Exhibition on music and design to open at Cooper Hewitt | News

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Thilo Oerke and Rosita Tonmöbel, Rosita Vision 2000, 1971. Photo: Don Ross, image courtesy of Cooper Hewitt

The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is set to open Art of Noise, an exhibition tracing the history of music and design over the past century. Organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and adapted to New York’s music history, the show will run from December 12, 2025, through July 19, 2026.

R-72 Toot-a-Loop Portable Radio, 1971. Photo: Ellen McDermott, image courtesy of Cooper Hewitt

The exhibition brings together more than 300 works, ranging from posters and album covers to radios, stereos, and digital music players. Drawn largely from the collections of Cooper Hewitt and SFMOMA, the works highlight how design has shaped listening experiences at home, in public, and on the move.

Verner Panton, 3300 Stereo, 1963. Photo: Don Ross, image courtesy of Cooper Hewitt

Notable inclusions span Milton Glaser’s music posters, Blue Note Records album art by Reid Miles, salsa covers designed by Izzy Sanabria, and new wave graphics from Tibor and Maira Kalman. Devices on view range from early phonographs and transistor radios to the Sony Walkman, Apple iPod, and experimental works such as Ron Arad’s Concrete Stereo.

Joy Division Unknown Pleasures poster, 1979. Photo: Tenari Tuatagaloa, image courtesy of Cooper Hewitt

The exhibition also features immersive installations, including Devon Turnbull’s HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3 and interactive environments by Stockholm-based studio teenage engineering. Together, the pieces seek to take visitors on “an exploration of how design has transformed people’s relationship to music over the past 100 years.”

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