PROJECTS
EXHIBITION GRAPHICS
Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Washington, DC
Ilya and Emilia Kabakov: The Utopian Projects
September 2017 – April 2018
Working closely with the Hirshhorn’s exhibition and curatorial staff, Christine Lefebvre Design developed the graphics, including entrance mural and interpretive panels, for Ilya and Emilia Kabakov: The Utopian Projects. Exhibition design was by the Hirshhorn’s design department.
“Acclaimed Russian-born American artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov have been working collaboratively for nearly thirty years. Although built with unbridled imagination and optimism, their installation-based works are directly inspired by the hardships, surveillance, and suspicion they endured while living in the Soviet Union. Spanning the years between 1985 and the present day, The Utopian Projects features more than twenty of the Kabakovs’ maquettes and whimsical models. Engaging projects both realized and unrealized, this exhibition includes monuments, allegorical narratives, architectural structures, and commissioned outdoor works.”
INTERPRETIVE GRAPHICS The large interpretive graphics activated the museum’s inner wall; maquettes and models were placed in the center of the space, in dialogue with the graphics. The graphics held sketches by the Kabakovs and photographs of realized projects, as well as interpretation.
ENTRANCE GRAPHIC Inspired by the work The Fallen Sky, from 2010, CLD used a whimsical, digitized cloud illustration for the large entrance graphic. The title lock-up felt hopeful and light — as though the words were floating skyward — referencing the Kabakovs’ work, while also adhering to the Hirshhorn's institutional design standards.
Credits: Exhibition Graphic Design by Christine Lefebvre Design. Exhibition Design and Curation by Hirshhorn. Graphics printed by Blair, Inc. (Springfield, VA). Exhibition installation by Hirshhorn.