Robert Kett

Humanities and Sciences
rkett.info

Biography

Robert Kett is an anthropologist and curator of design and Assistant Professor of Humanities & Sciences at ArtCenter. He has previously taught at UC Berkeley and the California College of the Arts and held positions at SFMOMA, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, and the Getty Research Institute. He earned his doctorate in Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine and his bachelor's degree at Northwestern University. Working across California and Latin America, Kett's projects have examined design/technology intersections; countercultural and vernacular design; and the place of indigeneity in modern aesthetic and knowledge practices. His writing has been published in Representations, Design Observer Quarterly, Getty Research Journal, Curator: The Museum Journal, Los Angeles Magazine, and other publications and he is coauthor of Learning by Doing at the Farm: Craft, Science, and Counterculture in Modern California (Soberscove Press, 2014). Recent exhibition projects include Fabien Cappello: Sillas Callejeras/Street Chairs (UC Berkeley), Designed in California (SFMOMA, 2018) and MEXICO 68: Design and Dissent (SFMOMA, 2018). Kett's work has been supported by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, UC MEXUS, the UC Institute for Research in the Arts, and other institutions.

Classes

HHIS-381-01: Cultures of Technology
HSOC-113-01: Intro to Anthropology
HSOC-381-01: Cultures of Technology
HSAP-892-01: Art in Mexico City
SAP-892-01: Art in Mexico City