0I first learned of Krzysztof Wodiczko and his work when he came to speak at the MFA. A friend and I escaped the Museum School during our lunch break to hear him talk. At the time (I think it was the middle of junior year), I was having serious doubts (again) about art’s ability to make an impact on people at all and whether I would be able to do anything meaningful or relevant to society as an artist. Seeing Wodiczko’s work helped mitigate these doubts a great deal, if not put a decisive end to them.
Polish-born artist Krzysztof Wodiczko is best known for his large-scale video projections of everyday people onto monuments and other public edifices. These projections often portray these ordinary volunteers candidly telling stories of their lives and experiences, usually centered around painful ordeal or personal suffering. His work has been installed and shown in public spaces in over a dozen countries, ranging from the town squares of authoritarian governments to right here on our National Mall in D.C. Wodiczko also designs technological devices or machines worn on the body that help construct situations in which people can share their personal stories with others.
Nearly all of Wodiczko’s work follows a socio-political theme. For instance, in his monumental projections work, he chooses to film people whose lives have intersected with war, conflict, homelessness, social inequity, gang violence. In all these works, the melding of private and public spheres is immediately obvious.
Way to start New Year off, right? =)
Actually, this is not so about me having an existential angst session about my chosen profession, as it is about some realizations that have come to pass over this recent holiday season.
The main thing is this: design is not as important as designers think it is. If you have ever tried to explain your profession or show your portfolio to relatives or non-design friends or even some potential clients, you can probably understand what I mean. (I am speaking here mostly about *graphic* design, but this could also apply to other types of design like fashion, architectural, industrial.)
Finally, we visited the Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Design today (after two failed attempts). And admission was free! Apparently they have invented some sort of “National Design Week” to promote itself. And design. Well, it was pretty much as I expected. Very… institutional. But still worth a visit.
The first floor was an exhibition titled “Design USA,” which was a show consisting of the winners of the National Design Awards from the past 10 years. The winners showcased were pretty predictable—many famous names like Diller Scofido + Renfro, Stefen Sagmeister, John Maeda, Adobe, Herman Miller, IDEO… I think Pentagram was mentioned a few times. I kept getting exasperated at how insular and limited and.. like, self-congratulatory the design world feels sometimes. These are names I hear over and over until it’s drilled into your head. You’d think no one else has any good ideas or knows how to innovate.
So we have this client at work who is truly, madly, deeply obsessed with the idea of originality. Cue eye-roll.
“Okay, waitasec,” you might think, “why someone who calls herself a creative professional pooh-pooh originality? Is that not the foundation of what you do?”
Well, yes, to an extent. Sort of. Actually no, not really.
Originality is one of those things that you eventually learn, usually the hard way at art school, that it doesn’t really exist. And if it does not really exist in the art world, than it might as well be a unicorn fairy in the design world. Because…
Starting with one of my favorite quotes of all time: “While great art makes you wonder, great design makes things clear.” (John Maeda said it, and in classic Maeda style, he makes things just as simple as they need to be, and no simpler.)
Building on the online design community’s shining tradition of making utterly massive lists of supposedly invaluable resources and things, I give you:
100 Design-Related Blog Posts With Lists of 100 Things
- Top 100 Best Fonts of All Time
- 100 Inspiring Character Designs
- 100 Great Blog Logso
- 100 Great Inspirational Resources for Designers
- 100 Extraordinary Examples of Paper Art
- 100 of the Best Creative and Grunge Designs About (Hm… about…)
- 100 Wonderful Photo Effects Photoshop Tutorials
- 100 of the Best Inspirational Blog Designs
- 100 Nice and Beautiful Blog Designs
- 100 Amazing Free Wordpress Themes for 2009 (And here we begin quite a few from Smashing Magazine…)
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