Theo Deutinger’s ingenious continuation of Neurath's info-design classic Modern Man in the Making tracks the successes and failures of modernity
Brilliantly adapting and updating Otto Neurath’s pioneering 1939 study Modern Man in the Making, Theo Deutinger's (born 1971) Joy and Fear questions how modernity, through its promises and failures, continues to reshape humanity. For the West, these promises have largely been fulfilled: computers and domestic technology have made life easier; hygiene, modern medicine and education have led to steep increases in health, life expectancy and literacy rates. For large parts of the world's population, however, these promises have not been fulfilled. For example, the current average life expectancy in Chad is equal to that of the United States in the 1920s, and at 52 is eight years below the retirement age there. The entire globe is irreversibly involved in the modern project, but its benefits are very unevenly distributed. By depicting these asymmetries in a visual language that makes complex issues immediately accessible, Joy and Fear brings clarity to today's world. The pictograms and illustrations and their accompanying texts touch on global issues ranging from agriculture to warfare to the welfare state. Thematic and chronological affinities allow cross-referencing between topics throughout the book. Joy and Fear is aimed at a broad audience interested in the evolution of modernity, its quirks and its pitfalls.
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Saturday, September 23 at 4 PM, Artbook @ MoMA PS1 Bookstore presents a conversation between author Theo Deutinger and Sharon Helgason Gallagher, President and Executive Director of Artbook | D.A.P. to celebrate the launch of Deutinger's Joy and Fear: An Illustrated Report on Modernity, published by Lars Müller Publishers.
RSVP for the event and pre-order signed books here. Join us in-person or on livestream at @artbookps1. continue to blog
Featured spreads are from Joy and Fear: An Illustrated Report on Modernity, info-design wizard Theo Deutinger’s brilliant update to the classic 1939 Otto Neurath study, Modern Man in the Making. Painstakingly researched and designed so as to provide immediate revelation, this 216-page hardcover collects illustrations and pictograms on such diverse topics as: The Manhattan Project, Iron Production, Contemporary Reasons for Going to War, Migration as a Weapon, The Plastic Age, Growing Old, Free Time and Superstition, to name just a few. "The effect of these pictograms finds its verbal equivalent in a poem by Muhammad Ali,” Deutinger writes. “During his commencement speech at Harvard in 1975, students asked him to give them a poem. He responded, ‘Me. We.’—one of the shortest poems ever. The ‘Me’ with its desires, dreams and fears is easy to grasp. It is the ‘We’—us as part of the eight billion others—to which we struggle to connect.… Joy and Fear provides snapshots of the existing version of modernity. Its broad approach is necessary to expand our field of view and survey the current state of modernity. After climbing down from this viewing platform, we are continuing to be modern and are thus continuing to produce large quantities. Hopefully, this short break with its chilling view will stimulate us to produce different and positive quantities. In eighty years, maybe someone else will attempt to continue this project and pick up where Joy and Fear left off. Whatever happens, each of us will end up in this book in one way or another as a Neurath figurine. Me will change; thus We are changing, and with us modernity as well.” continue to blog
Featured spreads are from Joy and Fear: An Illustrated Report on Modernity, info-design wizard Theo Deutinger’s brilliant update to the classic 1939 Otto Neurath study, Modern Man in the Making. Painstakingly researched and designed so as to provide immediate revelation, this 216-page hardcover collects illustrations and pictograms on such diverse topics as: The Manhattan Project, Iron Production, Contemporary Reasons for Going to War, Migration as a Weapon, The Plastic Age, Growing Old, Free Time and Superstition, to name just a few. "The effect of these pictograms finds its verbal equivalent in a poem by Muhammad Ali,” Deutinger writes. “During his commencement speech at Harvard in 1975, students asked him to give them a poem. He responded, ‘Me. We.’—one of the shortest poems ever. The ‘Me’ with its desires, dreams and fears is easy to grasp. It is the ‘We’—us as part of the eight billion others—to which we struggle to connect.… Joy and Fear provides snapshots of the existing version of modernity. Its broad approach is necessary to expand our field of view and survey the current state of modernity. After climbing down from this viewing platform, we are continuing to be modern and are thus continuing to produce large quantities. Hopefully, this short break with its chilling view will stimulate us to produce different and positive quantities. In eighty years, maybe someone else will attempt to continue this project and pick up where Joy and Fear left off. Whatever happens, each of us will end up in this book in one way or another as a Neurath figurine. Me will change; thus We are changing, and with us modernity as well.” continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 8.25 x 10.25 in. / 216 pgs / 217 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $50.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $72.5 ISBN: 9783037787434 PUBLISHER: Lars Müller Publishers AVAILABLE: 9/5/2023 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA LA
Published by Lars Müller Publishers. By Theo Deutinger.
Theo Deutinger’s ingenious continuation of Neurath's info-design classic Modern Man in the Making tracks the successes and failures of modernity
Brilliantly adapting and updating Otto Neurath’s pioneering 1939 study Modern Man in the Making, Theo Deutinger's (born 1971) Joy and Fear questions how modernity, through its promises and failures, continues to reshape humanity. For the West, these promises have largely been fulfilled: computers and domestic technology have made life easier; hygiene, modern medicine and education have led to steep increases in health, life expectancy and literacy rates. For large parts of the world's population, however, these promises have not been fulfilled. For example, the current average life expectancy in Chad is equal to that of the United States in the 1920s, and at 52 is eight years below the retirement age there. The entire globe is irreversibly involved in the modern project, but its benefits are very unevenly distributed. By depicting these asymmetries in a visual language that makes complex issues immediately accessible, Joy and Fear brings clarity to today's world. The pictograms and illustrations and their accompanying texts touch on global issues ranging from agriculture to warfare to the welfare state. Thematic and chronological affinities allow cross-referencing between topics throughout the book. Joy and Fear is aimed at a broad audience interested in the evolution of modernity, its quirks and its pitfalls.
