MoMA | Author: Juliet Kinchin

Posts by Juliet Kinchin

January 8, 2015 | Collection & Exhibitions

Sound and Vision: A Making Music Modern Virtual Tour and Playlist

Posted by Juliet Kinchin, Curator, Department of Architecture and Design

Installation view of Making Music Modern: Design for Ear and Eye, The Museum of Modern Art, November 15, 2014–November 1, 2015. Photo: John Wronn

“Don’t you wonder sometimes/’Bout sound and vision?” sings David Bowie wistfully on a track from the album Low, released in 1977. Recently I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how music—an essentially invisible and immaterial art form—grounds us in the physical world, influencing the mood and tone of everyday life. Without it we definitely lose our bearings.

April 17, 2014 | Collection & Exhibitions, Design

“Women in the War. We Can’t Win Without Them”

Posted by Juliet Kinchin, Curator, Department of Architecture and Design

Left: 2.Howard Chandler. Christy, Gee!! I Wish I Were a Man, 1917. Lithograph. Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, 1940. The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Right: Photo of “yeomanettes” taken in New York City, May 8, 1919. Collection Naval History & Heritage Command

Left: Howard Chandler Christy. Gee!! I Wish I Were a Man. 1917. Lithograph. Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, 1940. The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Right: Photo of “yeomanettes” taken in New York City, May 8, 1919. Collection Naval History & Heritage Command

Right now the U.S. military is preparing to allow women to serve in combat roles for the first time, and pressure is growing from international precedent for the U.K. to follow suit. Yet there are still many who feel that the frontline is just not a place fit for a woman. Such a prospect was certainly out of the question a century ago during World War I.

May 31, 2013 | Five for Friday

Five for Friday: Gimme Five!

Posted by Juliet Kinchin, Curator, Department of Architecture and Design Luke Baker, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design

Five for Friday, written by a variety of MoMA staff members, is our attempt to spotlight some of the compelling, charming, and downright curious works in the Museum’s rich collection.

We had a lot of fun selecting hand-related graphics from the collection to display in Hand Signals: Digits, Fists, and Talons.

October 11, 2012 | Collection & Exhibitions

Boy Meets Wall: Hanging Out with Jens S Jensen

Posted by Aidan O’Connor, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design Juliet Kinchin, Curator, Department of Architecture and Design

The first major research trip we undertook for Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900–2000 was, appropriately, through the historically child-centric Nordic countries. It was then, in 2009, that we first encountered Jens S Jensen’s 1973 photograph

September 19, 2012 | Collection & Exhibitions

Height of Achievement: Tom Luckey, In Memoriam

Posted by Aidan O’Connor, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design Juliet Kinchin, Curator, Department of Architecture and Design

A Luckey Climber at Columbus Commons, Columbus, Indiana. Image © Luckey LLC

The name Luckey invites wordplay too tempting to avoid; in the case of Tom Luckey, a Yale-educated architect known for the kind of lofty play structures shown above, the children who ascend his Luckey Climbers could be called just that.

September 13, 2012 | Artists, Collection & Exhibitions, Videos

Manufacturing Poetry: The Toys of Libuše Niklová

Posted by Juliet Kinchin, Curator, Department of Architecture and Design

Libuše Niklová. Sound-producing animals in their original packaging. 1963–65. Hand-painted polyethylene, paper, PVC. Manufactured by Fatra, Napajedla, Czechoslovakia (est. 1935). Archive Fatra, Napajedla, Czech Republic. © From the book Libuše Niklová by Tereza Bruthansová, published by Arbor vitae societas in 2010. Photograph by Studio Toast

The plastic toys designed by Libuše Niklová—original, artistically conceived, and technically ingenious—are a firm favorite with visitors to MoMA’s Century of the Child exhibition. They remind us that many toys manufactured in Soviet Bloc countries like Czechoslovakia during the 1960s and 1970s were anything but pedantic and dreary.

August 1, 2012 | Collection & Exhibitions, Design, Videos

The Spirit of Play—a Czech Collaboration

Posted by Juliet Kinchin, Curator, Department of Architecture and Design Aidan O’Connor, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design

MoMA’s Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900–2000 exhibition includes objects from across the 20th century and from around the world.

December 1, 2010 | Collection & Exhibitions, Counter Space

Rabbit, Rabbit

Posted by Aidan O’Connor, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design Juliet Kinchin, Curator, Department of Architecture and Design

One of a series of WWII propaganda posters in MoMA's collection encouraging the British home front to raise rabbits at home on a diet of kitchen scraps...and then eat them. Poster designed by Frederick H. K. Henrion (British, 1914–1990), c. 1941

Everyone likes rabbits. Their fluffy tails. Their twitchy noses. From Peter Rabbit to Roger Rabbit, Bugs Bunny to the Easter Bunny, Watership Down to David Lynch’s surreal 2002 series Rabbits, the creatures have been anthropomorphized constantly in literature, film, and popular culture. Because they are so widely appealing, we feel extremely uncomfortable when we see rabbits encounter cooking pots, like in Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero, or at the hands of Glenn Close as manic bunny boiler in Fatal Attraction. Small wonder then that during World War II the British Government had to persuade reluctant consumers about the nutritional and money-saving benefits of raising rabbits for food.

November 10, 2010 | Collection & Exhibitions, Counter Space

What Shall I Cook? The Dessert Competition

Posted by Juliet Kinchin, Curator, Department of Architecture and Design Aidan O’Connor, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design

Contestants competing in the Pillsbury Bake Off baking contest in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York. 1949. Source: Google/LIFE Photo Archive. Photograph by Lisa Larsen

At our recent Kitchen Culture event, a public program in conjunction with the Counter Space exhibition, over 100 people enjoyed an amazing dinner prepared by Executive Chef Lynn Bound of the Art Food cafés and the Cafe 2 team. (Video of the dinner and accompanying entertainment, plus an interview with Chef Lynn, to come in future posts!) The delicious meal was inspired by a recipe book, shown here, with significant ties to the centerpiece of our exhibition, the Frankfurt Kitchen.

October 20, 2010 | Collection & Exhibitions, Counter Space

Mystery Solved: Counter Space Film Stills Identified!

Posted by Juliet Kinchin, Curator, Department of Architecture and Design Aidan O’Connor, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design

Many thanks to the Counter Space fans who contributed over the past few weeks to our Mystery Film Still Contest. We were thrilled by the speed and enthusiasm of your responses! Now we are happy to announce—and sincerely congratulate—the winner, Richard Finegan of Framingham, MA, who identified ALL of the film stills.

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