Problems of the Arts in a Mass Society/Three

The “data” for eloquent and persuasive photo essays, films, and broadcasts on industrial design for the general public exist for the taking in intelligent journals like Industrial Design, Craft Horizons, and the Design Quarterly (formerly Everyday Art Quarterly) of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The Walker has shown particular initiative in its publications and Christmas exhibitions, the latter helping shoppers find where in Minneapolis they can buy which good designs at what prices.

The Museum of Modern Art has also done much to promote the intelligent criticism of man-made everyday objects with its teaching portfolios for the public schools and its tradition of “good design” shows. Its activity in this field reached a distinguished high point in the winter 1958-59 with Greta Daniel’s and Arthur Drexler’s major exhibition on “Twentieth Century Design.” It is symptomatic of the peripheral support given such critical endeavors that no documentary film of the show is available for mass distribution.

The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston has concentrated more on organizing elite symposia and conferences than on broadening popular understanding of good design, but neither dimension of the problem should be neglected. Jay Doblin’s work at the Illinois Institute of Technology, especially his recent juried selection of the hundred best designs, is notable. All these rather isolated first steps provide the broad base of knowledge and experience necessary for a popularized criticism of industrial design.

In creating and disseminating a vision of excellence for a mass society, perhaps the place to start is with individual designers whose work within a marketing society is an embodiment of idealism and craftsmanship: Leo Lionni, Charles Eames, George Nelson, George Nakashima, Saul Bass, Paul McCobb, and Isamu Noguchi.

Are these exemplars of excellence well enough known to the patrons of a mass society? Is their unnecessarily low visibility at least partly responsible for the more depressing aspects of the man-made environment in America?