Cold War Modern: The Domesticated Avant-garde was a multimedia installation exploring the avant-garde in art, music, and design in the United States between 1945 and the early 1960s, and the role it played in shaping popular consumer culture. From the infamous drip paintings of Jackson Pollock to Eero Saarinen's ubiquitous "womb" chair, from the mobiles of Alexander Calder to the cool jazz of Miles Davis, and from Franz Kline's expressionistic black and white paintings to CBS's coverage of the Nixon-Khrushchev "Kitchen Debates." Cold War Modern examined the politics of the era and the culture of innovation, self-confidence, and almost spiritual ascendancy that was encouraged as a symbol of American freedom.

Cold War Modern was developed by Wellesley College art historian Patricia Gray Berman and composer Martin Brody working in collaboration with former Davis Museum and Cultural Center curator Judith Hoos Fox.