On the Road: Designed in California at SFMOMA
A few weeks ago I went to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to check out the Designed in California exhibit that’s currently up. Since I work for a California-based tech company, I was curious to see what parallels exist between California designers from the late 1950s to the present (or at least what SFMOMA thinks these parallels are), and if Cycling '74 has any similarities.
The exhibit showcases the many divergent areas of design that were birthed in California since the digital revolution. Among the 100+ pieces on display, there is the office conference room of Charles and Ray Eames, a wood stool by the ever inspiring sculptor J.B. Blunk, a coffee mug by Heath ceramics, the “Radical Software” magazine by Ant Farm, a 1970s North Face tent, a prototype for a Macintosh touchscreen tablet from 1984, a modern day iPhone, and the recently released Google Home Mini.
Although ceramics, camping equipment, and Apple products may seem like disparate forms of design, they all relate to one another in that they are human-centered, socially conscious, and driven by new technological capacities. As SFMOMA’s website states, “a shared desire to empower the individual led to designs for ‘dropping out,’ such as North Face’s tents and Chouinard’s climbing equipment, as well as the creation of new tools for connected living — from the first Apple desktop computer to now ubiquitous mobile devices.”
A few personal highlights in the show were Arthur Espenet Carpenter’s Wishbone chair from 1970 — an elegant chair crafted from wood and leather, Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog from 1969 — a guide to unconventional tools and ideas that aimed to inspire readers to liberate themselves from consumerism and social norms, and the NeXT Cube desktop computer (1986) — a version of which was apparently in the old Cycling '74 offices, but that was before my time.
Although there were many interesting objects on display, I left feeling disappointed that the show didn’t highlight a deeper connection between these pieces, besides that they are all human-centered designs that were inspired by new technologies. For a long time California has been such a unique hub for innovation and radical thinking. But where did this progressive mind set spawn from? While walking though the show I kept thinking about a similar exhibit that I saw at the Berkeley Art Museum last year, Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia. This previous exhibit explored the counterculture of the 1960s and 70s and its impact on global art, architecture, and design. It demonstrated how the counterculture introduced ideas that later shaped contemporary life and technology. In a way, Designed in California seemed like a smaller scale version of Hippie Modernism. Both shows even displayed some of the same artists such as Ant Farm and J.B. Blunk. But the SFMOMA show could have developed a more concrete narrative, illustrating how we moved from J.B. Blunk’s primitive looking stool to the new Google Home Mini.
And where does Cycling '74 fit into all of this? An artist software company that began in California some 20 years ago. I would say that Max is certainly a human-centered design, driven by new technology, that is intended to empower the individual. I would also say that some of the founding principle’s of Max were probably inspired by the radical thinking of the 60s and 70s, whether consciously or subconsciously. Certainly a lot of the art that is produced with Max (interactive multi-media environments, psychedelic video art, experimental soundscapes) is directly related to the counterculture happenings of the 1960s. It can be easy to get caught up in the present, always trying to create something new and innovative. Which is why it’s important to see shows like Designed in California and Hippie Modernism. They remind us all that everything we do exists in a lineage, and there’s always someone or something that we should pay our respects to.
When I finished looking at the Designed in California exhibit, I went down to the 7th floor to peek into the recently opened Nothing Stable under Heaven show. A friend who works at SFMOMA recommended that I check out one particular piece in the show, Arthur Jafa’s video installation “Love Is the Message, the Message Is Death.” This 7-minute piece, composed of a single-channel video projected in an otherwise dark, empty room, portrays the pain and injustice as well as the resilience and joy of African American culture. By collaging found footage clips of concerts, silent films, police violence, the LA Riots, basketball games, and Obama speeches, among countless others, set to a soundtrack of Kanye West’s “Ultralight Beam”, Jafa creates an emotionally and intellectually charged portrait on the dualities of oppression and euphoria. If you find yourself at SFMOMA sometime before September 16th, when the show ends, I highly recommend experiencing this piece.
Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia (the catalog for the now-closed exhibition)
by Ashley on April 3, 2018
