The Curated Object

Exhibitions NYC. The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, inside The Private Collection of Henry Darger. The American Folk Art Museum. The Curated Object

“Untitled (Ornate Interior with Multiple Figures of Girls and Blengins), Henry Darger (1892-1973) Chicago Mid-twentieth century, Watercolor, pencil, carbon tracing, and collage on pieced paper, 22 x 96 American Folk Art Museum, Museum Purchase, 2003.10.3b © Kiyoko Lerner Photo credit: James Prinz

Untitled (Aquatinted Interior with Multiple Figures of Girls and Blengins), Henry Darger (1892-1973), Chicago, Mid-twentieth century, Watercolor, pencil, and carbon tracing on pieced paper 22 x 112 " American Folk Art Museum Museum Purchase, 2001.16.1b © Kiyoko Lerner Photo credit: James Prinz

Untitled (Two Girls and a Dog Sitting in Garden), Henry Darger (1892-1973) Chicago, 1959 or later Watercolor, carbon tracing, pencil, collage, and 1959 Christmas Seal stamps on paper and cardboard 11 x 15î, American Folk Art Museum, Gift of Kiyoko Lerner, 2003.7.6 Photo credit: Gavine Ashworth

Untitled ("To err is human ""Let Your Beauty be Seen") Henry Darger (1892-1973), Chicago 1956 or later, Collage and 1956 Christmas Seal stamps on cardboard,  11 1/4 x 14 1/4" American Folk Art Museum, Gift of Kiyoko Lerner, 2003.7.239a

 
Exhibited double-sided, Untitled (Blengins Capturing Glandelinian Soldiers), 1999.7.1A Picture One: This scene here shows the murderous massacre still going on before the winged blengins arrived from the sky. They came so quick how however that those fastened to the trees, or board, and those on the run escaped the muderist rascals or were rescued, and flown to permanent safty and security.Henry Darger (1892-1973) Chicago Mid-twentieth century Watercolor, pencil, carbon tracing, and collage on pieced paper 31  x 131" American Folk Art Museum Gift of Sam and Betsey Farber, 1999.7.1a © Kiyoko Lerner Photo credit: Gavin Ashworth

Untitled (Girl Ironing) Henry Darger (1892-1973) Chicago 1956 or later Watercolor, coloring book page, and 1953, 1955, and 1956 Christmas Seal stamps on Kodak board 14 1/4 x 11 1/4" American Folk Art Museum Gift of Kiyoko Lerner, 2003.7.12

Untitled ("Straight Arrow") Henry Darger (1892-1973) Chicago 

1959 or later Collage, pencil, and 1959 Christmas Seal stamps on cardboard 13  x 9 " American Folk Art Museum Gift of Kiyoko Lerner, 2003.7.240 © Kiyoko Lerner Photo credit: Gavin Ashworth

(Photo enlargement) Henry Dargerís Home Photograph by Nathan Lerner and David Berglund c. 1970s American Folk Art Museum Gift of Kiyoko Lerner, 2003.7.267

Untitled (Little Girl with Rolling Pin)Artist unidentified Chicago, Mid-twentieth century Found color illustration with plastic and string, 13 ? x 10 in American Folk Art Museum Gift of Kiyoko Lerner, 2003.7.251 © Kiyoko Lerner Photo credit: Gavin Ashworth

 The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, inside the The Private Collection of Henry Darger at the American Folk Art Museum

- through Sept. 19, 2010

By Lawrence Levi

In the years since his death in 1973, Henry Darger has become the the 20th century’s best-known outsider artist, because of both the peculiar beauty and bizarreness of his work and his irresistible story: he made his art over decades entirely in secret, using limited and unusual resources. “The Private Collection of Henry Darger” puts you inside the one-room Chicago apartment he lived in for 40 years. 

The show comprises three dozen cardboard collages that are smaller, and seemingly more personal, than the hundreds of watercolor scrolls Darger made to illustrate his 15,000-page adventure novel about the hermaphroditic Vivian sisters. The collages are populated primarily by sentimental images of young girls, clipped or traced from coloring books, magazines, and newspapers and often embellished with watercolor. He had about 100 of these collages on the walls of his home; two giant photo blow-ups of his apartment at either end of the exhibition give a sense of the clutter. One collage incorporates newspaper 1950s and ’60s newspaper clippings of Korean and Vietnamese war orphans (Darger was himself an orphan, and as an adult tried unsuccessfully to adopt a child); another juxtaposes cheery coloring-book images with a gruesome newspaper article about a fifth-grade girl. Such unsettling combinations echo the occasional grotesque violence of his scrolls.

The show’s title, while alluring, is slightly misleading: all of Darger’s artwork and writing was private, since he kept it hidden from the world. But one of the show’s points is that supposed outsiders like Darger often surround themselves with images they find stimulating, just as trained artists do, suggesting that they’re not as removed from culture as outsider-art mythology would have us believe. If Darger took inspiration from a coloring-book image of a girl taking a tumble on skis as opposed to, say, an Odalisque, does that make him any less an artist?

For more information please visit: The American Folk Art Museum

Events NYC. A Tree Grows in the Park Avenue Armory—Reflections on SOFA 2010. The Curated Object

 Wendy Wahl “Branches”, 2010 Represented by browngrotta arts, Wilton CT Photo: Johnny Borter

Wendy Wahl “Branches”, 2010 Represented by browngrotta arts, Wilton CT Photo: Johnny Borter

Wendy Wahl “Branches”, 2010 Represented by browngrotta arts, Wilton CT Photo: Johnny Borter

A TREE GROWS IN THE PARK AVENUE ARMORY—REFLECTIONS ON SOFA 2010

By Natalie Fasano

The Sculpture Objects and Functional Art Fair (SOFA) 2010 premiered at the Park Avenue Armory on April 15th.  An iconic house of New York City Art and Culture, 

The Park Avenue Armory was built in the late 19th century, originally conceived as a “military facility and social club” during Lincoln’s presidency. The Armory’s original list of private patrons reads like a who’s who of 19th century New York elite; the founding fathers of publishing, politics, and corporate monopoly—Vanderbilt, Roosevelt and Harriman, among others.  Two staircases rise from either side of the pavement, which eventually meet in front of the Armory’s heavy brick and embellished stone façade—one feels many miles above street level at the apex. 

For those who may consider decorative arts “much ado about nothing”—a nod to the forthcoming residence of a to-scale Globe replica in the space—something must be said for shows of SOFA’s scope. I did not enjoy every piece of art, sculpture and design at SOFA, which is why I found the exhibit to be so successful. If I had admired everything, I would have felt cheated, an attendee forced to slog through aesthetic redundancy born of singular vision. In my opinion, a person needs to experience both positive and negative reactions to art, in all formats, to further refine their personal relationship with art and augment the experience of eventual ownership. 

Neil Brownsword’s textural and earthy ceramic/”factory detritus” composed pieces, Jason Walker’s fragile porcelain figures featuring circular concrete “feet,” Lucy Feller’s wickedly dark digital collage photography inspired by childhood fairy tales, Gordon Chandler’s recovered metal and welded steel structures conveying a wonderfully discordant sense of vibrant decay, Rik Allen’s otherworldly blown glass sculptures, Elizabeth Gavotti’s slender bronze figures, Ritsue Mashima’s “spun” glass vase—were my favorites.

If this amalgam reads like a breathless and circuitous odyssey within the Armory—it was. If a majority of my time was expended in energetic wandering, the rest was passed in suspended contemplation of one work. I anticipated Wendy Wahl’s contribution, “branches,” with cautious curiosity. Touted as a “Monumental Installation” featured prominently in the entryway, ‘branches” was the obvious hype piece; it would either sink or swim. 

It swam.  An arresting black and white tree greeted guests upon arrival; to me, it was texturally reminiscent of tightly tiered cocktail napkins.  Wahl’s choice of  both subject and materials—not napkins after all, but discarded and deconstructed pages from the Encyclopedia Britannica, aptly conveyed her “ hope [that the piece] will resonate with the viewer...I want [people] …to question their relationship to the natural world…How does a multitude of new ways to communicate alter our understanding of meaning and significance?” 

For some, the Britannica is a symbol of the past, an arduously constructed, and expensively printed, multi-volume tome of Western knowledge.  It is a compendium of everything that publishers knew at the time, and of sufficient editorial and physical breadth, until the 21st century Age of Technology, to insure a healthy shelf life. Our newfound ability to deliver a constant multi-media maelstrom; of sound, audio and video news, sourced and delivered to the minute—scurrilously or not—has drastically altered the role of print in modern society. The definition of “late-breaking news” has never been kept on such a short leash. 

In Wahl’s tree, I discovered two possible interpretations; one of the times, and one for the Times.  To the former, Wahl’s tree represents print media’s mummified corpse, a figure strangled beneath its own, dead weight.  The latter, however, provides hope.  Wahl’s tree is no longer a requiem but and ode to language as a living organism. The experience of print; the subtle rustling of the turned leaf, the heavily inked and bleeding margin, the earmarked page, to me are represented here.  “Branches” actively promotes the confederacy between the page and the reader, calling us all to invest in words with extended, rather than protracted, meaning.  Leave late-breaking news and superficial novellas to technology.  I saw life in Wahl’s tree, and I’m not sure that it would have been half as beautiful had it been constructed with iPads.

SOFA 2010 aptly chose a collective over a singular vision, providing something for everyone rather than everything for someone.  I found inspiration at the Armory—I discovered a moving ode to print,  a newfound interest in ceramics and a desire to return next year.  Let’s hope I find something I don’t like.

Exhibitions NYC. Vienna Circa 1780: An Imperial Silver Service. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Curated Object

Ignaz Joseph Würth (1742-1792), Austrian, 

Flatware, 

Vienna, 1781, 

Forks: gilded silver, porcelain handle, L. 8 1/4 in. (21 cm); knives: gilded silver, 

porcelain handle, L. 8 5/8 – 8 3/4 in. (22-22. cm); spoons: gilded silver, with 

rosettes, L. 7 1/2 in. (19 cm). 

