The Curated Object

Exhibitions NYC. Dr. Christine A. Jones Reviews Imperial Privilege: Vienna Porcelain of Du Paquier, 1718-44. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Curated Object

Elephant,
Austrian (Vienna), Du Paquier factory, 1740-44 Hard-paste porcelain H. 9 1/8 in (23. cm), l 18 1⁄4 in. (46.3 cm) Melinda and Paul Sullivan Collection, West Hartford

Two Armorial Vases,
Austrian (Vienna), Du Paquier factory, ca. 1735 Hard-paste porcelain H. 9 5/8 in. (24.3 cm) Melinda and Paul Sullivan Collection, West Hartford

Tobacco Box,

Austrian
(Vienna), Du Paquier factory, ca. 1730 Hard-paste porcelain H. 7 3/8 in. (18.8 cm), w. 4 3/8 in. (11 cm) Melinda and Paul Sullivan Collection, West Hartford

Food Warmer with Insert,
Austrian (Vienna), Du Paquier factory, 1730-35
Hard-paste porcelain H. with cover 15-9/16 in. (39.5 cm.); H. without cover 11 in. (27.9 cm.) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Irwin Untermyer, 1964 (64.101.269 a-d)

Tulip Vase from a Garniture,
Austrian (Vienna), Du Paquier factory, ca. 1725 Hard-paste porcelain H. 6-3/8 in. (16.2 cm.); W. 8-5/16 in. (21.1 cm.)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of R. Thornton Wilson, in memory of Florence Ellsworth Wilson, 1954 (54.147.94)

Sweetmeat Dish,
Austrian (Vienna), Du Paquier factory, ca. 1730 Hard-paste porcelain H. 3-1/4 in. (8.3 cm.); L. 9-1/2 in. (24.1 cm.); W. 4-1/4 in. (10.8 cm.)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of R. Thornton Wilson, in memory of Florence Ellsworth Wilson, 1950 (50.211.5)

Beaker with schwarlot decoration Vienna

Du Paquier ( 1718-1744) Porcelain, Austrian (Vienna)
1720-1725, overall h. 3 1/8 in., h. of beaker 2 7/8 in., dm. 2 3/8 in., dm. of base rim 1, 1/8 in., h. of saucer 1 in., dm. 5 in., dm. of base rim 2 ½ in

DuPaq.19, Lender: Melinda and Paul Sullivan

Meredith Chilton, co-curator, an independent art historian from Canada; and Ivan Day, noted culinary historian from England offers a description of the table:

"This table has been inspired by an engraving of a very particular dinner that was held on November the twenty-second, 1740, in Vienna. It celebrated an event. It was the swearing of the Oath of Allegiance by the lower estates of Austria to the future empress of Austria, Maria Theresa. The day was a full one for Maria Theresa. She started off with a service in the cathedral, with the taking of the Oath of Allegiance, and then with a dinner. Her dinner was a state dinner. Now, we think of state dinners these days when the president holds a dinner, or, say, the Queen of England holds a dinner. She invites lots of guests to the table, it’s held in an important room, and only those guests attend and actually see what’s going on.

Well, state dinners in the 18th century were very different matters. Usually only the monarch or the very close members of the imperial family would have actually eaten at the table, while the rest of the court would have watched. It was like public dining. It was a very particular event, and very special. You imagine how you’d have to have watched your table manners.

The engraving that we used as our inspiration shows Maria Theresa, the archduchess of Austria and future empress, with her husband Francis Stephen of Lorraine. And they were actually eating the second course. There are usually three courses to a banquet: the first one consisted mainly of savory foods and a soup, the second was also mainly savory foods with roasted meats added, sometimes a few pies and sweet things, and then there was the culmination, the great theatrical event, which was the dessert.

Now what’s interesting about the engraving that we have is that on the table are two amazing sugar sculptures of large temples with flowers. And these would have been put on the table from the outset and they would have slept – they’re called dormants in French – and they would have been awakened during the dessert course, when the other sweet things would have been brought to the table. We don’t have an engraving of the dessert course, so what we have done is imagined how it was. We are giving an evocation of how this dessert table might have been for Maria Theresa."

Imperial Privilege: Vienna Porcelain of Du Paquier, 1718-44

September 22, 2009-March 21, 2010

Meter-high sugar paste towers gave the evening a fantastical atmosphere as the table’s centerpiece. Delightful porcelain elephants decanted wine and bowls in the form of crouching jungle cats carried sweetmeats. Dishes painted with pastoral scenes and trimmed in gold floated by with every new course. Later, it was time for a round of fun with a gaming set whose fragile little pieces were flecked with gemstones and stored in a fanciful gilded box.

When Empress Marie Theresa entertained guests at the Hapsburg palace in 1740, they were treated to a feast of pleasures delivered in spectacular porcelain vessels that had been manufactured in Vienna especially for the imperial family. This vision of culinary extravagance is now on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The work of Claudius Innocentius du Paquier, potter to the Vienna Hapsburgs, is the subject of Meredith Chilton’s recent 3-volume study, Fired by Passion (2009). The Met is celebrating the publication with a small, but exquisite display of Du Paquier porcelain that runs through March 21, 2010. The remarkable diversity of wares in this exhibition, which features a recreation of the imperial table set for dessert, demonstrates why scholars consider Du Paquier a pioneer in the application of color and a virtuoso of form.

Among the pieces that most eloquently capture Du Paquier’s attention to form is the delicately gilded tasse trembleuse, or hot chocolate stand. Spanish faïence makers first produced the vessel in earthenware for its colonists in the New World who wanted to enjoy the exotic beverage without spilling it. By 1700, chocolate was the rage in Europe and the trembleuse with its signature ridged saucer was part of any noble service. Du Paquier was likely the first potter to offer aristocratic chocoholics a vessel in fine porcelain.

While many wares attest to the manufactory’s pioneering work with color, the show’s eye poppers include schwarzlot (black enamel paint) vessels decorated in black-and-white images that resemble book illustrations. Du Paquier based these designs on engravings to mimic the graphic quality of print. In the schwarzlot style the white porcelain object becomes a kind of fine hand-made paper. Figures and scrollwork in the vessels betray the influence of French ornamental design, while their uncommon color reflects the importance of print culture in eighteenth-century society.

Many pieces in this show belong to the Met’s permanent collection, but those on loan from the Melinda and Paul Sullivan Art Foundation are rarely displayed for public view, making this event an exceptional opportunity to discover the Du Paquier repertoire. When Du Paquier began producing fine (hard-paste) porcelain for the Hapsburgs in 1718, only one other ruler, Augustus the Strong of Saxony, had a resident artisan whose pots achieved the quality of Chinese import porcelain. Noble patronage sustained him for about 25 years. His style did not evolve past its early stages and about mid-century his vessels fell out of favor. This exhibition demonstrates that in the heyday of his glory, what Du Paquier produced was nothing less than extraordinary—Christine A. Jones

Christine A. Jones is a professor of French at the University of Utah. She is writing a book on the 100-year quest to make fine porcelain in France.

Exhibitions Leeds. Wonderwall: 300 Years of Wallpaper. The Temple Newsam House. The Curated Object

Special commission from artist Catherine Bertola, Photography by J Hardman-Jones

An Embossed Paper 1880s, images copyright of Temple Newsam House, Leeds Museums and Galleries

Japan printed by Jeffrey & Co 1914, images copyright of Temple Newsam House, Leeds Museums and Galleries

Arbutus by George Heywood Sumner 1897, images are copyright of Temple Newsam House, Leeds Museums and Galleries

Woodnotes by Walter crane 1886, images are copyright of Temple Newsam House, Leeds Museums and Galleries

Exhibition photo, Photography by J Hardman-Jones

Exhibition photo, Photography by J Hardman-Jones

Wonderwall: 300 Years of Wallpaper

December 2-May 9, 2010

Wallpapers are an often neglected area of the decorative arts because they were often intended as backdrops to the paintings and furniture that make up an interior.

However, Roger Warner with his unfailing eye for the unusual, recognised their elegance and historic importance. Sadly, Roger Warner passed away in 2008. This exhibition is a chance to remember a man who loved things that many found undesirable. This display shows, for the first time, his collection of wallpapers which are perhaps the most ephemeral of the decorative arts.

A commission by Catherine Bertola accompanies the exhibition. Her interests lie in hidden histories. She has used archival information about the hangings in Miss Scot’s room to create a new work remembering something almost forgotten.

The history of wallpaper is not a familiar story, it was last told at Temple Newsam twenty five years ago. This exhibition and booklet hopes to introduce the viewer to wallpaper. It asks the same question first uttered in 1900 by the great designer Lewis. F Day. Can you find poetry in a carpet or joy in a wallpaper?

Roger Warner

Roger Warner is known to museums and collectors alike for his exceptional eye for the unusual and his interest in areas neglected by other antique dealers.

Warner would always be on the hunt for ‘those exceptions that spark interest and remark.” He purchased a dilapidated Elizabethan property in Burford in Oxfordshire, transforming it into his shop in 1936. On the first night at the premises he recalls that “wallpaper seemed to be hanging in shreds from the wall. I can remember tearing off an armful, putting it in the grate, setting fire to it...”. despite this and unlike many of his contemporaries, Warner bothered to keep fragments, admiring them for their historic interest.

Warner’s enthusiasm for the decorative arts and his belief in the benefit of public collections has meant that museums have benefited from his generosity. Temple Newsam was given extraordinary gifts of furniture and textiles. The wallpapers that Warner gave to the collection are an eclectic mix of salvaged relics and items from his grandfather Metford, and uncle Horace Warner’s careers at Jeffrey and Co. Thanks to his view that the “interest of an article was of more value than its worth” the wallpaper collection spans and demonstrates the development of English wallpaper from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries.

Early English Printed Papers 1650-1800

From the late 1400s, printed images made from carved wooden blocks spread rapidly and were used widely across Europe because they were relatively cheap and fast to make.

Woodblock prints were used on walls and ceilings from at least the 1500s. Printed in black and white, such papers were often used in the 1600s to line boxes. The patterns were restricted by the size of the paper available. However, in the 1600s the simple innovation of pasting sheets of paper together allowed for larger patterns suitable for covering entire walls. This allowed English manufacturers to produce cheaper (but not necessarily cheap) imitations of the imported cotton, velvets and silks which were considered both fashionable and desirable for wall-coverings.

The invention of flocked papers in the late 1600s allowed for cheaper, more durable imitations of silks and velvets. This type of paper is made by shaking finely chopped and dyed wool over a pattern printed in sticky varnish. The excess is removed leaving a raised pattern.

As the manufacture of wallpaper developed, the designs became more complex. From the middle of the 1700s English manufacturers could make large scale printed wallpapers of gothic pillars, idyllic scenery or both. The essential technique of creating pattern from carved blocks did not vary much until the 1820s with early machine printing. Notwithstanding such innovations, the low technology method of pressing wood to paper by hand is still considered to produce higher quality papers than its machine printed counterparts.

