Body Constructs / Crafting Modernity

The Museum of Modern Art presents two new modern architecture and design exhibitions:

Body Constructs (Gallery 417)
January 2024–January 2026

Challenging the use of body standards in architecture and design, this newly installed exhibition interrogates modernism’s grappling with questions of gender, race, and disability after World War II. Body Constructs explores these frictions through two opposing yet overlapping tendencies: the invention of narrowly defined “average” human figures intended to support standardized designs; and an urge to challenge the belief that such simplified constructs could encompass the full range of bodily variation and embodied experience. Bringing together an interdisciplinary array of media, the exhibition features works by Le Corbusier, Henry Dreyfuss, Frederick Kiesler, VALIE EXPORT, Jorge Castillo, Michael Webb, Rebecca Allen, Haus-Rucker-Co, Ant Farm, and Niki de Saint Phalle, among others—many of them on view at MoMA for the first time.

In the 1940s and ’50s scientific disciplines like anthropometrics and ergonomics—which sought to establish objective principles for measuring the body and improving its performance—informed the creation of normative figures, from Le Corbusier’s Modulor to Henry Dreyfuss’s Joe and Josephine. However, in the 1960s and ’70s, the civil and disability rights movements, second-wave feminism, and the rise of environmentalism propelled critiques of universal design and its limitations. Anything but neutral, the body emerged as a contested site from which to critically re-evaluate architecture’s role in mediating the experience between humans and the built environment, a vital discussion that remains urgent in architectural practice to this day.  

Body Constructs is organized by Evangelos Kotsioris, Assistant Curator, and Paula Vilaplana de Miguel, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design, with Joëlle Martin, twelve-month intern, Department of Architecture and Design. The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of reading groups. More information to follow on moma.org.

 

Crafting Modernity: Design in Latin America, 1940–1980
March 8–September 22, 2024

“There is design in everything,” wrote Clara Porset, the innovative Cuban-Mexican designer. She believed that craft and industry could inspire each other, forging an alternative path for modern design. Not all of Porset’s colleagues agreed with her conviction. Crafting Modernity: Design in Latin America, 1940–1980 is the first exhibition by a major American museum to examine modern design in the region on a broad scale. Highlights of the exhibition include Clara Porset’s Butaque chair; Lina Bo Bardi’s Bowl chair; Antonio Bonet, Juan Kurchan, and Jorge Ferrari Hardoy’s B.K.F. Chair; and Roberto Matta’s Malitte Lounge Furniture.This exhibition presents sometimes conflicting visions of modernity proposed by designers of home environments in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela between 1940 and 1980. For some, design was an evolution of local and Indigenous craft traditions, leading to an approach that combined centuries-old artisanal techniques with machine-based methods. For others, design responded to market conditions and local tastes, and was based on available technologies and industrial processes. 

The home became a site of experimentation for modern living during a period marked by dramatic political, economic, and social changes, which had broad repercussions for Latin American visual culture. For nearly half a century, the design of the domestic environment embodied ideas of national identity, models of production, and modern ways of living. Through some 150 objects, including furniture, graphic design, textiles, ceramics, and photography, drawn from MoMA’s collection and from public and private collections across the US, Latin America, and Europe, the exhibition demonstrates how the field of design in Latin America provides a valuable platform for examining and understanding larger political, social, and cultural transformations in the region. 

Crafting Modernity: Design in Latin America, 1940–1980 is organized by Ana Elena Mallet, guest curator, and Amanda Forment, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design