The Curated Object

Exhibitions Syracuse. The Power of Pattern: New Work by David MacDonald. The Everson Museum of Art. The Curated Object

David MacDonald Divination Plat -2 circa 2004-2007, courtesy of the artist, David Revette photography

 

David MacDonald, Calabash Vase 2,  courtesy of the artist, David Revette photography

 

DavidMacDonald, Vessel #1 2011  courtesy of the artist, David Revette Photography


The Power of Pattern: New Work by David MacDonald 

June 25, 2011 - September 18, 2011, Everson Museum of Art

Review by Jane Librizzi

When he is being serious, the artist David MacDonald describes ceramics as “a low meditative process.”   When he recalls the restless searching of his student days, he says, “Ceramics just seemed a bit more fun than standing in front of an easel dabbing little bits of color, trying to create the illusion of space when I could make that volume in real life.”  

The ceramics that MacDonald created specifically for The Power of Pattern at the Everson Museum are visually and tactilely rich works that have the integrity of objects intended to be used.  From the beginning, MacDonald determined that his works would combine aesthetic pleasure with touchability.   “For me it’s very important that people use the things that I make because it’s like having a collection of bells and never ringing them.”  

Early on, in the 1970s, MacDonald began working with designs from his African forebears.  From Nigerian art, MacDonald learned the technique of combing the wet clay to create parallel lines. From architecture of the sub-Sahara, he took inspiration in combining conical shapes and overlapping curvilinear and geometric patterns.  In Calabash Vase MacDonald has used the shape of the gourd to create a sophisticated object that has historical roots.  In Africa and elsewhere the calabash gourd is dried and hollowed out for use as a vessel to store liquids and spices.

Growing up in  Hackensack, N.J., MacDonald intended to study painting in college.   But after experiencing just one ceramics course he was taken with the physical experience of working in clay.  MacDonald received a master’s degree in ceramics from the University of Michigan.

The Everson Museum in Syracuse, New York possesses an internationally recognized ceramics collection and it was during a visit to David MacDonald’s studio in 2008 that curator Deborah Ryan changed her plans from making a purchase for the museum collection to suggesting that the artist create a group of works for a solo exhibition at the Everson.

Three years later, in the middle of a successful show, MacDonald says with a smile that “If I knew I was this important, I would have charged more for my work.”   

David MacDonald  is  Professor Emeritus in the Ceramics Program at Syracuse University's School of Art and Design where he taught for thirty-seven years.

For more information please visit: The Emerson Museum of Art 

 

 

Exhibitions Pittsburgh. Andrey Avinoff: In Pursuit of Beauty. The Carnegie Museum of Art. The Curated Object

 
Andrey Avinoff, American, b. Russia, 1884–1949; Tibet: Studies of Butterfly and Moth Wings, 1912, (verso) graphite and watercolor on paper; Carnegie Museum of Art, Patrons Art Fund

 

Andrey Avinoff, American, b. Russia, 1884–1949; Cup Plant,1941–1943, Plate 182 from Wild Flowers of Western Pennsylvania, graphite and watercolor on paper; Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Section of Anthropology, Animal Portraiture Collection

 

Andrey Avinoff, American, b. Russia, 1884–1949; The Death of the High Priest, plate 17, from The Fall of Atlantis, designed c. 1935–1938, folio edition published in 1944, gravure on paper; Carnegie Museum of Art, Gift of He Who Stands Firm (Nicholas Avinoff Shoumatoff)

 

Andrey Avinoff: In Pursuit of Beauty

February 26–August 28, 2011

By JoAnn Greco

 

The first exhibition in more than 50 years devoted to the visionary art of Andrey Avinoff (1884–1949). Best known for his scientific research on butterflies, and as director of Carnegie Museum of Natural History from 1926 to 1945, he said of himself: “I bow to scientific fact until five o’clock. After that I may have other ideas.”  

Not surprisingly, his detailed understanding of the wonders presented to us by butterflies — and the metaphors associated with them, from transparency to metamorphosis — show up again and again in these elaborate but delicate watercolors. But, there's more, so much more. Bubbles, for one thing. A fondness for luminescence for another. Part botanical print, part fantastical vision, the works are most of all layered with story.  

Louise Lippincott, curator of fine arts at Carnegie Museum of Art, conducted years of intense research to organize the exhibition, which tells Avinoff’s story in full for the first time.

“Andrey Avinoff emerges as an important historical figure," she notes. "He was a gay Russian artist who made it in the very straight world of American science and education, and an autocratic European traditionalist who helped create the modern, anything-goes New York scene. His intriguing body of artwork, multifaceted interests, and equally multifaceted identity significantly enhances our understanding of twentieth-century art, in all its vitality and complexity.” 

From gentleman-in-waiting at the court of the Russian tsar to tireless researcher in the mountains of Tibet; from upstate New York dairy farmer to successful New York City commercial illustrator; from director of Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh to important collaborator with Alfred Kinsey, Avinoff transformed himself as the culture and politics around him changed.

Many of Avinoff’s artworks can be read as symbolist fantasies or surrealist nightmares, often depicting iridescent butterflies, exquisitely detailed flowers, and translucent, reflective surfaces such as flowing water, soap bubbles, gems, and jellyfish. His private feelings—such as his loyalty to Russian traditions and a deeply spiritual view of nature—are all expressed in his art.

In addition to his artwork, the show also features many of Avinoff’s scientific illustrations of butterflies and plants, and the mounted and preserved butterflies that he collected and donated to Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

For more information please visit www.cmoa.org