MA Program in the History of Design and Curatorial Studies Newsletter Spring 2015

NEWSLETTER VOL 2 NO 3 SPRING 2015

IN THIS ISSUE:

Y OF R O T S I H E H T IN MA PROGRAM ES I D U T S L A I R RATO U C D N A N G I DES INTRODUCING THE MA PROGRAM JOURNAL: OBJECTIVE

MA Program Journal 1 Distinguished Teaching Award 1 Museum Updates 1-3 Reopening Party 4

The MA Program is proud to announce the inaugural issue of Objective, Journal of the History of Design and Curatorial Studies. The journal collects scholarship and reviews from current students and alumni. This first issue is the result of the dedicated work of: Anna Rasche, Editor-in-Chief; Julia Pelkofsky, Managing Editor; Roi Baron and Carolina ArĂŠvalo, Designers; Mae Col-

burn, Laura Handin, Elizabeth Scheuer, and Samantha Wiley, Copy Editors; and faculty member Marilyn Cohen who served as faculty advisor.

To receive a copy of the journal, inquire of Savanna Kustra in the MA Program office (see last page).

MUSEUM UPDATES A New Season at the New Cooper Hewitt

SARAH A. LICHTMAN WINS DISTINGUISHED TEACHING AWARD

Letter from Paris 5 Alumni Proflie 5 Alumni Notes 6-7 Student News 7-8

It’s been a busy five months at Cooper Hewitt since the doors re-opened in December. Already, more (continued on page 2)

Library News 9 Goings on in the MA Program 10-11 Save the Dates 12-13

University Teachers. The Congratulations to MA university is recognizing Program Director and professor Sarah A. Lichtman Prof. Lichtman for exhibiting upon winning the the highest Distinguished standards Teaching Award. for teaching, The award is demonstratgiven annually ing not only

by The New passion, superior School to four knowledge of faculty members her field, and from across a willingness the university to reach to recognize beyond excellence in divisional teaching. Faculty boundaries, members are Sarah A. Lichtman but also for nominated by possessing their students the remarkable ability to and colleagues, and then inspire critical engagement selected by a faculty committee as Distinguished with ideas and study.

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MA PROGRAM IN THE HISTORY OF DESIGN AND CURATORIAL STUDIES

MUSEUM UPDATES (C0NTINUED) Garden Redesign

than 120,000 visitors have played designer in the museum’s new interactive galleries and explored its ten inaugural exhibitions. Now with summer just around the corner, a brand new season of exhibitions, events, and educational programming is getting underway.

Here’s a look at what’s been going on and what’s coming up.

The Arrival of the Pen After much anticipation, the new interactive Pen—a museum world first—made its debut on March 10, thanks to the generous support of Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Now when you arrive at the museum, you’ll be given the Pen along with your admission ticket. This unique portable device can be used as a tool to collect and create

throughout Cooper Hewitt’s four floors, transforming the museum into your own personal design library.

The Pen must be returned when you leave, but tickets are now paired with a special web address that allows you to access everything you’ve saved to the Pen during your visit.

COOPER HEWITT STAFF NEWS

New Assistant The final phase of Cooper Hewitt’s three-year renoCurator of vation is the reimagining Modern and of the Arthur Ross Terrace Contemporary and Garden—the largest private garden in ManhatAmerican Design tan. Hood Design Studio, in collaboration with Raft Landscape Architects, is Another exciting developevolving the original Richard ment has been the apSchermerhorn, Jr. garden pointment of Emily Orr as design from 1901. Inspired assistant curator of modby local geology ern and and plantings in contemCentral Park, the porary design features Amernew terrace ican pavers, enlarged design, garden pathways, effective colorful plantings, Jan. 26. and a re-imagined In this rock garden. In adnewly dition to aesthetcreated ic improvements, role, the project will supportaddress funced by Fadell, designer. Nest Learning tional issues like Tony Cooper Thermostat, Second Generation, 2012. irrigation.

Hewitt s-e-1611.

The new garden trustee Elizabeth Ainslie and her will be unveiled to the public husband Lee Ainslie, Orr in summer 2015, and the will be responsible for revitalized space will be building and researching open to the public free of the museum’s modern and charge, starting at 8:00 a.m. contemporary American daily—two hours before the design collection, and museum opens. It will also be engaging museum audihome to a variety of public ences through exhibitions, programs and events, so be public programs, and print sure to check the website and online platforms. for a full calendar of events.

COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM

NEWSLETTER 3 principles to produce powerful acts of visual communication.

The show’s opening coincides with NYCxDesign, New York City’s official citywide celebration of design (held May 8–19, 2015).

Gail Davidson

Gail Davison Retires, to Teach in MA Program On March 6th, Gail Davidson stepped down as Curator and Head of the Department of Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design.

Gail began her impressive curatorial career at Cooper Hewitt in 1987, as First Assistant Curator. During her 28-year tenure at the museum, she has worked under four directors, seen the creation of multiple new departments, and witnessed the incorporation of technology into the visitor experience.

Gail is going to be teaching a course in connoisseurship in the MA program this fall. It will be the study of drawings and prints, learning everything you can by looking at a piece: who did it and how they did it. Gail has also been busy writing articles about the significant acquisitions work she’s done at Cooper Hewitt.

Next is David Adjaye Selects, part of the ongoing “Selects” series, which invites guest curators to create installations drawn from the Cooper Hewitt collection. For this 12th exhibition in the series, architect David Adjaye has Ladislav Sutnar, Poster: Addo-X, 1958. chosen 14 West and 1994-109-7.

Central African textiles to display; the items will be on view in the Marks Gallery on the first floor from June 19 to February 7, 2016.

UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS Three new exhibitions will be opening this spring, beginning with How Posters Work (from May 8 to November 15, 2015).

Featuring over 120 posters from Cooper Hewitt’s permanent collection, the exhibition will demonstrate how some of the world’s most creative designers have employed design

Wrapper (Ivory Coast). mid- 20th c. 1979-23-1.

Finally, Provocations: The Architecture and Design of Heatherwick Studio, will be on view from June 24 to Janaury 3, 2016. Curated by Brooke Hodge, deputy director of Cooper Hewitt, the show is the first museum exhibition to introduce the imaginative work of British designer Thomas Heatherwick and his London-based studio to an American audience.

Heatherwick Studio, Garden Bridge

PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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MA PROGRAM IN THE HISTORY OF DESIGN AND CURATORIAL STUDIES

REOPENING PARTY On December 11 Cooper Hewitt hosted a gala reception to celebrate its reopening. MA Program, alumni, students, and faculty came out to celebrate.

umann

line Ba

Beth Altimus, Deen a Gittle, Megan We atherby, Debora Engel, Lev i Higgs, and Marle ne Matute

ro tor, Ca t Direc r Hewit an e p o o C tm A. Lich Sarah

and

Erin Gillis and Emily Shapiro

Hillary Hummel and Debora Engel

Carrie Bloxson, Sakura Nomiyama, Catherine Powell, Anna Rasche, Maria Albert, Carolina Arevalo, Deirdre Pontbriand, and Julia Pelkofsky

S

tman arah A. Lich

Brody and David

Jennifer Cohlm

Julia Pelkofsky and Carolina Valdes-Lora

an Bracchi and

Aidan O’Connor

COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM

NEWSLETTER 5 LETTER FROM PARIS Over the course of the first year of the Parsons Paris MA program in the History of Design and Curatorial Studies, students have had many opportunities to engage with design history research and curation, and more generally to discover the cultural life of the French capital.

Our partnership with Les Arts Décoratifs museum has provided the students with a large collection of objects to work from, while the museum’s staff and curators have been sharing with us their expertise and enthusiasm for art and design. There is one project Parsons Paris is especially proud to present this year: “Object, Archive, Interface:

Museum API”, a course jointly offered at the museum to both of our graduate programs—the HDCS MA and the MFA in Design and Technology.

The class is dedicated to the use of new media and technology in contemporary mediation and exhibition practices. Our team of young designers and design historians collaborated on fantastic projects that we preParsons Paris MA students at the “Some Things in Common” exhibition sented in our Parsons Paris Gallery during Paris Design Week.

Among the various curatorial projects proposed to the HDCS MA students this year, the “Some Things ALUMNI PROFILE: JENNIFER MARKAS in Common” exhibition at Parsons Jennifer Markas received her MA from impacting the future of education Paris Gallery is perhaps the one which the Parsons/Cooper Hewitt program in in the design industry and launched provided them with the most com2010. Since graduating, Jennifer has Designer’s Education League this prehensive experience of curation. In grown Damsels in Design, an educayear, a non-profit affiliate organization, addition to shaping the scientific and tional platform for aspiring designers, to raise funds for students to study historic scope of the exhibit, students design entrepreneurs design and to bring engaged in a dialogue with other and creative profesback the concepts programs of the school as well as with sionals, into a network of apprenticing invited guest speakers. They even built of more than 2,000 where craft and an iconic piece of open design furniture: women in New York expertise are passed Enzo Mari’s famous Autoprogettazione City. Damsels in Design on to the next genchairs and table from 1974. was founded when eration of designers.