Private collection, Paris

Ignaz Joseph Würth (1742-1792), Austrian, 

Wine Cooler, 

Vienna, 1781 

Silver 

Overall: 11 15/16 x 9 7/8 in. (30.3 x 25.1 cm), 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen, 

Foundation Gift, 2002

(Close up) 

Ignaz Joseph Würth (1742-1792), Austrian, 

Silver Serving Dishes, 

Vienna, 1780-81, 

Medium round serving dish, 1781. Diam. 12 3/4 in. (32.5 cm). Two round dishes,

1780. Diam. 11 7/8 in. (30.3 cm). Large oval serving platter, 1780. 23 3/4 x 16 1/2, 

in. (60.4 x 41.8 cm). Large

Ignaz Joseph Würth (1742-1792), Austrian, 

Sixty Dinner Plates, 

Vienna, 1781-82, 

Silver, 

Diam. of each approx. 10 1/4 in. (25.6 cm) 

Private collection, Paris

Ignaz Joseph Würth (1742-1792), Austrian, 

Pair of Vases, 

Vienna, 1780, 

Petrified wood (Hungary), gilded bronze, 

H. 15 3/4 in. (40 cm), 

Petit Trianon, Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon 

Inv. T 517 C

Ignaz Joseph Würth (1742-1792), Austrian, 

Six-light Candelabrum, 

Silver, 

H. approx. 27 1/8 in. (69 cm), 

Private collection, Paris

Ignaz Joseph Würth (1742-1792), Austrian, 

Pair of Single Salts, 

Vienna, 1782, 

Silver, 

H. of each 2 in. (5.2 cm), L. 4 in. (10 cm) 

Private collection, Paris

 

Ignaz Joseph Würth (1742-1792), Austrian, 

Single Candlestick, 

Vienna, 1781, 

Silver, 

H. approx. 12 1/4 in. (31 cm) 

Private collection, Paris

Ignaz Joseph Würth (1742-1792), Austrian, 

Round Tureen on Stand, 

Vienna, 1779-81, 

Silver 

H. overall 16 1/2 in. (42 cm), L. of stand 26 3/8 in. (67 cm) 

Private collection, Paris

Ignaz Krautauer, Austrian, 

Ewer, 

Vienna, 1775 

Silver 

H. 18 7/8 in. (48.1 cm) 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Anonymous Gift, 2009

Ignaz Joseph Würth (1742-1792), Austrian, 

Small Ewer, 

Vienna, 1782 

Silver 

H. approx. 13 3/4 in. (34.8 cm), Diam. of base approx. 3 1/8 in. (8.1 cm) 

Private collection, Paris

 
 
Vienna Circa 1780: An Imperial Silver Service

April 13-November 7, 2010

By Natalie Fasano

In my youth, the most potent portent of a spectacular dinner party was the materialization of a dark wooden box, chipped at the corners and lined with ancient blue velvet.  This telltale vessel housed my great grandmother’s silverware, and the charcoal stained cotton square deposited beside it was a nonverbal allocation of duty, from my mother to myself—shine it. Though the initial swipes of my magical rag were inspiring, the sheen of novelty generally wore off after the forks.  As I walked about the Wrightman Special Exhibition Gallery of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the new home of the Viennese Imperial silver collection, my memories of pre-dinner manual labor softened. Preparing our Victorian service for twelve was a feeble commission compared to that of the Second Sachsen-Teschen Service, a product of neoclassical design most aptly described as the ultimate in “Hapsburgian hardware.”

Marie Christine was among the luckier daughters of the Hapsburg Empire. Her mother, Empress Marie Theresa, and father, Emperor Francis I, allowed her to marry for love. The last of six brothers, Archduke Casimir had no hopes of ascendancy.  His titles, Prince of Poland and Saxony, were as the delicately crafted, silver fleurs-de-lis placed atop Wurths gargantuan tureens—purely ornamental. The true marital piece-de-resistance was Marie Christine’s dowry—the immensely wealthy Duchy of Teschen and a doting mother, who financed the Sacsen Service. Marie Christine's sister, Marie Antoinette, was less lucky—the Queen in the pre-revolutionary crucible, she was neither happily married nor fortuitously distanced from both the inaugural spark of civil unrest and its democratically appointed emissary, the guillotine.

Before the silver blade replaced the silver service in pre-revolutionary Europe, Archduchess Marie Christine of Austria and her husband, Archduke Albert of Casimir, commissioned Ignaz Joseph-Wurth, student of the eminent Graveurkademie in Vienna and son of the famous Wurth dynasty of silversmiths, to create a silver service fit for display at the Schoonenburg Palace in Brussels, where the couple took permanent residence in 1781. In 2002, the Metropolitan Museum of Art discovered the last surviving pieces of the Second Sachsen-Teschen Silver Service in a private collection.  None of the original 350 pieces had been seen since the 19th century; the collection was believed to be lost—until now.

Eighteenth-century Viennese silver design was a product of the period’s unique social and political environment. The degrees of separation between the symbolic weight of monarchical power and the literal weight of the silver-wrought wine vessels were few. Silver sea serpents, sparring lions, Imperial crests and crustaceans, thick ropes of silver and more delicate, French-inspired embellishment are all components of Wurths spectacular vision and elegant execution. However close the world was to war, discussion of civil unrest and social obligation had no place at the Imperial table.  At Schoonenburg, as in Imperial courts throughout the world, 18th century life was based upon the Parisian principles of opulence, decadence and ostentatious displays of wealth.

