The Silicon Valley is not just a matrix for technology companies and rising real estate costs – it is an increasingly ambitious artistic arena.
Towards that end, the San Jose Museum of Modern Art is hosting an exhibition of 280 works by 57 international designers from 27 countries.
The “Beauty-Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial” runs at SJMA, the only West Coast venue for this global design overview, now until Sunday, Feb. 19, 201.
The Bay Area is an important design hub, with more digital and high-tech product designers than anywhere in the world. The exhibition features elements that speak to the design components of the tech revolution, from the IPhone to the Tesla Model S, along with other aesthetic achievements.
“Beauty surprises you; it can make you dizzy or erode you like an obsession,’’ fashion designer Giambattista Valli observes in the 276-page Cooper Hewitt catalogue for the show.
Projects in the exhibition include examples of high tech fashion and architecture made possible through new materials technologies, like fantastical creatures enabled through advanced digital systems that can be handmade by South African bead workers or couture jackets that change color based on the temperature.
As the Colombian-based design firm Hezichoo (the name translates to “enchant, bewitch’’) puts it: “When you see beauty, you have this moment of silence, of stillness.’’
The San Jose Museum of Art, located at 110 South Market Street, San Jose, is open Tuesday-Sunday, 11 am – 5 pm and 11 am-8 pm on the third Thursday of every month. Admission is $6 for college students with identification.
Information can be found here.