Finally, a visit to Milan during the Salone del Mobile in April served as a 10 alumni from the Jennifer is currently unique opportunity for the students to Parsons/Cooper Hewitt interviewing seaprogram came together soned designers and gain an understanding of the contempoto discuss their careers business profesrary design field, to witness hundreds of post-graduation and sionals to sit on the curatorial projects showcasing design research today, and finally to meet with grew to serve women Designer’s Education a broad variety of design professionals, in various design League advisory ranging from traditional product desectors. Jennifer hosts council. If you would signers to cutting-edge researchers in 24+ events per year like to inquire about aimed at educating this and other experience design. women about legal and opportunities for It’s been a fascinating year, and we Jennifer Markas financial issues that presenting, sponare very much looking forward to concan arise in creative soring or donating, tinuing our dialogue with our Parsons/ businesses as well as marketing and she would love to hear from you at Cooper-Hewitt friends and colleagues. branding strategies to assist them jennifer@damselsindesign.com. For in their careers. She brings together more information on how you can join À bientôt, seasoned designers and business Damsels in Design, please visit www.

Emmanuel Guy experts to provide top-notch profesdamselsindesign.com and follow us Director, MA Program in the History sional development opportunities. on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ of Design & Curatorial Studies, Jennifer is passionate about damselsindesign.this Parsons Paris

PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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MA PROGRAM IN THE HISTORY OF DESIGN AND CURATORIAL STUDIES

ALUMNI NOTES Nelli Bespalova (2001) is an Arts Education Liaison at Passages Academy, an alternative school for teens in crisis. This year, she became a part of a cohort of Astor Educators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, an innovative and exiting initiative to introduce the younger generation of visitors to the museum experience.

a book with the University of Georgia Press, Southern Tufts: The Regional Origins and National Craze for Chenille Fashion, which will be out early next year. (To follow along, visit https:// www.facebook.com/chenillefashion.) She is a contributor to Ornament Magazine as well.

Laura Camerlengo (2010) Sarah Butler (2009) is an has been appointed Assisartist living and working in tant Curator of Costume and Bushwick. In a recent project Textile Arts at the Fine Arts she partnered The Design Museums of San Francisco.

Trust for She will Public begin this Space with position the artists’ this sumcollabmer. She orative previously Carousel. served as They Curatorial hosted Fellow the Design and then Trust’s Exhibition inaugural Assistant Frederick Hurten Rhead (designer), Homer LaughPOPS (her current lin Pottery Co. (Manufacturer). Fiesta Pitcher, ca. potluck at 1936 Glazed molded earthenware. 2015-5-1 position) Trump Towwith the er, accompanied by analog Philadelphia Museum of slide presentation of Sarah’s Art’s Costume and Textiles street photographs. In 2013 department. she was artist in residence at The Banff Centre. Her work Jane Chen (2011) just started a new career on the is represented by REVERSE art space. Samples from west coast as an Art Consulher Automatic Books series tant. She is working with a are in held by University of Los Angeles based company called Canvas creating art Wisconsin-Green Bay Cofrin programs for high-end hosLibrary Artists’ Book Collection; Virginia Commonwealth pitality projects around the world. Look forward to seeing University Special Collecupdates on other alumni! tions, and Yale University Haas Arts Library.

Katy Kiick Condon (2011) is Now Senior Editor at Better Ashley (Brown) Callahan (1998) is an independent Homes & Gardens Special scholar based in Athens, Interest Media, which publishes Elegant Homes, Décor, Georgia. She is working on

Country French, Tuscan Style, Country Home, and Cottage Style.

Anna Daley (2007) continues to teach on the faculties of Montclair State University and Parsons the New School for Design. Beginning is 2014, Anna joined the sales staff of Walker Zanger, one of America’s oldest stone and tile firms. Join her on every first and third Saturday as she leads public tours at the Cooper Hewitt.

Beth (Ram) Hamilton (2012) has been working as a freelance researcher/ writer since graduating. She contributed a chapter to the book, The Jewels of Trabert & Hoeffer, Inc.-Mauboussin: A History of American Style and Innovation, published by the MFA Boston in 2014. She then spent two years working on another book for the MFA Boston on the jeweler, Oscar Heyman & Brothers. The book is expected to be published by 2016.

Meri Horn (2007) is working as Director of the National Jewelry Institute which recently announced a partnership with Parsons to launch 1-week educational courses on “The Fine Art of High Jewelry and Timepieces” in New York and Paris this fall. She and her husband are expecting their first child this June.

Anita E. Jones (1991) is at the Baltimore Museum of Art as Curator of Textiles. The Jean and Allan Berman Textile Gallery just reopened as part

of the renovated American Wing. The current exhibit is “Lessons Learned: American Schoolgirl Embroideries.”

Adriana Kertzer (2013) is now the Senior Advisor to the Senior Deputy Chairman of the National Education Association (NEA).

Charlie Kuzmic (2005) is a docent at the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas.

Marianne Lamonaca (1986) writes, “Since serving as Chief Curator and Associate Gallery Director at the Bard Graduate Center Gallery, I have been involved with numerous projects, including William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain (2013) and Barbara Nessim: An Artful Life (2014) . In December I moderated a conversation with Gloria Steinem and Barbara Nessim (a video is on the BGC website). I have also contributed an essay about presenting politically-charged design in museum settings to the forthcoming volume, Design Objects and the Museum, edited by Liz Farrelly and Joanna Weddell, for Bloomsbury/Berg.”

Jennifer Markas (2010) is the founder of Damsels in Design (DID), a leading networking and professional development platform for women across a variety of creative industries. DID has hosted more than 7,000 people at 120 events over the past 4 years. This year Jennifer is excited to launch the non-profit affiliate, Designer’s Education League,

COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM

NEWSLETTER 7 STUDENT NEWS to provide scholarships for university study, funding for apprenticeships, and micro-loans to emerging female design entrepreneurs.

For more information on how to join Jennifer’s exciting community or to volunteer, please visit email her at jennifer@damslesindesign. com. In addition, Jennifer coaches women on how to live out creative, fulfilled careers with her practice Know Your Worth at www. jennifermarkas.com. She’s currently on her seventh year in NYC and lives with her mini-dachshund on the Upper West Side.

See the feature on Jenifer on page 5.

Rebecca McNamara (2014) was appointed Curatorial Coordinator for the Luce Digitization Project at the Indianapolis Museum of Art in fall 2014. She is researching and cataloging works from the museum’s fine, decorative, and fashion arts and Native American collections.

She is co-author with Martin Lorber of the forthcoming book A Token of Elegance: Cigarette Holders in Vogue, to be published by Officina Libraria in summer 2015.

Anne Pierce (2005) has joined Long & Foster Real Estate, Virginia Beach Shore Drive Office as a Realtor and stager specializing in contemporary beach interiors. Since her thesis was on J.L. Mott Cast Iron Garden Furniture, she always tries to encourage clients to include contemporary garden furniture in their landscapes.

As a member of the DAR she began this year providing programs on the role of artists in colonial America.

Barbara Pisch (2012) deals in antique textiles sourced in Central and Eastern Europe, and design a product line called PATRIÆ made from them. Her website is patriaestudio.com Linda (Shulsky) Pomper (1985) is writing articles about Chinese export ceramics. Her latest articles have appeared in Arts of Asia and Ceramics in America.

Linda is married to a retired history professor (Wesleyan University) and they divide their time between Connecticut and New York. They have nine grandchildren between them!

Ann-Marie Richard (1992) is an executive vice-president at Gurr Johns. She’s also on the faculty of the Art Business department at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art (http://www.sothebysinstitute.com/Faculty/NewYork/ RICHARD.aspx)

working at a fine jewelry company, Jemma Wynne, since last January. She is in charge of product development and production. She works with dealers and jewelers in the Diamond District every day.

She is also still working part-time at Bonhams whenever she has the chance, and is involved in the NY Silver Society and American Society of Jewelry Historians.

Milestones

BABIES!

Student and Alumni Presentations

We’re delighted to congratulate all the new parents among students, alumni and Cooper Hewitt staff, including: graduating student Erin Gillis, who welcomed baby Beatrice in May of last year; alumna Aidan O’Connor (2008) whose baby Otis, was born this February; the library’s Jennifer Cohlman Bracchi, who had her baby, Niccolo, in March; Cooper Hewitt Director, Caroline Baumannn, whose baby Hugo, showed up in April; and current student Roshy Vultaggio, who welcomed baby Stellina, also in April.

