The SKF ball bearing on display in the 1934 ‘Machine Art’ exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art is an icon referenced throughout visual culture studies but this article recognizes its materiality, identifying the corporate logotype and other branded markings that complicate its identity as anonymous or, in the words of museum curator Philip Johnson, as ‘plain’. SKF, Svenska Kullagerfabriken (The Swedish ball bearing factory), had a fully developed global advertising campaign that made it a more established brand name than MoMA, and pioneered the contemporary mode of speaking and thinking in logotypes—by 1934, Johnson’s claim notwithstanding, no one could ‘see’ an SKF ball bearing without seeing the company’s logo. Scholarly commentary has adhered to MoMA’s description as if the bearing were anonymous and not visibly branded. This essay describes the history of the SKF logotype and situates it as both pioneering and part of a complex corporate culture and aspect of brand standardization that intersected with globalization in unexpected ways. To delve into the commercial context and production of ball bearings is to unravel the contradictions inherent in identifying design as national or global, and the modernist idealization of anonymous industrial form as an aesthetic ideal.

中文翻译：

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“像 [SKF] 滚珠轴承这样美丽、朴素的物体”：“机械艺术”和现代主义标识中的匿名审美之谜

1934 年现代艺术博物馆“机械艺术”展览中展出的 SKF 滚珠轴承是整个视觉文化研究中引用的一个图标，但本文认识到它的重要性，识别公司标识和其他品牌标记，使其身份复杂化为匿名或，用博物馆馆长菲利普约翰逊的话来说，就是“平淡无奇”。SKF，Svenska Kullagerfabriken（瑞典滚珠轴承工厂）开展了全面的全球广告宣传活动，使其成为比 MoMA 更知名的品牌，并开创了当代在标识中说话和思考的模式——尽管约翰逊声称，到 1934 年，没有人们可以“看到”一个 SKF 滚珠轴承，而无需看到该公司的标志。学术评论与 MoMA 的描述一致，好像该轴承是匿名的，没有明显的品牌标识。本文描述了 SKF 标识的历史，并将其定位为复杂企业文化和品牌标准化方面的先驱和一部分，以意想不到的方式与全球化相交。深入研究滚珠轴承的商业环境和生产，就是要解开将设计识别为国家或全球的内在矛盾，以及将匿名工业形式作为审美理想的现代主义理想化。