 The Met provides its visitors a look at the Sacsen Service in its original context. Two elaborately set wooden tables, one next to the other, sit heavily in the center of the room. Though Marie Christine's table at Brussles would have been many times the size of these, the Ludwig space is small enough to make museum-goers feel dwarfed in the Sacsen's presence. Set a la francaise, with silver arranged in sinuous, symmetrical patternment, the tables appear to host gilded serpents, their sheen augmented by a starched white tablecloth and napkins; the latter are impressively folded to resemble gargantuan swans, crustaceans and other symbolic figures of courtly pomp. Though beautiful in construct, the experience left me slightly unsettled. A product of the 21st century, I could not help but wonder, when considering such ostentatious abundance, at the dynastic indifference, or perhaps willful  insensibility, to the reality of the times--to the murmurs of revolution and the ominous rustling of snakes amidst the swans.

For more information please visit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Exhibitions NYC. Dorothea Tanning: Early Designs for the Stage. The Drawing Center. The Curated Object

Dorothea Tanning, Costume Design for Bayou, 1951, Graphite and gouache on green paper, 12 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches, Collection of the artist

Dorothea Tanning, Costume, Design for The Night Shadow (A Guest), 1945, Watercolor and wash on paper, 13 7/8 x 9 7/8 inches. Collection of the artist.

Dorothea Tanning: Early Designs for the Stage

April 23–July 23, 2010

The Drawing Center announces an exhibition of approximately twenty hand-drawn 

ballet costume designs by Dorothea Tanning (b.1910) created in collaboration with the early 

modernist choreographer, George Balanchine. Dating from 1945–1953, the designs will be shown together for the first time, and will be accompanied by archival photographs and ephemera related to the staged productions. This discrete body of work explores the dynamic intersections of dance, performance, visual art, and costume, while drawing important parallels to Tanning’s early discoveries in both painting and sculpture.

After meeting Balanchine at a party at Julien Levy’s gallery, a frequent gathering place for Surrealists living in New York during the 1930s–40s, Tanning began working with him on the ballet, The Night Shadow, and three subsequent productions thereafter. Inspired by the narratives, and Balanchine’s dramatic choreography, Tanning brought her ‘quirky’ sensibility to the costuming of the performances. She fashioned outlandish headdresses atop dazzling detailing and sensual drapery for the dancers’ garments. The whimsical costumes embody a sense of movement, not only through the fabrics, gauzes, and veils employed, but in their fitting—itself contorted, bewitched, and ecstatic.

Taking the form of traditional fashion plates, the blithely-rendered drawings for the staged 

productions, with their paths of fabric in space, suggest bodies in motion and portrayals of fanciful, storybook characters that explore the bounds of desire and embodiment, and extend to Tanning’s prolific work in painting and sculpture—highlighting a vivid imagination in the creative practice.

This exhibition is curated by Assistant Curators Joanna Kleinberg and Rachel Liebowitz.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Dorothea Tanning was born in 1910 in Galesburg, Illinois. After briefly attending the Art Institute of Chicago in the 1930s, Tanning left to pursue art on her own, inspired by the arrival of Surrealism in America. Tanning had her first solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in 1944. Throughout her career, she has resided in New York, Sedona, Loire Valley, Provence, and Paris and has been the subject of numerous exhibitions, including retrospectives at Centre National d’Art Contemporain, Paris (1974); Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (1993); and The Philadelphia Museum of Art (2000-2001). Tanning currently lives and works in New York City.

For more information please visit: The Drawing Center 

 

Events/Exhibitions NYC. Animal Collective and Danny Perez at the Guggenheim Museum, with Auction Preview Party for “Contemplating the Void: Interventions in the Guggenheim Museum.” The Curated Object

Acconci Studio (Vito Acconci), Brooklyn, New York, SPIDERMUSE(UM)…WRIGHT-O-WEB…SPINNING GUGGY…, 2009, Digital print, 193 x 135.9 cm, Artwork © Acconci Studio

Doug Aitken (b. 1968, Redondo Beach, California), Untitled, 2009, Two digital prints, 93.1 x 66.2 cm each, Artwork © Doug Aitken 

Peter Coffin (b. 1972, Berkeley, California), Untitled (Proposal), 2009, Digital print, 96.5 x 68.6 cm, Artwork © Peter Coffin 

Terunobu Fujimori (b. 1946, Nagano, Japan), New York 2109, 2009, Colored pencil and ballpoint pen on paper, 35.6 x 71.1 cm, Artwork © Terunobu Fujimori 

Greg Lynn FORM, Venice, Liquid Plastic Robot, 2009, Digital print, 53.3 x 39.4 cm, Artwork © Greg Lynn FORM

Pierre Huyghe (b. 1962, Paris), Proposal for One-Year Parade, 2009, Ink on paper, 27.9 x 21.6 cm
Artwork © Pierre Huyghe

Julien De Smedt Architects (JDS), Brussels, Experiencing the Void, 2009, Digital print, 48.3 x 33 cm
Artwork © Julien De Smedt Architects (JDS)

Anish Kapoor (b. 1954, Bombay), Ascension (Red), 2009, Three digital prints, two parts 44.5 x 36.2 cm each, one part 44.5 x 56.6 cm, edition 1/ 6, Artwork © Anish Kapoor

M/M, Paris, Morris in Guggenheim, 2009, Silkscreen ink on paper, 171.9 x 115.7 cm, Artwork © M/M

