The hallway leading into the ground-floor exhibition space inside Doheny Library
Two USC Libraries exhibitions will open on Feb. 6, The Space Age Hits the Road: Visionary Car Designs in America in the ground-floor rotunda of Doheny Memorial Library and The Art of Going: Five Hundred Years of American Travel Narratives in the Treasure Room on Doheny's first floor. In addition, the Boeckmann Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies is loaning a series of visual artworks dedicated to former Mexican presidentLázaro Cárdenas by Marta Palau for the USC Fisher Museum's exhibition, Four Rooms and a View: USC's Collection Highlights, opening on Jan. 27.
The Space Age Hits the Road explores the influence of aviation design and the aesthetics of the U.S. space program on 1950s and 1960s automotive culture. It features historic photographs from the Los Angeles Examiner collection showcasing the futuristic concept cars developed by U.S. automakers during the period. It includes legendary cars like the Ford FX-Atmos, the Cadillac Cyclone, the original GM Firebird II, the Oldsmobile Golden Rocket, the Pontiac Club de Mer, and the DiDia 150.
The Art of Going investigates how a diverse selection of observers--including writers, adventurers, steamboat captains, drifters, bohemians, documentary photographers, missionaries, and tourists--saw the American landscape. In turn, it shows how their stories shaped lasting perceptions of the United States, its national identity, and the practice of travel and observation. You'll find work by Dorothea Lange, John Muir, Henry Miller, Simone de Beauvoir, Yone Noguchi, Mark Twain, and Marcos de Niza.
Artworks from Marta Palau's series, Un homenaje artístico a Lázaro Cárdenas, which honors former Mexican president Lázaro Cárdenas.