Untitled Sculpture

THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY CRAFTS of the AMERICAN CRAFTSMAN'S COUNCIL under the sponsorship of HOOKER CHEMICAL CORPORATION a subsidiary of OCCIDENTAL PETROLEUM CORPORATION present PLASTIC as Plastic November 23,1968 to January 12,1969 Museum of Contemporary Crafts 29 West 53 Street, New York 10019 Modular grill. Plexiglas, Rohm and Haas, Philadelphia, Pa. Designer: Erwin Hauer Introduction One hundred years have passed since the included are derived from the materials themselves appearance of the first synthetic plastic — rather than duplicating those conceived for celluloid — and fifty years since Naum Gabo first other materials and fabrication methods. used a plastic in sculpture. Plastics are now We wish to express our great appreciation to becoming as basic to our daily lives as wood, metal. Hooker Chemical Corporation, a subsidiary of paper and glass, and will soon be even more Occidental Petroleum Corporation, whose prevalent than these. Unlike them, however, plastics sponsorship enabled us to expand the scope and are man-made, and the ramifications of depth of this exhibition which has been researched this fact for the future are virtually without limit as on an international level for more than two years. long as man's mind can continue to conceive of We thank Robert Malone, Armand Windfield and possible chemical combinations and design Freda Koblick for their research assistance in the applications for these materials. In thinking about early stages of the project, and Sandra Zimmerman, the potential for change in our environment which Coordinator of the exhibition, whose enthusiasm can be brought about through the use of plastics, and organization in bringing it together were one realizes the great contribution yet to be made essential for its success. We wish also to thank all by the visionary designer who is intimately involved the many companies, institutions and individuals who with industry. More than ever before there is a need contributed so generously of their time and materials for collaborative effort among people involved to help us collect and develop the exhibition, and creatively with science, industry and design so that all the members of the Museum staff who were the special knowledge and talents of all these involved in the many details of the exhibition and fields can be used to fully realize the visual catalogue. As always, we are grateful to the exhibitors possibilities of plastic materials and the objects whose work is the substance of the exhibition. made from them. It is up to the plastics industry to place greater emphasis on the potential Paul J. Smith, D;rec(or role of the artist. To the hand and eye, plastics vary in texture, density, strength, transparency, and color. In assembling this exhibition, PLASTIC as Plastic, we have tried to present as great a variety as possible of these differences in a wide range of objects and applications. We have been concerned with the sensitive use of the material from a design point of view rather than with the technology of plastics. The surfaces and forms of the objects Window. Cast Acrylite. Designer: Michael Lax and Associates, New York City, for American Cyanamid Co. PLASTIC as Plastic Plastics are capable of great change as their nature environmental needs more precisely. is fundamentally different from materials of the As always materials affect design. Artists, past. Because plastics are synthetic, they can be sculptors, and designers have aided the acceptance altered chemically to give almost any property of plastics as exciting, unique materials with desired in an end product. They utilize new forms and functions of their own. They have made technology, which allows the creator more creative use of the ability to mold plastics into opportunity than ever before to vary his material graceful forms, of the ability of acrylic to transmit to fit his ideas, as well as vary his ideas to fit the and refract light, of the engineering and design material. Pigments that add color, plasticizers to potential of inflatable vinyl and polyethylene, of control flexibility and hardness, fillers to change plastic foam's capability of hardening into any density and lower costs, stabilizers to resist the shape. The challenge of the future is for the plastics effects of weather and high temperature are engineers, physicists, and chemists to modify and all factors in the present and future of plastics, improve our present materials, and for artists and The plastics industry, no longer in its infancy but designers to fully utilize the properties of the material. not yet fully come of age, is developing its own identity. The early image of plastics as inferior Sandra R. Zimmerman, Coordinator of the exhibition substitutes has been supplanted by the growing awareness of the valuable inherent qualities of these