Paola Antonelli

She has said that all objects tell stories, and that "some objects [..] make history – or change it."

Antonelli was born in Sassari, Sardinia. She attended Politecnico di Milano and graduated in 1990 with a degree in architecture. Notwithstanding her training, she has never worked as an architect.

After graduating from university, Antonelli curated several architecture and design exhibitions in Italy, France, and Japan. She worked for Domus magazine from 1987 to 1991, and was the design editor of Abitare magazine from 1992 to 1994. Her writing has also been published in the Harvard Design Magazine, Metropolis, I.D., Paper, Metropolitan Home, Harper's Bazaar, and Nest.

Antonelli joined the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1994 as a curator in the Department of Architecture and Design, where she is now the senior curator and the founding Director of Research and Development. The first important exhibition at the museum curated by Antonelli opened in 1995 and was titled Mutant Materials in Contemporary Design. This was followed in 1996 by Thresholds: Contemporary Design from the Netherlands; Achille Castiglioni: Design! in 1997 (through 1998); Projects 66: Campana/Ingo Maurer in 1999; Open Ends and Matter (September 2000 – February 2001). Her 2001 exhibition Workspheres was devoted to the design of the workplace of the near future. In 2005 she curated the exhibition entitled Safe: Design Takes on Risk also at MoMA. She curated the exhibition entitled "Safe" in 2005 based on her show at the International Design Conference in Aspen (August 20–23, 2003), similarly entitled "Safe: Design Takes on Risk." Other recent projects include a book about food worldwide, as examples of distinctive design, and a television program on design. As a curator, Antonelli has added various video games to the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and she has been attempting to include Boeing 747 in MoMA's permanent collection as well. Together with Jamer Hunt, Antonelli established an installation entitled Design and Violence which focuses on the physical representation of some of humanity's most prominent features, such as sex, aggression, and smelliness. One piece, for example, is a vial of synthetic sweat. Of the exhibit, Antonelli says, "We wanted objects that have an ambiguous relationship with violence." Each object—an outline of a drone, a self-guided bullet, a stiletto—is selected to highlight both the beneficial and also destructive side of design. Design is multidimensional nowadays, and Antonelli and Hunt aimed to represent this. In 2017, Antonelli and Michelle Millar Fisher curated "Items: Is Fashion Modern?", an exhibition that explores 111 items of clothing and accessories that have had a strong impact on the world in the 20th and 21st centuries. In an exhibit featuring video games such as Pac-Man, Tetris, and Minecraft, viewers are intended to actually play the games to showcase the interaction design of these products. The Guardian, for example, responded, "Sorry MoMA, Video Games Are Not Art". She has said that she believes that "design has been kind of neglected or misconstrued as decoration or as an embellishment" and has described her work as an attempt to change that misperception, further saying that "Without designers, life would not happen because any kind of scientific or technological innovation gets filtered by design and becomes part of our life. Without designers, we couldn’t use microwaves, we couldn’t use the internet, we couldn’t use so many innovations. In a review of Antonelli's 2025 exhibition, Pirouette: Turning Points in Design, Architectural Record observed that "in a climate where even the most anodyne appeals for inclusion and peace suddenly seem so aberrant, Antonelli’s game feels like a surprisingly brave one." The review also remarked that "putting the everyday, the ephemeral, and the commercial under the intellectual spotlight" shows to what extent MoMA and its curator are willing to go in order to "broaden the purview of the institution – and presumably its audience".

Pasta by Design – Forward On the Table – On the American Table Droog Design – Spirit of the Nineties No Discipline – Preface Items: Is Fashion Modern? "Satyendra Pakhalé Culture of Creation"