The Nineteenth Century

The 1800s saw technological advances in English wallpaper manufacture. In 1798, the Frenchman Louis Robert found a way of producing continuous sheets of strong paper capable of being printed on. By the end of 1830s the first successful printing machine was invented. In the 1850s eight colour printing machines were used and in the 1870s twenty coloured printing machines were not uncommon. The increase in production was dramatic, growing from just over 1 million rolls of paper in 1834 to 32 million in 1874. Overall, this meant that cheap wallpaper was available to more households.
Despite the improvements in technique, critics worried about wallpaper design. International exhibitions and fairs showed English designs to be lacking in comparison with their French competitors. Paid designers were unusual. The norm was for block cutters to produce designs or to copy existing French ones. The designs were considered to be so poor that reformers such as George Lock Eastlake accused manufacturers of encouraging the public to, “prefer the vulgar, the gaudy, the ugly even, to the beautiful and perfect”.
The lack of designers in all industries prompted the founding of the Government Schools of Design in 1837. They had the specific aim of training designers for manufactured goods. Writers and reformers such as Henry Cole and Richard Redgrave sought to establish certain standards or principles for design across all industries. Owen Jones, would write, ‘All ornament should be based in geometrical construction’. The Design Reform Movement promoted the notion that ornament should be suitable for its specific purposes. Because they felt that wallpaper essentially forms a background, wallpapers were produced with small patterns of neatly arranged motifs. By the beginning of the 1860s standards had improved to the extent that during the 1862 International Exhibition in Paris the majority of prizes were awarded to English firms.
Metford Warner and Jeffrey and Co.
The firm of Jeffrey & Co were established in 1824. By 1862 they had established a reputation for fine hand block printing 1862 winning a commission to print papers designed by Owen Jones for the Viceroy’s palace in Cairo.
When William Morris formed Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. (later known as Morris and Co.) in 1861 its aim was to produce hand crafted items for the home. He insisted that all his works were produced by hand. However, Morris could not master wallpaper printing. Therefore, from 1864 he entrusted the production to Jeffrey and Co.
Metford Warner joined the firm in 1866 and was committed to fine production and good design. His approach to wallpaper manufacture was pioneering. He felt that the problems within the industry did not “lay so much with the manufacturer as with the artist who would not come down from his high pedestal as to design a wall paper”. When he became sole partner of the firm in 1872 he commissioned leading architects and designers, including illustrious figures such as Charles Eastlake, Lewis F. Day and Bruce Talbert to produce papers with ‘artistic feeling’. The new ‘Artistic Papers’ were met with critical acclaim. He took the policy to another level by employing Walter Crane whose lavish papers provoked mixed responses. Such was the skill of Jeffrey and Co.’s workforce that the designs could be adapted either for block printing or to be roller or machine printed. Metford himself would advise on colour ways. Metford continued the policy of using artists as designers. He would later employ (amongst others) both Sydney Vacher and George Heywood Sumner both of whom had exhibited at the Royal Academy. These collaborations were so successful that other firms such as Woolams and Co. and Essex and Co. began to commission artist designed wallpapers.
Metford Warner had huge sympathies with artists, giving them a remarkably free hand. He also sympathised with Morris and his followers’ pursuit of the hand made. However, he was above all a businessman and would always look for the most cost effective ways of producing the papers. He would say at the end of his career, “I think
my career has been a most uneventful one; it has after all merely been sticking to business…If it has done any good in the world it has elevated wallpapers, if it has been helpful in anyway, as a form of decoration [and] that is a great gratification to me.”

Walter Crane

Walter Crane (1845-1915) achieved prominence as an artist and book illustrator before producing designs for Jeffrey and Co. in 1875. Although his designs were considered striking and attractive they provoked controversy.
Crane believed that there was no reason why the decorative arts could not be used to rouse thought. In contrast with many of his contemporaries, Crane believed that narratives, human forms and shapes could be used for wallpapers believing that they allowed the expression of “symbolic meaning.. fanciful allegory and playful ideas”. The designer, Lewis F. Day found such notions abhorrent, “Who wants poetry in carpet or ‘Joy’ in a wallpaper?” feeling that pattern should not intrude upon a room. Crane, however, was adamant that, “In mural decoration of any kind, one should never forget the wall”. Despite such criticisms at home, designs such as La Margrete, (1876) and Peacocks and Amorini, (1878) won Jeffrey & Co. awards in exhibitions in cities such as Philadelphia and Paris.
Many of the designs he drew for Jeffrey & Co. were so complex and colourful that they were costly to make and therefore unaffordable for all but the very wealthy. Metford Warner was sympathetic to the artistic ideals of Crane, allowing him to produce flamboyant designs which could require anything up to 30 blocks to print. However, by 1894, Warner asked Crane “to adopt a broader effect and severer methods”. This sort of compromise was never something that Crane was truly comfortable with believing that the designer should “try to please himself”. Despite this, in successful cooperation with Jeffrey & Co., Crane produced simpler patterns requiring fewer blocks and patterns adaptable for machine printing that were still, according to Metford Warner, “So distinctly of his [Crane’s] own creation.”
Horace Warner and Twentieth Century Wallpaper
Both of Metford’s sons, Albert and Horace, worked as designers for Jeffrey & Co., becoming co-owners in 1898. By this time, other leading manufacturers were following the example set by Metford, by continuing to commission artists to design wallpaper. The company continued to produce wallpapers until 1936 when it was taken over by Arthur Sanderson and Sons. Roger Warner was left a series of designs by Horace Warner which were completed shortly before the takeover.
They differ from the designs by architects and artists because they clearly show an innate understanding of wallpaper manufacture. Indeed the designs are made by only using one colour at a time, building up this design in layers which clearly reflects the printing process.
They also give an insight into wallpaper fashion between the wars. In Britain there were just a few years when such brightly coloured and dense patterns were fashionable. Soon fashionable interiors would have a ‘Modern’ look of plain walls and clean lines.
For the rest of the twentieth century to the present day ‘to wallpaper or not to wallpaper’ has been a major question of interior design.
Curated & written by Polly Putnam, Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts

For more information about the exhibition and surrounding programming please visit: The Temple Newsam House

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Auctions Los Angeles. Archive related to  Frank Lloyd Wright assembled by  Professor Henry Russell Hitchcock. Bonhams. The Curated Object

Wright, Ennis, Courtesy of Bonhams & Butterfields

Wright, selection, Courtesy of Bonhams

& Butterfields

Wright, Millard Interior,Courtesy of Bonhams & Butterfields

Wright, Hollyhock plans, Courtesy of Bonhams & Butterfields

The Wright Stuff  Exceptional Frank Lloyd Wright Archive

February 14, 2010

Included within the 400-lot Bonhams & Butterfields Fine Books &  Manuscripts auction on February 14, 2010 is a massive archive of  photographs, correspondence and select building plans related to  groundbreaking architect and designer Frank Lloyd Wright. Assembled by  Professor Henry Russell Hitchcock for the landmark 1942 treatise In the  Nature of Materials, which he co-authored with Wright, the archive  offers an exceptionally rich documentation of the architect's work  including notes for images of many buildings that no longer survive  (est. $20,000-30,000).

Highlights from the archive include approximately 600 rare black and  white photographs of Wright's buildings and interiors; many derive from  the architect's own photographic collection. Several of the interior  photographs show the original furnishings and the houses in daily use -  papers strewn across desks, tables set for dinner, and toys on the  floor. Families can be seen standing proudly in front of their new  homes. A number of photographs record buildings that no longer survive,  including one of Wright's own homes, Taliesin I (burnt beyond  recognition in 1914), Midway Gardens in Chicago (destroyed in 1929), and  the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo (demolished in 1968).

Although the most of the photographers are uncredited, several have been  identified as from Oak Park, IL, and noted architectural photographers  Samuel H. Gottscho, Jamaica, NY, and G.E. Kidder-Smith of New York, have  been identified. Several of the images boast annotations on verso and  are either stamped "Property of F.LL. Wright" or inscribed "FLLW."

Hitchcock and Wright's book, In the Nature of Materials, was intended to  be a sort of ex post facto catalogue of the 1940 Museum of Modern Art  (MoMA) exhibition Frank Lloyd Wright: American Architect - described by  the man himself as "the show to end all shows." The Great Depression,  Wright's prolonged absence from the country, and his turbulent personal  life had resulted in a dearth of commissions for the first half of the 1930s. At the time of the MoMA show, he was still at the opening of his  "second career," which had been revived by the Kaufmann house  (Fallingwater) and the Johnson office building.

In the Nature of Materials, published in 1942, was swiftly acknowledged  as a standard work on Wright and remained in print for nearly a quarter  century. Hitchcock had risen to prominence through the 1920s and early  30s, cementing his reputation with the 1932 International Style show at  the MoMA, co-curated with the architect Philip Johnson. The year after  the book's publication, Wright was commissioned to design a permanent  home for the art collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation - a  project that occupied him for some fifteen years but resulted in one of  the most instantly recognizable buildings in the world.

The February 14, 2010 auction is timed to coincide with the California  ABAA Book Fair, held this year in Los Angeles, and will be simulcast  from the firm's Sunset Boulevard location to the San Francisco gallery.  For Fair attendees, Bonhams & Butterfields has gathered together a wide  variety of highlights in literature and Americana as well as a fine  selection of imprints on Hawaii and the South Pacific.

The illustrated catalogue will be available online for review and  purchase.

For more information please visit: Bonhams

Posted by CuratedObject in Auctions, Country. UNITED STATES, Opens 2010.02 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Exhibitions London & NYC. Living Architectures. The Architecture Foundation, London and New York’s Storefront for Art and Architecture. The Curated Object

Gehry's Veritago, courtesy of The Architecture Foundation

Koolhaas, Houselife, courtesy of The Architecture Foundation

Xmas, Meier, courtesy of The Architecture Foundation

LIVING ARCHITECTURES

January 21 - February 26, 2010

Media images and the innermost reality of a building have two separate lives which do not necessarily coincide at any given moment. By enjoining us to see the reality of the simulacra created by the media, ‘Koolhaas Houselife’ represents the leading edge to an interpretive approach of the physical and objective reality of a given space-- Stefano Boeri, Architect, Professor, Politecnico di Milano University, and Editor in Chief, Abitare

In their first collaborative project, The Architecture Foundation, London and New York’s Storefront for Art and Architecture are delighted to present Living Architectures, a simultaneous exhibition in London and New York to showcase the work of filmmakers Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine. The duo’s acclaimed feature length documentary, Koolhaas HouseLife, previously appeared in Storefront for Art and Architecture’s 2008 group exhibition On Mock-ups, Home Videos and Housekeeping: a video exhibition in three parts, and premiered in the UK at The Architecture Foundation’s inaugural Architecture on Film programme.

Applying their keen eyes to architecture’s everyday use, Bêka and Lemoine create intimate portraits of iconic contemporary buildings, giving back-stage access to their inner lives and hidden workings. In this new transatlantic exhibition of their ongoing research into architecture as living form, parallel video installations will be presented at the AF and New York’s Storefront for Art and Architecture. The films depict the human occupations of Richard Meier’s church in Rome; Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Bilbao; and Herzog and de Meuron’s Pomerol winery, alongside further unseen footage of Koolhaas’s Maison à Bordeaux.

Transforming the AF Project Space and Storefront’s gallery into informal screening rooms for the duration of the exhibition, these four new videos will offer the world’s first opportunity to view the latest work from these celebrated filmmakers.

A revealing examination of iconic architecture in dialogue with its users - from line-dancing grape-pickers to abseiling windowcleaners – exploring architecture as an experience, rather than an image.

Born in Italy, Ila Bêka lives and works in Paris. An architect, director and video-artist, his films have been presented in many of the world’s most important film festivals. He is currently working on the Living Architectures series of contemporary architecture films and several video installations based on his collection of video-haikus. He is also currently preparing his second feature film.

Born in France, Louise Lemoîne lives and works in Paris. A graduate in cinema and philosophy at the Paris Sorbonne, she writes for a range of contemporary art foundations, alongside her regular contributions to an array of art and architecture magazines. A documentary and fiction film screenwriter, she is involved in many international cinematographic and documentary projects, alongside her work on the Living Architectures series of contemporary architecture films.

BêkaFilms is an Italian-French independent film production founded in 2001 by Ila Bêka and Francesco Pappalardo, with a leading position in contemporary cinematographic creation. BêkaFilms has produced many short films, alongside a range of documentaries and video art productions. Since 2004, the company has also begun producing feature films. Alongside the work of Ila Bêka, BêkaFilms produces the films of five other young filmmakers: Melo Prino, Tiros Niakaj, Luca Sivo, Sajith Boom and Luca Soriano. Further information, film extracts and trailers are available on the company’s website.

Venue: The Architecture Foundation, Ground Floor East, 136-148 Tooley Street, London, SE1 2TU, UK; Storefront for Art and Architecture, 97 Kenmare Street, New York, NY 10012, USA.

For more information please visit: The Architecture Foundation and Storefront for Art and Architecture

Posted by CuratedObject in Country. BRITAIN, Country. UNITED STATES, Exhibitions London, Exhibitions NYC, Opens 2010.01 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Exhibitions NYC. 5,000 Years of Japanese Art: Treasures from the Packard Collection. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Curated Object

Zaô Gongen

Japan

Heian period (794–1185), 11th century

Gilt bronze with incised decoration

H. 13 5/8 in. (34.6 cm); W. 7 1/8 in. (18.1 cm); D. 3 9/16 in. (9 cm)

The Harry G. C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, Gift of Harry G. C. Packard,

and Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Brisbane Dick, and Louis V. Bell Funds,

Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and The Annenberg Fund Inc. Gift, 1975

1975.268.155

Dish with Design of Three Jars

Dish

Japan

Edo period (1615–1868), early 18th century

Porcelain with underglaze blue and overglaze enamels (Hizen ware, Nabeshima

type)

H. 1 5/8 in. (4.1 cm); Diam. 6 in. (15.2 cm)

The Harry G. C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, Gift of Harry G. C. Packard,

and Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Brisbane Dick, and Louis V. Bell Funds,

Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and The Annenberg Fund Inc. Gift, 1975

1975.268.563

Ike Gyokuran, Japanese, 1728–1784

Autumnal Landscape with a Waterfall

Japan

Edo period (1615–1868)

Fan mounted as a hanging scroll; ink and color on paper

Image: 7 1/2 x 20 9/16 in. (19.1 x 52.3 cm)

Overall with mounting: 52 1/4 x 30 3/4 in. (132.7 x 78.1 cm)

Overall with knobs: 52 1/4 x 33 1/8 in. (132.7 x 84.1 cm)

The Harry G. C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, Gift of Harry G. C. Packard,

and Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Brisbane Dick, and Louis V. Bell Funds,

Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and The Annenberg Fund Inc. Gift, 1975

1975.268.95

Gion Nankai, Japanese, 1677–1751

Overrobe (Uchikake) with Bamboo

Japan

Edo period (1615–1868), first half of the 18th century

Ink and gold powder on silk satin

Overall: 64 3/4 x 48 7/8in. (164.5 x 124.2 cm)

The Harry G. C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, Gift of Harry G. C. Packard,

and Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Brisbane Dick, and Louis V. Bell Funds,

Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and The Annenberg Fund Inc. Gift, 1975

1975.268.88

Bust of Warrior

Culture

Japan (Kanto region)

Kofun period (ca. 300–710)

5th–6th century

Earthenware with painted, incised, and applied decoration

H. 13 1/8 in. (33.3 cm)

Ceramic

The Harry G. C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, Gift of Harry G. C. Packard, and Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Brisbane Dick, and Louis V. Bell Funds, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and The Annenberg Fund Inc. Gift, 1975

1975.268.414

After Ryûshû Shûtaku, Japanese, 1307–1388

Fudo Myôô and Two Attendants

Japan

Nanbokuchô period (1336–92)

One of a triptych of hanging scrolls; hand-colored woodblock print on paper

Image: 40 1/4 x 14 in. (102.3 x 35.6 cm)

Overall: 71 x 22 1/2in. (180.3 x 57.2 cm)

The Harry G. C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, Gift of Harry G. C. Packard,

and Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Brisbane Dick, and Louis V. Bell Funds,

Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and The Annenberg Fund Inc. Gift, 1975

1975.268.27

Ishizara Plate with Design of Human Face

Plate

Japan

Edo period (1615–1868), mid-18th–early 19th century

Stoneware (Seto ware)

H. 2 in. (5.1 cm); Diam. 10 1/2 in. (26.7 cm)

The Harry G. C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, Gift of Harry G. C. Packard,

and Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Brisbane Dick, and Louis V. Bell Funds,

Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and The Annenberg Fund Inc. Gift, 1975

1975.268.604

Itô Jakuchû, Japanese, 1716–1800

Hen and Rooster with Grapevine

Japan

Edo period (1615–1868), 1792

Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk

Image: 40 1/8 x 16 1/4 in. (101.9 x 41.3 cm)

Overall with mounting: 72 3/4 x 21 3/8 in. (184.8 x 54.3 cm)

Overall with knobs: 72 3/4 x 23 3/4 in. (184.8 x 60.3 cm)

The Harry G. C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, Gift of Harry G. C. Packard,

and Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Brisbane Dick, and Louis V. Bell Funds,

Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and The Annenberg Fund Inc. Gift, 1975

1975.268.69

Kaigetsudô Dohan, active 1710–16

Beautiful Woman

Japan

Edo period (1615–1868), 18th century

Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper

Image: 32 3/16 x 13 3/16 in. (81.8 x 33.5 cm)

Overall with mounting: 64 3/8 x 20 1/8 in. (163.5 x 51.1 cm)

The Harry G. C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, Gift of Harry G. C. Packard,

and Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Brisbane Dick, and Louis V. Bell Funds,

Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and The Annenberg Fund Inc. Gift, 1975

1975.268.125

Kano Sansetsu, Japanese, 1589–1651

The Old Plum

Japan

Edo period (1615–1868), ca. 1645

Four sliding door panels (fusuma); ink, color, and gold on gilded paper

68 3/4 x 191 1/8 in. (174.6 x 485.5 cm)

The Harry G. C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, Gift of Harry G. C. Packard,

and Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Brisbane Dick, and Louis V. Bell Funds,

Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and The Annenberg Fund Inc. Gift, 1975

1975.268.48a–d

5,000 Years of Japanese Art: Treasures from the Packard Collection

December 17, 2009–June 6, 2010

From 6th-century earthenware busts to later bronzes, from jewelry to large Kannon statuary, the pieces on view here go way beyond the usual suspects of Japanese art. Of course, there's plenty of lacquerware, ceramics and screens displayed — but in the exhibit's sweeping melange of periods and medium, this is a true survey of a nation's gifts to the rest of us.

Credit goes to the encyclopedic knowledge and interest of collector Harry G.C. Packard, who gifted or sold more than 400 pieces to the Met in 1975. The acquisition instantly transformed the museum into an institution with one of the finest such collections in the West. This exhibit celebrates the 35th anniversary of that acquisition, and showcases about half of the collection with an emphasis on its particular strengths in archaeological artifacts, Buddhist iconographic scrolls, screen paintings of the Momoyama and Edo periods (16th—19th century), and sculptures of the Heian and Kamakura periods (ninth—14th century).

Some of the works have never been on public display, while others have rarely been shown because of conservation considerations. There's much of great beauty here, of course; but some of the more whimsical pieces stand out, too. "The sun sinks in the sky and the west winds rise. Do they sink and rise with one mind?" reads a scrolling woodblock print that recreates the impromptu poems and impressionistic sketches of a duo who traveled by boat from Kyoto to Osaka in 1767. Elsewhere, folk ceramics like a late 17th-century porcelain dog with overglazed red, indigo and turquoise splotches, charm-- JoAnn Greco

For more information, please visit http://www.metmuseum.org

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Exhibitions Munich. The Art of the Frame: Exploring the Holdings of the Alte Pinakotek. The Curated Object

Schnitzwerkrahmen Mannheim, um 1720/23 | Paul Egell zugeschrieben (1691-1752) | Leihgabe Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, München | Inv.-Nr. 82/266 | Kat. Nr. 20

FOTO: BAYERISCHES NATIONALMUSEUM MüNCHEN | BASTIAN KRACK

FOTO: BAYERISCHE STAATSGEMäLDESAMMLUNGEN | ALTE PINAKOTHEK

FOTO: BAYERISCHE STAATSGEMäLDESAMMLUNGEN | ALTE PINAKOTHEK

FOTO: BAYERISCHE STAATSGEMäLDESAMMLUNGEN | ALTE PINAKOTHEK

FOTO: BAYERISCHE STAATSGEMäLDESAMMLUNGEN | ALTE PINAKOTHEK

FOTO: BAYERISCHE STAATSGEMäLDESAMMLUNGEN | ALTE PINAKOTHEK

FOTO: BAYERISCHE STAATSGEMäLDESAMMLUNGEN | ALTE PINAKOTHEK

FOTO: BAYERISCHE STAATSGEMäLDESAMMLUNGEN | ALTE PINAKOTHEK

FOTO: BAYERISCHE STAATSGEMäLDESAMMLUNGEN | ALTE PINAKOTHEK

FOTO: BAYERISCHE STAATSGEMäLDESAMMLUNGEN | ALTE PINAKOTHEK

THE ART OF THE FRAME: EXPLORING THE HOLDINGS OF THE ALTE PINAKOTHEK

January 28- May 18, 2010

The Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen do not just own vast holdings of framed pictures but also a huge collection of frames. For this exhibition, however, the selection was not made in the frame depot but solely in the painting depot at the Alte Pinakothek. It is only there in the museum’s

holdings that the history of collecting frames and pictures can be traced. Some 4000 frames and pictures were sifted through and recorded, from which a selection of 92 frames was made. This exhibition focuses on the art and history of frames from four centuries, encompassing 16th-century case frames to Classicist and Empire style frames. This presentation covers all types of frame, from highly elaborate ones to miniature versions. Of particular note are the Dutch cabinet and Lutma frames, as well as inlaid examples and trophies from the Rococo period.

Artistic highlights in the exhibition are the frames made by Paul Egell (1691–1752), Melchior Hefele (1716–98) and Johann Wolfgang von der Auwera (1708–58). Frames by and after Joseph Effner (1687–1745), François Cuvilliés the Elder (1695–1768), Karl Albrecht von Lespilliez (1723–96) and Leo von Klenze (1784–1864) provide a fulminant conclusion to the exhibition.

Exploring the holdings of the Alte Pinakothek led the curator to impressive exponents of the art of the frame that originally came from the following galleries and cabinets: from the Grüne Galerie at the Residenz in Munich, from the castles and palaces of Schleißheim, Nymphenburg, Ansbach, Bayreuth, Mainz, Passau and Würzburg, and from the collections in Düsseldorf, Mannheim and Zweibrücken.

The picture-framer, Karl Pfefferle, shows the various techniques used in making and gilding frames by looking at selected examples. The exhibition also provides an overview of the history of frames in the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen which, thanks to the provenance of some of the works, are of particular interest as well as displaying an incredibly variety.

A comprehensive 264-page catalogue accompanies the exhibition and includes a number of contributions on the production of frames, the depiction of frames in paintings and the history of frame collecting in the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen. An essay by Verena Friedrich provides an insight into the most recent research on the history of frames carried out in Würzburg.

For more information please visit: http://www.pinakothek.de

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Interview. Aesthetic Aptitude: David Barquist, President of The Decorative Arts Society. The Curated Object

David Barquist, President of The Decorative Arts Society and decorative arts curator at The Philadelphia Museum of Art

Member of The Decorative Arts Society at The Merchant House

Members of The Decorative Arts Society at Gracie Mansion

Members of The Decorative Arts Society at Mount Vernon

The Decorative Arts Society, Inc. is a not-for-profit New York corporation founded in 1990 for the encouragement of interest in, appreciation of, and exchange of information about the decorative arts. The Curated Object recently spoke with its current president, David Barquist, decorative arts curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, about the Society and the state of design today-- JoAnn Greco

Can you tell us a bit more about the Society?

Well, there's a president — I'm about midway through my term, though there is no set limit — and a core groups of four officers, as well as an advisory board of six. Currently, membership is about 200, with half of that being museum people, and the rest divided among academics, collectors, dealers, and other interested parties.

And what is the Society's mission?

The organization was originally founded as a chapter of the very long-lived Society of Architectural Historians in the mid-1970s. But gradually there was a feeling that people in the field of decorative arts tend to get sort of sidelined in the enterprises of both museumology and art history, and that there might be greater strength in numbers if we were to become an independent organization. So that happened in 1990, largely because it just seemed more beneficial than being an appendage to another organization.

Our mission is first and foremost to provide a forum for professionals in the field, and the primary way we do that is via our newsletter, which we publish with the help of the graduate program in decorative arts at the Corcoran. Traditionally, this has been a print publication, but we're contemplating a transition to web-based publishing. Typically, each issue has news of acquisitions, new exhibits or whatever, but in the past it's also included a scholarly article or two. I'd like to see us move back in that direction.

