First Friday: From Idea to Installation—A Tour with David Jon Walker

How does an exhibition come to be? Join graphic designer and educator David Jon Walker for a tour of Cuteness, Conservatism, & Consumption: Lefor-Openo and Postwar France that will trace the show from its earliest ideation to opening night. Using the exhibition as a case study, David will discuss how an initial idea develops into a show through research, poster selection, interpretive writing, and exhibition design. Along the way, he will share the questions, trade-offs, and discoveries that guided this project, offering a rare look at the thinking behind the finished work.

This tour will be of particular interest to students, emerging curators, designers, and anyone curious about what happens to bring museum exhibitions to life.

David Jon Walker, a CMYK Council member, is a graphic designer and educator based in New Haven, Connecticut. He is a professor of art in graphic design at the Yale School of Art, where he received his second MFA in 2023. His award-winning work is recognized by AIGA and the Type Directors Club, and his wide-ranging clientele includes Poster House, the Birmingham Museum of Art, the National Museum of African American Music, the Country Music Hall of Fame, The Art Institute of Chicago, Princeton University Library, and Yale University.

This program is presented by Poster House’s CMYK Council, the museum’s BIPOC advisory board that works to ensure the museum is accessible to communities of color.

Accessibility Note: Masks are available free of charge at the museum. Assistive listening devices and stools are available. ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or a CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) is also available upon request. Please contact access@posterhouse.org or (914) 295-2387 to request interpretation services and to address any other accessibility needs. For other event-related questions, please contact events@posterhouse.org.