Josephine Meckseper (b. 1964, Lilienthal, Germany), Untitled, 2009, Digital print, 101.6 x 73.5cm, Artwork © Josephine Meckseper

MVRDV, Rotterdam, Netherlands, Let's Jump!, 2009, Digital print, 95.3 x 68.6 cm, Artwork © MVRDV 

Paul Pfeiffer (b. 1966, Honolulu), New Roof, Berlin Olympic Stadium, 2009, Digital print, 8.9 x 12.7 cm
Artwork © Paul Pfeiffer

Matthew Ritchie (b. 1964, London) The House of GI–A Proposal, 2009, Ink on vellum paper, 72.1 x 100.3 cm, Artwork © Matthew Ritchie

Saunders Architecture, Bergen, Norway, FLW in His Element, 2009, Digital print, 48.3 x 32.7 cm
Artwork © Saunders Architecture

SelgasCano, Madrid, Erratic Void, 2009, Holographic print, 22.9 x 17.8 cm, Artwork © SelgasCano

Alyson Shotz (b. 1964, Glendale, Arizona), Untitled, 2009, Laserjet print, 48.3 x 33 cm, Artwork © Alyson Shotz

Sarah Sze (b. 1969, Boston), Guggenheim as a Ruin, 2009, Collage, string, tape, plastic, and razor blade on paper, 96.5 x 68.9 cm, Artwork © Sarah Sze

Zaha Hadid Architects, London, Z Wave, 2006, Digital print on foamboard, 71.1 x 142.4 x 0.5 cm
Artwork © Zaha Hadid Architects

Animal Collective and Danny Perez at the Guggenheim Museum, with Auction Preview Party for “Contemplating the Void: Interventions at the Guggenheim .”  

February 12-April 28, 2010

By Natalie Fasano 

Exactly 50 years ago, Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Guggenheim Museum. A sentinel, it still stands directly across from Central Park, the structure just as iconic as the art housed within. “Contemplating the Void” showcases the work of a number of celebrated artists, commissioned to interpret the empty space of the Guggenheim’s atrium without restraint. The "void," or empty space on the Guggenheim’s ground floor, at once creates and destroys a visitor’s cognizance of the museum’s structural components. A single, circular ramp winds dizzyingly upwards, a perfect cochlea. This great inner ear is stark white, outlined by broad bands of black that betray a shadowy depth, as a visor shielding unseen pairs of eyes. As you stand in the atrium and look upwards, the art hides coyly in the shadows; all vision is overpowered by the strong, alternating bands of black, white, black white, up 5 floors, to the transcendent promise of it's snowy ceiling. 

I began navigating the space by entering one of the museum’s unseen atria, on the 4th floor.  Moments after stepping out of the elevator, I was confronted with a burst of color and sound: the first of four Animal Collective performances was in full bloom. Denying myself the pleasure of satiating my curiosity, and resolved not to spoil the experience by beginning in the middle, I hastened my steps to a brightly lit room on my right, a long white corridor that led to the Auction Preview Party. The room appeared, at first, to be comprised of a series of square compartments, one large cube feeding into the others. The rear, however, formed a circular rotunda, lined with slender legged wooden tables with glass tops, their contents lined with delicately numbered artworks, destined for auction.

As I traveled the many facades of the room, I encountered a number of fantastic interpretations of the “void.”  My first impression: amused horror; a number of clever and not so clever puns relating to my newfound “intimacy” with the Guggenheim also began to percolate; I was confronted by a huge—clitoris.  This particular artist had envisioned a large format clitoris to sit in the museum's void, with directives to constant, subtle movement as if touched by a light breeze.  I immediately felt that the artists were given a sheet of paper with the word RULES and nothing else, an obvious void in direction as well as execution.  I excitedly shifted to my right. 

Though no further replicas of the female anatomy met my gaze, I noticed that the breadth of creativity exhibited by each artist and architect was the product of unbridled excitement, alternating levels of euphoria and despair that only pure license can inspire.  The Guggenheim as a panoptical surveillance device, an audiovisual experiment inspired by Radiohead, an urban void given over to New York city squatters and vendors, a space filled to brim with coffee; each portrait conveyed a fully developed vision. The luxury of verbal directives, accompanying the intricate design and photography, was certainly not lost upon me. I reveled in every word and the insight each gave me into the artist’s  fascinating thought processes. “Bombardment,” “aging,” “facelift,” decentralized,” “stable,” “disequilibrium” and “symmetry” were all employed. At times, I felt as if I were reading someone’s diary with their permission. Omitted fragments of thought lay imperceptibly beneath each fully formed thought, each scrupulously executed drawing, as dark smudges of lead lie beneath freshly inked sentences. The madness was there, though only the beautiful—the supreme product of the mind’s most circuitous and labyrinthine wanderings—remained.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 

Exhibitions NYC. Asia Week Arrives. The Curated Object

From Joan B Mirviss, Liquid Porcelain: The Sculptural Art of Nague Shigekazu

From Art of the Past gallery, 

Dancing Hevajra, 

Cambodia, Angkor Period, 

Bayon Style, 12th century, 

Bronze, 

Height: 9 3/8 inches (23.8 cm)

Martha Sutherland, HUANG I-MING, Gazing (“Ning”), 65 x 97 cm, 2009

From the show "Honored Guests" from Kaikodo, A Chinese Cizhou Tiger Pillow, 

Length: 15 1/2 in. Mid 12th century

Asia Week Arrives: March 20-28

By JoAnn Greco

Full of crouching tigers and bursting peonies, Asia Week sweeps into New York once again, with the 31 galleries represented by Asian Art Dealers New York, a dozen or so museums and cultural societies, and several auction houses all staging special exhibitions. Covering Chinese, Indian, Himalayan, Korean, Japanese, and Southeast Asian works, the wealth of diversity on hand is spectacular — while the recurring motifs and lines of influence always make for an intriguing art history lesson.

Many of the galleries are dotted in townhouses surrounding Madison Avenue near the Metropolitan Museum, making for a centralized experience. At the northern tip, Art of the Past is presenting "Iksita — Behold, Masterworks from South and Southeast Asia," works selected to embody an idea of visual transcendence. Amidst Indian ivories and Tibetan bronzes, it's the gold on hand that truly glitters. A 19th-century jada nagam — a jeweled braid ornament from India —  is topped by pink pearls, and adorned with gold beads on each side, a stunning piece of work.

From the Kang Collection

From the Kang Collection

Kang Collection is concentrating on paintings and folding screens in "Harmony and Nature: Auspicious Symbols in Korean Art." One screen covers a lot of bases with its depictions of ten symbols of long life, from the pine tree to the deer. In contrast to many of the courtly pieces on hand, one screen from the Flower and Bird genre is much more folk-centric, nearly primitive; enlivened by a Rousseau-ean sense of bright colors and whimsy, it all but shouts "Spring is here!"

 From John Eskenazi 

From John Eskenazi
 

No shouting but instead hushed whispers are in order at the beautifully-installed, almost museum-like show from London's John Eskenazi. On hand are several sandstone and terracotta heads and figures from India and Southeast Asia. But while the buddhas and shivas are serenely beautiful and intricately carved, the deep red Ming dynasty silks hung on the walls, almost as backdrops, were also the object of much attention. 

Contemporary works take the spotlight at a few galleries. Joan B. Mirviss, a lovely gallery outfitted in reclaimed wood from midwestern barns and normally opened only by appointment, is showing the origami-like porcelain sculptures of Nagae Shigekazu, in his first solo exhibition outside of Japan. The artist etches the surfaces with fine lines and his firing technique imparts a beaded sheen to the objects, making them eminently touchable. 

M. Sutherland Fine Arts, Ltd., turns to Chinese calligraphy, showing two contemporary masters, Hsu Kuo-huang and Huang I-ming. Both artists allude to the past in the scripts they're working with — from cursive to clerical to the ancient seal characters — as well as the passages they're quoting. Huang, however, departs from that model in several large pieces, isolating one character and turning it into an abstract meditation on the idea it expresses (such as "quiet" in one case, and "auspicious," in another).

Japanese and Chinese art intersect beautifully at Kaikodo, where celadon boxes and gilt-bronze figures hold court amidst dramatic hanging scrolls and delicate fan paintings. Standouts include a gorgeously-patina'd bronze lian, shown with the wooden box constructed to house it. An ancient tubular vessel from 1st-century China, this piece was likely used to store cosmetics. Like many of the antiquities on display here, it ended up in Japan, where it is thought it was used to hold flowers.

Exhibitions NYC. Graphic Heros, Magic Monsters: Japanese Prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi from the Author R. Miller Collection. Japan Society. The Curated Object

Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Morozumi Masakiyo Kills Himself in Battle, c. 1848. Color woodblock print, 14 3/8 x 10 1/8 in. American Friends of The British Museum (The Arthur R. Miller Collection) 15009. Photo © Trustees of The British Museum.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Sakata Kaidōmaru Wrestles with a Giant Carp, c. 1837. Color woodblock print, 15 x 10 1/4 in. American Friends of The British Museum (The Arthur R. Miller Collection) 21215. Photo © Trustees of The British Museum.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Octopus Games, 1840-42. Color woodblock print, 14 1/2 x 9 5/8 in. 

American Friends of The British Museum (The Arthur R. Miller Collection) 21402. Photo © Trustees of The British Museum.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Monk Nichiren in the Snow at Tsukahara, c. 1835. Color woodblock print, 9 7/8 x 14 5/8 in. American Friends of The British Museum (The Arthur R. Miller Collection) 12110. Photo © Trustees of The British Museum.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Tametomo Rescued from Suicide by Tengu, 1851. Color woodblock print, 14 3/8 x 29 5/8 in. The British Museum, JA 1906.12-20.01339. Photo © Trustees of The British Museum.
  

Graphic Heroes, Magic Monsters: Japanese Prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

March 12 - June 13, 2010

By JoAnn Greco

Curator Timothy Clark, head of the Japanese Section in the Department of Asia at the British Museum, calls them "explosive, shocking, funny, and provocative." Arthur Miller, collector extraordinaire, simply says they're an "obsession" borne out of his first introduction thirty years ago to a medium that's since taken hold of him. "They" are the bold, densely-packed woodblock prints of the 19th-century master, Utagawa Kuniyoshi. 

