Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905–2016
Oct 28, 2016–Feb 5, 2017
Syd Mead
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These gouaches by Syd Mead were essential in developing the look and feel of the futuristic city in Ridley Scott’s science-fiction classic Blade Runner (1982). The film revolves around the hunt to capture and destroy four “replicants”—powerful androids modeled on humans so closely as to be indistinguishable from them—whose return to Earth from their banishment in outer space poses an existential threat. The acidic colors and noir mood of the streets in Mead’s concept artwork create an atmosphere of uncertainty and paranoia that also permeates the laboratory of the replicants’ inventor, J. F. Sebastion, and the kitchen of their hunter, ex-police officer Rick Deckard.
Syd Mead (b. 1933), clockwise from top left: Corner Bookshop, Street Set, Deckard’s Kitchen, Sebastion’s Laboratory, Street Scene Walk Sign, Street Set Salons, 1980
Installation view of Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905–2016 (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, October 28, 2016–February 5, 2017). Syd Mead (b. 1933), clockwise from top left: Corner Bookshop, Street Set, Deckard’s Kitchen, Sebastion’s Laboratory, Street Scene Walk Sign, Street Set Salons, 1980. Gouache on board. Collection of the artist. Photograph by Ron Amstutz