The Exhibit Designer

About a month ago I visited The Art of Video Games at the Smithsonian American Art Museum with my friend Diana. Sorry in advance for my [terrible!] phone photos.

It’s gotten quite a bit of press already that I’m afraid I don’t have much of interest to add to (here is a thoughtful review), but in a nutshell: it covers the past 40 years of video game art. The exhibit includes interviews of game designers and developers, conceptual art, video displays of 80 games (voted on by the public), and playable games (five, for the five eras of game technology).

[I would have loved to play some Super Mario Brothers, but the line was 10 kids deep so I chose to move on....]

Historic game consoles were also on display. (ugh, the games I played with as a kid are now “historic.”) We were interested to learn about the industrial design and engineering of the actual consoles, but that was not covered in this exhibit. Perhaps in a follow-up?

The designers describe their process and the materials and production techniques used in this blog post. There is also an upcoming gallery talk, “Building ‘The Art of Video Games’” on August 21. For those of you not in the D.C. area, the exhibit travels beginning late October.

I am in awe of the Van Cleef & Arpels traveling exhibition. But alas, I can only look at photos.

My colleague Le Zhengyuan, however, saw this exhibit twice. Once while it was on view in NY at the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt (and called “Set in Style”) and then again when it moved to MOCA Shanghai (and changed its name to “Timeless Beauty”). [Naturally, while it was on view in Tokyo it had yet a different name, “Spirit of Beauty.”]

Le shared the photos of MOCA Shanghai’s exhibit below:

She said, “they didn’t move the entire exhibit set to Shanghai, but there were some new displays, like the octopus-like [structure]. The space is very dark…and the sparkling bubble glass displays make it look like an underwater world!” She thought both versions were fantastic.

The designers, Patrick Jouin, explain: “for this exhibition we wanted the visitors to lose all sense of time, to open a door onto an imaginary world. The nature theme, which is a major source of inspiration for Van Cleef & Arpels, has also influenced the scenography. The pieces in the exhibition are presented in gigantic glass drops. In order to create a sensual and mysterious installation, we have used various types of illusions.”

The photos below are from the Cooper-Hewitt exhibit, and were taken by Matt Flynn, © Smithsonian Institution:

While both exhibit versions used the bubble glass cases, the Cooper-Hewitt’s version seemed more traditional than MOCA Shanghai’s. Less octopus-structure and more tables and wall vitrines. I’d hazard a guess that the primary reason is U.S. ADA requirements. I’m curious what other challenges the designers had to address as they designed an exhibit for travel to four different countries (Japan, the U.S., Shanghai, and France).

In all its iterations, this is a gorgeous exhibition. If you can, definitely see it.

(Also check out this promo video; it has some nice views of the Tokyo exhibit.)

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Dragging out photos from the archives for your inspiration pleasure…

I loved this exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York. America’s Mayor: John V. Lindsay and the Reinvention of News  York opened and closed two years ago, but I still remember it for its bold colors and interesting story. From the museum’s description:

[The exhibit] examines the controversial tenure (1966-1973) and dramatic times of New York’s 103rd mayor. The exhibition presents John V. Lindsay’s efforts to lead a city that was undergoing radical changes and that was at the center of the upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s; it highlights Mayor Lindsay’s ambitious initiatives to redefine New York City’s government, economy, culture, and urban design. Through his outspoken championship of city life, commitment to civil rights, and opposition to the Vietnam War, Lindsay emerged as a national figure in a troubled and exhilarating era.

I loved the colors used throughout, in the murals and inside the artifact case (like the example at top).

A detail shot of a mural, showing the halftone treatment used, is below.

Throughout the exhibit, artifact vitrines were incorporated into walls in interesting ways, such as the tabletop case above and the vitrine set into the triangular freestanding wall below. They also used a silver finish that I was quite taken with.

Also noteworthy was the amount of information and artifacts on display. Overwhelming, perhaps, for some, but my observation was that the people there were genuinely interested in reading and looking at objects and documents, and for those with shorter attention spans, the large titles provided sign posts to help locate areas that would be of more interest.

The attention to detail throughout was what I appreciated the most. Below is a photo of a sneaky sliver of mural tucked between two walls. Unnecessary, nice touch.

A compilation of exhibit design-related web finds

I only have eyes
+ Everyone’s been raving about Doug Aitken’s SONG 1 at the Hirshhorn…because it’s awesome. I’ve visited twice; and would—will—visit at least once more before it closes on May 13. My grainy snapshots don’t do this any justice—you have to experience it in person.

The Titanic
+ If you’ve missed the hubbub, the 100th anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking is April 15. Dozens of exhibits about the ship and sinking are opening, including the biggest of them all, in Belfast
+ Also: Fire & Ice at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum; Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition, everywhere; Titanic at the South Street Seaport Museum in NY

The Rails
+ The Union Pacific Railroad Museum’s Building America traveling exhibit—in a traveling train car, naturally. The entire museum opens in Iowa in a month.

Exhibit Education
+ Part 1 in a series of articles describing exhibit design, from Mark Walhimer at museumplanner.org: exhibit planning
+ Blueprint, a guidebook to build your own history museum in the 21st century, from The Museum of the Future

Pinned Inspiration
+ ROLLS installation at the Diesel Denim Gallery
+ Ice ceiling
+ Purple-sided lightboxes
+ German Expressionism at the MoMA
+ San Diego Children’s Museum