The Art and Art History Department at Carleton College invites students and community members to welcome Michael Golec, associate professor of the history of design at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and visiting associate professor in art and archaeology at Princeton University, who will speak on Thursday, Nov. 4 at 5:30 p.m. in the Boliou Hall Auditorium.
Entitled “Shock Mounts and Assisted Living: The War Time Development of the Eames DCM Chair,” Golec’s presentation will focus on the furniture designs of the iconic post-war American designers Charles and Ray Eames. Golec will examine how the Eames’ DCM Chair, now a classic design that can be traced back to the plywood leg splints the designers created during World War II, assisted the post-war body with the challenge of increasing social and psychological pressures. His talk will explore how design objects played an active role in the defining the post-World War II American psyche. This event is free and open to the public.
Golec’s research emphasizes graphic design, visual communications, and print culture, and examines the intersection of 20th century design in the United States with the history of art, technology, science, and philosophical aesthetics. He received his B.F.A. with honors in graphic design from the University of Illinois in 1991, before earning his M.A. in design history there in 1997. He later earned a PhD in art history and theory from Northwestern University in 2003.
Golec is the author of Brillo Box Archive: Aesthetics, Design, and Art (Hanover: Dartmouth College Press, 2008), co-edited Relearning from Las Vegas (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), and has published articles and reviews in a variety of publications including Design and Culture, the Journal of Design History, and American Quarterly.
Golec’s appearance is an Edwin L. Weisl Jr. Lectureship in Art History at Carleton College, sponsored by the Robert Lehman Foundation. For more information, including disability accommodations, call (507) 222-4341. Boliou Hall is accessible via Highway 19 or First Street in Northfield.
