The designer Ron Arad has always had a lot of nerve, and it ricochets around his rambunctious, ultimately inconclusive retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art like an ammo belt’s worth of stray bullets. Sometimes the bullets hit, turning random targets into bull’s-eyes. More often they are wide of the mark, resulting in things that seem self-indulgent and frivolous. No wonder this show, which opens on Sunday and is the first major survey of Mr. Arad’s work in the United States, is titled “Ron Arad: No Discipline.

Roberta at once offers acclaim and stinging assessments, which might seem an apt appraisal of Ron Arad’s work, one he might even embrace. To wit, Vanity Fair was there as well, and says the exhibit “confirms Arad’s status as a design world punk rocker (see his own defacement of the exhibit’s wall text), and his is one of the most thrilling “rides” ever mounted at MoMA.”

Continuing our Dialogues with Design Legends series, Ron Arad will be here on Sep 17 in conversation with design historian Daniella Ohad Smith. And on Nov 3, Karim Rashid and Gaetano Pesce will continue the series.

Previously: