Throughout our anniversary issues, Azure has recapped what we believe to be the design industry’s defining milestones from our 40-year print run. (Find our latest updates here.) But any major record of the past must also be constantly reinterrogated. Architectural scholar Mabel O. Wilson proved as much in her influential 2019 essay “White By Design,” which highlighted key gaps in the collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. “It’s a stunning indictment of our own history,” says Paul Galloway, a collection specialist in MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design. “And it’s all true.” With MoMA’s exhibition “Jam Sessions” (on now through May 11), Chicago designer Norman Teague set out to address those oversights — and he enlisted A.I. to help.

In the past, Teague has used his wooden furnishings (and, for the U.S. pavilion at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, vessels crafted from recycled plastic) to explore the relationship between modern design and the African diaspora. His latest show is both a continuation of that theme and the evolution of an ongoing MoMA series that invites artists to curate works from the museum’s collection; “Jam Sessions” marks the first edition overseen by a designer. “The name stems from it being this improvisational mix of voices from very different arenas finding a certain harmony — as though they had lived together all their lives,” says Teague. 

The Juicy Salif Lemon Squeezer by Philippe Starck for Alessi, 1988. Image courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art.

A remixed version by Norman Teague Design Studios

Using venerable classics as starting points, the designer and his studio (working alongside Galloway and the museum team) prompted Adobe’s generative A.I. tool, Firefly, to imagine how those same designs might have looked with different power dynamics at play. “We were plopping Black references on top of Black references — the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance,” he says. Starting with the 1948 Eames La Chaise, Teague honed A.I. prompts to reimagine the lounge chair through the lens of Ebony magazine, resulting in a plaid-checkered cushion and built-in record player. In another outcome, Alessi’s Juicy Salif citrus squeezer (originally designed by Philippe Starck) received a Tupperware party–inflected makeover. “Those were a big part of my childhood — my mom and my aunt would have Tupperware and Avon parties,” he says. “They were pseudo freelance jobs.” 

In the final display, Teague’s selection of objects from MoMA’s collection rests on a platform in front of posters that depict remixed variations — and the carefully calibrated prompts used to generate them. “Those original icons are a part of my history too,” says Teague. “I’m not saying that the people behind them aren’t good designers — they’re my heroes. I’m just saying, there must have been another motherfucker somewhere.” While the new interpretations were produced by A.I. (and thus trained on the creative output of past generations), the rest of the poster designs — including the background patterns and era-specific typography — are by graphic designer Narineh Seferian. “A.I. is just another tool at our disposal,” says Galloway. “It’s a means to an end, but it’s not the whole end.” Rounding out the exhibition are four full-scale physical prototypes designed and fabricated by Norman Teague Design Studios.

Much of the anxiety surrounding A.I. focuses on the possibility that the technology will silence creative voices. But perhaps, with the right prompts, it also has the power to amplify them.