Associated Products
SESSION: “Surrealist Gestures and Material Transformation in Interior Décor, 1930-1970 (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: SESSION: “Surrealist Gestures and Material Transformation in Interior Décor, 1930-1970
Author: Marianne Eggler
Abstract: The impact of Surrealism on twentieth century interior design, at least in its most spectacular manifestations, has been thoroughly explored by scholars, including Beatriz Colomina and Anthony Vidler, and the subject was included in a 2007 exhibition at the V&A titled “Surreal Things: Surrealism and Design.” Such masterpieces of the irrational as Le Corbusier’s de Beistegui Apartment in Paris of 1929, Salvador Dali’s fantastical
furnishings inspired by Mae West, or Frederick Kiesler’s Art of this Century Gallery, 1942, in New York, have received considerable attention. However, the Surrealist urge toward the irrational and the challenge to the “functional” in interior design lurks in less well-known examples, manifesting itself in interiors as diverse as Andy Warhol’s aluminum foil-clad Factory of the 1960s and the 1980s postmodern masterpieces of the Italian group Memphis. Even the work of such canonical “high” modern architects as Mies van der Rohe, as Rosemarie Bletter has shown, exhibit irrational tendencies, and this session encourages proposals that continue this investigation, venturing inside less well scrutinized examples to consider surrealist gestures and material transformations in interior design.
Date: 02/05/2017
Primary URL:
http://http://conference.collegeart.org/schedule/Primary URL Description: Schedule for College Art Association Annual Conference, New York, February 3-6, 2017
Conference Name: College Art Association Annual Conference
SESSION: “So Near and yet so foreign: Negotiating Touristic Experience through Design" (Conference/Institute/Seminar)Title: SESSION: “So Near and yet so foreign: Negotiating Touristic Experience through Design"
Author: Sara Desvernine Reed
Abstract: Cuban graphic designer Conrado Massaguer’s promotional advertisement, featuring a voluptuous Cuban woman holding maracas and boasting the slogan, “So near and yet so foreign,” was utilized by the Cuban Tourist Commission in a promotion to its U.S. neighbors in the 1950s. Today, the messages in the
promotion are ironically prescient. Normalizing relations between the United States and Cuba has yielded heightened interest among U.S. citizens and already throngs of American tourists have traveled to Cuba, many of whom aim to experience Cuba “before it changes.” But what will shape their experience? Contemporary theories of tourism embrace the concept of a “tourist gaze” as
the performative, embodied practices of being a tourist, which are focused on the visual, as well as other sensorial experiences. This panel seeks to address the understudied, though integral, role that design plays in tourism practices. From promotional visual material, to luggage design, to “indigenous” crafts, to hotel furniture and landscaping, how does design mediate the tourist experience? How does design normalize the tourist’s life back home by creating an experience of an other? Likewise, how does design offer a space for locals to exert agency in negotiating their
representation? How does design interrogate the dichotomies that are negotiated in touristic experiences--near/far, familiar/foreign, inclusive/exclusive, comfort/discomfort, authentic/inauthentic? Papers may explore the ways in which design, as experienced by any or all of the senses, has either perpetuated the stereotypes of otherness or has contradicted and counteracted these stereotypes.
Date Range: 02/03/2017
Location: New York, New York
Primary URL:
http://conference.collegeart.org/schedule/Primary URL Description: Schedule for the College Art Association Annual Conference
SESSION: The Canon and Beyond: Theory into Practice" (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: SESSION: The Canon and Beyond: Theory into Practice"
Author: Russell Flinchum
Abstract: In July 2015, the National Endowment for the Humanities sponsored a Summer Institute at Drexel University under the direction of David Raizman, PhD, Distinguished University Professor, Art & Art History and Project Faculty Carma Gorman, PhD, Assoc. Professor and Ass’t Chair, Department of Art & Art History, University of Texas. This month of intensive study moved “beyond the canon of Modern design” to a deeper understanding of what might have been considered secondary or even peripheral research material just a generation ago. Twenty-five scholars and practitioners ranging in age from their late 20s to their early 60s formed teams for presentations during the Institute’s final week. Along the way, visits to the storage areas of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, time at the Hagley Museum and Library examining materials relating to the institution of a “color system” with the arrival of synthetic dyestuffs with Dr. Regina Blaszczyk, and sessions with curator Clare Sauro at Drexel’s Fox Historic Costume Collection amplified the content of classroom lectures.
This session would bring participants from the Summer Institute together with other teachers to communicate the strengths and challenges of the approaches they were exposed to in 2015. How can we best cope with a growing need for involvement with primary materials in a digital age as part of a design education and our need as researchers to responsibly preserve rare items for future scholars?
Date: 10/21/2016
Primary URL:
http://www.secacart.org/conferencePrimary URL Description: Southeastern College Art Conference Announcement (SECAC)
Conference Name: Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC)
SESSION: Incorporating Design History into the Curiculum (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: SESSION: Incorporating Design History into the Curiculum
Author: Brockett Horne
Author: Keith Holz
Abstract: This session will focus on fresh approaches and methods for teaching the history of design to undergraduate students. Particular attention will be given to articulating the objectives for design history courses. Brief presentations on topics in teaching design history will be offered. Attendees will consider how studies in design history can help to support students’ work as designers and how these studies may be developed at respective institutions. Time will be allocated for questions and discussion.
Date: 10/15/2016
Primary URL:
https://nasad.arts-accredit.org/annual-meeting/2016-annual-meeting/sessions-and-events/#saturdayPrimary URL Description: Schedule for the Annual Meeting of the National Association of Schools of Art & Design (NASAD), Baltimore, MD
Conference Name: National Association of Schools of Art & Design Annual Meeting
REVIEW: Copyrighting Creativity (Article)Title: REVIEW: Copyrighting Creativity
Author: Gunnar Swanson
Abstract: Review of book Copyrighting Creativity
Year: 2016
Primary URL:
http://www.designandculture.org/index.php/dcAccess Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Design and Culture, Issue 8.3, November 2016
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
REVIEW: Hitler at Home (Article)Title: REVIEW: Hitler at Home
Author: Marianne Eggler
Abstract: review of the book Hitler at Home
Year: 2016
Primary URL:
http://www.designandculture.org/index.php/dcAccess Model: subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Design and Culture, issue 8.3, November 2016
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
REVIEW: Digital Shift: The Cultural Logic of Punctuation (Article)Title: REVIEW: Digital Shift: The Cultural Logic of Punctuation
Author: Brockett Horne
Abstract: review of the book Digital Shift: The Cultural Logic of Punctuation
Year: 2016
Primary URL:
http://www.designandculture.org/index.php/dcAccess Model: subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Design and Culture, issue 8.3, November 2016
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
REVIEW: Design Objects and the Museum (Article)Title: REVIEW: Design Objects and the Museum
Author: Jennifer Kaufman-Buhler
Abstract: Review of the book Design Objects and the Museum
Year: 2017
Primary URL:
http://www.designandculture.org/index.php/dcAccess Model: subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Design and Culture, Issue 9.1, March 2017
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
REVIEW: Amateur Craft: History and Theory (Article)Title: REVIEW: Amateur Craft: History and Theory
Author: Anya Kurennaya
Abstract: Book review of Amateur Craft: History and Theory
Year: 2017
Primary URL:
http://www.designandculture.org/index.php/dcAccess Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Design and Culture, Issue 9.1, March 2017
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
REVIEW: The Birth of Cool: Style Narratives of the African Diaspora and Jazz (Article)Title: REVIEW: The Birth of Cool: Style Narratives of the African Diaspora and Jazz
Author: Anya Kurennaya
Abstract: Book review of The Birth of Cool: Style Narratives of the African Diaspora and Jazz
Year: 2017
Primary URL:
http://www.designandculture.org/index.php/dcAccess Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Design and Culture, Issue 9.2, July 2017
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
REVIEW: of Glass, Love!! Perpetual Motion!!!: A Paul Scheerbart Reader (Article)Title: REVIEW: of Glass, Love!! Perpetual Motion!!!: A Paul Scheerbart Reader
Author: Marianne Eggler
Abstract: book review of of Glass, Love!! Perpetual Motion!!!: A Paul Scheerbart Reader, ed. Josiah McIheny and Christine Burgin
Year: 2016
Primary URL:
http://archpaper.com/2016/06/paul-scheerbart-reader-review/Access Model: open access
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: The Architect's Newspaper
Publisher: The Architect's Newspaper
REVIEW (2): of Glass! Love!! Perpetual Motion!!!: A Paul Scheerbart Reader (Article)Title: REVIEW (2): of Glass! Love!! Perpetual Motion!!!: A Paul Scheerbart Reader
Author: Marianne Eggler
Abstract: review of: of Glass! Love!! Perpetual Motion!!!: A Paul Scheerbart Reader
Year: 2016
Primary URL:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13602365.2015.1100420Primary URL Description: link to the Journal of Architecture
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: The Journal of Architecture
Publisher: Taylor & Frances
REVIEW of "Beauty," Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial (Article)Title: REVIEW of "Beauty," Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial
Author: David Raizman
Abstract: review of the exhibition "Beauty" at the Cooper Hewitt Museum, New York
Year: 2017
Primary URL:
http://www.designandculture.org/index.php/dcPrimary URL Description: home page for the journal Design and Culture
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Design and Culture, Issue 9.1, March 2017
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
REVIEW: "Pathmakers" exhibition at the Museum of Art & Design, New York (Article)Title: REVIEW: "Pathmakers" exhibition at the Museum of Art & Design, New York
Author: Stephanie Vasko
Abstract: review of the "Pathmakers" exhibition at the Museum of Art & Design, New York
Year: 2016
Primary URL:
http://://www.designandculture.org/index.php/dcPrimary URL Description: home page for the journal Design and Culture
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Design and Culture, Issue, 8.2, July 2016
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
REVIEW: "Design" at the Cooper Hewitt (Article)Title: REVIEW: "Design" at the Cooper Hewitt
Author: Yelena McLane
Abstract: review of the exhibition "Making Design" at the Cooper Hewitt Museum, New York
Year: 2016
Primary URL: www.designandculture.org/index.php/dc
Primary URL Description: home page for the journal Design and Culture
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Design and Culture, Issue 8.3, November 2016
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
REVIEW: "Fashion Underground: The World of Susanne Bartsch" at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York (Article)Title: REVIEW: "Fashion Underground: The World of Susanne Bartsch" at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York
Author: Anya Kurennaya
Abstract: Review of the exhibition "Fashion Underground: The World of Susanne Bartsch" at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York
Year: 2016
Primary URL:
http://www.designandculture.org/index.php/dcPrimary URL Description: home page for the journal Design and Culture
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Design and Culture, Issue 8.3, November 2016
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
REVIEW: "Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia" at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN (Article)Title: REVIEW: "Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia" at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
Author: Karen Carter
Abstract: review of "Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia" at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
Year: 2016
Primary URL:
http://www.designandculture.org/index.php/dcAccess Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Deisgn and Culture, Issue 8.3, November 2016
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Shifting Landscapes of Universal Design (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Shifting Landscapes of Universal Design
Author: Russell Flinchum
Abstract: This session/workshop has the dual aim of familiarizing an audience that may have limited exposure to the history and current state of design explorations in the area of Universal Design with that background and the experience of becoming “test subjects” in a simulation that will acquaint them with the difficulties of dealing with disabilities and the performance of daily tasks.
Russell Flinchum will explore the background of this history at NC State University, beginning with the figure of architect Ronald L. Mace (1941-1998), an outstanding leader who turned his personal challenge of extensive incapacitation from polio as a child into the achievement of becoming the recognized leader of the Universal Design movement by the early 1990s (it was Mace who coined the term “Universal Design).
This first phase of exploration was largely about the removal of physical barriers to access, and culminated in the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990. In the following twenty-five years we have seen investigations shift to a more personal level (at the time of Mace’s death, blood glucose analyzers were just beginning to see improvements in user comfort, convenience and effectiveness stemming from the collaboration of human factors experts with industrial designers).
Date: 2/05/2017
Conference Name: College Art Association Annual Conference
Going Beyond the Canon Beyond Knowing the Canon (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Going Beyond the Canon Beyond Knowing the Canon
Author: Gayle Goudy
Abstract: As a NEH summer seminar participant in July 2015 who began teaching a course on the History of Design in August, I was in an exceptional position to apply techniques from the seminar directly to my class. In my excitement to go "beyond the canon," I radically revised my canonical schedule in the eleventh hour and discovered the difficulty of going beyond the canon with art and architectural history students who were not familiar with the canon of design. My correction resulted some unexpected and enlightening juxtapositions. In my presentation, I will share the methods learned at the NEH seminar that I used in my class and their results including the student's major assignment, which focused on objects in the Charleston Museum's collection.
Date: 10/21/2016
Primary URL:
http://www.secacart.org/2016-conferencePrimary URL Description: Home page for the 2016 SECAC Conference
Conference Name: SECAC Annual Conference (Southeastern College Art Conference)
Because Fashion is Not Art?: Non-Canonical Approaches to Teaching Fashion History (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Because Fashion is Not Art?: Non-Canonical Approaches to Teaching Fashion History
Author: Victoria Pass
Abstract: This paper will explore my approach to teaching, Ways of Seeing Fashion. Rather than creating a survey of the history of fashion, I used a textbook and timeline as the backbone of the course, but focused each class on a more in-depth case study that would allow for a broad range of topics addressing the concepts of Gender, Taste (class) and Globalization that were engaged with in the NEH summer institute. This has allowed us to dive deeply into specific topics that might not get much coverage in a traditional survey of fashion history; the history of labor practices in the garment industry, the Qipao and the New Woman in China, the political meanings of the Zoot Suit in the 1940s, or the role of fashion in the Civil Rights movement, for example. I have also incorporated multiple approaches to the study of fashion including business history, gender and sexuality studies, art history, as well as visual and cultural studies, drawing on popular magazines and newspapers, memoir, popular films, and documentaries. Rather than a history of styles and silhouettes the class gives students the tools to analyze fashion and how it is used to signify in multiple contexts.
Date: 10/21/2016
Primary URL:
http://www.secacart.org/2016-conferencePrimary URL Description: Home Page for the 2016 SECAC Annual Conference
Conference Name: SECAC (Southeastern College Art Conference)
Art in your Pocket: Design History and Art Appreciation (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Art in your Pocket: Design History and Art Appreciation
Author: Harry Turfle
Abstract: The Prebles textbook I use for my "Introduction to Art" class contains a broad scope of the purposes art has served throughout world history and culture. These include objects designed for everyday use, yet I found myself teaching this class to my strengths, which is the history of European and American painting and sculpture since the Renaissance. After attending the NEH seminar on Design History in the summer of 2015, I began to reevaluate the purposes and opportunities latent in a class designed for non-majors. How could I help students better understand the world around them? Could I develop the vocabulary and visual thinking of non-artists with designed objects? Could we have discussions of materials and aesthetic choices in light of function? How could I help students see the objects around them more vividly while also connecting these objects to largely unwritten histories? Would discussing everyday objects be more interesting and relevant to my students? In this presentation I will discuss specific approaches and ways I have tried to answer these questions, sharing the successes and failures in the classroom.
Date: 10/21/2016
Primary URL:
http://www.secacart.org/2016-conferencePrimary URL Description: Home Page for the 2016 SECAC
Conference Name: SECAC (Southeastern College Art Conference)
Digital Design Collections: A Hands-On-Experience (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Digital Design Collections: A Hands-On-Experience
Author: Kiim Sels
Abstract: The National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute at Drexel University on design featured several trips to local collections that highlighted the allure of interaction with primary materials. But not every university is situated within such a close proximity to the kinds of institutions that house these collections. Nor is it often feasible to transport or accommodate larger classes. Digital collections of design at the Library of Congress and design museums like the V&A provide a way to bring the simulation of primary source contact into the classroom setting. In this paper I will describe the way in which I have mined these online digital collections for their images. With these images, I have developed in-class activities that not only serve to expand the canon of design presented in most textbooks, but also increase student engagement, learning, and retention through the promotion of active learning. Thus I have utilized some of the teaching models presented at the Institute, and will report on their strengths and challenges as I have put them into practice over the last two semesters.
Date: 10/21/2016
Primary URL:
http://www.secacart.org/2016-conferencePrimary URL Description: Home Page for the 2016 SECAC
Conference Name: SECAC (Southeastern College Art Conference
The Mangbetu Coiffure and Haute Couture (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: The Mangbetu Coiffure and Haute Couture
Author: Victoria Pass
Abstract: This paper will explore the ways that a photograph of a Mangbetu woman named Nobosodrou, taken by George Specht in 1924 influenced fashion designers from the 1920s through the present. The photograph was by far the most famous image that emerged from La Croisière Noire (The Black Crossing), an expedition across the Sahara sponsored by Citroën. The photograph circulated in a diverse array of media throughout the 1920s and 1930s: books, postcards, posters, sculpture, and most curiously, fashion. In books, the photograph was used as evidence of what many European explorers had identified as the Mangbetu people’s advanced and hierarchical society.[i] The dignified and elegant profile of a woman whose skull had been carefully shaped by binding when she was a child was emblematic of the aesthetics of the Mangbetu, which were often linked to ancient Egypt.[ii] The image was adopted in hat designs in the 1920s and 1930s, and continues to have currency in fashion, appearing most recently in photographs made by designer Thierry Mugler in 1988 and John Galliano in 2008. This paper will explore the ways that this hairstyle reflects both modernist aesthetics and exoticism, which have given it extraordinary staying power. It has become a generic signifier of Africa in visual culture, but especially in fashion.
Date: 3/25/2016
Primary URL:
http://pcaaca.org/future-and-past-conferences/Primary URL Description: link to the PCA/ACA 2016 conference
Conference Name: PCA/ACA (Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association) Annual Conference
Representing Modern Architecture in the Rockford Files (1974-1980) (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Representing Modern Architecture in the Rockford Files (1974-1980)
Author: Christopher Wilson
Abstract: Known for its famous opening credits utilizing a telephone answering-machine, "The Rockford Files" was a 1970s weekly television series that narrated the exploits of Los Angeles private investigator Jim Rockford. The show frequently involved Rockford impersonating different characters in order to get the information required for his investigations. As such, the audience sees Rockford as he talks his way into and out of many situations at various Los Angeles locales.
Because a majority of "The Rockford Files" was shot outside and on location, it could be said that the show’s set of was primarily Los Angeles itself. In contrast to the typical image of 1970s New York portrayed in television and cinema of the time – crumbling, seedy, crime-ridden – the image of Los Angeles in "The Rockford Files" is generally a positive one; and modern architecture plays a large role in conveying this positive message. Modern-styled office buildings, schools, hospitals, courthouses, universities, museums, apartments, hotels, parking garages and even supermarkets all play prominent roles in the story-lines of "The Rockford Files."
When looking at the entire six years of the series (and 8 TV movies) what emerges is a picture of Los Angeles as a modern, forward-looking and progressive city. Interestingly, this is all done without the use of any of the typical or “canonical” modern architecture gems of Los Angeles. Instead, lesser-known “vernacular modern architecture” examples populate the Los Angeles of "The Rockford Files," perhaps in contrast to the mobile home that Jim Rockford lives in – or maybe in parallel?
Date: 3/24/2016
Primary URL:
http://pcaaca.org/future-and-past-conferences/Primary URL Description: link to the PCA/ACA 2016 conference, Seattle, WA
Conference Name: PCA/ACA (Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association) Annual Conference
From Zombies to Zines: A Cultural and Material History of the Contemporary Tiki Revival (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: From Zombies to Zines: A Cultural and Material History of the Contemporary Tiki Revival
Author: Anya Kurennaya
Abstract: In the court of public opinion, the ceramic tiki mug is likely to elicit a range of reactions based on the time period in question. A 1940s Los Angeleno might associate the material object with memories of a wild night at the popular Don the Beachcomber establishment, filled with ‘exotic’ sights, sounds, and libations. A citizen of the 1980s might associate the mug with tackiness and tastelessness, or worse yet, might not be able to make any association with the mug at all, owing to tiki’s fall from popularity. But today, the seasoned craft bartender (also known as a ‘mixologist’) will likely see the mug as an opportunity to craft a historic tiki cocktail or an updated remix. The last two decades have seen a spate of new tiki bars open across the United States whose focus is less on kitsch and more on craft, the complicated exotic cocktails and their elaborate vessels serving as demonstrations of one’s virtuosity and knowledge. This project contends that the contemporary tiki revival of the last two decades, which encompasses not only bars and glassware but an entire lifestyle of conventions, clothing, sculpture, and music, owes its popularity to the combination of both the localized, grassroots circulation of information and mass media’s glamorized portrayals of historical drinking culture. This chapter explores material and cultural aspects of the tiki revival, considering the role of media ranging from early internet forums, self-published zines, and small-print books to widely available mass market television shows, films, and magazines. Furthermore, the chapter argues that the rhetoric surrounding contemporary tiki culture, which is distinctly American, displays a selective reclamation of values, eschewing the culture’s historical roots in orientalism in favor of a quasi-anthropological unearthing of historical tiki knowledge, an appraisal of its geographical inaccuracies, and an indulgence in temporal nostalgia.
Date: 11/4/2016
Primary URL:
https://mapaca.net/conferencePrimary URL Description: MAPACA Conference Homepage
Conference Name: Mid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture Association Conference (Atlantic City)
"Using the Present to Illuminate the Past: Popular Culture's Self-Referentiality as a Tool for Re-Examining Fashion History (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: "Using the Present to Illuminate the Past: Popular Culture's Self-Referentiality as a Tool for Re-Examining Fashion History
Author: Anya Kurennaya
Abstract: When Beyonce took the stage or, rather, the football field, at the 2016 Super Bowl Halftime Show, she employed potent stylistic references along with music and dance to present a narrative laden with alternate meaning and political subtext. Her bandolier jacket referenced a similar jacket worn by Michael Jackson during his 1993 Super Bowl performance, while her dancers were styled in costumes visually reminiscent of 1960s Black Panther dress. Beyonce’s performance employs historical images to speak to present concerns while simultaneously highlighting and visually recontexualizing historical milestones, creating a historical trajectory which connects the past and present to speak to future possibilities for addressing race in America. This paper explores occurrences such as these as an effective tool for examining and re-examining fashion history, arguing that popular culture plays an important role in presenting and representing historical images. Furthermore, such referential occurrences create historical links that can, oftentimes, reinterpret the past in a way that archival images and documents alone cannot. The visual and symbolic links created between the past and the present are useful tools for students examining fashion history since they speak to multiple time periods at once, challenge canonical representations of history, and offer multiple interpretations. Focusing on case studies which present an alternate reading of history or unearth typically forgotten images and references, this paper presents the contemporary self-referential popular culture image as a beneficial tool that can be used to highlight the subversive and political potential of dress history.