What else does the Society do to perpetuate interest and dialogue in the field?

We also sponsored symposia in New York at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and I think these are tremendously important. I've attended a number of these over the years, and they were very helpful to me as a young professional in the field. Occasionally, when we have the money, we also make grants to museums that want to offer symposia in conjunction with exhibitions. And, finally, we also give out three awards for writings on decorative arts topics.

Is there a core philosophy that the Society adheres to?

Yes, it's the idea that decorative arts is central to art history. Design is art, and useful objects can be art as much as something that hangs on the wall in a frame. What we do, though, I think largely falls on the ears of the converted. We do sponsor events intermittently, like a recent trip to Washington, D.C., where we visited both museums and private collections. That was a fantastic trip - we got a tour of White House with the curator, for example — and there were people who hadn't even been members, who subsequently became members.

So, your increased visibility increases the field's visibility?

Yes. Although, there is much more of a sensitivity to the importance of decorative arts than there has been in a long while, I think. Just look at the p.r. around what used to be called the American Craft Museum, when it re-opened as the Museum of Art and Design. There's a real cache to design nowadays.

How does that translate to fine arts museums?

Well, in a lot of cases, such as here at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, you see fine arts and decorative arts shown together. Furniture and objets are viewed as just another facet of the amazing story of art. For too long, too many museums have ghettoized things and isolated media into separate departments. That just places the burden on the visitor to put everything together and into context. Now, there's no doubt that integrating art and design complicates installation hugely for the museum, but at the end of the day it offers a much richer experience for the visitor.

What is the state of decorative arts today?

People are much more attuned on a global scale. Obviously, that's always been true to a certain extent, where Americans looked to Europe, or Europe looked to Asia. But more so than ever today, nationalities are blurring, and we're aware of what's going on everywhere, all seemingly at the same time. But that doesn't mean that there can't be innovation. There's always room for a twist on things.

It seems like there's a real design moment, too, in the general art world, don't you think?

Yes, design has really become a word that people respond to not only positively, but also with real acceptance. Many in the art world no longer think in terms of fiber or clay or metal, but in using whatever material best expresses what they're trying to say. I mean, just look at the Venice Biennalle this year: there was hardly any painting or photography. Those traditional boundaries of fine art versus decorative art are gone. Every generation creates its own art, and this may well be, as you say, design's moment.

Please visit The Decorative Arts Society to discover more facts, curiosities and stimulations about the decorative arts, all delightful and divine ~

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Interviews. The Brilliance of Buck House: Deborah Buck's Inimitable Eye. The Curated Object

Deborah Buck at the new Buck House

Juan Montoya, Deborah Buck,
BUCK HOUSE celebrates the release of JUAN MONTOYA's new book,
Buck House, NYC
©Patrick McMullan,
Photo -- AMBER DE VOS/patrickmcmullan.com

The Big, Beautiful New
Buck House, NYC
©Patrick McMullan,
Photo -- AMBER DE VOS/patrickmcmullan.com

MARGARET RUSSELL, Editor in Chief of Elle Décor, celebrates The Big, Beautiful New BUCKHOUSE
Buck House, NYC
©Patrick McMullan,
Photo -- AMBER DE VOS/patrickmcmullan.com

Deborah Buck, has been showcasing her collection of antique furniture, paintings, photography, and objets d’art at Buck House for the past eight years. The bold businesswoman opened her first jewel-box like shop in 2001, right after September 11th. Eight years later, in the midst of the Great Recession, she moves to a larger location in Carnegie Hill with no fear. Rightfully so - Buck’s eye is so sharply refined that her collection holds instant investment pieces. But the space isn’t only a shop, it’s intended to serve as a modern-day salon where artists, collectors, and the simply curious can gather, talk, and be inspired. Herewith, a few words with Ms. Buck. -- Cappi Williamson

What spawned the move?

I was frustrated with having two spaces, neither of which were complete. Buck House was really tiny. We heated it with light bulbs, seriously. Before I had the gallery, it was so small that I would drive around for a week with end tables in the car, until we had a space to put them. And the gallery was fantastic, but it was a low-level space, and the landlord wouldn’t let me run it on a day-to-day business basis. It had to be app only and for events. While the events were great, there would people who wouldn’t make it to the event and want to come back. So we were constantly buzzing back and forth. I had wanted to consolidate and then this space became available. I felt as thought the economy was not giving my business any energy, so I had to do something. I opened little Buck House 2 months after Sept. 11, so I’ve always been pretty fearless. The business has ot feed my head, so when its not changing or grown and I’m not learning, then I have to do something to generate that energy for myself first, and then that translates to the public, clients, and everyone else. I needed something to give the business a kick in the ass.  

Things occur spontaneously here. People can sit down and we can talk about whatever the artwork is, whatever we’re showing, so I ca have conversations about art and design here.  

We’ve had three events here. A showing of Janis Provisor’s fine art jewelry, and Elle Décor hosted the launch, which was a blast. We had Juan Montoya’s book party here, and, the next event will be February 2nd, when Susan Rockefeller launches her jewelry line, which benefits Oceana, she and I are both council members for Oceana, which is about protecting and defending the oceans of the world, and she’s done a line of jewelry which is inspired by the oceans – pearls, etc. It’s something close to my heart – I grew up in Baltimore, and have always sailed. I think it has something to do with Buck House Blue – when I first saw the Caribbean I thought, “that’s what color water should be.” I’m very excited about this, because it’s the first time Buck House has been able to be a venue for a philanthropic escapade. I want to really showcase fearless artists and designers, and support philanthropic events here.    

I know this space is an art gallery as well as a design mecca. Can you talk about some of the artists you have in the store?

There is a combination of up-and-coming and established artists. We have Doug Hall, who is a photographer, and Sally Gall, also a contemporary photographer. Then, we have historic vintage photographs. I love Madeline Weinrib, whose another artist that’s become a businesswoman.

Do you have your own work here?

I frequently have one or two pieces of my own work, sort of slipped in…

What mediums do you work in?

Painting and drawing on paper. I worked for 20 years as a painter and showed in museums and galleries. It’s very liberating now not to try to struggle with these huge canvasses, and just work on paper, and when I took the onus off trying to show them. And it was so interesting because everything comes full circle, so now my work has a venue and I sell it, and other dealers take pieces and sell them. It’s that old story that letting go of something kind of brings it right back into your life.

And if you look around, the shop looks different because it comes from a painter’s, and artist’s head, that’s why this is so different, why isn’t really a shop. I curate with the same mindset that I paint with – that is, that I’m very in touch with my aesthetic instinct. It’s bread in my bone, and it’s been there since I was a little girl, but it’s also very informed, because I never stop teaching and looking and learning. But what’s different is I’m looking for these objects to inform one another while they’re informing me. And they make their way into my art – tassels, crowns – it’s a conversation between the art and objects. It’s about knowing good things, but it’s also knowing about how to get the most of it in the same way as a painter does. I always loved the expression “a riot of color.” When I paint, I try to get the most out of each mark by what its juxtaposed against, just to make it really “pow,” and I do the same thing in my tableaux.

I’m a very happy girl, after twenty years of painting my brains out, this really satisfies me in a way that didn’t; the isolation killed me. I mean, I think in the past I kind of drank the Kool-Aid, the kind of Jackson Pollack macho Kool-Aid. I really bought into his macho stigma that you have to be there for the work – you have to be there 8 hours a day, but its not true. When I go into the studio now, I can do in an hour and a half what used to take a day. I’m ready to roar, I don’t have to flop around waiting to get my energy to that place.  

You just recently self-published a book, “Tableau.” What inspired you to do the book, and to do it yourself?

With the book, I met with every sort of editor at publishing houses, and I got great, positive feedback about it. I spoke with every major editor of a house, and we had long meetings. Then, we ‘d get to marketing and they would say, “It needs to be a how-to book,” or she has to be Martha Stewart and already have a TV show, a platform. I tried to write the how-to book, and I did a proposal and we got pretty close, but I got sad every time I thought about writing this how-to book because I don’t know how to tell you to get in touch with your inner self. These tableaux are my art, and I wanted to showcase it in that way, to be interpreted and inspiring, not to tell you how to do it. It needs to get re-interpreted through each reader’s own guts, their own filters. And if I cause someone to put a couple of things together on their desk, then that’s fantastic.  

Going back to your signature color, Buck House Blue. Can you talk more about how you chose it – what caught your eye about this particular shade that made you want to work into your business?  

It’s just a color that has always seemed like magic to me. There’s a certain amount of plasticity in the color. It pops, it’s not natural. I grew up on a farm were you don’t see a lot of turquoise, so it always seemed magic. And when I opened, I wanted to create a brand for this new “design lab” to set it apart. Every time I had a color choice, I used turquoise. It became Buck House Blue – the stripes became iconic, and I just went with it. Now, I’m kind of territorial about it, which is ridiculous, because you can’t own a color. But, I feel like I really rock it. When we had our last event, everyone wore turquoise accents, and it really feels like a cheerleading squad – a vote of confidence. Whenever I see turquoise in the world, I feel like I’ve found a friend.

Travel obviously informs your work, from the Asian influences found with your signature foo dogs, to European influences. Where are you headed this year?

I’ll go to Europe in the winter. I always go in February – my boys go skiing and I go with a friend, and I like to do that because it’s really cold and bitter and no one’s there in the markets. You just eat everything not nailed down and shop till you drop. I go to France, Belgium, Berlin, London…I’m not quite sure where this winter’s trip will be, but it always refreshes my eye. One year we were in Spain, being driven my Penelope Cruz’s bodyguard, and it was Sunday and everything was closed. We were told that there some towns just over the border in France where shops would be open, so we drove the two hours and ended up coming back with lamps sticking out of car windows, the works… you just have to think fast and be ready whenever you find that great find.

Can you talk about some of the new things you’ll be carrying with this great new space?

Estate jewelry is one thing I am exploring – I’ve always loved it. As I began buying, I started being more inquisitive and asking more questions. Jewelry’s a little trickier, because it’s a lot more money to invest in. So, I only buy what I would wear, in case I’m stuck with something. I also make sure the goods are there, I don’t sell costume jewelry or anything mass-produced, only fine jewelry. I try to sell things that are different and have a story. It’s a microcosm in each piece, especially if it was custom–designed. A narrative has to be there – because that’s what makes me play with it, in the tableaux also, in everything – that’s what attracts me to it. I’m just not attracted to anything that is easy to come by for anybody.

The garden in the back of the new space is also allowing me to branch into garden statuary and contemporary outdoor sculpture and play with scale. We got these turquoise custom tents built to go out there – it makes this magic space, with the little white lights and turquoise top. We’ve had a few events out there.

And what’s the best thing about being an “artist turned businesswoman,” as you say? Where has the turn to design taken you?

I’m a very happy girl, after twenty years of painting my brains out, this really satisfies me in a way that that didn’t. I really bought into his macho stigma that you have to be there for the work – you have to be there eight hours a day, but its not true. When I go into the studio now, I can do in an hour and a half what used to take a day. I’m ready to roar, I don’t have to flop around waiting to get my energy to that place.

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Art/Antiques Fair. Tally Ho! Art Antiques London. The Curated Object

Rafferty and Walwyn, GEORGE PRIOR, LONDON, A stunning George III period Musical Lacquer Belltop Bracket. Height: 18 inches (46cm) including handle. Date: Circa 1770

W. Agnew and Co. Ltd., A bust of Michelangelo wearing Van Dyck costume, signed and dated G. Rigali Edinb 1834, Plaster, The Italian sculptor Rigali worked in Edinburgh in the early 19th century.

E&H Manners, A pair of Meissen Obelisks 6 inches high, 15.2 cm Circa 1750-55

Laura Bordignon, Japanese koro with silver and enamel mounts, having ivory shibayama panels decorated with flowers and birds, signed in a rectangular seal Masanao koku, late Meiji Period. Size h. 7.5" x w. 5.5" in. ( h.19 x w. 14cm). Price £ 8,500.00

Brian Haughton Gallery, An extremely rare Bottger White Meissen Porcelain Coffee Pot and Cover, gilded with Chinese figures and Magicians, circa 1718-1720. Provenance: The Anderson Collection formerly exhibited at the Orlando Museum of Art.

