Everyone, including Stewart Brand, likes this exhibit. In an article on the NY Times yesterday, Ken Johnson wrote a perceptive article on the WEC. As Kevin Kelly says, “They get it.” True that.
“Brainchild of the visionary techno-hippie artist Stewart Brand, this compendium of resources for the New Age is the subject of ‘Access to Tools: Publications From the Whole Earth Catalog, 1968-1974,’ a modest but stirring time capsule of an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art.
The Whole Earth Catalog did for counterculture youth in the ’60s what the Sears Catalog did for children of the Great Depression and what Google does for people of the Internet age: provide a way for ordinary people to connect with and make use of the global economy. Against the dominion of capitalist profiteers and the top-down cult of technocratic expertise, it aimed to put practical, intellectual and spiritual means of self-determination into the hands of the people. A telephone-book size tome printed on cheap paper in black and white and in all kinds of typographies, and peppered with sharp, often funny commentary on its products by its editors — as well as essays, short stories by writers like Wendell Berry and letters from readers — the catalog was nothing if not user friendly.”
Runs through July 26th. Since I’m heading for NYC Saturday, I’ll be able to check it out.