Date: 1/7/2017
Primary URL:
https://www.historians.org/annual-meetingPrimary URL Description: American Historical Association Annual Conference homepage
Conference Name: American Historical Association Annual Conference (Denver)
The Rise of New "Blue Rinse Brigade": The Impact of Celebrity on the Social History of "Unnatural" Hair Color (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: The Rise of New "Blue Rinse Brigade": The Impact of Celebrity on the Social History of "Unnatural" Hair Color
Author: Anya Kurennaya
Abstract: Hair, as a particularly malleable component of our embodied selves, is a tool that can help symbolize our identity. Subject as it is to a variety of fashion trends and cycles, it can be taken as indicative of individual as well as collective shifts in identity construction. The spate of celebrities who have adopted ‘unnatural’ hair colors in recent years, from cotton-candy pink to aqua blue, reflects at once a seismic shift in techniques of self-fashioning and a continuation of historical beauty practices meant to embody the particular beauty ideal of the time. This paper traces the history and contemporary use of 'unnatural' hair dyes (pink, purple, blue, etc.) and the different reasons women have had for dyeing their hair these 'unnatural' shades. Contemporary celebrities like Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj engage with beauty culture as a status symbol and individualizing technique drawn from earlier subcultural dress practices, while caricatured ‘granny’ rinsers Betty Slocombe and Dame Edna Everage serve as a satire of older women’s seemingly frivolous and clumsy engagement with fashion and beauty culture. Most of all, these discourses address the notion of authenticity, as these seemingly unnatural colors highlight complex and oftentimes contradictory beauty discourses. Diverse media are implemented in the study, ranging from vintage hair and beauty advertisements to magazine spreads and publicity shots.
Date: 3/23/2016
Primary URL:
http://pcaaca.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2016-pcaaca-program-with-schedule.pdfPrimary URL Description: program for 2016 PCACA Conference
Conference Name: Popular Culture and American Culture Association Annual Conference (Seattle)
What was Old Is New Again: Herman Ihlenberg & the Artistic Printing Movement (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: What was Old Is New Again: Herman Ihlenberg & the Artistic Printing Movement
Author: Nancy Bernardo
Abstract: Many graphic design movements that came after the Industrial Revolution criticized the way type was used in letterhead, business cards, posters, advertising, etc. The criticism stemmed from the fact that printers were not designers and didn’t know how to properly use type. Some type foundries were criticized for creating “monster fonts”; highly stylized typefaces that were mash-ups of classics and also architecturally inspired. To add to the “fussiness” of these designs were ornamental borders and motifs that were scoffed at for being over the top. These over the top designs/layouts were typically created by a printer and client, not a graphic designer.
For over 75 years type and printers ornaments were considered kitsch and unacceptable for use in graphic design. In the late 90’s there was a revival of these beautiful pieces and can be seen in everything from editorial spreads, posters, websites, invitations, business cards and more. Fortunately there are multiple archives that hold these “relics” of the past and many letterpress and design studios that are reusing and reviving them in interesting and surprising ways.
This paper will explore some of the reasons behind this revival and the role of the early 20th century printer as designer (specifically an artist Herman Ihlenberg) and the new role of the 21st century printer designer.
Date: 3/24/2016
Primary URL:
http://pcaaca.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2016-pcaaca-program-with-schedule.pdfPrimary URL Description: Schedule for PCACA Conference
Conference Name: Popular Culture and American Culture Association Annual Conference (Seattle)
"Women, Work, and the Revolution: A Do-it-Yourself Practice" (Article)Title: "Women, Work, and the Revolution: A Do-it-Yourself Practice"
Author: Sara Desvernine Reed
Abstract: Through a study of images of women engaged in work both in and outside the home found in the Cuban magazine, Mujeres, during its initial decade of production, I examine the magazine’s representations of labor as a means of fostering collective participation and loyalty to the new regime in post-revolutionary Cuba. Mujeres aimed to propagate images of women participating in revolutionary life to engender collective support for the Castro regime, which simultaneously reinforced and subverted existing gender stereotypes and, in the process, defined the new Cuban woman. In fact, the editors of Mujeres encouraged a do-it-yourself approach to household maintenance and care that prompted readers to embrace self-directed, creative design strategies as a component of their revolutionary activism.