Like other, more famous names — think Hiroshige and Hokusai — Kuniyoshi tackled familiar subjects of the 'floating world,' like landscape, kabuki, and beautiful women. He's unique, however, in his depicitions of muscular, tattooed combatants and glorious monsters derived from action tales and folklore. And those themes provide the backdrop for the conceit of this exhibit. 

Strolling the galleries, the differences between these works and other classics is certainly apparent. The illustrations are surreal, story-laden, brilliantly-hued, and so crammed full of imagery that it's often initially hard to figure out what exactly is going on. They also are heavily dependent on meticulously-inked verses. 

They don't look like typical woodblock prints, sure; but they don't really look like modern manga, either. At least not at first.

According to Clark, though, the fact that Kuniyoshi worked so fast and prolifically is one similarity, as is the artist's fondness for the triptych format and for creating series. The drama and violence inherent in much of the work also forges a connection to contemporary Japanese comics. 

What remains most eye-opening, however, is simply the sheer power of the works. Miller says his dealers taught him to look for impressions made early on in a print's run. The saturated colors that leap from the walls of the darkened gallery rooms are striking evidence of the wisdom of that encouragement.

For more information please visit: The Japan Society

Exhibitions NYC. Curious George Saves the Day: The Art of Margret and H.A. Rey. The Jewish Museum. The Curated Object

H. A. Rey, cover of dummy for La Rue: Découpages à colorer (unpublished), Paris, c. 1938, pen and ink, color pencil, and crayon on paper.  H. A. & Margret Rey Papers, de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection, McCain Library and Archives, The University of Southern Mississippi.  Curious George, and related characters, created by Margret and H. A. Rey, are copyrighted and trademarked by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. (c) 2009 by HMH

H. A. Rey, final illustration for “He crawled into bed and fell asleep at once,” published in The Original Curious George (1998), France, 1939–40, watercolor, charcoal, and color pencil on paper.  H. A. & Margret Rey Papers, de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection, McCain Library and Archives, The University of Southern Mississippi.   Curious George, and related characters, created by Margret and H. A. Rey, are copyrighted and trademarked by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. (c) 2009 by HMH.

H. A. Rey, final illustration for “This is George. He lived in Africa,” published in The Original Curious George (1998), France, 1939–40, watercolor, charcoal, and color pencil on paper.  H. A. & Margret Rey Papers, de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection, McCain Library and Archives, The University of Southern Mississippi.  Curious George, and related characters, created by Margret and H. A. Rey, are copyrighted and trademarked by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. © 2009 by HMH.

Margret and H. A. Rey at a book signing, United States, c. 1945.  H. A. & Margret Rey Papers, de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection, McCain Library and Archives, The University of Southern Mississippi.  

H. A. Rey, unpublished drawing, United States, c. 1950s–60s, pencil on paper.  H. A. & Margret Rey Papers, de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection, McCain Library and Archives, The University of Southern Mississippi. 

CURIOUS GEORGE SAVES THE DAY:  THE ART OF MARGRET AND H.A. REY

March 14 - August 1, 2010

 Curious George, the impish monkey protagonist of many adventures, may never have seen the light of day if it were not for the determination and courage of his creators: illustrator H. A. Rey (1898–1977) and his wife, author and artist Margret Rey (1906–1996).  They were both born in Hamburg to Jewish families and lived together in Paris from 1936 to 1940. Hours before the Nazis marched into the city in June 1940, the Reys fled on bicycles carrying drawings for their children’s stories including one about a mischievous monkey, then named Fifi.  Not only did they save their animal characters, but the Reys themselves were saved by their illustrations when authorities found them in their belongings.  This may explain why saving the day after a narrow escape became the premise of most of their Curious George stories.  After their fateful escape from Paris and a four-month journey across France, Spain, Portugal, and Brazil, the couple reached New York in the fall of 1940. In all, the Reys authored and illustrated over thirty books, most of them for children, with seven of them starring Curious George. The exhibition at The Jewish Museum will feature nearly eighty original drawings of the beloved monkey and other characters, preparatory dummy books, vintage photographs, and documentation related to the Reys’ escape from Nazi Europe, as well as a specially designed reading room for visitors of all ages.

For more information please visit: The Jewish Museum

Exhibitions NYC. Modern Art, Sacred Space: Motherwell, Ferber and Gottlieb. The Jewish Museum. The Curated Object

Herbert Ferber (American, 1906-1999), And the Bush was Not Consumed, 1951, copper, lead, brass.  Congregation B’nai Israel, Millburn, New Jersey  Photo © Herbert Ferber Estate.