Heather Christensen Smith (2011) is co-curating an exhibition “Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Couple of an Age” opening this November at Morven Museum & Garden in Princeton, NJ. http://morven.org/ lindbergh/

Aluma Penny Wolfson (2014) presented “Enwheeled: The Interdependent Identity of Wheelchair and User,” at The Columbia University Seminar on Narrative, Health, and Social Justice in October. The talk, which came from her MA Thesis, considered the wheelchair and how it evolved from furniture to vehicle to something akin to custom-made clothing over the last two centuries. Using still photographs, trade catalogs, patent filings, records of trade fairs, advertising, and newspaper and magazine articles, she documented the wheelchair-user interface.

Chair and user, Penny argued, are interdependent, and in some circumstances, their identities become indistinguishable; the user becomes “enwheeled.”

Current student Carolina Valdes-Lora presented a paper derived from her

Hana Thomson (2013) has been Stellina (Stella) Storm

PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

MA Program student Abigail Bangser has been named Artistic Director for the Americas and Asia, for Frieze New York, an international contemporary art fair. Read an interview with her here: http://www.artspace.com/ magazine/interviews_features/abby-bangser-interview

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MA PROGRAM IN THE HISTORY OF DESIGN AND CURATORIAL STUDIES

STUDENT NEWS (CONTINUED) MA Thesis research at The Victorian Society of New York’s Lecture Series in February. Carolina spoke about Consuelo Yznaga (1853-1909), an American

sented a panel discussion, “Brooklyn Making History: Late 19th and Early 20th Century.” Barry Harwood, Curator of Decorative Arts, Brooklyn Museum, and longtime MA Program faculty, lead presentations on the history of local making during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Fellow presenting scholars included graduates from the program: P.J. Carlino, who talked about the Queens Art Pewter Company’s pewter tabletop objects; Penny Wolfson Jan Mollemans (designer), Vlisco (manufacturer,) “Network” (Textile), 1982. Cotton. 2015-1-24. focusing on tin toy company of Cuban descent who was T. Cohn Inc.; and Megan on one of the first American Schoenbaum who spoke heiresses to marry into the about the Charles Graham British aristocracy, becoming Pottery Co., formerly located Duchess of Manchester. in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

As part of the NYCxDESIGN events, the Brooklyn Museum in partnership with WantedDesign and BKLYN DESIGNS pre-

DOCENTS

Students and alumni are taking part in the new Cooper Hewitt docent program.

Docents-in-Training this spring include: Sara Olshin (1995); Susan Falk (2009); Marcia Schaeffer (2011); Elizabeth Scheuer (2013);

and current students Sakura Nomiyama and Nancy Till.

DECORATIVE ARTS AND DESIGN FROM THE LOW COUNTRIES: BELGIUM AND THE NETHERLANDS Alumni are welcome to will take several day trips enroll in the summer course to Rotterdam, The Hague, abroad. This two-week Utrecht, and other places. course presents a unique Highlights include the opportunity to explore deKröller-Möller Museum and sign and domestic culture in the Sonneveld House, one Flanders (Belgium) and the of the best-preserved housNetherlands. Starting from es in the Nieuwe Bouwen the medieval city of Bruges style, the Dutch branch of with its rich Burgundian the International School heritage, and then travelling of Modernism. In addition, to Brussels, the course will students will also visit the examine Belgium design iconic Rietveld-Schröder through House. Dethe signers and centuries. architects to Topics be covered include include: Medieval the Belgian and Victor Horta, RenaisPaul Hankar, sance Maarten and DecoFabiaan Van rative Severen, Danny Arts and Venlet, and archithe Dutch H.P. tecture, Berlage, Gerrit such as Rietveld, Gijs the 14th Gerrit Rietveld (architect), Schröder House Bakker, Hella (1924), Utrecht. century Jongerius, Bruges Marcel WanTown Hall and the Gruuthuse ders, Wim Crouwel, and Museum, showing decomany others. Also viewing rative arts from the 15th masterpieces by artists to the 19th century. In like Memling, Van Eyck, addition, the course in Rembrandt, Vermeer and Belgium will also highlight Van Gogh belongs to the Art Nouveau and Art Deco program. architecture and interiors In both countries a list as well as contemporary with recommended places design. After three days in to visit during the weekend Belgium, students will travel (and how to get there) will by train to the Netherlands be provided. where the course will focus The course runs July on 19th and 20th century 13th – July 24th, 2015.

