jAnE PAVitt - Victoria and Albert Museum

Jane PavittIn August 2010, Jane Pavitt joined the RCA/V&AProgramme as the RCA Head of History of Design.She succeeds David Crowley who, as acting Head ofDepartment, has run the course programme for thelast academic year. David departs History of Designto head the newly established MA Programme inCritical Writing in Art and Design at the RCA.Jane has been a member of the V&A ResearchDepartment for the last 13 years, in her capacity asthe University of Brighton Principal Research Fellow.During her time at the V&A and Brighton, herresearch has been devoted to the collection,interpretation and display of modern design in themuseum, specifically late 20th century andcontemporary product design. She has curated aseries of exhibitions for the museum, most recentlyCold War Modern: Design 1945–70 (V&A 2008) withRCA colleague David Crowley. As she moves to theRCA to take up her new post, she will also continueto work with the V&A as both a member ofacademic staff and an exhibition curator.The primary focus of Jane’s current research is theforthcoming V&A exhibition Postmodernism: Styleand Subversion 1970–90, which she is co-curatingfor 2011 with Glenn Adamson. This exhibitioncontinues the V&A’s long-running exhibition seriesdevoted to the 20th century, of which Cold WarModern was the last instalment. Postmodernismwill explore the radical style cultures of the late20th century, through such themes as history,identity and money. Preparations for Postmodernismhave involved extensive research into newacquisitions, and the curators have acquired(through gift and purchase) a large number of rareand exciting works for the collections, includingobjects by Ettore Sottsass, Alessandro Mendini,Peter Shire and Shiro Kuramata; and architecturalworks by Philip Johnson, Brodsky & Utkin andSITE architects. They are working in productivecollaboration with many architects, designers andperformers from the period. The exhibition willbe designed by London architectural partnershipCarmody Groake (with graphics by A Practice forEveryday Life), and be accompanied by a substantialbook, co-edited by the curators. It will tour tointernational venues in 2012–3.Jane’s work for the exhibitions Cold War Modernand Postmodernism has included investigation intothe roots of Italian radical design and this has led tofurther plans for a research study devoted to the1970s group Global Tools, which she is developing incollaboration with RCA research student CatherineRossi. In April, she gave a paper at the 2010Association of Art Historians Annual Conferenceat the University of Glasgow entitled The Future isPossibly Past: The Anxious Spaces of Gaetano Pescewhich focussed on Pesce’s 1970s work. This paperwas a contribution to the conference strand (andpossible book) Anxious Dwelling/Postwar Spaces.Jane has continued her to pursue her researchinterest in contemporary design and curating, witha recent essay on museums and the creativeindustries in Guy Julier & Liz Moor’s Design andCreativity: Policy Management and Practice, (Berg2009) and occasional lectures for postgraduatesincluding Sotheby’s Institute and KingstonUniversity. She aims to develop this investigationinto design curation into a book length study,focussing on contemporary and recent historicalpractices. Other forthcoming publications includean essay on the work of Gijs Bakker and Emmy VanLeersum for the book Re:View: The Collections ofthe Stedelijk Museum, published to coincide withthe Stedelijk’s major reopening in the coming year.24/25Alexander Brodsky & Ilya Utkin, Columbarium architecturae,Museum of Disappearing Buildings, 1984 (1990)Etching, 1075 x 775m