materials. Plastics have proven their ability in the past to make equally good products at a . lower cost and better products at the same cost as traditional materials. As illustrated in our exhibition, plastics permeate every area of our daily life and have a major role in such fields as packaging, furniture, construction, appliances, clothing, electronics, and art. From heart valves to milk bottles, from inflatable furniture to totally molded living environments, plastics have been chosen because of superior performance in filling existing needs. Now new dimensions are in sight, with the material answering demands that could never have been made before. New applications, new designs, new shapes stemming from the limitless versatility of plastics will permit man to meet his Phonograph record. 1921. Phenolic molded Bakelite. 10" diam. Courtesy Union Carbide Corp., New York City. Brief History and Description of Plastics The first American plastic, celluloid, was developed introduced almost every year. Among the volume in 1868, when John Wesley Hyatt responded to a plastics, the first of the vinyl resins was introduced manufacturer's need for an ivory substitute for in 1927; polystyrene, most familiar in toys and billiard balls by combining nitric acid, cotton and housewares, became commercially available in 1938; camphor. Many uses were found for the new material; polyethylene, originally produced in England and dentists adopted it, colored pink, as a first made in the United States for the Navy as replacement for hard rubber in denture plates; an important electrical insulation, became "wipe-clean" collars, cuffs and shirt fronts were commercially available in 1942. The Society of the made of it, as were the window curtains on early Plastics Industry, Inc. estimates that in 1967 the automobiles. The photographic film used by production of all synthetic plastics and resin Eastman to produce the first motion picture in materials was about 14'i/2 billion pounds. The 1882 was made of celluloid, chemical research and development of new and Although the new material was an immediate improved plastic materials is carried on constantly success, it was not until 1909 - forty-one years after asthe clemand for them '""eases .„,..„.„ . Although the chemistry of plastics is very the creation of eel u Old — that the second major ,. ... .., . , , . , , ,. -in complicated, it is possible to give a general step m the development of plastics was taken. Dr. description of what these materials are basically. Leo Hendnk Baekeland was able to obtain a p,^^ ^ g ^ ^.^ ^^ ^ g contronable reaction between phenol and ^ ^ ^ ^ ^^ ^ ^g, ormaldehyde, thus creating the first phenolic plastic ^^ ^ ^^ combinations of carbon with in this country, given the trademark Bakelite. ,. .,...,.,, ... .. oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and other organic and Phenohcs are hard rigid and strong plastics used ^ ^^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ,^^ ^ in such ob,ects as telephone handsets. Phenolics ^ ^ ,„ ^ manufacture a plastic is made were produced that could be cast (marbleized clock ^ ^ ^^ ^ formed into various basest formed under heat and pressure (electric ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ accomplished iron handles), and used in solutions to make lami- ,^ ration of heat and pressure, either nates (restaurant table tops). Between 1909 and ^ ^ ^ variations in the 1926 two more plastic materials were developed, ^^ ^ combinations of the basic ingredients, cold molded and casein, typical examples of which ^^ ^ ^ ^ ^ g,^ are, respectively, knobs and handles, ^,,.y ^^ ,„ ^ ^ p^^, ^ ^ ^^ and knitting needles. ^ ,,g gp^g, advantages in terms of specific After 1926, the tempo of plastics development properties and applications. increased consistently and dramatically. New Whatever their properties or form, plastics fall materials and variants of existing ones have been into one of two groups — thermoplastic or thermosetting. Thermoplastic materials soften to viscous fluids when exposed to sufficient heat, and flow under pressure; on cooling, they harden to form stable materials. The process can be repeated many times. Thermosetting plastics or resins are set into permanent shape when heat and pressure are applied to them during forming. They keep their shape ever after, and do not soften or flow under heat. They have better long-time dimensional stability than thermoplastics, but are more difficult to fabricate. Among the familiar thermoplastics are acrylic, nylon, polyethylene, polystyrene and vinyl. Thermosets include amino (melamine and urea), casein, epoxy, polyester and silicone. Adapted by Mimi Shorr, Assistant to the Director from "The Story of the Plastic's Industry" prepared by the Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc., New York City. CATALOGUE

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