Robert Kett is an anthropologist and curator of design based in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. He received his PhD from the University of California, Irvine and is currently Assistant Professor of Design Anthropology at ArtCenter College of Design and Emerging Curator at the Canadian Centre for Architecture.
Robert has previously taught at UC Berkeley and the California College of the Arts and held positions in SFMOMA’s Department of Architecture + Design, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science’s Artefacts, Actions and Knowledge initiative, and the Getty Research Institute's Department of Architecture and Contemporary Art. Working across California and Latin America, his projects have examined design/technology intersections; countercultural and vernacular design; and the place of indigeneity in modern aesthetic and knowledge practices. His writing has been published in Representations, Design Observer Quarterly, the Getty Research Journal, Curator: The Museum Journal, Los Angeles Magazine, and other publications and he is coauthor of Learning by Doing at the Farm: Craft, Science, and Counterculture in Modern California (Soberscove Press, 2014). Recent exhibition projects include Fabien Cappello: Sillas Callejeras/Street Chairs (UC Berkeley), Designed in California (SFMOMA, 2018) and MEXICO 68: Design and Dissent (SFMOMA, 2018). Robert’s work has been supported by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, UC MEXUS, the UC Institute for Research in the Arts, and other institutions.