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Dr. Bess Williamson

Historian of design and culture

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  • Bio: Dr. Bess Williamson (she/hers)
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Great to see @norm_design22b's chair now in the @artinstitutechi collection & on view!
Why I'm a fan of museum tours, which usually consist of audiences of a certain age -- they bring great life observations of things. Audience comment on this Chicago Bauhaus / Institute for Design inner tube chair: which came first, this or portable prostate pillows? Also love the #ElsaKula plywood marionette-style mannequins Thx @afisherchicago for this great show!
I liked these comic book embroideries (I'm pretty sure?) by Peter Fredericksen at Chicago Athletic Assoc
In-sidewalk wayfinding - a diamond pointing us North in Chicago's 2-block long jewelry district.
Some Warhol bodies: A b&w projected drawing of some kind of medical ad with a feminine torso and numbered labels with "Where is _Yo_ Rupture?" Another projected drawing or screen with illustrations of a feminine profile with a bigger/smaller nose Portrait of Nixon from 1972 with "Vote McGovern" scrawled below Portrait of Marsha P Johnson, a black trans woman who started the Stonewall riot, in overlapping screen colors with one green eyelid, red smile, and a long black shadow-type form from the side of her face down the canvas A newspaper ad drawing with the slogan "ARE YOU DIFFERENT?" Two portraits from a row of portraits displayed over Warhol's pink cow print wallpaper: queen Farah Diba and her husband the last Shah of Iran (1976).
A visit to Winterthur, an anachronistic collector's cabinet / ostentatious display of American wealth that somehow ended up being a serious place to study objects. Christmas seems to allow them to bring out some of the odder stuff like 300 year old marzipan cookies, leg lamp (was this here in the early 2000s @retracharas??), feather trees, and grumpy looking versions of St Nick/Santa etc. Always worth a visit.
  • Writing
  • Bio: Dr. Bess Williamson (she/hers)
  • Teaching
  • News
  • CV
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