Barbara Bestor’s Exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Chairs by Eero Saarinen, Hans Wegner, and Alvar Aalto. Textiles emblazoned with bold, vibrant supergraphics. Crave-worthy works of glass and ceramics. These are among the 175 objects, many we’ve come to know and love, on view in Barbara Bestor’s exhibition, “Scandinavian Design and the United States, 1890-1980” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The exhibit, for which the architect collaborated with curators Bobbye Tigerman and Monica Obniski is, however, more than a collection of objects. Instead, it takes a deeper dive into the design and cultural exchanges between the United States and the Nordic countries, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Iceland. In this aspect, it is said to be the first of its kind.

Spread across three rooms on the second floor of Renzo Piano’s Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM) adjunct, the exhibition builds upon ideas forming six thematic constructs. Examined are: Migration and Heritage; Teachers and Student; Travel Abroad; Selling the Scandinavian Dream; Design for Diplomacy; and Design for Social Change. Together they propose an alternative to the European-centric influence on American design history as presented by the Bauhaus.

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