Volume Gallery
TEMPERATURE/2012

Chicago – Volume Gallery is pleased to present TEMPERATURE 2012 in conjunction with The Home Front Series at the Museum of Arts and Design. Reception date January 28, 2012 4-7 PM at the Andrew Rafacz Gallery.

At Volume we believe that designed objects are the visual representation of progress. Historically, design has been a direct reflection of the society from which it was created and utilized, and our exhibitions and publications ask questions of what it means to be an American designer in our global culture.

The contents of the book Temperature 2012 are purely the product of the Makers, designers who are actively producing, and the Observers, the intellectuals and tastemakers of design culture. We developed a set of questions for each group with the intention of opening up a dialogue (which perhaps has created more questions than answers). For the Makers, questions revolved around how a contemporary designer works—technology, collaboration, theory, and location. For the Observers, the questions related to contextualizing contemporary American design, both globally and historically.

The brief was to answer the questions in any fashion each participant felt appropriate. While the entries varied a great deal, each one is indicative of the Maker’s or Observer’s standpoint on the current state of American design. The resulting content provides an insightful analytic discussion on where these groups currently stand on everything from regionalism to globalism, handmade to computer generated, and 20th Century to 21st Century design.

As one of the designers included in this project suggested, this is not so much a survey of American Makers and Observers; it is a diagnostic. Which is both a more clinical, and yet, humanizing term—there is the implication of a surgical approach to explaining a very living breathing subject matter—American design.

Temperature 2012 includes content from: Lindsey Adelman, Tanya Aguiniga, Brian Anderson, Alan Brake, Rafael de Cardenas, Wendell Castle, Isaac Chen, CMMNWLTH, Joe Doucet, Felicia Ferrone, Patrick Gavin, Johanna Grawunder, Jerry Helling, Christopher Ho, Sung Jang, Michael Jefferson, Seth Keller, Scott Klinker, Christy MacLear, Kiel Mead, Moorhead & Moorhead, Jonathan Muecke, Jonathan Nesci, Object Design League, Charlie O’Geen, Patrick Parrish, Parrish Rash & van Diesel, Rich Brilliant Willing, Jen Renzi, Meaghan Roddy, ROLU, Dan Rubinstein, Silva/Bradshaw, Snarkitecture, Southern Design Concern, Brooks Hudson Thomas, Thaddeus Wolfe, Phillips Michael Wolfson.

Book design by the inimitable Plural.