Adolph Gottlieb, Torah Ark Curtain, Millburn, New Jersey, United States, 1950-51, velvet: appliqué and embroidered with metallic thread.  The Jewish Museum, New York; Gift of Congregation B'nai Israel, Millburn, New Jersey.  Art © Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

Robert Motherwell, The Walls of the Temple, 1952, oil on Masonite.  Collection of Congregation B’nai Israel, Millburn, New Jersey.  Art © Dedalus Foundation, Inc./Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY 

MODERN ART, SACRED SPACE:  MOTHERWELL, FERBER AND GOTTLIEB

March 14- August 1, 2010

In 1951, architect Percival Goodman charged three avant-garde artists with commissions to decorate his Congregation B’nai Israel synagogue in Millburn, New Jersey.  Robert Motherwell, Adolph Gottlieb, and Herbert Ferber—each of whom went on to become a major figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement—created, respectively, a large-scale lobby mural, velvet Torah curtain, and a monumental exterior sculptural relief.  This exhibition marks the first time these works have been exhibited in a museum setting since they were created over sixty years ago. Motherwell’s mural presents abstracted Biblical references such as Tablets of Moses (Ten Commandments), diaspora of the twelve tribes of Israel to the four corners of the world, and Ark of the Covenant.  The mural, one of the largest paintings of its time, is one of the few works in which the artist worked in a semi-representational manner; however, Motherwell’s abstraction of the objects is in keeping with the bold style that he established in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Gottlieb’s iconographic design for the Torah curtain, now in the collection of The Jewish Museum, is a late example in the development of his influential pictograph paintings of 1941–53. Ferber’s monumental exterior relief, entitled And the Bush Was Not Consumed, expresses a religious theme in an abstract three-dimensional form.  In addition to these major works, the exhibition will include studies, maquettes, and photographs, as well as an architectural model of the Goodman-designed synagogue, to highlight the creative process of this groundbreaking collaboration. 

For more information please visit: The Jewish Museum

Exhibitions NYC. Envelopes. The Pratt Manhattan Gallery. The Curated Object

 "Wanderings," is from Lally's Climate Design™series, Image courtesy of Weathers. 

Envelopes

March 5 – May 5, 2010

"Once there was the enveloping body and the enveloped body, the latter being the more mobile through what Aristotle called locomotion... the one who offers or allows desire moves and envelopes, engulfing the other. It is moreoever a danger if no third term exists. Not only to serve as a limitation. This third term can occur within the one who contains as a relation of the latter to his or her own limit (s): the relation to the divine, death, to the social, to the cosmic. If a third term does not exist within and for the container, he or she becomes all-powerful.-- Luce Irigaray

Pratt Manhattan Gallery presents “Envelopes,” an exhibition that will explore new and sustainable potentials of the architectural surface in terms of the skin of a building and also as a sensorial space that envelops the body. “Envelopes” will feature full-scale, interactive models accompanied by architectural renderings in the form of drawings and computer animations, and documentation of the process of investigation into these models from eight international firms and designers. The exhibition will run from March 5 through May 5, 2010 and will be celebrated with an opening reception on Thursday, March 4 from 6–8 PM. The exhibition and opening reception are free and open to the public. “Envelopes” is guest curated by Christopher Hight, an associate professor at Rice University’s School of Architecture. 

Hight’s inspiration for the exhibition title and concept originated from parallels between the envelope of a building and the envelope of human skin; the building envelope repeats the metaphor of the building as a body and as a prosthetic second skin that allows human beings to exist within a hostile environment. Inspired by early 20th century biologist Jacob von Uexküll and his interest in how living beings relate to and perceive their environment, the title of the show refers to the role of the building envelope and the idea of envelopment of one’s body and senses within a larger environment.

“Issues of sustainability and ecology raise many conceptual and design issues about the nature of the boundary between body, building, and larger environments,” said Hight. “The architects in ‘Envelopes’ are all exploring relationships between systems—human, animal, plant, and energy flow—as a site for architectural innovation in the 21st century,” he added.

Hight pursues design research on the nexus of landscape, ecology, and emerging forms of urbanization. He is co-editor of AD: Collective Intelligence in Design (Academy Press, 2006), Heterogeneous Space (Wiley, 2009), and has recently published a book on cybernetics, post-humanism, formalism, and post- World War II architectural design, titled Architectural Principles in the Age of Cybernetics (Routledge, 2008).

Participating architects and architecture firms include:

• !ndie Architecture, a Denver-based firm that engages in a range of architectural and urban

questions through research projects and practice, with a specialization in digital and industrial

technology, housing, and suburbanism

• HouMinn Practice, a Houston and Minneapolis-based firm recognized for its research and

innovative design whose collaborative efforts reach beyond the discipline of architecture

• Mary Ellen Carroll—MEC design studios, a New York-based conceptual artist, with Kevin

Topek of Permaculture Design, LLC; and Carlise Vandervoort

• Michael U. Hensel and Defne Sunguroğlu Hensel are research directors and board members at OCEAN Design Research, an international, interdisciplinary, and independent research firm that conducts research by design in the intersection of architecture, design, music, and science with the goal of improving the current built environment and anthropobiosphere

• Nataly Gattegno and Jason Kelly Johnson are founding design partners of Future Cities Lab, an interdisciplinary design and research collaborative bridging architecture and landscape urbanism with material sciences, robotics, and engineering

• Philippe Rahm, an architect who practices out of Paris and Lausanne and focuses on

“meterological” architecture

• Tobias Emilsson, Jonah Fritzell, Marcelyn Gow, Ulrika Karlsson, and Chris Perry of servo,

an international research and design collaborative that focuses on the development of

architectural environments through the proliferation of electronic and digital equipment and

interfaces

• Weathers, a Chicago-based environmental design office that studies social, spatial, and

organizational structures and their implications to lifestyle and environment.

“Envelopes” is made possible by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts and with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency; and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States.

For more information please visit: Pratt Manhattan Gallery