ArtBreak: “Kalamazoo…and how it grew!”: A Model American City Tours Europe at Mid-Century

In the late 1950s, Upjohn Pharmaceuticals partnered with the United States Information Agency to develop an exhibition on Kalamazoo that toured several major European cities. “Kalamazoo…and how it grew!” was designed by Will Burtin in conjunction with Jack Masey of the United States Information Agency, with the bill for the exhibition footed by Upjohn Pharmaceuticals. In this talk, we will trace the exhibition’s development and scope, as well as discuss how the exhibition fit into the USIA’s broader goals of deploying design in the promotion of democracy abroad. Christine Young-Kyung Hahn is a lifelong Midwesterner, born in Detroit, raised in Lansing, and a professor of art history at Kalamazoo College since 2008. She is a graduate of Carleton College in Northfield, MN, and received her M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. While rooted in the Midwest, her research questions have taken her around the world, digging through archives in Paris, New York, and Seoul. To support these endeavors, Dr. Hahn has worked on exhibitions for the Art Institute of Chicago, for the books division at the University of Chicago Press, and for higher education development at the University of Michigan Law School. Her work on modern Korean artists and exhibitions has been supported by the Fulbright and the National Endowment for the Humanities.