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20th and 21st Century Design Exhibitions Library/Archives

Paging Through the Publications on View in “Scandinavian Design and the United States”

Colorful manuals about people
Colorful manuals about people

Alongside the brightly colored Dala horses, large-scale woven artworks, and fabulous furniture featured in the Scandinavian Design and the United States, 1890–1980 exhibition are eight publications from the Milwaukee Art Museum Research Center—two magazines, an exhibition catalogue, three books, a beautiful serigraph, and an interactive ergonomics manual.

Why, you may be asking, are these publications on display in an exhibition with works of art and design?

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20th and 21st Century Design Art Collection Education Studio at Home

Play Date with Art at Home: Make Your Own Futuristic Fashions!

Neckpiece made of plastic and gems resembling computer parts
Alice H. Klein, Calculation, 1984 (detail). Acrylic, cubic zirconia, peridot, amethyst, cultured pearls, gold filled wire, mother-of-pearl polyester resin, 5 × 8 3/4 × 1 1/2 in. (12.7 × 22.23 × 3.81 cm). Gift of TKO Designs Incorporated M1991.52. Photo by John R. Glembin.

In our Play Date with Art program this month, we imagined what we’d be wearing in the future, and then we used found materials to bring our vision to life. You can do the same at home, using materials from around your house! Your designs can be anything you want. Think of future styles, or think of a special occasion you’d like to dress up for.

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20th and 21st Century Design American Art Collection Education Studio at Home

Kohl’s Art Generation Studio at Home: DIY “Stained Glass” Windows

Stained glass
Marion Mahony Griffin (American, 1871-1962), Window, 1907 (detail). Glass and zinc came, 24 × 29 1/2 in. (60.96 × 74.93 cm). Gift of family and friends in memory of Pamela Jacobs Keegan, architect M1984.14.
Stained glass
Marion Mahony Griffin (American, 1871-1962), Window, 1907. Glass and zinc came, 24 × 29 1/2 in. (60.96 × 74.93 cm). Gift of family and friends in memory of Pamela Jacobs Keegan, architect M1984.14.

Having to stay inside can get dull—especially if it’s too cold, too windy, or too rainy to play outside. I find myself staring out my window quite a lot these days. It got me thinking: what could make my window more fun? How could I make my indoors more colorful while also sharing some fun with my neighbors, who may be looking out their windows? For our first at-home art activity, I drew inspiration from leaded stained glass windows!

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20th and 21st Century Design Art Collection

Functional Fashions

Installation view, “Functional Fashions,” Milwaukee Art Musuem, 2019.

*Within the disability community today, some may prefer identity-first language (e.g., “disabled person”), or person-first language (e.g., “person with a disability”). Because the curators do not know the preferences of the historical subjects in the “Functional Fashions” display, they chose to use identity-first language based on the recommendations of collaborators.

The mistaken belief that there is no history of clothing designs for disabled users has had a number of repercussions. Among them: nearly all designers treat their own iterations as inaugural, there has been a dearth of innovation as designs are continuously repeated, and disability-led innovation is written out of the historical record [1]. Not only is there a long history of clothing designed by and for disabled persons, but in some cases it sets a higher standard than the efforts that followed. “Functional Fashions,” a display in the 20th- and 21st-Century Design Galleries at the Milwaukee Art Museum, introduces the largest collaborative clothing line for disabled persons in American history.

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20th and 21st Century Design Art Collection Curatorial

20th-Century Tools for Measuring Time and Bodies

Isamu Noguchi for Measured Time, Inc., Clock and Kitchen Timer, ca. 1932 (detail). Bakelite, metal, glass, and painted metal. Gift from the George R. Kravis II Collection M2018.246. Photo: Sotheby’s, © Sotheby’s, Inc. 2016, © 2017 The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Isamu Noguchi for Measured Time, Inc., Clock and Kitchen Timer, ca. 1932. Bakelite, metal, glass, and painted metal. Gift from the George R. Kravis II Collection M2018.246. Photo: Sotheby’s, © Sotheby’s, Inc. 2016, © 2017 The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Isamu Noguchi for Measured Time, Inc., Clock and Kitchen Timer, ca. 1932. Bakelite, metal, glass, and painted metal. Gift from the George R. Kravis II Collection M2018.246. Photo: Sotheby’s, © Sotheby’s, Inc. 2016, © 2017 The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Clocks, calculators, measuring tapes, and scales—tools for measurement and calculation have long been important for people to accomplish tasks at work, school, and home. A new display in the 20th- and 21st-Century Design Galleries considers the role designers played in shaping such devices in the twentieth century, with examples from the 1920s-1980s. On one hand, these objects demonstrate how many designers aimed to make tools that are simple to use and easy to read, such as the streamlined kitchen clock and timer that Isamu Noguchi designed for Measured Time, Inc. in the early 1930s. At the same time, these designs bring to light how measurement and calculation have been closely linked to the human body in the twentieth century, as this post explores.

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20th and 21st Century Design Art Behind the Scenes Curatorial Education Events Exhibitions

The House of Cards Project

UWM-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts students (left to right) Anna Emerson, Paul Manley, and Jessica Schubkegel installing the House of Cards spiral. Photo by Ray Chi.

