The Curated Object

Exhibitions St. Louis. Kuna Mola: Maintaining Tradition Amid Change. The Sheldon Art Museum. The Curated Object

Woman Sewing a Mola, 1990s, Artist Unknown, 12.5 x 17 inches, cotton; 3 layers (maroon, orange, black); reverse and direct appliqué, embroidery, collection of Joyce Cheney.

RCA Dog, 1970s, Artist Unknown, 13.5 x 17 inches, cotton; 3 layers (black, orange, maroon); reverse and direct appliqué, embroidery, collection of  Joyce Cheney. “Perro (dog) Musica”  is the famous RCA advertisement of a dog listening for its master’s voice.    

Basketball (Child-Sized Panel), 1980s, Artist Unknown, 9.75 x 13 inches, cotton; 3 layers (black, orange, maroon); reverse and direct appliqué, embroidery, collection of Joyce Cheney. Basketball is very popular among Kuna men.  

“How-To” Mola, 1980s, Artist Unknown, 12.75 x 17 inches, cotton; 3 layers (maroon, yellow-orange, orange); reverse appliqué, collection of Joyce Cheney. Molas are made through reverse appliqué.  The seamstress stacks 1-5 layers of cloth and pencils a rough design on the top piece.  She then bastes the layers together with large stitches (@ 1/2” ea.) and proceeds layer-by-layer top to bottom, cutting through one layer, folding the edges under and hemming them, then, repeating the cuts, folds and hemming on the layer below.  She may vary background layers by inserting patches of cloth in specific areas.  She may also fill spaces with one or more layers of direct appliqué, in which she adds specially-cut patches of cloth to the top.  When appliqué is complete, she may add embroidery as well.  After she has sewn the entire panel by hand, she uses a machine to assemble the blouse.   

Manatees (sea cows) and Stingray, 1980s, Artist Unknown, 13 x 15.5 inches, cotton; 3 layers (orange, maroon, green); reverse and direct appliqué, embroidery, collection of Joyce Cheney. 

Tree of Life #1, 1980s, Artist Unknown, 14.25 x 18 inches, cotton; 3 layers (maroon, orange, black); reverse and direct appliqué, embroidery, collection of Joyce Cheney. 

Hanger “Grandmother Mola,” 1970s, Artist Unknown, 15 x 17.5 inches, cotton; 2 layers (black, white); reverse appliqué. This pattern is based on wooden tree-fork hangers tied to walls or rafters and used to hold clothes or household tools.  Black and white molas were popular in the 1960s and 70s,  Collection of Joyce Cheney.  

 

Cruise Ship Trade Mola by Renelio Robles, 1998, 12.5 x 17 inches, cotton, synthetics; direct applique, embroidery, collection of Joyce Cheney. This mola is different from most traditional molas in several ways:  

•it was sewn as a single panel for sale to tourists,

•colors were chosen to appeal to tourist tastes,  

•it uses only direct appliqué,

•it includes solid areas, 

•it was made by a gay man, and 

•the subject matter is new.  

“Zormay” is probably the name of a ship that cruised the islands in a previous season.  The “x” marks the ship’s door which lowers into a ramp, allowing passengers to disembark. This mola, which is well-designed and well-made, is a fitting one with which to end, as it is a multifaceted example of the Kuna’s mola tradition continuing amid change.    

Funeral Trade Mola, by Marvel Misselis, 1999, 12.5 x 15.5 inches, cotton; 2 layers (maroon, red); reverse and direct appliqué, embroidery, collection of Joyce Cheney. The deceased is in a hammock which is connected by a thread to a small, carved canoe.  The deceased’s spirit travels on the thread to the canoe and then floats to the spirit world.  Mourners sit on low wooden stools.  Cocoa bean incense burns in a sianala (brown clay brazier).   Plants and birds, which have spiritual powers, are nearby.      

        

Kuna Mola: Maintaining Tradition Amid Change 

February 19 – May 8, 2010 

This exhibition, from the collection of Joyce Cheney, features over 60 exquisite examples ofmolas made by Kuna women in Panama in the latter part of the 20th century.  Mola is the word for both the traditional decorated panels and the blouses into which they are incorporated.  Mola designs evolved from Kuna body painting.  By the late 19th century, Kuna women began to wear cotton chemises and painted their undergarments instead of their bodies.  As imported cloth became available in the early 20th century, women began sewing the designs onto blouses.  Early blouses were loose, with short close-fitting cap sleeves, while today’s styles dictate snug bodices and puffed sleeves.  Pre-1920s mola panels were large, with rough designs and stitching and little embroidery.  Geometric patterns and one-color designs were common then, and are now referred to as “grandmother” molas.  Post-1920s mola designs are more complex and varied.

