Conversations from the Cullman Center: Jet Age Aesthetic: Vanessa R. Schwartz and Jed Perl

Vanessa R. Schwartz and Jed Perl discuss Schwartz’s new book, Jet Age Aesthetic: The Glamour of Media in Motion, about the impact of the jet plane on the mid-20th century aesthetic in areas such as airport architecture, theme park design, film, and photography.  

Vanessa R. Schwartz teaches art history, history, and film at the University of Southern California, where she directs the Visual Studies Research Institute and the Graduate Certificate program. She has received a Guggenheim fellowship and has been a fellow at the Getty Research Institute, the University of California Humanities Research Institute, and the Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard. She worked on Jet Age Aesthetic during her Cullman Center Fellowship in 2015-2016.

Jed Perl is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books. He was the art critic for the New Republic for twenty years and a contributing editor to Vogue for a decade, and is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship. His previous books include Magicians and Charlatans, Antoine’s Alphabet, and New Art City, which was a New York Times Notable Book and an Atlantic Book of the Year. The concluding volume of his biography of Alexander Calder, Calder: The Conquest of Space, will be published in April 2020.

As a precaution to help limit the spread of coronavirus and support the City's efforts to promote social distancing, The New York Public Library has suspended programming and events through March 31 at our research centers: the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, the Schomburg Center, and Library for the Performing Arts. At this time, all NYPL locations remain open during their regular hours. For updates and more information, please visit nypl.org/coronavirus.

Accordingly, the Conversation from the Cullman Center with Vanessa Schwartz and Jed Perl scheduled for Wednesday, March 18th is canceled. We hope to reschedule at a later date.