Deborah Sussman Loves Los Angeles!
November 14th 2014 – February 28th 2015
This exhibition recognizes an iconic designer who has helped shape the visual landscape of Los Angeles and define the field of environmental graphic design. It focuses on the early career of Deborah Sussman (1931–2014), highlighting projects that illuminate formative years in her professional development and in the growth of Los Angeles as a cultural center and a global city.
Sussman spent the early part of her career working at the Los Angeles office of Charles and Ray Eames. There, Sussman was introduced to the city and developed a multidisciplinary design approach that she eventually applied to both her work and office culture. In 1984, her designs Los Angeles Olympic Games catapulted the city onto the world stage in a kaleidoscope of colors that came to define not only the look of the Games but the city itself. Through its expanding scale and exuberant use of color, her graphic design tracks a path between modern and postmodern design and across the changing landscape of Los Angeles as it grew dramatically in size, density, and diversity from the 1950s to the 1980s.
This examination of the first thirty years of Sussman’s career invites further scholarship on women’s roles in collaborative design projects in Los Angeles and the nation at large during a time period dominated by male practitioners.
Curated by Barbara Bestor, Catherine Gudis, Tom Kracauer and Shannon Starkey. Organized in Chicago by Matthew Terdich, Elizabeth Cummings and Morgan Walsh. Read more about the exhibition curation and design process here.