 This exhibition features a range of pieces made between the 1920s and the 1990s, including mola panels, full costumes, jewelry, a spectacular , large quilt made from mola panels, and photographs of Kuna villagers in traditional costume.  A wide range of imagery can be found incorporated into the mola designs, from traditional abstract motifs and local plants and animals, to images from recent history, such as cartoon characters, WWII planes over Panama or the RCA Victor dog, and today’s popular culture: cruise ships and cartoon caracters.  Joyce Cheney has been a cultural worker for decades.  Originally a storyteller, folk musician and community organizer, she has transitioned backstage to non-fiction writing and museum exhibit development. 

For more information please visit: The Sheldon

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

Exhibitions St. Louis. "Five Centuries of Japanese Screens." St. Louis Museum of Art. The Curated Object

 Sakai Hoitsu, Japanese, 1761–1828, Edo period; Fans and Stream, c.1820–28; sliding door panels (fusuma) mounted as a pair of two-panel screens: ink, color, gold, and silver on silk; each screen approximately: 65 5/8 x 68 3/4 inches; Saint Louis Art Museum, Friends Fund 140:1987a,b 

                                                  

Kayama Matazo, Japanese, 1927–2004; Star Festival (Tanabata), 1968; six-panel folding screen: ink, color, gold, and silver on silk; 66 7/16 inches x 12 ft. 3 1/4 inches; Saint Louis Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Kayama Matazo, The Japan America Society of St. Louis, and Dr. Peggy Adeboi 150:1987 © Estate of Kayama Matazo
 

                                      
 Kano Koi, Japanese, c.1569–1639, Edo period; Pheasant and Pine, c.1626; six-panel folding screen: ink, color, and gold on paper; 67 inches by 12 ft. 5 5/8 inches; Saint Louis Art Museum, Funds given by Mary and Oliver Langenberg, Mr. and Mrs. Richard A. Liddy, and Susan and David Mesker 105:2002

                                      
Morita Shiryu, Japanese, 1912–1998; Dragon Knows Dragon, 1969; four-panel screen: aluminum flake pigment in polyvinyl acetate medium, yellow alkyd varnish, on paper; 63 3/4 x 120 7/8 inches; The Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Milton Fisher 1981.364 

Five Centuries of Japanese Screens

Oct. 18 - Jan. 3, 2010

Suggestive of privacy and even secrecy, the utilitarian Japanese folding screen is at the same time an unabashed work of art. Its large scale (typically about 5-feet by 12-feet) provides a tempting canvas — one that can be adorned with anything from representational scenes of the floating world to depictions of traditional flowers and seasonal motifs — and their inherent sectioning allows artists to experiment with story telling, planes, and dimensions. Additionally, in Chinese-style screens, calligraphy plays a great role.

Culled about equally from the St. Louis Art Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago, the 29 screens on view here do all of that and more, moving into an examination of contemporary forms of the medium such as screens that use lacquer and even ceramics. Bold and graphic use of color is a hallmark of many of these works, and their presence is certainly a dramatic one. But some of the most stunning are surprisingly muted. "Flowering Cherry and Autumn Maples" (mid-17th-century), for example, is primarily a wash of gold on silk, with only the puffy white of the blossoms and the crimson of the leaves punctuating the canvas. "Flowers and Plants of the Four Seasons" (1774) strips down even more, using simple black ink on white paper to depict bamboo, wisteria and chrysanthemum. While contemporary works, such as "Mountain Lake Screen Tachi" (1990), three four-laned folding screens are an interesting play on a perhaps too-familiar art method, they are often so removed from the form that their departure seems not so much a variation as an abandonment.

For more information please visit: The St. Louis Art Museum

-- posted by JoAnn Greco

Exhibitions St. Louis. Urban Alchemy/Gordon Matta-Clark. The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. The Curated Object

above image: Gordon Matta-Clark, A W-Hole House: Datum Cut, Core Cut, Trace de Coeur, 1973
Collaged gelatin silver prints
Overall: 13 ½ x 86 ½ in. (34.3 x 219.7 cm)
Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal
© Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

The Pulitzer Foundation, "Photographer: Robert Pettus. Copyright: The
Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts."

The Pulitzer Foundation, "Photographer: Robert Pettus. Copyright: The
Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts."

