Johannah Herr
I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE
April 7 - May 21, 2022
Reception / Book Launch: April 7, 6-8pm
Official Guidebook: I Have Seen the Future, 2022, 7.5in x 5in, 100+ page perfect bound book, open edition, $25 each
Click Image to buy The Official Guide
PRESS RELEASE
“This project is an appraisal of the world that was wished upon us.
Twenty-five years apart, in the very heart of the American Century, two World’s Fairs were held in Flushing Meadows. On the precipice of World War and at the height of the Cold War, the world came to New York City, and New York City showed itself to the world. Tens of millions of visitors flocked to Queens to glimpse the American Way, paved the world over as an unyielding, uniform path hewn by capitalism and democracy. They stood in awe before the Unisphere and beheld the unilateral force that thundered forth as mushroom clouds—and Coca-Cola.
PRESS
NEW YORK TIMES’ GO SEE by Jillian Steinhauer
INTERVIEW WITH JOHANNAH HERR AND CARA MARSH SHEFFLER on FIELD POD!
Transportation Pavilion (Highways of Displacement), 2022, approximately 24in x 18in x 15in, chipboard, acrylic, nylon flocking
“Make way for the 20th Century! Our Transportation Area’s main pavilion brings the highway of the future right into your living room—literally! Learn the story of East Tremont in the Bronx and the brave path it cleared to create a great wide, way straight from Westchester to New Jersey! Robert Moses built 627 miles of road in New York city, but this one mile in East Tremont was extra tricky. See 54 apartment buildings—and 1,530 families—stand down in the way of progress! Watch the Cross Bronx Expressway unfurl and witness the bisection of an entire borough! The story of the single mile that the Cross Bronx cleared in East Tremont is emblematic of a larger strategy of eminent domain: people get out of the way so the car can roam free! Just be careful as you cross that eight-lane highway to say good-morning to your neighbor!”
Urban Renewal Pavilion (The Violence of Utopia), 2022, approximately 24 in x 18in x 18in, chipboard, acrylic, nylon flocking
“Get off the grid at New York’s newest kind of residential property: the housing project! Our Urban Renewal Area demonstrates what happens when you take an avante-garde architect and man of leisure along the French RIviera with no relationship to New York City, and then allow an overzealous public official with contempt for minorities to freely misinterpret his ideas. What is the Radiant City if not a place to house everyone ineligible for the GI Bill? What is a neighborhood of brownstones and parks along navigable, walkable grids, if not a place that might be interrupted by a parkway? Remember: no lawn is better maintained than one fenced off between difficult-to-access buildings.”
The World’s Fairs are a testament to a time and a place when America looked both within and without, from a city that dares to call itself the Capital of the World. Through a sensibility that emphasizes intersectionality, interconnectedness, and correlation, I Have Seen the Future takes the opportunity to look back at how visions of utopia of 1939 and 1964 have defined our reality in the 21st century. Named for the slogan on pins that were available at General Motors’ “Futurama” in both 1939 and 1964, I Have Seen the Future is a multifaceted, immersive exhibit of components meant to evoke the experience of visiting the World’s Fair—with the hindsight of 2022.
Communications Pavilion (Wire-Tapped Lorraine Hotel), 2022, approximately 24in x 5in x 4in, chipboard, acrylic, nylon flocking
“You can’t say we weren’t listening! Spycraft! Espionage! Intrigue! When you go to the movies and see James Bond, surely you assume the enemy is ensconced in an exotic lair—or, obviously, in Moscow. However, did you ever think about the enemy at home? Our main pavilion takes you down south to Memphis, and to the Lorraine Motel. But wander around to the back of the pavilion and catch a glimpse of American’s breathtaking surveillance apparatus and the sordid turn it took into domestic terrorism of the Civil Rights and antiwar movements. Watch the country reveal a bedrock allegiance to social order as it turns itself inside out and hounds and hunts down it’s finest leaders!”
The American Home Pavilion (Suburban Jubilee), 2022, approximately 15in x 9in x 10in, chipboard, acrylic, nylon flocking
“The American Home is on the move! Across the land, the American family is migrating to a new and verdant frontier: the suburb. Join us and explore this newly settled outpost and its vanguard, Levittown, Long Island. Experience the postwar planned community in all its monolithic splendor. Our main pavilion features the Jubilee Model of a Levittown home, which comes fully furnished with new appliances (and a racial covenant on the home’s deed that is nearly impossible to remove). The picture-perfect property is surrounded by the picket fence of the suburbanite’s dreams. Mind you it is but a dream fence: we do not allow actual fences in Levittown but there is no need, as all the undesirables have been left 35 miles behind on the Long Island Expressway. Consider the fence your guide and your guiding metaphor as you tour The American Home Area. Come see the myriad benefits of a model community, the kind springing up across our great nation!”
In truth, the project leans more heavily on 1964, which was a World’s Fair not sanctioned by the international governing body, and therefore reliant on corporate funds. That private-public partnership feels very familiar in 2022. With an eye on continuity, we ask how the Space Race was not just a proxy for the Cold War, but for WWII, and a conflict that arguably is ongoing; we examine utopia as a violence that enforces segregation in myriad ways that define wealth and income distribution in America; we see how state surveillance harassed and even assassinated civil rights leaders to protect social order.
