Ana Vukadin

Ingenious and witty: two adjectives which kept popping into my head as I wandered through the first major UK retrospective of the super-star designer Ron Arad at Barbican Art Gallery. Genius is another, but more like the 'genius!' pronounced by teenagers, rather than the more sombre tone one would employ, say, when describing Einstein. Yes, Arad officially brought out the rapt-eyed child in me, and judging by the behaviour of other visitors, it brought out the child in many other adults as well.

Ron Arad: Restless surveys three decades of the London-based designer's considerable output. Captivatingly curated by Lydia Lee, the show spreads across two floors, comprising a section appropriately titled Sitting which offers complete interaction with Arad's mass-produced furniture as well as Arad's own steel ping-pong table.

Restless is an endlessly inventive yet playful exploration of the curve and of material. Arad clearly enjoys challenging our notions of appropriate furniture shapes and materials as well as acceptable furniture movements in pieces such as London Pappardelle (1992), a delicate steel chair which supplely unravels like a ribbon or, of course, pappardella pasta, and At Your Own Risk (1991), a stylised upside-down question mark of a rocking chair which looks so precarious that it throws the visitor in a to-sit-or-not-to-sit dilemma. He succeeds in imbuing his creations with character and, somehow, life.

A certain Duchampian element weaves throughout the show, from Arad's improvisations on readymades, such as Rover Chair (1981), a Rover seat transformed into an armchair, and Looming Lloyd (1989), a Lloyd wicker chair wittily morphed into a rocking chair through four steel apostrophe-shaped extensions to its legs, to his almost constant play with words, such as MT Rocker (2005) and Pic Chair (1997), reminiscent of Duchamp's famous fascination with puns.

Not to be missed are Arad's explorations with technology and light in the 'Illuminating' section on the ground floor. A dark room showcases the two incredible designs Ballpark (2001) and I.P.C.O (Inverted Pinhole Camera Obscura) (2001) which both tamper with our perception and baffle our understanding of projections. I.P.C.O, for example, acts as a suspended disco ball perforated with tiny holes which - irrationally - reflect instead of small circles, tiny squiggles all around the room.

The final area, 'Sitting', comes as the perfect ending to the show. For those of us who, on the floor above, were consumed with the desire to crawl into Arad's chairs and test if they were truly as comfortable (The Big Easy) or uncomfortable (High Tilt) as they looked, this space comes as the perfect solution. My conclusion? As a seasoned sitter, I commend the comfort of these chairs, couches and armchairs, with a special mention to Screw (2006), perhaps the only comfortable bar stool I've had the good fortune to sit on. Arad emerges thus a master of flawless curves, inventive designs and, perhaps most importantly, comfort.

Ron Arad: Restless is at the Barbican Art Gallery until 16th May.