Bless this mess: Curated versus confessional clutter

So what is the interest in seeing office / studio / workshop clutter? I find three main interests. (1) I am interested in hints at how someone works. Very roughly, Piaget mostly reads or travels. Williams builds wild breadboards and is not scared to throw test equipment at it. Steve Jobs keeps 25 projects up in the air. Calder manipulates stuff. But there is lots and lots of detail in many of these pics and they are interesting and inspiring. (2) Inspiration is a precious thing. The exhibitionist studio lets me in. The bookshelf lets me browse. It is technical ideas (process or organization) and also hints at what I might want to try. (3) When visiting artist studios, I want to be let in their technical process. Partly it's curiosity and culture, partly it's for my inspiration, partly I'm sightseeing.

There is a fundamental difference with the hoarding / depression look.

Sometimes there is no time for "just cleaning up". That's not unreasonable. It's also cool to take a picture just before cleaning up. Even if Sophia Coppola's looks a bit staged. I truly hate the cringy opposite seen at artist studios for open studio days - where the place is cleaned to a gleaming inch of its life - - and then looks dead and deletes the entire "process" of the work.

Some more examples, including the classics of Calder's studio (and new for me, his desk):

https://bookhaven.stanford.edu/2020/10/you-think-you-have-a-... https://whipplerussell.com/blog/alexander-calder-living-as-a... https://improvisedlife.com/2015/08/27/inspiring-messy-worksp... https://old.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/8h4u14/this_is_the_ne...

My office has three large tables - exactly so that I can quickly shift stuff around when I need a clear one - or cram just a little more stuff or equipment next to what is already where it makes sense. (With a 4th table in an air conditioned room).

Another classic uncurated one: Jean Piaget in his home office https://www.instagram.com/p/Cp_Oeb_PLji/

This appears staged.

I have had messy spaces, and it's never so evenly dispersed.

What is the purpose of glorifying clutter and mess?

It was hard work to get out from under this kind of bad habit, I would never want to go back. Maybe this a form of "office grunge" just to be cool and get clicks?

To me the image in question is unbelievable because there is no place to work -- no paths to walk. Even in the most cluttered offices a narrow corridor to the abused but available chair is sacrosanct, in my experience at least.

Famed analog designers Jim Williams (Linear Technology) and Bob Pease (National Semiconductor) had messy benches/offices:

https://youtu.be/1wwZ8eI3jvw?t=227

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t513IZ5V9Nk