Art Antiques London

June 9-16, 2010

This June, Kensington Gardens will provide the stunning backdrop to Art Antiques London, which runs from June 9-16, 2010, a new art and antiques fair aimed at both the seasoned connoisseur and those who admire and value beauty and timelessness. Art Antiques London will incorporate the International Ceramics Fair and Seminar, which has been a fixture in the London calendar for almost thirty years.

This highly anticipated new Haughton fair will be held in a beautiful custom-built marquee opposite the Royal Albert Hall, adjacent to the site of the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Fair’s participants are leading specialists in a wide range of disciplines, including furniture,paintings, jewellery, clocks, textiles, silver and ceramics, as well as rare books andmodern and contemporary objet d’art. Every object exhibited at the Fair is rigorously examined and vetted for quality and authenticity, so collectors can be assured they can buy with confidence. The Fair will also host a full programme of lectures and seminars that will make Art Antiques London an important destination for international collectors and institutions, and a glamorous Charity Gala evening that will ensure the Fair will become a fixture in the Capital’s social calendar.

Organiser and porcelain expert Brian Haughton is presenting an important Meissen Cream Pot, cover and stand painted by B. G. Haüer with campaign scenes, c.1740, an extremely rare Nymphenburg shell butter box and cover, modelled by Dominikus Auliczek from 1765-1770, and a Böttger White Meissen Porcelain Coffee Pot and cover, gilded with Chinese figures and magicians, c. 1718-20. E & H Manners will show a stunning Doccia figure of Arlecchina, c 1750 and a charming faceted wine glass, 1730, formerly from the Otto Meyer Collection, decorated in Schwarzlot and gold by Ignaz Preissler. Other ceramics dealers exhibiting at the Fair include Dragesco-Cramoisan, Kunsthandel Daniela Kumpf,Stockspring Antiques and Adrian Sassoon.

Paintings and drawings from 18th century to the present day will be shown at the Fair.Lowell Libson will be bringing a wonderful Lear watercolour entitled, The Cedars of Lebanon. MacConnal-Mason is offering a superb painting by L S Lowry, dated 1951. Entitled The Gateway, the painting was first sold in 1955 for £57.00 and was last exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1976. It is a wonderful example of Lowry’s muted colour palette of ivory, black, flake white and yellow ochre.

The Maas Gallery is presenting a beautiful oil portrait by Sir Gerald Kelly entitled Sao Ohn Nyun V. dated 1932. It is the fifth and most enigmatic of the series of the same name. After an unhappy love affair in Paris, Kelly went to Burma on the advice of the writer Somerset Maugham, who lent him £50 for the journey. In Burma he fell in love anew, but this time with an ideal of Eastern beauty, exoticism and mystery. Back in London, he finally met the embodiment of that dream in the form of Sao Ohn Nyun, the sister-in-law of the Rajah of Thi-Paw. The painting comes on to the market having been in private ownership for some years.

Lucy B Campbell will be bringing works by Juan Luque (b. 1964); Anna Pugh (b. 1938) and Mia Tarney (b. 1973). Spanish painter Luque, is fascinated with the textures and treatment of light on the open sea when it encounters solitary lighthouses or ships. He has twice won the Medal for painting at BMW’s Awards in Madrid and the first prize at the Focus Awards in Seville.

H. Blairman & Sons Ltd, who specialise in furniture from the early 19th to the early 20thcentury with a strong interest in beautifully designed, documented furniture and works of art from the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is presenting a set of six Willow Tea Room chairs by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, manufactured by Alex Martin. A plaster bust of Michelangelo wearing Van Dyck costume by the Italian sculptor Rigali who was working in Edinburgh in the early 19th century, signed and dated G. Rigali Edinb 1834, is being shown by sculpture and works of art specialist, W. Agnew & Co. Ltd.

Rare and collectable antique Indian jewellery from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries will be shown by both Susan Ollemans and Samina Khanyari. Susan Ollemans will be showing a nine stone pendant or Navaratna inset in the kundun style with cabochon stones representing the cosmos. A ruby in the centre represents the sun, with other precious stones arranged around it. Once the gems are in harmony around the ‘sun’, the spirit of order is said to bring peace to the wearer. Sandra Cronan and Nigel Norman will be exhibiting a wide range of fine jewels from the 17th to the early 20th centuries.

Among the highlights being shown by Hiroshi Yanagi Oriental Art from Kyoto, Japan, is a pair of Japanese six-fold screens inlaid with cloud-like gold leaf and beautifully painted with a depiction of stabled horses, from the mid-16th century. Laura Bordignon, a specialist in Japanese ivory and bronze from the Meiji period, will be presenting a Japanese ‘koro’, or incense burner with silver and enamel mounts and ivory shibayama decorated with flowers and birds.

Raffety & Walwyn, the clock and barometer specialists, will be bringing a fine example of a George III period musical lacquer belltop bracket clock made by George Prior, from 1770 and an important James II ebonised longcase clock by Thomas Tompion. St. James’s clock specialist, John Carlton-Smith, will also be exhibiting at the Fair.

The lecture and seminar programme will offer a series of thought - provoking lectures on a wide variety of topics given by distinguished art historians, including Dame Rosalind Savill, Director of the Wallace Collection; Dr. Ulrich Pietsch, Director of the Porcelain Collection, Dresden; Philippa Glanville, former Assistant Keeper, Department of Metalwork, Victoria and Albert Museum, and Dr. Dora Thornton, Curator, Renaissance Collections of the British Museum.

The inaugural Charity Gala evening at Art Antiques London will benefit the Bush Theatre, which has been at the heart of British Theatre since its inception in 1972. The Bush launched the career of many highly distinguished writers and playwrights including Stephen Poliakoff, Victoria Wood and Billy Roche. The Bush Theatre has recently launched an ambitious education and outreach programme bushfutures, designed to provide a range of opportunities for young people and emerging artists from schoolchildren to young artists designed to sustain both the local community as well as the Bush theatre.

Albert Memorial West Lawn, Kensington Gardens, Queen's Gate, Kensington Gore, London, SW7, UK

The West Lawn is next to the The Albert Memorial and directly opposite The Royal Albert Hall.

Tel: + 44 (0)20 7389 6555

Fax: + 44 (0)20 7389 6556

Opening Times : Daily, 11am – 7pm, except Sunday and last day 11am – 6pm.

General Admission: £15.

Posted by CuratedObject in Art Fairs, Country. BRITAIN, Exhibitions London, Opens 2010.06 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Exhibitions Toronto. Micah Lexier: Twelve of One. Art Metropole. The Curated Object

Micah Lexier's collection of objects on view for the month of January, as seen in his vitrine.

Micah Lexier's collection of collected objects stacked one on top to the other.

Micah Lexier: Twelve of One

January to December, 2010

First Installation:  January 6, 2010

A year-long exhibition consisting of twelve consecutive vitrine displays, each lasting one month, each changed at the beginning of the month, starting January 2010.

The displays consist of a selection of items including stationery, street finds, the backs of things, altered books, coins, packaging, printed cardboard, metal objects, forms, measuring devices, games, labels, and other printed materials.

A boxed collection of twelve pamphlets has been produced in a signed and numbered edition of fifty, plus 10 artist's proofs.

Micah Lexier is a Winnipeg-born, Toronto-based artist. He curates occasionally and collects often – generally items made of paper, including out-of-print conceptual art documents, printed cardboard boxes, and various items found on the street. He has a deep interest in measurement, numbers, and the kinds of casual marks we make in our day-to-day lives. Lexier has presented over 90 solo exhibitions, participated in over 150 group exhibitions and produced a dozen public commissions. Concurrent with his one-year project for Art Metropole, Lexier has produced a second one-year project for the BMO Project room, which can be viewed atwww.iamthecoin.com. Micah Lexier is represented in Toronto by Birch Libralato, in Calgary by TrepanierBaer, and in Berlin by the Gitte Weise Galerie. A bit more information can be found atmicahlexier.com.

For more information please visit: Art Metropole

Posted by CuratedObject in Country. CANADA, Exhibitions Toronto, Opens 2010.01 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Exhibitions St. Louis. Allison Smith: Needle Work. Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University. The Curated Object

Allison Smith, Untitled, from Needle Work, 2009. Archival inkjet prints on, exhibition fiber paper, 22 x 16”. Courtesy of the artist.

Allison Smith, Untitled, from Needle Work, 2009. Archival inkjet prints on
exhibition fiber paper, 22 x 16”. Courtesy of the artist.

Allison Smith, Untitled, from Needle Work, 2009. Archival inkjet prints on exhibition fiber paper, 22 x 16”. Courtesy of the artist.

Allison Smith, Untitled, from Needle Work, 2009. Archival inkjet prints on exhibition fiber paper, 22 x 16”. Courtesy of the artist.

Allison Smith, Untitled, from Needle Work, 2009. Archival inkjet prints on exhibition fiber paper, 22 x 16”. Courtesy of the artist.

Allison Smith: Needle Work

Feb. 5 to April 19

Allison Smith, inaugural Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Visiting Artist, explores connections between craft, war and national identity. creates large-scale multimedia installations that critically engage popular forms of historical reenactment — including sculpture, fabrics, ceramics and other traditional crafts — to redo, restage and refigure our sense of collective memory. Frequently drawing on "living history" museums, battlegrounds and, most recently, the Internet, Smith explores notions of gender, culture and authenticity through craft and performance and the connections of both to war, violence and the construction of national identity.

In February the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will showcase the artist's most recent project, Allison Smith: Needle Work. The installation centers on the recreation of European and American gas masks from World War I and World War II. Appearing crudely fashioned — from textiles such as canvas and twill tape as opposed to the more familiar industrial black rubber — these early masks, which Smith first encountered while visiting the Musée de l'Armée in Paris, struck her as meticulously, even lovingly, crafted, yet also functionally inadequate to their task.

In preparing her replicas, Smith studied the history and evolution of gas masks, often sketching from primary sources or using a cell phone to take photographs. She also scoured the Web for archival images, many of which (like the cell phone photos) proved blurry, pixelated or otherwise difficult to decipher, leaving the artist to guess at fabrics and construction details. But this sense of approximation is central to Smith's project, underscoring the unreliability of historical memory as well as the ultimate impossibility of "authentic" reproduction. Indeed, the gap between artifact and reproduction reinforces Smith's conception of the mask as both uniform and costume, at once signifying the invisibility of the individual and the freedom to not "be oneself" at moments of one's choosing.

This sense of performance is further emphasized by a series of staged photographs in which masks are worn, held or otherwise positioned as props, variously evoking survival, cruelty, modesty, camouflage and disguise. For Smith, the very activity of making masks is itself a performative gesture. One striking photo shows hands in the act of sewing a mask. Others depict finished masks juxtaposed with the archival images upon which they are based.

Representing another tradition of wartime needlework are four large silk parachutes — printed by Washington University's Island Press — which are suspended from the museum ceiling. Inspired by World War II-era stories of women who created wedding dresses from surplus parachutes, these works present a luxurious and perhaps feminine counterpoint to other aspects of war matériel.

Smith developed Needle Work in fall 2009, while serving as the inaugural Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Visiting Artist in Washington University's Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. During a series of campus visits, Smith also participated in the interdisciplinary studio "Past Perfect, Present Tense," which investigated the use of historical research as a strategy within contemporary artistic practice. The studio was led by Lauren Adams, assistant professor of painting in the Sam Fox School, who also serves as curator for the exhibition.