In the early 1950s, designers Charles and Ray Eames painstakingly arranged penny cars, pencils, pills, and papers to photograph for their House of Cards construction set. They probably never imagined that decades later, thousands of children and adults in the Milwaukee region would meticulously decorate their own House of Cards, let alone that these cards would be installed together in a towering spiral at the Milwaukee Art Museum in conjunction with the exhibition Serious Play: Design in Midcentury America.

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20th and 21st Century Design Art Collection Curatorial

20th- and 21st-Century Design: New Acquisitions Now On View

Josef Hoffmann (Austrian, 1870–1956), produced by Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna, Austria, 1903–1932), Basket, 1905. Silver and ivory. Milwaukee Art Museum, Purchase, with funds from the Demmer Charitable Trust, M2017.56. Photo by John R. Glembin.

Spring cleaning isn’t just for attics—the Museum’s Design Galleries were recently refreshed with a new coat of paint and numerous recent acquisitions. From turn-of-the-century silver to twenty-first-century furniture, these objects demonstrate the wide range of what we mean by “design” at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

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20th and 21st Century Design Art Collection Curatorial Exhibitions

Introducing: “Afrikando” by Jaime Hayon

Jaime Hayon, designer, with Nason Moretti, producer, from left to right: Umi (Life), Saidah (Fortunate), Chausiki (Born at Night), Malawa (Blossoms), Sauda (Dark Beauty), Wambua (Rainy Season), and Abayomi (Brings Joy) from Afrikando, 2017. Milwaukee Art Museum, purchase with funds from the Jill and Jack Pelisek Endowment Fund, the Sanford J. Ettinger Memorial Fund, and by exchange, M2017.23.4-7. Photo by John R. Glembin.
Three glass-blown figurines
Jaime Hayon (Spanish, b. 1974), Afrikando, 2017. Glass. 1 Sauda (Dark Beauty): 16 9/16 × 13 in. (42 × 33 cm). 2 Wambua (Rainy Season): 20 1/16 × 11 7/16 in. (51 × 29 cm). 3 Abayomi (Brings Joy): 20 1/2 × 15 3/4 in. (52 × 40 cm). Purchase with funds from the Jill and Jack Pelisek Endowment Fund, the Sanford J. Ettinger Memorial Fund, and by exchange M2017.23.1–.3. Photographer by John R. Glembin. © Jaime Hayon

Among the many eye-catching objects in the exhibition Jaime Hayon: Technicolor, the delicate etching, dangling earrings, and dazzling glass surfaces of Afrikando are particularly alluring. This set of seven glass vessels is on view for the first time in the exhibition of work by Spanish artist-designer Jaime Hayon. Designed by Hayon expressly for the Milwaukee Art Museum’s permanent Collection, Afrikando fuses the tradition of glassblowing with the designer’s delightfully fresh contemporary sensibility.

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20th and 21st Century Design Art Curatorial Exhibitions

Jaime Hayon: Technicolor

White ceramic bowl with green embroidery
Hella Jongerius, (Dutch, b. 1963), produced by Royal Tichelaar Makkum (Makkum, Netherlands, founded 1572), Bowl, from the collection Repeat, 2002. Porcelain and cotton. Milwaukee Art Museum. Purchase, with funds from the Demmer Charitable Trust, M2015.12.
Installation view of Jaime Hayon: Technicolor, Milwaukee Art Museum, 2017. Photo by John R. Glembin.
Installation view of Jaime Hayon: Technicolor, Milwaukee Art Museum, 2017. Photo by John R. Glembin.

On view now through March 25th in the Bradley Family Gallery, Jaime Hayon: Technicolor brightens up wintertime in Milwaukee with a colorful splash of fun and fantasy. The energetic exhibition features work from two decades of the Spanish artist-designer’s career, including textiles, ceramics, glass, drawings, and playground equipment. These works represent a wide range of approaches to making, thinking, and viewing, while also remaining unified by a refreshing sense of playful whimsy.

Jaime Hayon trained in his native Madrid and in Paris before directing the design department at Fabrica, the Benetton-funded design and communication academy in Italy, for nearly a decade. In 2003, he left Fabrica to focus on his own studio practice. Hayon Studio now has offices in Italy, Spain, and Japan and is acclaimed worldwide.

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20th and 21st Century Design American Art Collection Curatorial Exhibitions

MAM Celebrates 150 Years of Frank Lloyd Wright: Part Two: The Potential of Plywood

Frank Lloyd Wright (American, 1867–1959), Usonian Exhibition Dining Chair, 1953. Oak and plywood. Milwaukee Art Museum, Purchase, in memory of Evelyn Brindis Demmer with funds from the the Demmer Charitable Trust, Jody Brindis Goisman & Dick Goisman, Dr. Charles Brindis & Debra L. Brindis, and Wayne & Kristine Lueders.
Wooden chair made of cutout shapes
Frank Lloyd Wright (American, 1867–1959), Usonian Exhibition Dining Chair (detail), 1953. Oak and plywood. Milwaukee Art Museum, Purchase, in memory of Evelyn Brindis Demmer with funds from the the Demmer Charitable Trust, Jody Brindis Goisman & Dick Goisman, Dr. Charles Brindis & Debra L. Brindis, and Wayne & Kristine Lueders.

Though world-renowned (and Wisconsin-born) architect Frank Lloyd Wright is perhaps best remembered for his work in the Prairie Style, this portion of his career was only the first chapter of a much longer story. And so, in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Wright’s birth, the Milwaukee Art Museum is pleased to commemorate multiple aspects of his career—both early and late.