Must form still follow function, as Martin Gropius, Le Corbusier, and their followers proclaimed? Dysfunctional invites a reconsideration of the conventional relationship between artistic expression and functionality. In an exhibition organized by the Carpenters Workshop Gallery in the stunning setting of the Ca'd'Oro in Venice, site-specific works by 17 established and emerging artists explore the boundaries of art, architecture, and design. These contemporary artists draw on the rich heritage of Venetian craftsmanship and the museum's exceptional collection of Italian masterpieces to create a meaningful dialogue about the 20th century mantra of form following function. With work located in the realm between craft and art, each of the artists in the show challenges preconceptions about what is beautiful and what is useful, what is historical, and what is modern. Included here are site-specific installations and furniture-sculpture by Nacho Carbonell, Studio Drift, Vincent Dubourg and Virgil Abloh, organic benches by Wendell Castle and Mathieu Lehanneur, and inhabited clocks by Maarten Baas, among others. La forme doit-elle encore suivre la fonction, comme l’enseignaient le Bauhaus, Le Corbusier ou ses disciples ? En confrontant le travail de dix-sept artistes et designers internationaux à l’architecture Renaissance du palais Ca’ d’Oro à Venise, « Dys-functional », exposition organisée par la Carpenters Workshop Gallery, interroge ce commandement qui a durablement marqué l’histoire de l’architecture et du design au xxe siècle. Les lampes ou le mobilier-sculpture de Nacho Carbonell, Studio Drift, Vincent Dubourg et Virgil Abloh, les bancs organiques de Wendell Castle ou Mathieu Lehanneur, les horloges habitées de Maarten Baas sont autant de remises en question contemporaines des frontières existant entre les beaux-arts, l’architecture et le design. Entre artisanat et art, chacun de ces créateurs remet en cause la notion de fonctionnalisme à l’aune de son geste artistique, en se confrontant aux chefs-d’œuvre de la Ca’ d’Oro, de Mantegna à Van Eyck, réunis par le collectionneur Giorgio Franchetti. Glenn Adamson is a curator and writer who works at the intersection of craft, design history and contemporary art. Former director of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York and head of research at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, he is currently a senior scholar at the Yale Center for British Art. He is the author of numerous publications including Fewer Better Things: The Hidden Wisdom of Objects, 2018, The Invention of Craft, 2013, The Craft Reader, 2010, all published by Bloomsbury. He contributes regularly to Art in America, Crafts, Disegno, Frieze, Antiques magazine and other publications.