Support for Allison Smith: Needle Work was provided by Bunny and Charles Burson, the Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Art Endowment Fund, the Sam Fox School's College and Graduate School of Art, and members of the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum

For more information please visit: The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum

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Exhibitions Chicago. The Object of Nostalgia. Columbia College Chicago’s Leviton A+D Gallery. The Curated Object

Erika Leppmann, Let Me Count the Ways (with apologies to E.B. Browning), 2008 (detail), Mixed media, dimensions variable, Courtesy of the artist

Raychael Stine, Early Darkness, 2009, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 4’ x 5’, Courtesy of the artist

Marlene Alt, Home/Land: Moths to the Flame, 2007, Mixed media, dimensions variable, Courtesy of the artist

THE OBJECT OF NOSTALGIA

ART EXHIBITION AT COLUMBIA COLLEGE CHICAGO

January 14-February 20, 2010

The Object of Nostalgia is an art exhibition at Columbia College Chicago’s Leviton A+D Gallery that contemplates the nature of “sentimentality” and its conflicted relation to contemporary art. Through paintings and mixed media, each of the artists represented in The Object of Nostalgia copes with nostalgia and the condition of longing in a unique and personal way, favoring personal investigation, private narratives, and the full breadth of creative tools and language available to the artist. Featuring Marlene Alt, Brian Bishop, Pamela Fraser, Dawn Gavin, Kathy High, Greg Hopkins, Erika Leppmann, Julia Lothrop, Clayton Merrell, Elaine Rutherford, and Raychael Stine.

Curated by René Marquez and Lance Winn

This exhibition is in conjunction with College Art Association’s Chicago Conference and a related panel discussion. See conference.collegeart.org/2010 for more info.

WHEN: January 14 – February 20, 2010

◦ An Evening at Columbia: February 11th

◦ 5-9 pm Opening Reception

◦ 6:30 pm Curators Talk  

WHERE: Columbia College Chicago’s Leviton A+D Gallery

• 619 S. Wabash

• Gallery hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 11 am – 5pm, Thursday, 11 am – 8 pm  

INFO: 312.369.8687 www.colum.edu/adgallery

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Exhibitions Boston. Object, Image, Collector: African and Oceanic Art in Focus. The Museum of Fine Art, Boston. The Curated Object

Mask (gle), Unidentified artist, Mano peoples, Côte d’Ivoire/Liberia, early 20th century

Hook figure, Unidentified artist, Yimar peoples, Papua New Guinea, 20th century

Female figure (blolo bla), Unidentified artist, Baule peoples, Côte d’Ivoire, 20th century

Navigational chart (rebbelith), Unidentified artist, Marshall Islands, Republic of the Marshall Islands, early 20th century

Photograph: Punu Mask, Gabon, about 1916-17, Charles Sheeler

Photograph: Portrait of Max Weber, about 1923, Clara E. Sipprell

Object, Image, Collector: African and Oceanic Art in Focus.

December 12-July 18, 2010

This exhibition traces the ascent of African and Oceanic objects from artifacts to works of art in the 20th century, drawing on 20 Boston-area collections and on the collections of the MFA. Besides presenting some 60 three-dimensional works and textiles of excellent quality, the exhibition also examines the role of photography and photographically illustrated books in promoting this shift in appreciation of pieces from Africa and Oceania. Included are images from The Lane Collection featuring African objects by American modernist photographer Charles Sheeler, one of the artists instrumental in this process. African and Oceanic Art in the 20th Century juxtaposes three-dimensional works, photographs, and seminal books that depict similar objects, creating a vibrant and interesting visual narrative of the acceptance of African and Oceanic objects as art.

For more information please visit: The MFA, Boston

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Exhibitions London. Edmund de Waal, From Zero. Alan Cristea Gallery. The Curated Object

Edmund de Waal, An English Matins (closed), 2009, White lacquer cabinet with 40 thrown porcelain vessels 50 x 60 x 12 cm (closed) 50 x 80 x 32 cm (open),  Courtesy the artist and Alan Cristea Gallery

Edmund de Waal, An English Matins (half open), 2009, White lacquer cabinet with 40 thrown porcelain vessels , 50 x 60 x 12 cm (closed) 50 x 80 x 32 cm (open) Courtesy the artist and Alan Cristea Gallery

Edmund de Waal, An English Matins, 2009, White lacquer cabinet with 40 thrown porcelain vessels 50 x 60 x 12 cm (closed) 50 x 80 x 32 cm (open) Courtesy the artist and Alan Cristea Gallery

Edmund de Waal, Das Ding In Sich, 2009, Lead lined wooden box containing 8 thrown porcelain vessels 29 x 29 x 20cm Courtesy the artist and Alan Cristea Gallery

Edmund de Waal, Rill, 2006, 34 thrown porcelain vessels, 4 celadon glazes, mild steel angle 210 x 8 x 8cm , Courtesy the artist and Alan Cristea Gallery

Edmund de Waal, From Zero

March 18-April 17, 2010

In March 2010 Alan Cristea Gallery opens its first exhibition of ceramic installations by Edmund de Waal. This will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with introduction by Booker Prize-winning author A.S. Byatt.

From Zero takes as its starting point a line from Kasimir Malevich’s manifesto The Non-Objective World: ''It is from zero, in zero, that the true movement of being begins”. The works on display will consist of groups of porcelain pots which use wood, plaster, lead, charred oak, glass and steel to ‘frame’ them. This includes a sequence of white boxes, some lead-lined, others plaster-lined, which contain groups of vessels in varying white and celadon glazes. De Waal will also be exhibiting his first vitrine piece, using glass and black steel to encase over 100 pots of different sizes. A red lacquer shelf of white pots will be installed high on a gallery wall; a shelving unit with doors will hide and reveal collections of vessels in 15 different white glazes.

De Waal is a potter of international reputation, whose work has most recently been on display at Tate Britain as part of Kettle’s Yard’s 50th Anniversary celebrations and at the V&A where his commission Signs and Wonders has just been launched as part of the new Ceramic Galleries. De Waal’s work is held in over 30 public collections worldwide including the British Council; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Western Australia, Perth; the World Ceramic Exposition Museum, Ichon, Korea and the Museum für angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt.

As well as exhibiting at the Alan Cristea Gallery in 2010 (the artist’s first commercial gallery show in London for more than eight years), de Waal’s solo exhibition water-shed opens at Leamington Spa Museum in January and he is part of a group exhibition The Artists’ House at the New Art Centre, Salisbury from 6 February to 4 May, alongside Richard Hamilton and Chien Wei Chang.

De Waal is also a writer, whose publications include Twentieth Century Ceramics (Thames & Hudson, 2003) and Bernard Leach (Tate Publishing, 1998). His forthcoming book The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance is being published by Chatto and Windus in June 2010. Alan Cristea Gallery will hold a major print retrospective by Bauhaus artist Anni Albers to run concurrently with their de Waal exhibition.

Alan Cristea Gallery is the largest dealer and publisher of 20th-century and contemporary prints in Europe, publishing works by the very best international artists as well as regularly showing paintings, works on paper, ceramics, sculpture and installations.

For more information please visit: Alan Cristea Gallery

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Exhibitions Hamilton, NY. Sorted Books by Nina Katchadourian. The Clifford Art Gallery and the Department of Art and Art History at Colgate University. The Curated Object

What is Art from Special Collections Revisited, 2008, digital c-print, 12.5 x 19", "Courtesy of the artist, Sara Meltzer gallery and Catharine Clark gallery."

Artists' Gardens from BookPace, 2002, digital c-print, 12.5 x 19", "Courtesy of the artist, Sara Meltzer gallery and Catharine Clark gallery."

David from Special Collections Revisited, 2008, digital c-print, 12.5 x 19",

Sorted Books, Nina Katchadourian

January 18-February 28, 2010

Colgate University’s Clifford Art Gallery and the Department of Art and Art History will host the exhibition Sorted Books, Nina Katchadourian, January 18 – February 28, 2010. The showing, which is free and open to the public, will feature an artist talk February 4 at 4:30 p.m. in Golden Auditorium of Colgate’s Little Hall, followed immediately by a reception.

Nina Katchadourian’s work exists in a wide variety of media including photography, sculpture, video and sound. Her work has been exhibited domestically and internationally at places such as PS1/MoMA, the Serpentine Gallery, New Langton Arts, Artists Space, SculptureCenter, and the Palais de Tokyo. In 2006 the Tang Museum organized a 10-year survey of her work with an accompanying monograph entitled All Forms of Attraction. She has also had solo exhibitions at the Turku Art Museum in Turku, Finland of works made in Finland in 2006, and recent video installations at The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in 2008.

Nina Katchadourian was born in Stanford, California and grew up spending every summer on a small island in the Finnish archipelago, where she still spends part of each year. She received a BFA from Brown University and MFA from the University of California in San Diego. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Located on the first floor of Little Hall, the Clifford Art Gallery presents approximately eight exhibitions a year. A teaching gallery, all exhibitions are selected by Colgate’s art and art history faculty to provide examples of work executed in a variety of media that demonstrate issues originating in the academic curriculum. Another focus of the gallery is the display of professional work by contemporary artists, who are often featured in the weekly public lecture series.

This is an ArtsMix event sponsored by the Institute for the Creative and Performing Arts.

The Clifford is free and open to the public from 10:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. on weekdays, and from 1 p.m. until 5 p.m. on weekends.

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Exhibitions NYC. Scandal Sandals and Lady Slippers: A History of Delman Shoes. The Museum at FIT. The Curated Object

Delman, cocktail shoe, multi-color floral print with gold brocade, circa 1958, USA. On loan from Delman Archive

Delman, peep-toe cocktail shoe, red satin, 1954, USA. The Museum at FIT. Gift of Mrs. Janet Chatfield-Taylor Braguin.

Delman, evening sandal, blue satin and rhinestones, 1953, USA. Museum at FIT, Gift of Mrs. Bartle Bull.

Delman, ankle strap sandal with peep-toe, red/blue/yellow/green suede, circa 1939, USA. The Museum at FIT.

Delman, day shoe, black silk faille, circa 1937, USA. On loan from Delman Archive.

Scandal Sandals and Lady Slippers: A History of Delman Shoes

March 9 - April 4, 2010

The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) presents Scandal Sandals and Lady Slippers: A History of Delman Shoes, the first exhibition devoted to the Delman brand. Founded by Herman Delman in 1919 and today one of the oldest salon footwear brands in the United States, Delman’s glamorous, innovative, and classic shoes have been a cornerstone of the fashionable and quality-conscious woman’s wardrobe for the past 90 years. The company is known for embodying all that is chic, luxurious, and sophisticated. Scandal Sandals and Lady Slippers: A History of Delman Shoes will explore and reveal the company’s vibrant history of style, advertising, and fine craftsmanship.

Drawing from the permanent collections of both The Museum at FIT and the Delman archives, approximately 50 dazzling shoe styles will be presented alongside period examples of print advertisements, newsreel footage, and illustrated patents. These objects, dating roughly from 1926 to 2007, will chronicle the company’s rich history and creativity in both design and business.

Among the shoes on display will be a pair of multicolored, floral booties with a turn-back throat from the 1950s. Boldly original in their dramatic use of blue and purple hues, the booties draw attention to the lower leg. A pair of suede, instep strap sandals from circa 1939 performs a similar function. Boasting red, white, green, and blue color sections, four tiny bows are sequenced delicately down the vamp while a narrow ankle buckle strap, oval toe, and triangular heel maintain the shoe’s elegant silhouette.

For more information please visit: The Museum at FIT

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Exhibitions Santiago de Compostela. Sur Le Dandysme Aujourd'hu: From Shop Window Mannequin to Media Star. CGAC Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea. The Curated Object

Gavin Turk, Font, 2006, Porcelain, oak plinth, bronze plaque

Babak Ghazi, Waiter, 2006, Escultura, 107 x 75 x 45 cm

Hernan Bas, The Start of Something New, 2004, Técnica mixta sobre papel, 79 x 61 cm

Iris van Dongen, The Seduction, 2009, Crayon, pastel, fusain, aquarelle sur papier / pencil, pastel, pressed charcoal, gouache o paper, 220 x 139 cm

Sur Le Dandysme Aujourd'hui

January 15-March 21, 2010

This exhibition attempts to show how many of the concepts and strategies developed by nineteenth-century dandies can be found in the work and attitudes of certain contemporary artists, and how the iconography and themes of the literature of dandyism are still significant. To do so it takes three landmarks in the unusual history of dandyism—George Brummell, Charles Baudelaire and Oscar Wilde—and studies the way in which each of their contributions are reflected in the art of recent decades.

