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

NEWSLETTER VOL 3 NO 1 FALL/WINTER 2015

IN THIS ISSUE:

1

West Coast Alumni

1

Fall 2015 Class

1

Goings On in the MA Program 2–3 Alumni Notes

4–5

Alumni Profile: Sarah Schleuning

5

Spring Alumni Reception 5 Student and Alumni Presentations 6 Upcoming Exhibitions

7

News from the Library

8 9, 12

Objective 11 Summer Courses

THE HISTORY OF DESIGN AND CURATORIAL STUDIES MUSEUM NEWS: RETURN TO THE GARDEN

Return to the Garden

Letters from Paris

MA PROGRAM IN

12-13

First-Year Student Profile: Sebastian Grant 14 Commencement 2015 14-15 Voorsanger Symposium 16

The Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum opened on Friday, Nov. 27, following a redesign by Hood Design Studio, in collaboration with Raft Landscape Architects and Diller Scofidio + Renfro. The revamped garden features new terrace pavers, garden pathways, plantings, a reimagined rock garden and a transformed northwest The Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

Photo: Agaton Strom Photography. © Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum garden. It will be open to the public free of charge starting at 8 a.m. on weekdays ANNOUNCING THE MA PROGRAM’S WEST and 10 a.m. on weekends. The COAST ALUMNI GROUP opening of the garden marks the final phase of Cooper Hewitt’s Are you a West Coast-based up for the new West Coast renovation of the Carnegie alum of the History of Design alumni group! Through a dynamic Mansion and museum campus, and Curatorial Studies program? events program, the group will which was recently recognized Keep in touch with classmates nurture the relationships formed with LEED Silver certification. and colleagues by signing in the program as well as create new opportunities for networkFor more museum news, see p. 7 ing and professional development, and encourage further A SNAPSHOT OF study of European and American decorative arts and design. The THE FALL 2015 launch event will be a meet-andINCOMING CLASS greet happy hour in California’s Bay Area; future events will be The 25 students of the fall offered throughout the West 2015 class come from all over Coast. If you are interested the United States and the world. in participating, please send 50% come from the Northeast; your name and email address 23% are from the South; 8% to Laura Camerlengo (2010, from the Midwest; 4% from the lauracamerlengo@att.net) and West; and 15% are international Alessandra Wood (2009, students. The average age of alessandrawood@gmail.com). the incoming class is 27.

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MA PROGRAM IN THE HISTORY OF DESIGN AND CURATORIAL STUDIES

GOINGS ON IN THE MA PROGRAM Two-week intensives:

ger confined by the controls of the rigid French guild system. The close links between Huguenot In the fall semester, students refugee goldsmiths, had the opportunity to study jewelers and watchmakers with Dr. Tessa Murdoch, Deputy in exile ensured that their Keeper, Department of Sculpproducts were made to ture, Metalwork, Ceramics and the highest quality Glass at the Victoria and Albert and that their skills Museum, in an intensive course were passed from one on Huguenot Goldsmiths in Assistant Curator Andrea Lipps (2008) discusses the 2016 Design Triennial as part of a curators’ generation to another, Northern Europe. presentation to the students of upcoming exhibitions in October. ensuring that even Of several hundred thousand in the third quarter Huguenots who left France and sessions at the Metropolitan of the 18th century, settled elsewhere in Northern In the spring semester the Museum of Art, the Frick the luxury trade in gold boxes Europe between 1680 and program will welcome Dr. David Collection and with various New Rifkind of Florida International York dealers as well as drawing University, who will teach an on the collections of Cooper intensive, Designing Modern Hewitt.

Italy.

The seminar examines the rich legacy of twentieth-century design in Italy. It traces the development of numerous design disciplines – graphic, industrial, architectural and urban – and parallel developments in the fine and decorative arts.

The course begins with the seminal 1902 Turin International Print, Projects for Engraved Decoration of Goldsmith’s Works, ca. 1650; Designed by Exposition of Decorative Arts, Jacques Vauquer (French, 1621 – 1686); Engraving on laid paper; 6 3/16 × 10 3/16 in. and proceeds chronologically (15.7 × 25.8 cm); Museum purchase through gift of Mrs. John Innes Kane, 1944-24-33. to the present day. The class will explore the emergence was dominated by goldsmiths of specific industries and 1720, several hundred were of Huguenot descent who still audiences, the importance of craftsmen who worked luxury changing political contexts, metals. Of those who made Lon- worked in the cities where their and the effects of international don their home, most came from ancestors had settled two generations earlier; Berlin, Gecommunications and trade on regional French cities, including neva, Hanau and London. Their the design disciplines in modern Blois, the vicinity of La Rochelle, skills as merchants and their Italy.

Le Mans, Lille, Metz, Montpelier, Carlo Bugatti. Cabinet (Italy), 1890–1900.

Rouen, and Saumur; the minority Protestant work ethic led to joined hardwood, sheet vellum, applied, an effective business network came from Paris.

Gail Davidson: cut, and molded copper ornaments, epitomized by the Duval family Huguenot goldsmiths had Looking Closer inlaid pewter, brass wire, sheet glass, who were retailing jewelers with dominated the local French established branches in Geneva, textile tassels. Museum purchase from guilds. In exile, they diversified Gail Davidson, who recently Decorative Arts Association Acquisition London and St Petersburg. their skills and networked with retired from her position as Fund.

1982-22-1.

The seminar included study other skilled craftsmen, no loncurator of Drawings, Prints and

COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM

NEWSLETTER 3 GOINGS ON (CONTINUED) Graphic Design at Cooper Hewitt is teaching a course this fall on design drawings and prints. It is a course in the connoisseurship of design works on paper from the 16th through the mid-19th centuries in Europe and the United States. Students in the class are learning about the handling of works on paper, paper types, watermarks, collectors’ marks, and inscriptions, as well as becoming familiar with print processes, drawings tools, methods of transfer, print editions, and attributions. The course meets most often in the newly reopened Drue Heinz Center for Drawings and Prints at Cooper Hewitt, or in the museum’s off-site facility.

Historic Textiles at the Metropolitan Museum Another notable course this fall is being taught by Elizabeth Cleland, textile curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Students are privy to behindthe-scenes access to storage and preservation labs at the Met, and in-depth conversations and viewings of historic tapestries and other textiles with Met conservators and scientists.

Through a combination of curator-led gallery visits and focused case-studies, the students learn about textiles as historic artifacts and also consider the display of textiles in a museum setting, and consider how gallery design and didactic materials might suggest or recapture the objects’ historic meanings.

INSIDE (hi) STORIES The lecture series INSIDE (hi)STORIES, a crossschool collaboration led

by MA Program director Sarah A. Lichtman and Ioanna Theocharopoulou from the Parsons School of Constructed Environments, looks at the Alumni and students at Manitoga. histories and theories and early 1950s, highlighting of the modern interior.

Eileen Gray, worked to interrupt the ways in which these spaces Speaking this semester were this clarity as a means to were utilized as both laboratoMargaret Maile Petty and interrupt some of the projects ries and showcases, providing a Jasmine Rault. of gender and sexual regulation unique interior typology wherein Petty, Head of the School with which modernist architecthe reconciliation of modernism, ture and communication media of Design, Victoria University mass-produced goods, and perof Wellington, explored the were involved. sonal expression was not only showrooms designed for possible, but also accessible.

Herman Miller and Knoll AssoAlumni Trip to Rault, Assistant Professor ciates during the latter 1940s Manitoga of Culture and Media at Eugene Lang College, gave a talk on In October, a hearty group of the early twentieth century students and alumni paid a visit architectural and design work by to Manitoga, the House, Studio Eileen Gray in order to explore and garden of pioneer industrial some of the intersections designer, Russel Wright. They between histories of communihad the chance to explore cation, fashion, European archiDragon Rock, Wright’s organic tectural modernity and sapphic modern experimental home modernity – or the modernist which he built onto the rock cultural history of female sexual ledge of an abandoned quarry dissidence. From around 1900 while constructing the surroundto 1935, European modernist ing landscape into a series of architecture was increasingly outdoor rooms. committed to communicative clarity – or immersive living spaces of total communication – and several female artists, writers, interior designers and architects, like Russel Wright Cocktail Set at Manitoga.

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MA PROGRAM IN THE HISTORY OF DESIGN AND CURATORIAL STUDIES

ALUMNI NOTES Elisheva Alexander (2015) is now a development assistant at The Drawing Center.

Talia Avisar (2010) welcomed her new baby, Leo Berger, in September.

Anna Daley (2007) continues to teach on the faculties of Montclair State University and Parsons School of Design. Beginning in 2015, Anna joined the sales Leo Berger staff of The Complete Tile Collection, one of Manhattan’s most successful tile and stone showrooms. Please join her on every first and third Sunday as she leads public tours at the Cooper Hewitt!

Christina Davis (2015) writes: “After graduating in May from the Dec. Arts Masters Program.

I recently accepted a job at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and I am really excited to use the skills that I learned from all of the wonderful courses and professors at Parsons.”

Tara DeWitt (2005) writes: “I’ve made some pretty radical changes in the past 6 months!

I moved to Los Angeles from NYC and have set up a gallery here called Oculus Gallery, focusing on 20th-century

Italian and American furniture and decorative arts. I also am now an accredited member of the Appraisers Association of American and do many types of appraisals on 20th-century furniture and decorative arts.”

Jenny Florence (2012) has lately become an Editor at Princeton Architectural Press, working on books on design, art, and architecture.

Michelle Jackson (2013) writes: “I am pleased to let you know that I received a staff promotion over the summer at Neue Galerie New York where I am now the Manager of Education and Visitor Services. I manage the docent program, give tours, and catalogue the museum’s library collection in addition to overseeing daily visitor experience at the museum and special programs.

In addition to this full-time job, since fall 2014 I am a member of the part-time faculty at The New School, where I currently teach three courses at the School of Art and Design History and Theory as well as for the School of Constructed Environments in the new MFA program in Industrial Design.

I am also a contributing author to a new book, Revival: Memories, Identities, Utopias

published this October by the Courtauld Institute of Art through their research forum.

This project was the outgrowth of a conference, which I spoke at about the same topic held at the Courtauld in 2012.” The full text of the book can be downloaded free of charge at: http://courtauld.ac.uk/research/courtauld-books-online/ revival-memories-identities-utopias Lindsey Jochets (2013) just accepted the role of Associate Development Officer in the Office of Institutional Advancement at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She started in October.

Katy Kiick Condon (2011) is now Senior Editor for Home Design at Better Homes & Gardens Victoria Kravitz (2009) is excited to announce the launch of design IV space, a forum to explore a critical look at the relationship between design and the human condition through digital curation. design IV space is interested in the genesis and global transmission of ubiquitous things and the design that surrounds their use in order to examine the shared connections between people throughout various times, geographic locations, and socio/economic/ political systems. design IV space looks to design to engage in the dialogue around the two following questions: What unifies us as humans? What does it mean to be human?

Victoria started design IV space as a platform to share my independent research, engage children in thinking about design, and continue contributing to design dialogues with the broadest spectrum of readers.

She is joined in this project by alum, Elizabeth Plotkin Keil (2012), who serves as Content Editor.

The latest article, “The Folk Art of Halloween” contextualizes the material culture of the holiday in terms of of community and the practice of customs.

You can read design IV space at http://designivspace.org/, and sign up for the mailing list by emailing designivspace@gmail. com.

Bella Neyman (2008) is currently celebrating her one year anniversary as the director of the Gallery at Reinstein Ross, New York’s first gallery dedicated to art jewelry. She is also a freelance journalist whose articles on decorative arts, fashion and jewelry have appeared in The New York Times, Modern Magazine, Metalsmith, American Craft and The Magazine Antiques amongst others. In 2014, Neyman co-founded Platforma, a curatorial program focused on exhibiting contemporary jewelry.

She lives with her husband and daughter in Brooklyn, N.Y. Jennifer Markas (2011) just got a new job (after 6 years at an architecture firm) as Vice President, Finance for Citibank’s Foundation. She’s super thrilled about the opportunity to help spread greater good and impact

COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM

NEWSLETTER 5 ALUMNI NOTES (CONTINUED) with this professional role at the foundation.

Jennifer has also been named a “Woman of Influence 2016” by The New York Business Journal for her work with Damsels in Design.

The award recognizes female business leaders in the New York City area who innovate, succeed and pay it forward.

SAVE THE DATE Cigarette Holders in Vogue. Look for it in museum and specialty bookstores, and of course the usual online outlets.

Rebecca writes “Thank you to all those who have supported me and taken an interest in this project. And remember, even the most mundane, everyday objects tell important stories.”

A Token of Elegance: Cigarette Holders in Vogue,

by Martin Barnes Lorber and Rebecca McNamara.

Rebecca McNamara (2014) Photographs by John Bigelow Taylor and Dianne recently wrote an article Dubler (Officina Libraria, 2015) on her grant project and Hsu-Balcer to catalog more than research for the Indianapolis 130 objects from her collection Museum of Art Magazine http:// of smoking accoutrements, www.imamuseum.org/about/ primarily cigarette holders. ima-magazine/fall-winter-2015 She is coauthor with Asian arts (see page 8). specialist Martin Barnes Lorber For the past two years, of the book resulting from that Rebecca has been working with project: A Token of Elegance: art and design collector Carolyn

Alumni reception and graduation party at Cooper Hewitt: Wednesday, May 18th from 6pm to 9pm.

Linda Rosenfeld Pomper (formerly Linda Shulsky, 1985) has had three articles in Arts of Asia during the past two years: “Famille-noire porcelains: Tracing the Taste through the 18th and 19th Centuries,” (July-August 2013); “New Perspectives on Kinrande,” (October 2014); and “A Possible Source for the Panelling on One Type of Kraakware,” (July-August 2015)

ALUMNI PROFILE: SARAH SCHLEUNING Since graduating in 2001 with an M.A. in the history of decorative arts from Parsons School of Design/ Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, Sarah Schleuning has been dedicated to presenting and promoting the power and impact of design to the public through exhibitions, publications, and lectures.

Schleuning currently is the Sarah Schleuning curator of decorative arts and design at the High Museum of Art, in Atlanta, where she has curated exhibitions exploring creativity, innovation, and design strategies. Her shows have ranged from contemporary fashion (Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion) to the design history of concept cars (Dream Cars: Innovative

Design, Visionary Ideas).

Since coming to the High in 2011, Schleuning has focused on strengthening the collection specifically in the area of 20th- and 21st-century design. This has included key acquisitions and exhibitions that explore the intersections between art and design, handcraft and technology, and innovation and making. Building on the most comprehensive survey of American decorative arts collection in the southeastern United States, with more than 2,300 objects dating from 1640 to the present, the decorative arts collection features the Virginia Carroll Crawford Collection of American decorative art, with important

PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

works by Alexander Roux, Herter Brothers, Tiffany & Co., and Frank Lloyd Wright. Prior to the High, Schleuning was curator and head of the fellowship program at The Wolfsonian–Florida International University, Miami Beach, Florida, and assistant curator at Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Schleuning has curated several exhibitions relating to modern decorative arts and contemporary design including Iris van Herpen, Dream Cars, Joris Laarman: Design in the Digital Age, Fashioning the Modern French Interior, Zine Scene, and Harry Bertoia Visualizing Sound: Monotypes and Sound Sculptures. Her most recent publications include Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion, Dream Cars: Innovative Design, Visionary Ideas, Moderne: Fashioning the French Interior and Weapons of Mass Dissemination: The Propaganda of War.

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STUDENT AND ALUMNI PRESENTATIONS Mid-Atlantic Popular Culture/ American Culture Association Conference In November the Mid-Atlantic Popular Culture/American Culture Association held its 26th annual conference in Philadelphia, PA. Sarah A. Lichtman, the MAPACA Decorative Arts and Design session and area chair, ran two panels that included papers by several MA program alumni and students. Alumni Megan Elevado (2013) presented a paper on “Transcending Play: Chess as a Political and Social Tool in the Early Twentieth Century;” Elizabeth Scheuer (2013), presented on “Celestial Splendor: Comets in Western Jewelry,” and Andrea Lenci-Cerchiara’s (2010) paper considered “Material Culture and the Translation of Film to the

Stage in Legally Blond.” Finally, student Catherine Powell gave a paper based on her Proseminar object and subsequent research as a fellow in the DPGD department of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum entitled, “For the Ladies: Gender and Popular Culture in Donald Deskey’s Perfume Industries Building Design, New York World’s Fair 1939.”

Design History Society In September, the Design History Society held its annual conference on the theme, “How we live, and How we might live: Design and the Spirit of Critical Utopianism,” convened by Professor Barry Katz, California College of the Arts, in San Francisco. This was the first time the DHS convened the conference in the United States, and several

Donald Deskey, Drawing, New York 1939 World’s Fair: Perfume Industries Building, Entrance Hall, 1939. Brush and white, purple and pink gouache on black wove paper. Gift of Donald Deskey. 1975-11-66.

The Reds and the Whites Chess Set, 1922–32. Designed by Natalya Yakovlevna Danko.

Manufactured by Lomonosov Porcelain Factory. Glazed porcelain. Gift of Charlotte Y. Salisbury in loving memory of her husband, Harrison E. Salisbury. 1994-122-5-a/ff.

a better future is grounded in a MA program alumni and faculty critique of the present, insofar attended and presented papers as the prevailing organization of on array of topics. As the call social resources obstructs the for papers declared: “Inherent in every act of design is a vision however modest, however inarticulate of a better world: We design because we believe that travel might be made more comfortable, work more efficient, information more Megan Elevado, Catherine Powell and Andrea Lenci-Cerchiara at accessible, the Mid-Atlantic Popular Culture/American Culture Association experiences more full realization of our potential fulfilling, spaces more conto lead productive, enjoyable, vivial, and people’s lives more and fulfilling lives. William Morris meaningful. By addressing the was the first to link a critique needs of the present, designers are, inescapably, envisioning the of “How we live” to a vision of “How we might live” through future. By definition, a vision of

COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM

NEWSLETTER 7 MUSEUM NEWS: UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS the medium of design, and this impulse continues to inspire design practice today.”

Alumni included Michelle Jackson (2013) who presented on “East German Architecture and Identity;” Bess Willamson (2005), who presented on “Designing for Disability;” Sarah Mallory (2013) presented a paper on the “Revolutionary Tapestries of Jean Lucrat;” and Alessandra Wood (2009) gave a paper on “Merchandising Model Rooms.” Finally, faculty member Jilly Traganou chaired the panel “Re-Orientating the Asian City.”

BEAUTY – COOPER HEWITT DESIGN TRIENNIAL Feb. 12, 2016 – Aug. 21, 2016 “Beauty,” the fifth installment of the museum’s popular contemporary design exhibition series, celebrates design as a creative endeavor that engages the mind, body, and senses. With a focus on aesthetic innovation, the exhibition will feature more than 250 works by 62 designers from around the globe, and is organized around seven themes: extravagant, intricate, ethereal, transgressive, emergent, elemental, and transformative.

With projects ranging from experimental prototypes and interactive games to fashion ensembles and architectural interventions, “Beauty” presents works of astonishing form and surprising function from the most outstanding voices of the global design scene.

THOM BROWNE SELECTS March 4, 2016 – Oct. 2, 2016

Sarah Mallory and Michelle Jackson at the Design History Society conference.

For the next installment of Cooper Hewitt’s popular “Selects” series, fashion designer Thom

Neri Oxman (Israeli-American, active in USA, b. 1976) and MIT Mediated Matter Group in collaboration with Stratasys and Deskriptiv; Rendered by Deskriptiv: Christoph Bader and Dominik Kolb; Produced by Stratasys. Rendering, back view of Otaared, from Wanderers collection, 2014. © Neri Oxman.

Browne explores ideas of reflection, uniformity, and individuality.

Known for his fresh, redefinition of tailored clothing in men’s and women’s ready-to-wear, Browne promotes uniformity in fashion as a way to focus on high-quality materials, fine detailing, and

superior craftsmanship. The immersive installation in the Nancy and Edwin Marks Collection Gallery will feature a wide range of the museum’s historic and contemporary mirrors and frames, as well as multiple pairs of silver-plated shoes.

ALUM WENDI PARSON NAMED DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS & MARKETING FOR COOPER HEWITT

Wendi Parson

Wendi Parson (2014) has been appointed the Director of Communications and Marketing for the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Prior to her new role, Parson lent her expertise to leading organizations in the design and innovation sectors, including: NYU Tandon School of Engineering (formerly the NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering); Smart Design, an

PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

award-winning design consultancy; and Taxi 07, a project of the Design Trust for Public Space.

Previously, she worked for ten years inside Detroit’s automotive industry in communications posts at both General Motors Corporation and Ford Motor Company, notably supporting GM Design and product launch activities at Ford.

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NEWS FROM THE LIBRARY Color in a New Light Most of us take color for granted. We simply see it the moment that light beams from or reflects off an object, enters our eyes, and is processed by our brains. But do we stop to think what color actually is?

Smithsonian Libraries will present “Color in a New Light”, an exhibition exploring the science, technology, history, art and culture of color, organized

by Librarian, Jennifer Alexander Paul, The Practical Ostrich Cohlman Feather Dyer. Philadelphia, Pa.: Bracchi from Cooper Published by Mrs. Dr. M. Frank, 1888.

Smithsonian Institution Libraries.

Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Library. The exhibit will feature twenty-four rare books from across eight research branches and runs from January 2016 through March 2017 at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. From chemistry and colorblindness to camouflage and couture, these books reveal unexpected connections and fascinating discoveries that tell the story of color.

Many color theories were documented in books using a variety of graphics and colorful illustrations to demonstrate principles of color. Highlights of the works on view include Isaac Newton’s Opticks (1704), one of the great works in the history of science and the first book to scientifically establish our visible spectrum.

The mid-19th-century invention of synthetic dyes paved the way for modern chemistry to move into industrial applications, and indirectly led to advances in

modern medicine, explosives, photography, and plastics.

The exhibition also includes early dye sample catalogs displaying the vibrant variety of new synthetic colors, and applications of color dyeing, such as Alexander Paul’s The Practical Ostrich Feather Dyer (1888).

Other highlights of the exhibition include Albert Henry Munsell. Atlas of the Munsell Color System [Malden, Mass.: Wadsworth, early color charts, Howland & Co., Inc., Printers, ca. 1915]. Smithsonian Institution Libraries. Gift of Binney & such as Richard Smith, Inc. Waller’s “Tabula colorum physiologica . . .”

Wiener Farbenkabinet [Vienna color cabinet] [Table of physiological colors] (1686), one of (1794), one of only four known copies in the the earliest known color charts created as world, this early manual on the preparation a tool for describing plants and animals and of colors contains 2,592 hand-colored natural dye specimens.

“Color in a New Light” is made possible by generous support from lead sponsor, Benjamin Moore. Additional funding is provided by The Shepherd Color Company.

Snow globes, National Parks, Wheelchairs, Bohemian spas and more…

Édouard Guichard, Die Harmonie der Farben [The harmony of colors]Frankfurt a.M.: Wilhelm Rommel, 1882.

Smithsonian Institution Libraries. Purchased by the Margery F. Masinter Endowment.

The Cooper Hewitt Library started digitizing and making Parsons Masters’ Program theses available online around 2002, occasionally obtaining electronic versions from earlier graduates. Of the over 190 Parsons Masters’ Program theses in SIRIS, there are now 30 available online through the Smithsonian Institution website, with more being processed. Any student who is writing a thesis for completion of their masters’ degree can elect to post their thesis online in the Smithsonian Digital Repository. The SDR is a service to collect, archive, and make

COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM

NEWSLETTER 9 LETTER FROM PARIS: YOU ARE HERE publicly available the results of scholarship conducted at the Smithsonian Institution.

To browse Parsons’ theses full-text online, go to: https:// repository.si.edu/handle/10088/8787 Some titles include: • A Biography of the American Snow Globe: From Memory to Mass Production, From Souvenir to Sign.

By Anne Hilker, 2014.

• “See, Experience, and Enjoy” Visuality and the Tourist Experience in the National Parks, 1864-1966.

By Rebecca Gross, 2014.

• Enwheeled: Two Centuries of Wheelchair Design, from Furniture to Film. By Penny Lynne Wolfson, 2014.

• Springs of salvation: theoretical and literary readings of glassware from Bohemian spas. By Michelle Jackson, 2013.

For more information about Smithsonian Research Online, visit https://repository.si.edu or contact Elizabeth Broman in the Library, bromane@si.edu

Eiffel Tower snow globe, 1889.

Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass.

by Emmanuel Guy “You are here. We are here. We are in Paris in the weeks after the November 13th terrorist attacks and in the days of the COP21 conference on climate change. This is our city. This is our moment. This is a global moment.

We are tired. We are outraged. We wish for a better world. We question the extent to which we may effect change, but we do not want to leave the conversation about our future in the hands of a few. The crisis of this moment has left us feeling helpless, but not hopeless. Here, we bear witness to this moment. We speak as a community for our city and for our planet. We create. We cultivate.

We continue. We are here.”

This is how the History of Design and Curatorial Studies MA students of Parsons Paris chose to react and adapt, as curators, to their context of practice.

What was supposed to be a COP21 exhibition has become something else.

Following the night of November 13th, and the subsequent state of emergency which has seen a worrying curtailment of the right to protest, the students of Parsons Paris have been more than ever determined to keep the debate going. They have designed and curated a place for them and for our community to voice our concerns and our hopes.

This project is the result of a collaborative process. Our goal was clear: providing our community with the means to voice its opinions about the COP21 conference. More specifically, we wanted to express our doubts as to the ability of the conference and its political framework to foster and implement actual change.

Our questions were simple: How are we to engage with the official discourses around COP21?

We had no choice but to reuse and reappropriate. In a context where citizens were denied

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the right to participate in the discussions on their future, we were compelled to intervene as commentators.

I HAVE NO VOICE SO I MUST SHOUT Since the slogan as a literary form has been comprehensively recuperated by advertising, marketing, and mainstream politics, how could we craft a discourse in opposition to the coercive nature of the slogan? Given the circumstances, we also wanted to focus on the ideological nature of “sustainability” by addressing the issue with the proper term: pollution.

POLLUTION IS IN FASHION TODAY. Guy Debord, The Sick Planet, 1971.

We are well aware that this statement is ambiguous, especially when issued by a school like Parsons. This ambiguity is intentional.

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YOU ARE HERE (CONTINUED) Our intervention had to be a refusal of greenwashing politics; not necessarily a loud and proactive refusal, but rather a snarky and lazy one which we believed to be even more potent.

I WOULD PREFER NOT TO, Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener, 1853 While it is commonly accepted for artists and poets to express criticism, negativity, or even simply reluctance, curators are usually expected to celebrate, praise, and promote an object of study. In this, curation has much in common with merchandising. We wanted to criticize a framework – the COP21 conference – through the creation of an alternative

one based on our discussions.

Here is what we chose: Poetry as a tool to repurpose language.

Unclear messages. Open ended statements. In a word: literature.

THE OLD OCEAN ITSELF CARES NOT. Guy Debord, The Sick Planet, 1971.

Do you?

But curation is also a strategy for action and, as such, cannot start from theory and ideas before moving to means and practice; instead, it must constantly consider both aspects throughout the process. Looking for strategies of disruptive commentary, we reflected on graphic design, printing techniques and on our local history in Paris.

The use of silkscreen printing

Francesco Pastore and Samantha Wiley, HDCS students, creating “You Are Here” posters during opening night of “You Are Here” (photo: Anne Ditmeyer)

during May 68 in the Ateliers Populaires of both the École des Beaux Arts and École des Arts Décoratifs allowed for the production and dissemination of posters and designs protesting in a vast range of tones and on a vast range of topics. Together, they created an alternative discourse, in opposition to the heavily censored official and mass media. Combining this practical experience from the past with modern equivalents of silkscreen printing, we came up with a framework for people to apply whatever content they saw fit onto the ambiguous phrases we had selected – and which we hope people will change and renew as necessary.

Neither content nor display, we saw in the framework a site where intellectual, design, and political work can be produced. It was a means for our own Atelier Populaire to immediately adapt to the new circumstances in Paris: the state of emergency and the curtailment of freedom of speech which immediately

followed the November 13th attacks and which – there is no other word for it – conveniently preceded the COP21 conference.

What started as a discussion on non-conventional curatorial practices ended as an experiment in local history, design practice and protest tactics.

It’s our state of emergency, too.

How it worked: This project was made possible with the partnership of RISO France.

4 stacks of pre-printed A3 posters, each bearing one of our selected sentences, were placed onto a table.

Participants could either pick up some of the posters as they are, or intervene on them using the RISO machine – very much like a photocopier.

To do so, they would place various elements of their choice onto the RISO glass – blank shapes, press clippings, packaging, leaflets, photographs – thus

COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM

NEWSLETTER 11 OBJECTIVE happens when every voice, every point of view and every project proposed is accepted and opened up for discussion and debate.

The COP21 climate talk largely consisted of concessions, bargaining and compromise in the hope of reaching some kind of deal.

At Parsons Paris, we chose to respond to this model of represen“You are here” posters design spotted in the COP21 conference area, Le Bourget. (photo: Alexandra tation and negotiation McBride) by investigating the notion of collective ture when it comes to curating creating an additional layer that problem solving: does it really within a shifting context. The would be superimposed onto exist, and if so, what might curatorial practice we are most the existing one that bears the it look like? It meant putting familiar with indeed relies on sentences.

“Humanities” into action and processes of editing, selection, Each “design” had to be theorizing curatorial practice. and exclusion. Here, we have printed in a number of copies.

At times we struggled to move imagined what a completely Some were archived. forward: the process was The rest were for participants different approach would look sometimes slower, more amlike, one arising out of ideas of to pick up, and paste wherever biguous, and more frustrating. community action, of solidarity, they would find appropriate.

Yet what emerged out of this of agency, and of outrage. This open format that included exhibition, with its fully open It has been important for our over 80 members of our format, was an exercise in community to reflect on the community was a self-orinclusion, an experiment in what challenges of format and strucganized system, one of interdependence, of small groups formed around specific problems and tasks. In this ‘super-local’ approach, under a unified banner, different groups clustered together to solve the parts of the problem within their reach. In this way, engagement became instinctive and resistance became irresistible.

Parsons Paris MA Program in the History of Design and Curatorial Studies, Dec 13, 2015

PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

After the successful launch of Objective, the Journal of the History of Design and Curatorial Studies program in the spring, the journal is gearing up for its spring 2016 issue. The new editorial team consists of Catherine Powell, Editor in Chief, along with Adrian Madlener, Narender Strong, and Derrick Gaiter. The design team is Bill Shaffer and Alison Underwood. The journal will include long-form articles drawn from student research, reviews of books, exhibitions, gallery openings, curatorial

design, shops, etc. and a “New and Notable” section to highlight events, buildings, public or private spaces, new artists, products, etc. that have captured the attention of our students and alumni.

Alumni are welcome to propose reviews and articles for the journal. Please contact Catherine Powell for more details (powec063@newschool.edu).

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MA PROGRAM IN THE HISTORY OF DESIGN AND CURATORIAL STUDIES

LETTER FROM PARIS: A STUDENT’S VIEW

by Samantha Wiley After studying French design, from 17th-century tapestries to 20th-century modern architecture, I made the choice

libraries in Paris are as beautiful as the museums and are worth visiting for their architecture as well as their collections.

Here, I can pull from a bevy of primary sources to enhance my

SUMMER COURSES Summer 2015 This past summer, students participated in a course on decorative arts and design in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Starting from the medieval city of Bruges with its rich Burgundian heritage, the class then travelled to Brussels to examine Belgian design through the centuries highlighting Art Nouveau and Art Deco architecture and interiors as well as contemporary design.

After four days in Belgium, students traveled to the Netherlands where the course focused on 19th and 20th century Dutch design.

The class was based in Amsterdam and took day trips to Rotterdam,

Samantha Wiley

to study abroad in Paris during the fall semester of my last year. The option to study at the Parsons Paris campus was a major deciding factor in my choice to attend the MA Program in History of Design and Curatorial Studies at Parsons. As I near the end of my semester, I can say that studying at Parsons Paris has provided me with a unique and unforgettable learning experience.

On an average day, I walk to the Parsons Paris campus from my apartment in Montmartre. If I’m early, I’ll wander to a section of the Louvre that I haven’t been to yet. Or, I’ll try to get in some research at the library at Les Arts Décoratifs. The

research and understanding.

My courses range in topics from the History of Collections and Museums to Graphic Design History and Exhibition.

A wonderful aspect about studying in Paris is all of the site visits. Each class offers multiple site visits to museums, galleries, libraries, and other cultural institutions in Paris as part of the curriculum.

Some past and upcoming visits include the Maison de Verre, Musée d’Orsay, and Bibliothèque nationale de France.

The campus is small, so you get to know and work with students from other departments quite often.

On the weekends I try to visit new places and take part

Students at the Schröder House, Utrecht.

in many of the festivals and programs that Paris has to offer.

A recent favorite of mine was Nuit Blanche, a special night of art and music performances and installations. In addition, many of the galleries and museums stay open into the early hours of the morning during Nuit Blanche.

Some of my favorite museums include the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine, and Centre Pompidou. Each day in

Paris brings with it new experiences that help to further both my studies while at Parsons as well as my own personal understanding of culture and history. Entering a preserved 18th-century French interior that I studied in New York adds a deeper understanding to the design and spirit of the time.

I look forward to taking these experiences with me back to New York as I finish my studies in the program.

COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM

NEWSLETTER 13 SUMMER COURSES (CONTINUED)

Catherine Powell sits in a Rietveld chair.

The Hague, Utrecht, and other places. Highlights included the Kröller-Möller Museum, the Sonneveld House, one of the best-preserved houses in the Nieuwe Bouwen style, the Dutch branch of the International School of Modernism, and a visit to the iconic Rietveld-Schröder House.

Summer 2016 Coming up in the summer of 2016, students and alumni will have the opportunity to study German decorative arts in Berlin with Prof. Ulrich Leben.

The course will explore Germany’s rich heritage of decorative arts since the 18th century and German designers’ roles in shaping the course of modernism. Students will visit important German collections, including the Kunstgewerbemuseum and the Bauhaus Archiv; as well as royal palaces and house museums from the 18th through the 20th centuries in and near Berlin (many of which have kept their original decoration and furnishings).

Students will become familiar with contemporary architecture, design, and collections in Berlin and the post-reunification reconstruction that continues to reshape

The course will include visits to the the city once again serving as the Musée Carnavalet and the Hôtel Soubise; capital of Germany the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Hotel Parsons Paris will host another Lauzun, Palais Beauharnais, and the historic summer course The Period Room as apartments at the Arsenal. The class will Curatorial Practice taught by dean also visit the workshop of the Ebénisterie Sarah E. Lawrence and Ulrich Leben.

Michel Jamet and of Gilders Gohard.

This three-week intensive will consider the origins and critical issues surrounding the period room, giving special attention to the particular history of the period room in French museums and historic houses.

The period room raises many significant issues about museum display, but no less important are the critical issues raised concerning methodologies of social history and the history of decorative arts. Among the topics under consideration will be the question of authenticity; the invisibility of the curator; the notion of a period style; and the disjunction between the chronological moment of production and the moment of Bauhaus building, Dessau. presentation.

A salon from the Hôtel de Serres (c. 1795). Musée des arts décoratifs, Paris.

PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

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MA PROGRAM IN THE HISTORY OF DESIGN AND CURATORIAL STUDIES SCENES FROM COMMENCEMENT 2015 University Commencement

FIRST-YEAR STUDENT PROFILE: SEBASTIAN GRANT Sebastian Grant is pleased to be working through his first semester in the Parsons History of Design and Curatorial Studies Masters Program, which has been an exciting journey so far.

As a recent graduate of McGill University, with majors in Art History and Classics, he joined the Masters Program hoping to gain a more hands-on experience with art objects, and to get more involved with the fast paced life of a museum, Sebastian Grant and as soon as the semester began, involvement became his top priority. When he wasn’t working through the required courses of Proseminar and Survey I, he was exploring the world of Early Modern spectacles in Display in Motion with Tracy Ehrlich, or discovering the qualities of Huguenot Silver with Victoria and Albert Museum curator Tessa Murdoch. Outside of classes, he has become a Cooper Hewitt Fellow in the Publications department of Cooper Hewitt, and a Teacher’s Assistant in Modern Architectural History at the New York School of Interior Design. He is also currently an

intern in the Curatorial Department at Cooper Hewitt, helping in the development of the Design Triennial exhibit opening in February 2016. He also likes volunteering for small jobs to help around in the program, such as working as an assistant at the front desk during interviews for the London Royal College of Art. When he is not busy helping around the museum, he likes attending many of the events happening around the city, such as guest lectures by Renier Baarsen, Walter Hood, and Bjarke Ingels at Cooper Hewitt, or special exhibitions such as the Brimo, Di Castro, and Kugel exhibition at the Academy Mansion, or the preview of the Taubman collection at Sotheby’s. He also likes attending the many arts and decorative arts shows at the Park Avenue Armory, whenever they’re available. After such a busy semester, he is grateful to be a part in all the opportunities offered by the program, and is most excited for his plans to visit the Paris campus in the fall of next year.

Sarah Lichtman receives the New School Distinguished Teaching Award from Parsons Dean Joel Towers and University Provost Tim Marshall. Graduating student Carolina Valdes-Lora was the Class Speaker at the Art and Design History and Theory commencement ceremony, and introduced Sarah Lichtman for her receipt of the award.

ADHT Dean Sarah Lawrence, Sarah Lichtman, Marilyn Cohen, Ethan Robey, Carolina Valdes-Lora, and Parsons Dean Joel Towers.

COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM

NEWSLETTER 15 SCENES FROM COMMENCEMENT 2015 ADHT Class Day

Erin Gillis and fam

ily.

Maleyne Syracuse, Lark Morgenstern, Melissa Okan, Stephanie Bradley, Katie Kupferberg, and Olivia Nickel.

Lark Morgenstern

and family.

es-Lora Carolina Vald

er Roi ent Award winn aduating Stud Outstanding Gr man. and Sarah Licht

Baron

PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

Crista Bazoian and family.

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and family, w

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MA PROGRAM IN THE HISTORY OF DESIGN AND CURATORIAL STUDIES

SAVE THE DATE: VOORSANGER SYMPOSIUM, “SHOWING OFF” APRIL 7 & 8, 2016 What makes an object desirable?

And why do we show it off? From Veblen’s theories of conspicuous display to Bourdieu’s concept of “ostentatious discretion,” scholars have long been fascinated with how display and extravagance, or their converse act as signs of economic and/or cultural capital.

“Showing Off: Design and Ostentation” is the theme of the annual symposium, which will be April 7 and 8, 2016 at Cooper Hewitt. This year’s Catherine Hoover Voorsanger Keynote speaker will be Ulysses Grant Dietz, Chief Curator

Ingo Maurer, Porca Miseria! Hanging Lamp, 2000. Glazed molded porcelain adhered to metal, stainless steel; halogen light source. Gift of Peter Norton.

2010-16-1.

and Curator of Decorative Arts at the Newark Museum, speaking about jewelry and the reinstallation of the Newark Museum’s collection.

The symposium will explore issues relating to ornament and excess--or their conspicuous avoidance--in relation to social structures, aesthetics, technology, politics and economics.

The keynote will be on Thursday evening, April 7, 2016, and the symposium sessions will be in the morning and afternoon on Friday, April 8.

We hope to see you there!

COOPER HEWITT

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Smithsonian Design Museum Smithsonian

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum