Uploaded November 2023 | Updated September 2026, 6 hours ago
Harold and Margot Schiff Curator of Architecture and Design Alison Fisher, and designers Paul Ludick and Brian Johnson discuss the exhibition Dan Friedman: Stay Radical.
Born in Ohio, Dan Friedman trained at legendary design schools in Ulm, Germany, and Basel, Switzerland with mentors Armin Hofmann and Wolfgang Weingart. When he returned to the United States in 1969, Friedman taught graphic design at Yale University and took on high-profile design commissions, including now-iconic branding and logos for Citibank.
His work evolved in the late 1970s, fueled by the unbridled environment of New York’s East Village. There he immersed himself in alternative galleries and clubs and joined a community of like-minded radicals, including artists Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Tseng Kwong Chi. Leaving behind his early career, Friedman created genre-bending works of assemblage and furniture using found objects, vibrantly painted surfaces, and diverse cultural references that pushed his graphic sensibilities into three dimensions.
This exhibition is the first museum retrospective focused on Dan Friedman’s extraordinary and underrecognized career. Featuring over 50 works drawn primarily from the Art Institute collection, the presentation showcases Friedman’s unbounded and subversive creativity—a sensibility that resonates with the stylistic and political directions of art and design today.
Harold and Margot Schiff Curator of Architecture and Design Alison Fisher, and designers Paul Ludick and Brian Johnson discuss the exhibition Dan Friedman: Stay Radical.
Born in Ohio, Dan Friedman trained at legendary design schools in Ulm, Germany, and Basel, Switzerland with mentors Armin Hofmann and Wolfgang Weingart. When he returned to the United States in 1969, Friedman taught graphic design at Yale University and took on high-profile design commissions, including now-iconic branding and logos for Citibank.
His work evolved in the late 1970s, fueled by the unbridled environment of New York’s East Village. There he immersed himself in alternative galleries and clubs and joined a community of like-minded radicals, including artists Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Tseng Kwong Chi. Leaving behind his early career, Friedman created genre-bending works of assemblage and furniture using found objects, vibrantly painted surfaces, and diverse cultural references that pushed his graphic sensibilities into three dimensions.
This exhibition is the first museum retrospective focused on Dan Friedman’s extraordinary and underrecognized career. Featuring over 50 works drawn primarily from the Art Institute collection, the presentation showcases Friedman’s unbounded and subversive creativity—a sensibility that resonates with the stylistic and political directions of art and design today.