Brummelliana: This part is devoted to Brummellian dandyism which, according to Giorgio Agamben, was characterised by granting things a degree of irreality that exceeded the use and exchange values of the commodity and drew them closer to the work of art. By virtue of its almost complete de-subjectivisation, the dandy tended to become reified, transformed into an unreal commodity, a pure appearance of himself—that Brummell-mannequin on public view in the window of his club on the London Mall.

Following Hal Foster's observations regarding some artists of the eighties and taking Duchamp and Warhol as leitmotifs, this section of the exhibition presents the ready-made and appropriation as processes related to the de-subjectivisation of the dandy. It deals also with the contemporary artist as a self-publicised commodity.

Baudelairiana: In 1863 Le Figaro published Charles Baudelaire's essay 'The Painter of Modern Life'. The essay analysed customs and forms of modern life taking as an excuse the work by Constantin Guys, an obscure illustrator who is only referred to by the initials M. G. With Baudelaire the term dandy went from being a noun to an adjective. This section encompasses artists who concentrate on youth subcultures of which dandyism is considered a precedent.

Wildeana: In 1900 Oscar Wilde died an early death in Paris. Was he the last dandy or one of the first media stars? He was better known for his strange way of dressing and his witticisms than acknowledged as an author in the early stages of his career. Wilde became a fan phenomenon during his tour of the US in his youth years. He also was a marked egotist. Wilde wanted to become a work of art and created his own character. This section is devoted to the theme of the artist as Narcissus, media star and work of art.

For more information please visit: CGAC

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Exhibitions London. Designers in Residence: Featuring New Work from Asif Khan and Bethan Wood, and an Installation by the Farm Collective (Giles Miller, Alexena Cayless, Sebastian Hejna and Guy Brown). Design Museum

Harvest_Asif Khan_Design Museum2_ImagebyAsif Khan

Asif Khan – Harvest

FARM initial plan

Bethan Wood

DESIGNERS IN RESIDENCE, Residency II Installations announced

January 27 – March 8, 2010

Admission FREE (!)

The Design Museum announces the second part of the annual Designers in Residence programme 2009 - 2010. Featuring new work from Asif Khan andBethan Wood, as well as an installation by the Farm collective (Giles Miller, Alexena Cayless, Sebastian Hejna and Guy Brown).

Designers in Residence is an annual programme where the Design Museum invites young designers to create site-specific work and transform the ground floor of the museum. This series of installations is an opportunity for the Design Museum to showcase and champion emerging talent within the field of design. Each resident was chosen by the Design Museum, a process which stretched the length and breadth of Britain. Now in its third year, Designers in Residence supports the selected designers at an early stage of their career, allowing them to build on their current design practice and develop new or existing work

Asif Khan will create an installation in the museum Tank using a collection of local flora which he has put through a freeze dying process to preserve and prolong its life. The resulting material will be used to create a new furniture system. Bethan Wood will furnish the museum café with functional furniture made from recycled material, each piece will be detailed using the traditional craft of marquetry to create a patchwork of laminates. The Farm collective will convert the Atrium into a studio space and design salon where they will debate and reveal the hidden processes that link design, manufacturing and consumption.

Design Museum Director, Deyan Sudjic comments “Designers in Residence is a great platform for the Design Museum to showcase new talent whilst also engaging them within the museum programme, the residency is a great opportunity to celebrate young designers at the early stages of their careers”.

Designers in Residence is funded by Esmée Fairbairn, this year’s final five designers are: Asif Khan, Bethan Wood, Dave Bowker, Marc Owens, and the design collective Farm consisting of the designers Giles Miller, Alexena Cayless, Sebastian Hejna and Guy Brown. The residents will blog their journey, experience and thoughts as they create their installations, log on tohttp://inresidence.designmuseum.org for updates.

On the 19 February and for one night only the Designers in Residence will take over the museum for a unique Design Overtime. Join us for funky tunes, debates, exhibitions workshops and design delight. The museum will be open until 10pm and tickets are £5 in advance.

For more information please visit: The Design Museum

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Exhibitions NYC. David Maisel’s Library of Dust. Von Lintel Gallery. The Curated Object

Library of Dust 1470, 2005; Library of Dust 271, 2005; Library of Dust 1834, 2005 C-prints, 64 x 48 inches

David Maisel’s Library of Dust

January 21 through February 27, 2010

In its first solo exhibition in New York City, David Maisel’s Library of Dust will be on view at Von Lintel Gallery (520 West 23rd Street) from January 21 through February 27, 2010. The photographs in this acclaimed series depict strangely beautiful copper canisters, each containing the cremated remains of an individual patient from an Oregon psychiatric hospital. The canisters are blooming with colorful secondary minerals as the copper has oxidized and undergone physical and chemical transformations. Each pattern of corrosion is unique, some resembling otherworldly landscapes that recall Maisel's renowned aerial photography. Sublimely beautiful yet haunting, these enigmatic photographs can be seen as meditations on issues of matter and spirit.

In Library of Dust, Maisel investigates a zone bordered by ethics and aesthetics. The existence of some 3500 canisters of cremains was revealed by the Oregon State Hospital in Salem in 2005. Within the canisters were the remains of the patients who died at the hospital between 1883 – the year the facility opened, when it was called the Oregon State Insane Asylum – and the 1970s. Although the existence of the unclaimed canisters was not divulged for more than a century, they have continued to have a life of their own. Library of Dust offers a kind of resurrection of these individuals by giving them visual form once again. The hospital (also the site of the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) is now being rebuilt with funds that were allocated after the Library of Dust project brought the existence of the canisters to a wider audience.

Library of Dust (Chronicle Books), the monograph that accompanies the exhibition, features essays by Maisel, Geoff Manaugh, Michael Roth, and Terry Toedtemeier. The New York Times called the book “a fevered meditation on memory and loss.” In 2009, the New York Institute for the Humanities organized a symposium inspired by this remarkable photographic excavation of a warehouse of ashes otherwise lost to time.

David Maisel (b. New York, NY, 1961) is a photographer and multimedia artist based in the San Francisco area. He is the recipient of a 2007 Scholar/Artist Residency from the Getty Research Institute and a 2008 Artist Residency from the Headlands Center for the Arts. Maisel has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Opsis Foundation, and was a finalist in 2008 for both the Alpert Award in the Visual Arts and the Prix Pictet in Photography. His work is represented in major public and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others. Maisel’s photographs have been featured in solo and group exhibitions in the United States, Europe, and Asia. His first book, The Lake Project (Nazraeli Press), was selected as one of the Top 25 Photography Books of 2004 by the critic Vince Aletti. Nazraeli also published Maisel’s book Oblivion (2006), and Cascade Effect (2008).

Von Lintel Gallery, 520 West 23rd Street, New York, NY, 212-242-0599

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Exhibitions Palo Alto. Treasures from The Mexican Museum: A Spirited Legacy. The Palo Alto Art Center

Acero, Julián, Lion Banks, 20th c. , Moldmade, clay painted with aniline dyes and varnished, 9.75 x 4” each, Collection of The Mexican Museum, Nelson A. Rockefeller Collection of Mexican Folk Art

Valdez, Patsii, Room with Red Table, 1991, Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 49”, Collection of The Mexican Museum

Felipe Linares, Sin Título (Calaca Enramada)/ Untitled, Papier-mache, wire, high gloss paint, 46 x 40 x 32”, Collection of The Mexican Museum, Paul S. Sherrill Collection

Rufino Tamayo , Sin Título (Perro)/ Untitled (Dog), Lithograph, 22 x 30, Collection of The Mexican Museum, Gift of Bernard and Edith Lewin

John Valadez, Resbalado, 1989, Pastel on paper, 68 x 32,” Collection of The Mexican Museum

Treasures from The Mexican Museum

September 26-April 18, 2010

The Palo Alto Art Center is honored to present Treasures from The Mexican Museum: A Spirited Legacy through April 18, 2010. The Mexican Museum in San Francisco is the first and the oldest-operating museum outside of Mexico and the world to exhibit Mexican and Mexican-American art and culture. The collection at The Mexican Museum represents a treasury for the passionate voice of a vibrant people: it has collected over 12,000 objects spanning thousands of years of art and culture in the Americas. While the collection highlights featured in Treasures from The Mexican Museum: A Spirited Legacy demonstrate diversity in terms of their represented histories, identities, and influences, their grouping in the context of this exhibition points to a continuum of shared emblems, motifs, or spirit.

The Mexican Museum was founded in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission District in 1975 by Bay Area artist and visionary Peter Rodriguez with the intent to exhibit Mexican and Mexican-American art. It relocated to the city’s Fort Mason in 1982. After presenting over 150 exhibitions in 2006, it closed its exhibition program to prepare for a future building project. During this period of economic uncertainty, the Palo Alto Art Center and The Mexican Museum are galvanizing their communities to focus on the future. Both organizations are independently planning projects to expand their facilities in order to better serve their publics with compelling art and education programs. 

With the exhibition Treasures from The Mexican Museum: A Spirited Legacy, the Palo Alto Art Center provides a wonderful opportunity to view a wide representation of The Mexican Museum’s five focal areas of acquisition: Pre-Conquest (Pre-Hispanic or Pre-Columbian) Art; Art of Colonial Mexico (1521-1821); Modern and Contemporary Mexican and Latino Art; Arte Popular (Folk or Popular Art,) and Chicano Art.

In the Art Center’s East and Glass Galleries, the installation groups objects from the five focal areas of The Mexican Museum’s collection with the following themes: Iconic Portraiture & the Individual, Art of the Fantastic, Memories of Community, and Emblems of Spirituality. Such groupings signal an important universality, ultimately reflecting the philosophy of The Mexican Museum: the soul and spirit of the arts and culture of Mexico and the Americas are fundamentally linked.

Highlights in Emblems of Spirituality include ritual figures and miniature stone masks from the Ancient Americas in West Mexico and Peru, along with personal objects of devotion from Colonial Mexico that meld Pre-Conquest, indigenous traditions with Spanish Catholicism. Iconic Portraiture & the Individual includes emotionally-charged prints by Mexican masters, who include José Clemente Orozco, José Guadalupe Posada, Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Rufino Tamayo—all artists who revolutionized the arts in Mexico. Prints and paintings by Jean Charlot, Miguel Covarrubias, Carmen Lomas Garza, Rosa Rolando, along with sculptures by the Aguilar Family in Mexico strike a universal chord in Memories of Community. Art of the Fantastic reveals persistence of symbols since Pre-Conquest times with magical Nahuales, sorcerers who are human/hybrid creatures, in polychrome ceramics by Candelario Medrano Lopez and multiple color lithographs by Maximino Javier. This section additionally represents in-depth, donor collections within the museum through fabulous Day of the Dead figures from the Paul S. Sherrill Collection, spirited canine figures from the Rosa and Miguel Covarrubias Collection, and zoomorphic, or anthropomorphic, vessels from the Nelson A. Rockefeller Collection of Mexican Folk Art.

The Palo Alto Art Center’s West Gallery is dedicated to vibrant paintings and pastels on paper by Latino/a artists, many of whom are pivotal figures of the Chicano movement in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles. While physical space cannot fully accommodate the hundreds of Chicano/a works in the collection of The Mexican Museum, the gallery aims to celebrate the museum’s role as one of the leading institutions in the country to document the achievement of such artists through both its exhibitions and collections.

The Palo Alto Art Center is honored to present highlights from the collection as a spirited legacy for all of us to enjoy. Treasures from the Mexican Museum: A Spirited Legacy initiates for The Mexican Museum “Renacimiento: The Mexican Museum Today,” a campaign to share the wealth of art that it has collected over the past thirty four years.

Treasures from the Mexican Museum: A Spirited Legacy has received special support from Lois Santos and the Wells Fargo Foundation. Additional support has been received from Garden Court Hotel in Palo Alto, Shari Ornstein and Alain Pinel Realty. On behalf of The Mexican Museum, we acknowledge a private donation that has helped make possible Treasures from the Mexican Museum: A Spirited Legacy.

