The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age

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Karl Gunnar Vougt Pontus Hultén

1968

Book

The Library

Description

This aluminum-bound catalogue is from “The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age,” an exhibition that opened at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in November 1968, just a few months after “Cybernetic Serendipity” at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. Together, the shows form a significant early chapter in the history of art and technology in the museum.

The exhibition’s curator was Swedish museum director and collector Pontus Hultén, who also wrote the catalogue. The cover and binding were designed by Anders Österlin, after a photograph of MoMA’s building by Alicia Legg.

Inside, black-and-white reproductions document the 200-plus works in the show, described as “a collection of comments on technology by artists of the Western world.” These span from Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machine sketches and Eadweard Muybridge’s photographic motion studies to freshly commissioned works by Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), a nonprofit that facilitated collaborations among artists, scientists, and engineers.