Science and Education Pavilion (Operation Paperclip), 2022, approximately 18in x 15in x 12in, chipboard, acrylic, nylon flocking
“Did you know the journey to the moon started with the London Blitz? You don’t need to be a number-crunching egghead in Houston to know the Space Race is a proxy war with Russia, but did you know just how many of those NASA eggheads are Nazi noggins? Ja wohl! Top NASA rocket scientist Wehner von Braun—Dr. Strangelove himself—was just one of 1,600 some odd Nazi scientists brought over to win the Cold War through science! Take the journey from burning books to seeing the stars! By the time it’s over you’ll wonder if the Second World War even ended—and just whose side we’re on!”
Johannah Herr’s flocked architectural models are sculptural objects that each represent an imaginary pavilion in a themed “Area” of the World’s Fair. The display is also accompanied by patterned, flocked wallpaper that references 1960s interior design and subtly contains language of racially restrictive covenants in postwar housing. These are complemented by a digitally printed “Ironic Curtain” detailing unfortunate Cold War-era parallels between the US and the USSR. Naturally, the floor is tiled in linoleum; the entire exhibit is rendered in a late 1950s palette reminiscent of the era’s appliances—which were decidedly weapons in the Cold War.
Food Pavilion (Food Pyramid Scheme), 2022, approximately 18in x 10in x 10in, chipboard, acrylic, nylon flocking
“Flip your idea of healthy eating right on its head at the Food Pyramid Scheme! Step inside this monument to US Big Agriculture that takes you from the dawn of man as terrified hunter-gatherer, to this wonder of the world he has wrought: food that doesn’t nourish. Dip and swerve into the conundrums we face when we think about what constitutes healthy choices! Plunge through mirror mazes of body dysmorphia and fat-shaming. See the mighty power of the corn lobby as you laze along rivers of high-fructose corn syrup. It’s Spaceship Earth—but for your stomach, and deep inside your subconscious. Exit through a thrilling burst of confetti from astronomical healthcare bills that pile up from attendant medical issues. The Food Pyramid Scheme is an attraction that stays with you forever. As they say: a minute on the lips and a lifetime on the hips!”
International Pavilion (Exporting America), 2022, approx. 18in x 10in x 10in, chipboard, acrylic, nylon flocking
“Though looking outward, the International Area is in a sense the home site of the Fair—and home to the Fair’s symbol, the Unilateral Unisphere—now in Univision! See the entire world from a single point of view! The Unilateral Unisphere celebrates the American Century, showing US democracy quite literally spread across the globe! Traverse every longitude and latitude that crisscross the planet using that same brand of rectilinear logical the world over. America surrounds the globe with its mighty Jupiter missile—using rocket technology handy for either lunar exploration or nuclear annihilation! See the Space Age empire in action, winning hearts and minds through market share! Capitalistic diplomacy, trade agreements, expos, and appliances win the day, and will surely win you over to the best way of life on the planet. Remember: it’s a small world, after all—when you don’t really consider anything outside of America!”
The seven models have been photographed and included in I Have Seen the Future: Official Guidebook, a collaboration with Cara Marsh Sheffler that expands upon the themes tackled in the models through text and subverted advertisements. Through these items, they emphasize a worldview that hinges on interdependency—a concept all too foreign to the country that gave the world the cowboy, the pioneer, the action hero.
Peruse the pavilions of the tomorrow that was yesterday, and take a moment to read a word form its (many) sponsors. Through these objects, we invite you to behold the future we were told to hope for.”
—Johannah Herr & Cara Marsh Sheffler
Official Guidebook: I Have Seen the Future, 2022, 7.5in x 5in, 100+ page perfect bound book, open edition, $25 each
Click Images to buy the Guide!
Yesterday, there was a great, big, beautiful tomorrow.
Twenty-five years apart, in the very heart of the American Century, two World’s Fairs were held in Flushing Meadows, Queens. On the precipice of World War and at the height of the Cold War, the world descended upon New York City, to see what the future might hold.
The Fair contained multitudes: everything from underwater hotels and lasers in the jungle to Billy Graham and dinosaurs. But, most importantly, it contained a vision of tomorrow. In this guide, we revisit the intentions of those dreams. To do so, we take you back to the Fair—but to a version more in tune with the 21st century to which we have awoken.
This guide is an accompaniment to artist Johannah Herr’s body of work, “I Have Seen the Future,” featuring architectural models of various utopias that ask just who was modeling our future, and why? Herr’s architectural models—depicted within these pages in ravishing hues—are accompanied by descriptions of pavilions at this re-imagined Fair by writer Cara Marsh Sheffler. Crucially, the pages are also adorned with words from our legion of sponsors. After all, the future was always brought to you by Exxon Mobil, General Motors, US Steel, Lockheed Martin, Dow Chemical—and so many more!
In this guide, we invite you to consider the legacy of so many thoughts about tomorrow—and how they led us to today. Behold the future we were told to hope for!