For more information please visit: Palo Alto Art Center

Admission is free!

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Design Interview. Being Nate Burgos: Inside the Mind of an Information Designer. The Curated Object

The person behind Design Feast, one of the best resources on design and the arts, Nate Burgos, very kindly agreed to an interview with The Curated Object. We were humbled by his intellectual rigor and ability to speak about the interdisciplinary nature of design.

Why did you enter the field of graphic design?

I’ve been saying that I arrived at graphic design through architecture—a field I never took a course in, but has always captured my interest. There’s something about making space nested in space. How I majored in graphic design is something I’ll keep post-rationalizing over; there were a number of factors. Besides the aspiration for architecture, there were the parts played by the art and design foundation program during my undergrad years, curiosity about graphic design as well as computers, and compliance with a paper trail toward declaring a major. My current role happens to be that of information architect. I ultimately reunited with a version of architecture.

What is your biggest challenge and why?

There’s a lot of challenges that I’ll keep facing. Discovering as much as possible is a big one. There are so many fascinating people, places and things. A trite triad but loaded with connections that beget connections. Design is only one source, but it’s a rich world to encounter and connect: ideas and perspectives, the natural and the artificial, ways of seeing and ways of talking. There’s a term in musical notation called legato, Italian for “tied together,” which aims to achieve a smooth-and-connected effect. Being a legato interloper is very challenging, as every deposit of discovery coincides in a deficit of discovery.

What has been your most meaningful project and why?

This reminds me of a panel discussion at a Living Surfaces Conference, formerly held by the defunct American Center for Design. When asked for professional advice, one of the panel participants, an interactive designer whose name I forgot, responded, “Work on cool projects.” This was quickly argued by Don Norman, author of The Design of Everyday Things, who emphasized, “Whaddaya mean by ‘cool’? Designers must deem all projects as cool.” Something like this. What Norman stressed was designing without prejudice.

When industrial designer Matali Crasset was asked, “Is there one thing you would love to design?” Her answer was “No, I never work or think like that. Because what people propose to me is much more interesting than what I might have thought about designing at any time. I’m happy to just float from one proposal to another. It’s nice, I really like that. It’s not that I don't have a dream but I really am more interested in meeting people, finding new partners to go further with, to stretch the possibilities that are out there.”

If a project—from a stamp to a building, whatever the industry—is approached like a mystery box, who knows what can be discovered, what information can be gained, what meaning can be achieved, what stimulation can captivate an audience. That’s the cool factor. Designing is helping. All my projects are meaningful.

What is the most difficult part of communicating with people through design?

Describing how an idea was conceived, how a project originated, how the result was made—anything—demands clarity. This was a moving target in a recent lecture I did. Telling a story in a legato manner is another big challenge. Communicating about/with design is game for waxing philosophical, as long as the pontificating is grounded, complemented, by what’s practical. In an interview about topics related to design management, educator Ralph Beuker thinks that designers should explain more and justify less. Doing both “with feeling,” and effectively, is the daily challenge.

How has the field changed in the past five years?

The inputs have multiplied a lot. The notebook remains a steadfast companion to capture and contain as many whims and whiffs as much as possible of who or what has made one look, and even smile. Design researchers Steve Portigal and Dan Soltzberg practice and encourage “noticing power.” This power has intensified to cope with a relentless information landscape.

From interviewee’s rare book collection

What people, places and ideas inspire your process?

Designer and author Paul Rand summarized that “Design is everything. Everything.” A friend of mine disagrees, which made me wonder if design is truly everything. Graphic designer Milton Glaser who just reached his 80th birthday, said that design “is going from an existing position to a preferred one. It’s everything.” I’ve been going back and forth and will continue toggling about design’s importance. But it’s a healthy pondering, a cyclical one. Everything inspires me, at the moment.

Who has been the most influential graphic designer in your life? Why?

Life, family and loved ones constitute the most impact on me. The urbanist Jane Jacobs said, “Design is people.” Those in my circle are major in how I work. Designing is taking care of the roots. I’m blessed to have been taught by designers like John Massey, Paul Rand and Armin Hofmann. I keep learning from them. But the people with closest proximity to me exercise the highest influence on my thinking and practice as a designer. They’re my teachers wherever I am.

What do you think the relationship between art and graphic design is? In general, and also in your work?

I like how designer Andy Rutledge put it, “While design uses the very same fundamentals as artistry, these are two separate endeavors. The difference between them would seem to be slight or negligible, but again, what seems is not often what is.

In art, the artist has the freedom to define the message, the content, and the context. The artist may not choose to exert influence over all of these elements, but the choice is there nonetheless.

In design, one or more of these elements (message, content, and context) is defined for us. These are known as constraints. Artistry in the context of constraint is design, plain and simple.”

Rutledge marks the inheritance—message, content, and context—that designers engage. And it’s not an inheritance to lather on one’s self-serving intentions. Charles Eames said that “Design mostly depends on constraints.” Handling constraints breeds restraint. Finding that appropriate fidelity of restraint is key, yet never easy to me.

What about the relationship between objects and graphic design?

A timely question because I discovered Atelier Carvalho Bernau, an independent studio in The Hague. From their website, “As graphic designers, we develop objects: We are concerned with every aspect of, for example, a book: from the choice of format to the paper and inks used for the printing, or even the glue used for the binding—because they all influence each other. We see our practise as holistic because we are not solely concerned with the ordering of, and navigation within, materials: we also direct an orchestra of skilled professionals, which include paper manufacturers, photographers, lithographers, printers and binders. Together, we work on creating an object, a perfect vessel for its content.” They go on to proclaim, “We are always intrigued by objects, that while perfectly serving their purpose, also tell a story about the object itself: We try to make each book, poster or typeface also an enquiry into the nature of books, posters and typefaces, an exploration of the basic concepts of these objects, and a reflection of the present state of our ever-ongoing quest for that essence.”

Objects are frozen moments that melt and reshape as their stories are told; they mark the pursuit of something in agitation. And each object entails a unique story of making. The act of making is a story that must be re-earned over and over again. Practice makes perfect, “a perfect vessel for its content” as Atelier Carvalho Bernau put it. Growing a portfolio of work is more than adding another badge of completion. Graphic artist Richard Sarson, who creates complex visual work with simple means like his Circle Project, was asked, “What motivates you to create; to keep pushing forward?” His answer was eloquent, “The fact that I don’t really know what I am doing or why I am doing it. Keeping going means working towards an answer to those questions.”

I reflect on the array of pots, with plants, that my father gave me. They remind me to keep going, and hopefully grow a satisfying passage of time. Another thing that my father gave me was this quote:

“It’s not the object. It’s the emptiness.”

My father discovered it as part of an interior design ad. It speaks to the constant interplay of foreground, background, middle ground and surround-ground. It’s close to what architect Eero Saarinen advised:

“Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context—a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.”

Objects compel zooming in and out, where the former is the object itself, and its stage is the “larger context.” Both exploit the emptiness. It’s the Buddhist belief, which I recently discovered, that “The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.” Objects are curated but also curative.

What do you think the field will look like in another 10 years? Why?

I don’t know. At an All Things Digital conference, Steve Jobs was asked what the information technology industry would look like in five years, what would be the next big thing. His projection was, “I don’t know. And the reason I don’t know is because I wouldn’t have thought that there would have been maps on it [phone] five years ago… .”

All I know is what’s going on as I write, and I’ve been noticing that writing is becoming more formalized as a method to design and designing. There’s the MA Design Writing Criticism course in London and MFA in Design Criticism at the School of Visual Arts, New York. Group All Day Buffet, an “incubator for social innovation,” is seeking writers for its new venture. Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism has a scholarship program that reaches out to programmers/developers. Alissa Walker teaches a course called “Breaking into Design Journalism.” Whoever described words as the best natural resource was right. It’s terrific to see the momentum of the design prosateur.

What do you think some of the biggest misconceptions about your field?

What the audience experiences is an interface, which comes in all shapes and sizes. The interface may appear seamless and effortless, but there’s a lot of work and decisions—effort—behind it.

Tell us why you decided to start Design Feast—such a massive and important project?

Design Feast started in 1999 as a way to collect and share pointers to interesting online—hopefully leading to offline—content, not only about one design discipline but the whole family of disciplines. Not group, not cluster—Family of design disciplines. The role of curator has sharpened and the web can be viewed like an installation. One premise for growing Design Feast is to help designers, of course, but especially the “design-curious” become more aware and receptive to what design is, as well as its diversity of thought and practice. “Liberal Arts 2.0” blogger Jason Kottke described his site as a kind of “Wunderkammer,” a German word roughly meaning “cabinet of wonders” or “cabinet of curiosities.” My intent is for Design Feast to be that to everyone.

From interviewee’s rare book collection

You collect rare books on design—can you talk about book design in general, what you think some of the most books are and why? What are your favorite volumes and why?

Designing a book requires a totally coordinated effort, literally from end-to-end. Lots of decisions go into thinking in spreads. Herbert Bayer’s World Geo-Graphic Atlas (1953) is an example I frequently reference. Within the 368-page Atlas reside “one hundred twenty full-page maps of the world supported by one thousand two hundred diagrams, graphs, charts, symbols about the planet earth.” All were done before the birth of digital page layout. This book particularly speaks to the creative weave of data and curiosity to visualize, contrast and discern patterns—an ultimate discovery. I mentioned the notebook as a major source of iteration with web-based versions, such as Evernote. Then there are Nicholas Felton’s printed annual reports of personal data, which influenced the creation of Daytum, a web-based method to collect and communicate daily data.

I’m also fond of the first editions of books written and designed by Paul Rand, who lived the roles of design writer and critic before such monikers became popular. It’s one thing to craft the front and back cover, and spread after spread. It’s quite another to craft an attractive table of contents and populate each chapter. Mining subject matter, including one’s experience, and synthesizing a Wunderkammer between two covers is a struggle.

What has been the best graphic design exhibition that you’ve seen? Why did you think it was compelling?

The only design exhibitions I see are virtual, with the bevy of portfolios and case studies shared by designers, studios and agencies. Site aggregators like FFFFOUND and Manystuff further compound exhibition streaming online. Aside from student design shows, I haven’t noticed a lot of design (particularly graphic design) exhibitions in museums, except for the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. It held National Design Week in 2008. The Newberry Library offers an interesting line-up of exhibits in its main-floor galleries, which are small but pack a historical and cultural punch. Libraries naturally showcase the typographic matter of their collections and are a nimble alternative to museums.

How important is community when it comes to thinking about innovation and graphic design?

One most recent innovative example that I discovered, with origins in graphic design, was HealthSimple. It’s a system to help make life a littler easier for those living with diabetes. It was founded by a couple, Lisa and Doug Powell, who are graphic designers, and whose daughter was diagnosed with diabetes. Their family circumstances compelled them to “better serve a community of good people who happen to have the D word in common.” The direct connection to healthcare is impressive here, and more so, the discovery of a need.

Beyond graphic design, there’s Architecture for Humanity, DESIGN 21: Social Design Network, Worldstudio Foundation, Osocio, among many great efforts.

A shared interest sparks a community of interest and participation. Starting it, seeing it through, sticking with it at an organic pace, especially when it comes to “building community” is what floors me. “Build it and they will come” can easily be a false positive.

What projects can we expect to see from you in the future?

Keep working on Design Feast, feeding it and its e-newsletter, along with the kindred blogs Design Feaster and Design Thought Leader. I’m trying to keep up with writing blog pieces. I also want to continue contributing to other design-oriented blogs. I have the cool opportunity to write for BBDK’s Thinking for a Living, GraphicHug. I want to realize more participation in both the Designer’s Quest(ionnaire) and Blogger’s Quest(ionnaire). I’m planning to make a more elaborate book version of the first 25 releases of the Designer’s Quest(ionnaire). Also, Design Engage, a job board for design internships, freelance design and junior design jobs was recently made. Furthermore, I’d love to virtually share my rare design book collection.

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The Curated Object