Urban Alchemy/Gordon Matta-Clark

October 30, 2009 - June 5, 2010

The artist Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978) used neglected structures slated for demolition as his raw material.  He carved out sections of buildings with a power saw in order to reveal their hidden construction, to provide new ways of perceiving space, and to create metaphors for the human condition.  He spoke of his work as an activity that attempted “to transform place into a state of mind by opening walls.”  When wrecking balls knocked down his sculpted buildings, little remained.  He took photographs and films of his interventions and kept a few of the building segments, known as "cuts."  They include a section of an apartment floor (Bronx Floors: Double Doors), three parts of a house near Love Canal (Bingo), a window from an abandoned warehouse on a pier in New York City (Pier In/Out), and the rooftop corners of a house in New Jersey (Splitting: Four Corners). For this exhibition, the Pulitzer is borrowing these very cuts from The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and from the private collection of Thomas and John Solomon.  The Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark and David Zwirner, New York, are also lending nearly fifty photographs, while the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, is providing numerous works on paper, including eleven drawings. Two of Matta-Clark’s films, Fire Child and Conical Intersect, will also be shown, offering a means to understand better the performance aspect of his art.  

The placement of Matta-Clark’s work in the exhibition spaces designed by Tadao Ando at the Pulitzer will encourage new ways of looking at art, architecture, and the urban environment. Ando’s pristine building will not only heighten the roughness of Matta-Clark’s cuts, but it will also recall the artist’s lost interventions.  Both he and Ando sought to break the visual and metaphorical boundaries normally associated with the architectural “box” by allowing light to penetrate spaces in unexpected ways. 

Reminiscent of an alchemist, Matta-Clark pursued the transmutation of a discarded object into something filled with “hope and fantasy.”  He was deeply concerned with the abandonment of buildings and the fate of urban communities. He became socially and politically active during the 1970s and wrote that he focused on buildings, “for these comprise both a miniature cultural evolution and a model of prevailing social structures.  Consequently, what I do to buildings is what some do with languages and others with groups of people: I organize them in order to explain and defend the need for change.” 

The exhibition programming will connect the artist’s social activism to present-day St. Louis. The Pulitzer, in collaboration with Washington University's George Warren Brown School of Social Work, is organizing programs that build upon Matta-Clark’s desire to imbue abandoned objects, buildings, and parcels of land with new meaning.  The Pulitzer hopes to help carry Matta-Clark’s legacy into the 21st century and to inspire a new generation of social activism through creative acts.   An interactive web presence will reflect this community-driven programming at  mattaclark.pulitzerarts.org/transformation. A web catalogue will also correspond with the exhibition at mattaclark.pulitzerarts.org. 

Through art exhibitions, programs, collaborations, and exchanges with other institutions, the Pulitzer aims to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of art and architecture and is a resource for artists, architects, scholars, students and the general public.  

 For more information please visit www.pulitzerarts.org 

Exhibitions St. Louis. The Language of Objects: New Works by Jane Birdsall-Lander and Jo Stealey. The Sheldon Art Galleries. The Curated Object

Jane Birdsall Lander, Listening Eye, 2009, wood snathe, wood, violin and cello pegs, waxed linen, pigment, 57 x 22 x 2 inches, photograph by Cary Horton, courtesy of the artist.

Jane Birdsall Lander, Listening Eye, 2009, wood snathe, wood, violin and cello pegs, waxed linen, pigment, 57 x 22 x 2 inches, photograph by Cary Horton, courtesy of the artist.

The Language of Objects

Sept. 25, 2009-Jan. 16, 2010

The Sheldon Art Galleries presents The Language of Objects: New Works by Jane Birdsall-Lander and Jo Stealey, September 25, 2009 – January 16, 2010 in the Bellwether Gallery of St. Louis Artists.  Organized in conjunction with the citywide Innovations in Textiles 8 celebration, the Sheldon Art Galleries has organized the exhibition The Language of Objects, which features work by sculptors Jane Birdsall-Lander and Jo Stealey.  Birdsall-Lander and Stealey describe their work as “visual poetry.”  In their installation at the Sheldon Art Galleries, Birdsall-Lander and Stealey use language as a conceptual catalyst as well as a textural and/or a contextual component to speak to fundamental human issues of communication and existence.

Galleries will be open until 8 p.m due to the Sheldon concert featuring Bettye LaVette.  NEW Gallery Hours are Tuesdays, Noon – 8 p.m.; Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, Noon – 5 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. and one hour prior to Sheldon performances and during intermission.  Admission is free.  A Gallery Talk is scheduled for Saturday, September 26, 10 a.m., Jane Birdsall-Lander and Jo Stealey will give a talk on their work as part of the Innovations in Textiles 8 opening weekend events. Bellwether Gallery of St. Louis Artists, admission free.  The exhibition is made possible by Nancy and Kenneth Kranzberg.

For more information on the exhibition visit the galleries’ website at www.thesheldon.org/galleries.asp. 

