Creator: Smithsonian American Art Museum
“This Present Moment: Crafting a Better World” showcases American craft like never before. Accompanying a 2022 exhibition of the same name, it features artists’ stories of resilience, methods of activism, and highlights craft’s ability to spark essential conversations about race, gender, and representation. This book marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery, the nation’s preeminent center for the enjoyment of American craft.
Like the art and artists represented in the exhibition, the design of the catalogue aimed to highlight the turbulence and anxiety – as well as the hopeful initiatives – of the time in which the exhibition was organized (2019-22). Topics of concern included the COVID-19 pandemic, Black Lives Matter, illegal immigration, political unrest, global climate change, and other current events. Antonio Alcalá of Studio A was hired to help the SAAM team brainstorm cover concepts; it was he who suggested using variable image technology to create fifty different covers in honor of the Renwick Gallery's 50th anniversary. Karen Siatras created the solarized image of the Renwick’s façade and Antonio interpreted it in fifty different colorways for the paper-over-boards covers. The title was printed on a clear PVC dust jacket, a common element to unify the set.
Additional Credits
Mary Savig, Author
Julianna C. White, Editor
Tiffany Farrell, Head of Publications
Karen Siatras, Designer
Antonio Alcalá of Studio A, Cover Designer
Louise Ramsay of D Giles Limited, Project Manager
Conti Tipocolor, Printer