Dutch design. Based in the For more information: city of Amsterdam with www.newschool.edu/parits numerous museums sons/graduate-internationand galleries, the course al-summer-programs/

COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM

NEWSLETTER 9 COOPER HEWITT LIBRARY NEWS Cooper Hewitt Library, a March” (pictured here), portant addition to Cooper branch of Smithsonian a poem written to Hewitt Library’s collection of Libraries, recently obtained inspire sailors, includes books designed by artists. this renowned example of an iconic image of a It represents an important early 20th century book ship, the repeated word time in graphic design history and graphic design entitled “left” and bold letter “M” in the early 20th century Dlja golosa (For the Voice) to indicate marching when artists were exploring published in Berlin in 1923. commands, as well as a abstract forms as well as The sixty-one page softseries of three diagonal the relationships of various cover work, a collaboration lines as a diagrammatic media –film, poetry, music, of Russian poet Vladimir depiction of kicking theater, and literature, to Mayakovsky (1893-1930) legs. art. The book is also a great and designer El Lissitzky He describes his example of constructivist (1890-1941), rhythmically illustrations saying “My design that is ideal as a interlaces avant-garde pages stand in much resource for teaching the constructivist style the same relationship history of printing and layouts and patterns with to the poems as an graphic design history as well thirteen futurist poems. accompanying piano as an artifact that enhances For the Voice docuto a violin. Just as the the Cooper Hewitt Museum’s ments and promotes the poet unites concepts collection on period Russian Dlja golosa (For the Voice), designed by El theories of avant-garde art Cover, and sound, I have tried propaganda art and the work Lissitzky (Russian, 1890-1941), Berlin, 1923. Cooper Hewitt Library, Rare Books Collection. and literary movements to create an equivalent of El Lissitzky. This acquisithat emerged in the early unity using the poem tion was generously funded 20th century reflecting a designer, photographer, and typography.” El Lissitzky

by Margaret Caldwell, Devon time of great political and typographer, and architect, also assigned a distinctive Caraher, Brian Coleman, social change in Russia. was a major exponent of symbol to each poem placing Cooper Hewitt Library enMayakovsky was a Russian Russian Constructivism, an it on index tabs so that each dowments, Parsons Program Futurist who, like his Italian art movement whose aim work—meant to be read in The History of Decorative counterparts, was drawn to was mass communication aloud as the title suggests Arts, Smithsonian libraries the speed and restlessness connecting art to every—could be easily found.

Special Collections Fund, and of modern life and machines. day life. He believed that For the Voice is an imStephen Van Dyk. His creative poetry aroused books with bold controversy, appealed to the geometric forms, masses, and criticized estab- clean layouts, and lished political and social photographs could systems in Russia. Like El effectively connect Lissitzky, he emphasized the to and transform the shape of letters, the placeconsciousness of ment of text on a page, and the viewer. the importance of typograEvery aspect of phy over traditional grammar, the designs For the syntax and logic. He felt that Voice was carefully designing the spatial arplanned by El Lissitzrangement of a poet’s words ky. He constructed on the page is akin to that of images by combining an artist arranging colors and typefaces of various lines on a canvas. Such an sizes printed in red arrangement of words gave and black ink with the poem visual significance abstract geometric as well as artistic and poetic shapes that graphexpression. ically related to “Levyi marsh (Left March),” Dlja golosa (For the Voice), designed by El Lissitzky (Russian, 1890-1941), El Lissitzky, an artist, each poem. “Left Berlin, 1923. Cooper Hewitt Library, Rare Books Collection.

PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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MA PROGRAM IN THE HISTORY OF DESIGN AND CURATORIAL STUDIES

GOINGS ON IN THE MA PROGRAM RISD Visit

“New Territories”

Ketijl Fallan

Former MA Program faculty Eric Anderson, now teaching at the Rhode Island School of Design, brought his class on exhibition design and history to the Cooper Hewitt on January 30. MA Program

On Thursday, February 5th MA Program alumna Adriana Kertzer (2013) lead a group of alumni on a private tour of New Territories: Laboratories for Design, Craft and Art in Latin America at the Museum

Design historian Kjetil Fallan, Professor in the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas at the University of Oslo, Norway, spoke to students in the program on February 12.

Fallan, the author of Design History: Understanding Theory and Method (2009) among many other books and articles, gave a wide-ranging talk about the historiography of design history to a packed house in the Trustees’ Room.

