Thu 03 Jun
2010
This coming Monday, I’ll have the honor of speaking at The Museum of Modern Art here in New York City as part of their PopRally event series. This particular event highlights MoMA’s current exhibition “The New Typography,” which includes a selection of seminal works from the eponymous design movement of the 1920s and 1930s. All of the pieces included in the exhibition are drawn from the personal collection of the legendary designer Jan Tschichold. Though the show is fairly small and intimate, there are some legendary and amazing selections to be seen there.
I’ll be joining Stephen Doyle of Doyle Partners, Chester Jenkins of Village, and moderator Juliet Kinchin (MoMA Curator of Architecture and Design), on stage in a conversation about typography in the twenty-first century and how it both draws upon and departs from the work of the New Typography from nearly a century ago. Needless to say, I’m very humbled. The event begins in one of the auditoriums at the museum’s main galleries on Fifty-third Street, and then continues upstairs with a private group viewing of the exhibition. I hope you can join us! Get your tickets here.
Sounds like an interesting show and event.
I’m interested in Tschichold’s work and legacy, and am admittedly fascinated with his promotion and subsequent rejection of the New Typography. Have you read the interesting exchange between Tschichold and Max Bill, with the latter attacking the former for his return to traditional typography and the former explaining that he had done so because of the disturbing parallels between the dogmatism of the New Typography and, as he put it, “those fearful components of the German character which set loose Hitler’s power and the Second World War”? (And Tschichold had been placed in “protective custody” by the Nazis and spent 6 weeks in prison and lost his teaching position for, if I recall, practicing “un-German typography.”) Worth looking into if you don’t know it, as it opens a very interesting window on the rise of “absolutist” Modernist movements on the one hand and totalitarian states on the other, both products of the same time and society.
Wow this looks great. Unfortunately its already sold out. Would also love to hear Veronica Vasicka’s set.
Nice job Khoi. Congrats. Would love to know if there are transcripts or videos or slides, etc. ever posted.