Serious Change by Design

By Hope Wallace

The Cold War. Don’t we wish if we have to have wars they would be this type? At the Victoria & Albert Museum in London during 2008-2009 an entire exhibition titled “Cold War Modern 1945-1970” was created to explore the role art and design played in showcasing dominant world powers’ achievements and ultimately help resolve tensions. This subject is entirely too vast to cover in one weekly column but I wanted to touch on another way art, and in these particular examples, design is crucial to society.

When I was a little girl I had a deck of colorful cards, which could be assembled to build houses and other structures. It was one of my favorite toys. I was too little to know or care that its designers, the husband and wife team of Charles and Ray Eames, had also designed a component of an earlier exhibition which helped normalize relations between the United States and Russia a few years earlier.

Glimpses of the USA (1959) was made for the American Exhibition in Moscow and was a huge seven-screen production lasting 12 minutes. This film includes over 2,200 moving and still images focused on American life emphasizing humane, productive and socially inclusive representations and everyday aspects of our country. The film illustrated how much more we were alike than different and helped pave the way for the end of the Cold War.

This film was a part of many different presentations commissioned by the United States Information Department for this exposition and near the Eames’ presentation President Nixon and Khrushchev’s famous kitchen debate took place.

Charles and Ray Eames are primarily known for innovative furniture design but their design studio accepted many different types of commissions, including film. Charles’ first film features Cranbrook School of Art and Design’s world-renowned potter Maija Grotell throwing a large pot on the wheel. Clyde Burt (the ceramist who was featured in

our February exhibit) studied at Cranbrook under this influential potter.

I am continually amazed at these interconnected relationships. As a result my faith is renewed at examples of people being built up with commonality and positive change as opposed to being torn down with negativity and narrow-mindedness.

Our next exhibit, The Wassenberg Art Center High School Invitational opens April 21, 6-8 p.m. with a public reception serving great refreshments. This year we’ve invited area high schools within an approximate 35-mile radius to submit works from some of their intriguing artists to compete in a competition worth cash prizes. The art will be judged by Matt Neff, high school art teacher of Bryan High School, and is sponsored by Cooper Farms. We are very excited to begin promoting the future of our culture through creative expression and investing in our own future.

Our new schedule of classes is available, so give us a call if you are not on our mailing list. You may also email us and we can send you a schedule in pdf format. Email and our website helps us save costs and be kinder to the environment.

Contact the art center at 419.238.6837, by email: admin@wassenbergartcenter.org or via our website at: wassenbergartcenter.org. The Wassenberg Art Center is located at 643 South Washington Street in Van Wert and is open Tuesday through Sunday during exhibits from 1 – 5 p.m.