Shelly Selim

Adriana Kertzer discusses the exhibition “New Territories” with alumni.

students collaborated with the RISD students in touring the new galleries, and talking about exhibition strategies specific to design museums with Cara McCarty, Cooper Hewitt’s Curatorial Director.

of Art and Design. Adriana is the Curatorial Assistant and Project Manager for the exhibition

Alumna Shelley Selim (2013) returned to the MA program on February 20 to speak to us about her experiences as curator at Cranbrook Art Museum, and how she defines her own practice as a design curator. Since 2013 Shelly has held the position of Jeanne and Ralph Graham Collections Fellow at Cranbrook. Her research focuses on the intersection of art, design, and craft, with a specialization in Scandinavian and counter-cultural design, and she has an upcoming monograph on fiber artist Gerhardt Knodel. Shelly talked about her past and future exhibitions at Cranbrook, and how her experiences in the MA Pro-

Matthew Kennedy and Shelly Selim

gram shaped her approach to curatorial research and interpretation.

Bengt Klysberg Bengt Klysberg, spoke to the MA program on Monday, April 20th. Klysberg has recently stepped down from his position as curator of Skokloster Slott, Sweden, a 17th-cen-

Skokloster Castle

tury palace, considered one great castes of Baroque Europe. A world authority on furniture, textiles, armor and other media, Kyslberg served as curator of Skokloster for nearly 40 years and spoke to students about the collections at the castle.

Cara McCarty, Eric Anderson and students from RISD at the Tools exhibition.

COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM

NEWSLETTER 11

Annual Symposium COLOR/FORMS, The Twenty-Fourth Annual Parsons/ Cooper Hewitt Graduate Student Symposium on the History of Design was held April 23 and 24 in the lecture hall of the museum.

Jeffrey L. Meikle, Stiles Professor in American

COLOR/ FORMS

COLOR/ FORMS

COLOR/ FORMS The Twenty-Fourth Annual Parsons/Cooper Hewitt

April 23 and 24, 2015 Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum 2 East 91st Street, New York, NY

Studies and Professor of Art History at the University of Texas at Austin delivered the Catherine Hoover Voorsanger Keynote Address on “Postcard Modernism: Landscapes, Cityscapes, and American Visual Culture, 1931-1950.”

The graduate paper sessions featured emerging

Graduate Student Symposium

on the Decorative Arts and Design

scholars from universities around the world. Speakers explored color in design and material culture in a broad range of objects and periods, including plastics, digitally woven textiles, ancient Greek sculpture, Japanese kimonos, and the colonization of Mars.

INSIDE (hi)STORIES a series that explores the histories and theories of the modern interior

"The Kitchen Buffet," illustration by James Kingsland. Mary and Russel Wright, Guide to Easier Living, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954 (1950). Permission Russel Wright Studios CC-BY.

A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP: THE TRANSATLANTIC DOMESTIC DIALOGUE

Grace Lees-Maffei Reader in Design History at the University of Hertfordshire, UK

Tuesday, February 10, 6pm

INSIDE (hi)STORIES This semester Sarah A. Lichtman and Ioanna Theocharopoulou continue their collaborative lecture series INSIDE (hi)STORIES which looks at the histories and theories of the modern interior, broadly defined.

Speaking this semester were Grace Lees-Maffei, Sara Kristoffersson and Charles Rice.

In her talk, Grace LeesMaffei, Reader in Design History at the University of Hertfordshire, UK, discussed how advice literature has been a tool in the formation of national identity.

Sara Kristoffersson, professor of design history and theory at Konstfack in Stockholm, spoke about the

The Glass Corner 25 E 13th Street, 2nd floor, New York, NY, 10003

hosted by the School of Constructed Environments, and the School of Art & Design History and Theory, Parsons the New School for design

INSIDE (hi)STORIES a series that explores the histories and theories of the modern interior

ADHT Student Symposium

Sara Kristoffersson

Professor of Design History at Konsfack, Stockholm

Tuesday, February 24, 6pm The Glass Corner 25 E 13th Street, 2nd floor, New York, NY, 10003

hosted by the School of Constructed Environments, and the School of Art & Design History and Theory, Parsons the New School for design

INSIDE (hi)STORIES a series that explores the histories and theories of the modern interior

John Portman and Associates, Bonaventure Hotel, Los Angeles, 1977. Photograph by Charles Rice.

