Over the past five decades, the figure of Lance Wyman has remained a cornerstone of contemporary design, and his work has become an essential component for understanding the visual culture of our time.
Lance Wyman: Urban Icons
“De ida y vuelta” (Coming and Going), on view at MUAC, is the first solo exhibition to truly spotlight Lance Wyman’s work, focusing on the heart of his oeuvre: design as an urban concept.
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- 25 October 2014
- Coyoacán
Widely recognized, Wyman’s work is based on his unique dialogue with the sociocultural context that envelops his projects. Each icon, each line, each image responds to an intense exchange with its environment, resulting in a visual grammar that is closely linked to local reality and deeply rooted in the place’s collective imagination.
The exhibition “De ida y vuelta” (Coming and Going) focuses on the heart of his oeuvre: design as an urban concept. The presence of his icons remains active in the Mexican imaginary from a social, cultural, and urban perspective, while his work itself marks a before and after in the history of national design.
The projects in the exhibition were selected for their influence on the visual identification of urban life in Mexico and around the world. Urban furniture, sketches, photographs, and interviews will be deployed in an attempt to reveal Wyman’s creative processes of abstraction and research toward the successful completion of each project.
His presence in Mexico accompanies a period of rapid transformation in urban design and the city’s striking growth called “stabilizing development.” The Mexican state, interested in projecting an image of progress and modernization, promoted a boom in the automobile industry as well as the construction of important architectural and transportation works like the Viaducto (“viaduct”) and the Periférico (“ring road”), which unquestionably transformed the city’s appearance.
The current exhibition, organized by and displayed at the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC, or University Museum of Contemporary Art), seeks to encompass the range of Lance Wyman’s graphic design and its influence on the urban environment beyond our own territory, where his icons and signs have become urban references that permeate the collective imagination. Wyman has managed to establish a permanent communication system through symbols, and these symbols are now clear evidence of the way in which an image is capable of transmitting an effective message through the use of minimal elements.
until February 22, 2015
De ida y vuelta
Lance Wyman: Urban Icons
curated by Pilar García
Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC)
Centro Cultural Universitario
Insurgentes Sur 3000, Coyoacán
México