Year: 2016
Primary URL:
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rfdc20/currentPrimary URL Description: homepage for the design and culture journal
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Design and Culture, 8.1, March 2016, 27-54
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
"Progressive Partitions: The Promises and Problems of the American Open Plan Office" (Article)Title: "Progressive Partitions: The Promises and Problems of the American Open Plan Office"
Author: Jennifer Kaufman-Buhler
Abstract: This article examines the tension between the progressive idealism of the American open plan as it was first conceived and promoted in the late 1960s, and the myriad organizational, social, and technological problems that emerged as the open plan concept became widespread in American offices through the 1970s and 1980s. Although intended to eliminate the archaic symbols of status and hierarchy in organizations, I argue that the open plan ultimately reproduced organizational hierarchy and became a spatial reflection of a culture of discrimination based on race, social class and gender in American offices.
Year: 2016
Primary URL:
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rfdc20/currentPrimary URL Description: homepage for design and culture journal
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Design and Culture, 8.2, March 2016, 205-233
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
"Imperial Anxiety and Aggressive Décor: Imaging the Domestic Interior of the German Kaiserreich " (Book Section)Title: "Imperial Anxiety and Aggressive Décor: Imaging the Domestic Interior of the German Kaiserreich "
Author: Marianne Eggler
Editor: Anca Lasc
Abstract: The nineteenth century - the Era of the Interior - witnessed the steady displacement of art from the ceilings, walls, and floors of aristocratic and religious interiors to the everyday spaces of bourgeois households, subject to their own enhanced ornamentation. Following the 1863 Salon des refuses, the French State began to channel mediocre painters into the decorative arts. England, too, launched an extensive reform of the decorative arts, resulting in more and more artists engaged in the production and design of complete interiors. America soon followed. Present art historical scholarship - still indebted to a modernist discourse that sees cultural progress to be synonymous with the removal of ornament from both utilitarian objects and architectural spaces - has not yet acknowledged the importance of the decorative arts in the myriad interior spaces of the 1800s. Nor has mainstream art history reckoned with the importance of the interior in nineteenth-century life and thought. Aimed at an interdisciplinary audience, including art and design historians, historians of the modern interior, interior designers, visual culture theorists, and scholars of nineteenth-century material culture, this collection of essays studies the modern interior in new ways. The volume addresses the double nature of the modern interior as both space and image, blurring the boundaries between arts and crafts, decoration and high art, two-dimensional and three-dimensional design, trompe-l'oeil effects and spatial practices. In so doing, it redefines the modern interior and its objects as essential components of modern art.
Year: 2016
Primary URL:
https://www.routledge.com/Visualizing-the-Nineteenth-Century-Home-Modern-Art-and-the-Decorative/Lasc/p/book/9781472449634Primary URL Description: book on the Routledge web site
Access Model: Purchase
Publisher: Routledge
Book Title: Visualizing the Nineteenth-Century Home: Modern Art and the Decorative Impulse
Sabotaging the Cube Farm: Subversion and Resistance in American Offices (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Sabotaging the Cube Farm: Subversion and Resistance in American Offices
Author: Jennifer Kaufman-Buhler
Abstract: In my previous research I have argued that there is a predominantly negative image of cubicles in American popular culture since the late 20th century; echoed in cartoons, films, and even news stories, “the sea of cubicles” or “cube farm” has become a familiar short hand for “dreary office work” and the “bored” white-collar worker. Although this kind of image of the cubicle office with its tidy rows of desks and panels in perfect rectilinear alignment can be seen an expression of organizational surveillance, bureaucracy and control, the history of the office cubicle is also littered with tales of workers’ efforts to subvert that corporate order. From posting passive-aggressive comic strips on panel walls to using the semi-privacy of the cubicle to engage in acts of non-work, anti-work, or even direct sabotage, the cubicle also creates opportunities for resistance. Drawing on Michele de Certeau’s concept of “poaching” or “la perruque,” this paper will explore the cubicle as a site of transgressive workplace behavior and consider how the very walls that serve as an expression of organizational control also offer workers space to challenge that authority through acts of resistance. Using news stories, zines, archival research, and fictional representations, this paper will analyze how the material aspects of the cubicle office create opportunities for subversion.
Date: 3/24/2016
Primary URL:
http://pcaaca.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2016-pcaaca-program-with-schedule.pdfPrimary URL Description: PCACA conference schedule
Conference Name: Popular Culture and American Culture Association Conference (Seattle)
Standardized Technology and Exceptional Bodies: The Politics and Logistics of Ergonomics in American Offices, 1970-2000 (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Standardized Technology and Exceptional Bodies: The Politics and Logistics of Ergonomics in American Offices, 1970-2000
Author: Jennifer Kaufman-Buhler
Abstract: Starting in the 1970s, computers and other types of VDTs (visual display terminals) became common fixtures in American offices. These new devices changed the structure and content of a number of clerical and white-collar jobs, and according to ergonomic research of the time, created new forms of physical, emotional, and psychological stress for workers. While some of the physical issues associated with computer usage were sources of temporary discomfort for workers, others could lead to long lasting or even permanent injuries and disabilities. Although the computer was recognized as the source of the problem, its design and use was largely unchallenged. Instead, recommendations to address these known issues focused on the provision of specialized ergonomic furniture along with environmental and behavioral changes that could ameliorate some of the problems. While the technology was increasingly fixed and standardized in its basic design, ergonomic furniture had to be optimally flexible to accommodate diverse bodies and uses. The emphasis on changing furniture and behavior instead of computer
Date: 10/28/2016
Primary URL:
http://www.hagley.org/research/conferencesPrimary URL Description: conference website
Conference Name: Making Modern Disability: Histories of Disability, Design, and Technology
"Modernism on Vacation: The Politics of Hotel Furniture in the Spanish Caribbean" (Book Section)Title: "Modernism on Vacation: The Politics of Hotel Furniture in the Spanish Caribbean"
Author: Erica Morawski
Editor: Cammy McAtee
Editor: Fredie Floré
Abstract: Focusing on the Caribe Hilton (1949) and the Havana Riviera (1957) as case studies, this essay underscores the role modern furniture and modern hotel design played in shaping notions of place and national identity. In the 1950s, San Juan and Havana were two of the most popular international destinations for Americans, and the new hotels built in these cities were significant displays of modern architecture and design, impressing tourists and locals alike. Design and tourism converged in these hotels to create cultural contact zones that shaped American tourists’ and the local populations’ attitudes about cultural identity and international and local politics.
Considering both U.S. and insular sources, this essay underscores how hotel design, and the discourses surrounding it, were often adopted and manipulated by various agents, including local governments, private operators, guests, and the local population, to promote or contest contemporaneous debates surrounding issues of national identity, U.S.-insular relations, and the politics of tourism. These debates often hinged on notions of the modern and modernization, the historic or traditional, and concepts of the tropics. The Caribe Hilton demonstrates the Puerto Rican government’s bold move to finance a strikingly modern hotel, which served as a symbol of the island’s modernization program and promoted the use of avant-garde modernism in hotel design around the world. The Havana Riviera showcased the cosmopolitan nature of Havana in the 1950s, in which design represented the way in which Cuban culture carefully blended modernity and tradition. Concluding with a brief examination of the contemporary status of these hotels, this essay points to the ways the histories of these designs are shaped over time according to changing attitudes revolving around the topics of politics, international relations, tourism, and national identity.
Year: 2016
Publisher: Routledge
Book Title: The Politics of Furniture: Identity, Diplomacy and Persuasion in Postwar Interiors
REVIEW: A John Heskett Reader: Design, History, Economics (Article)Title: REVIEW: A John Heskett Reader: Design, History, Economics
Author: Russell Flinchum
Abstract: review of A John Heskett Reader: Design, History, Economics
Year: 2017
Primary URL:
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rfdc20/currentPrimary URL Description: website for journal Design and Culture
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Design and Culture, Issue 9.2, July 2017
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
"Morphologies and Genealogies" (Article)Title: "Morphologies and Genealogies"
Author: Maggie Taft
Abstract: This essay interrogates the influence of Shaker furniture on mid-century Danish design. Though but one among many international and historical referents, the Shaker one was, I argue, crucial to the positive reception and powerful significance of Danish design in the postwar United States. I begin with an analysis of formal resemblance and then contextualize the legibility and the significance of this resemblance within popular culture. The article aims both to consider the ramifications of design influence beyond the construction of formal genealogies and to advance our historical understanding of mid-century Danish design’s structural intervention into modernism at large.
Year: 2016
Primary URL:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17547075.2015.1105709Primary URL Description: link to article and abstract on Design and Culture journal website
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Design and Culture, Issue, 7.3, November 2016, 313-334
Publisher: Taylor & Francis