THE ATRIUM EFFECT Charles Rice

Professor of Architecture at the University of Technology Sydney

Tuesday, April 14, 6pm

The Glass Corner 25 E 13th Street, 2nd floor, New York, NY, 10003 hosted by the School of Constructed Environments, and the School of Art & Design History and Theory, Parsons the New School for design

Swedish home furnishings company, IKEA and how the corporation has controversially come to define a nation. Kristofferson argued that the company’s commercial success has been founded on a neat alignment of the brand with a particular image of Swedish national identity—one that is bound up with ideas of social democracy and egalitarianism—and its material expression in a pared-down, Curt Teich Company, “Great Salt Lake Cut-Off at Sunset,”. Linen Postcard, 1936.

PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

functional design aesthetic.

Charles Rice, Professor of Architecture at the University of Technology Sydney spoke on “The Atrium Effect,” looking at the seemingly incongruous relationship between spatial exuberance and business systematization especially in the developemnt of the vast atrium as an urban development strategy.

Students from the MA Programs in the History of Design and Curatorial Studies, Fashion Studies and Design Studies presented their research in the Art and Design History and Theory student Symposium as part of the Parsons Festival on May 14 and May 15. This gathering of students and faculty to celebrate their academic work they have done has become a much anticipated event in the past few years. Among the papers MA students presented were Dutch text paintings; a study of the wallpapers in Rosemary’s Baby and other horror movies; the production of Bjørn Nørgaard’s History of Denmark Tapestry Suite, a contemporary tapestry hand woven in the traditional way at the Manufactures nationales des Gobelins et de Beauvais; the uses of red coral in Renaissance Italy, and the late 1960s typeface “Avant Garde.”

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MA PROGRAM IN THE HISTORY OF DESIGN AND CURATORIAL STUDIES CONGRATULATIONS TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF 2015

Please join us for a GRADUATION CELEBRATION AND ALUMNI RECEPTION

Meghan Adamo Elisheva Alexander Taylor Alvis Roi Baron Crista Bazoian Stephanie Bradley Megan Czapski Christina Davis Allison Geremia Erin Gillis Gabrielle Golenda Jessica Gumora

Come for an alumni tour of the Cooper Hewitt’s collection lead

by Curatorial Director Cara McCarty and Curator Matilda McQuaid at 4:30 pm on Wednesday, May 20, then stay for the reception honoring the 2015 graduates of the program, at 6:00. If you are interested in the tour, R.S.V.P to Savanna Kustra (kustras@newschool.edu).

SAVE THE DATE: Symposium on Jewish Culture and Modern Design

WRITE FOR COOPER HEWITT Would you like to write an “Object of the Day” post?

These brief informative texts are featured on the museum’s website to engage readers with objects from

Rina Kellerman Katie Kupferberg Emily Long Lark Morgenstern Olivia Nickel Jane Oh Melissa Okan Adrienne Pinero Maleyne Syracuse Carolina Valdes-Lora Rachel Zhong

the permanent collection.

Visit www.cooperhewitt. org/category/object-of-theday for examples. Contact Savanna in the MA program office for more details.

MA Program Director Sarah A. Lichtman and faculty member Marilyn Cohen are co-organizing a symposium with the Museum of Jewish Heritage to accompany the exhibition “Designing Home: Jews and Midcentury Modernism” curated by faculty member Donald Albrecht.

The exhibition explores the work of Ruth Adler Schnee in 1948 Jewish émigré and American-born designers in- College, and Jenna Weiscluding Anni Albers, George mann Joselit of George Nelson, Richard Neutra, Washington University.

Alvin Lustig, Saul Bass, and Tuesday, May 26, 10:00 Ernest Sohn. am – 12:00 pm Museum of The symposium will Jewish Heritage, Edmond examine midcentury Jewish J. Safra Plaza, 36 Battery American culture and its Place, New York, NY. The influence on everyday event is free, but reserdesign, and feature design vations are required, see pioneer Ruth Adler Schnee http://www.mjhnyc.org/ and cultural historians Alice designinghome/programs.

T. Friedman of Wellesley html for more information

COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM

NEWSLETTER 13 SAVE THE DATE: Alumni trip to Boscobel The program will be leading an excursion to Boscobel House and Gardens in Garrison, New York. This early 19th-century estate is considered one of the finest examples of Federal-style architecture in New York. Its renowned collections of furniture and decorative arts includes pieces by the finest furniture makers of the early nineteenth century including Duncan Phyfe, Michael Allison, and Charles HonorĂŠ Lannuier. The MA Program will provide transportation to and from New York City. Watch your email for an announcement with details.

COOPER HEWITT

STAY IN TOUCH 2 East 91st Street New York, NY 10128 212-849-8344 KustraS@NewSchool.edu

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Smithsonian Design Museum Smithsonian

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum