed to Wenzel Friedrich, that utilizes horn―a rigid, seemingly non-moldable material―to form a curvaceous chair and highlights the manipulation of material to create a wholly new design. -- www.cooperhewitt.org