Exhibitions St. Louis. Visions of Sound: Masterpieces from the Hartenberger World Music Collection. The Sheldon Galleries. The Curated Object

Saung-gauk (Arched Harp) with black wood stand, Burmese, early 1900s, 30 x 38 x 7 inches, courtesy of the Hartenberger World Music Collection, photographed by Ray Marklin.

D.R.G.M. Jazzophone, 1920s, 21 x 11 x 9 inches, courtesy of the Hartenberger World Music Collection, photographed by Ray Marklin.

Xylophone with 2 beaters, Bakongo People, Eastern Africa, late 1800s, 34.5 x 14 x 9 inches, courtesy of the Hartenberger World Music Collection, photographed by Ray Marklin.

Visions of Sound: Masterpieces from the Hartenberger World Music Collection

Feb. 20-May 9, 2009

Both the Bellwether Gallery and the History of Jazz Gallery are the setting for an exhibition of treasures from the Hartenberger World Music Collection, based in St. Louis.  Dr. Aurelia Hartenberger, who has collected instruments for over 30 years, has put together one of the most important instrument collections in the country.  The collection of over 2,000 instruments contains examples from six continents, including: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Europe, and Australia. The Bellwether Gallery will feature a wide variety of instruments from all over the globe.  Some of the highlights in this installation include late 17th - early 18th-century Italian Mandolin, a Burmese Saùng-gauk (Arched Harp), a Maori Putorino (bugle flute), a Pre-Columbian priest whistle from 600-900 A.D., and Serpent instruments from 18th and 19th-century Europe.

The three rooms of the History of Jazz Gallery will be the setting for a collection of historical and modern instruments that trace the history of jazz from its roots in Africa to the present day.  Today’s melodic and rhythmic jazz structures have been shown to have roots in the practices of Africans brought to America as slaves.  One room of the exhibition will feature a selection of African drums, bells and rattles, as well as gongs, harps, flutes, “lutes” and mbira (thumb pianos) from different regions.  The other two rooms will focus on modern jazz instruments, including some that were once owned by national and local jazz musicians such as Clark Terry, Oliver Lake, Artie Shaw, Eddie Daniels, Hamiet Blueitt, Jeremy Davenport, Red Lehr, and Frank D'Annolfo.  Another feature of the jazz rooms will be some of the 20th-century instruments created for jazz, such as the Jazzophone, the Saxotrumpet, and the Slide Sax.

Aurelia Hartenberger is currently adjunct Associate Professor of Music at the University of Missouri – St. Louis and, World Music Specialist at Maryville University and Music Coordinator for the Lindbergh School District.  She served as Curriculum Director of the Mehlville School District from 1990-2006.  In the field of education, Dr. Hartenberger has been awarded “Teacher of the Year” at the local, district, and state levels five times.  She is the creator of the web-based “Curriculum SUCCESS Tool” for Aureus Concepts, and is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.  Hartenberger and her husband, Jeff, are members of AMIS (American Musical Instrument Society) and the International Galpin Society.  She has also served as Southwest Division President of MENC: The National Association for Music Education, 2003-2005; State President of MMEA (Missouri Music Educators Association), 2000-2002; and President of SLSMEA (St. Louis Suburban Music Educators Assoc.), 1992-1998.

 

The not-for-profit Sheldon Art Galleries exhibits works by local, national, and international artists in all media.  Over 6,000 square feet of the galleries’ spaces on the 2nd floor are permanently devoted to rotating exhibits of photography, architecture, jazz art and history, and children's art.  A sculpture garden, seen from both the atrium lobby and the connecting glass bridge, features periodic rotations and installations, and the Nancy Spirtas Kranzberg Gallery on the lower level features art of all media.  The Sheldon actively supports the work of St. Louis artists in all mediums and features a dedicated gallery with museum-quality exhibits by St. Louis artists, past and present.

 

Financial Assistance for this project has been provided by the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency.  Support is provided by the Regional Arts Commission and the Arts and Education Council.

For more information please visit: The Sheldon Galleries

Posted by Joanne Molina

Exhibitions St. Louis. Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future. Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. The Curated Object

Patent drawing for pedestal chairs, June 7, 1960. Courtesy Eero Saarinen Collection. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University.

Eero Saarinen with A Combined Living-Dining-Room-Study project model, created for Architectural Forum magazine, c. 1937. Photographer unknown. Courtesy Eero Saarinen Collection. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University

Miller House, Columbus, Indiana, c. 1957. Photograph: Ezra Stoller. © Ezra Stoller / ESTO.

Sketch of David S. Ingalls Hockey Rink, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, c. 1953. Courtesy Eero Saarinen Collection. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University.

TWA Terminal, New York International (now John F. Kennedy International) Airport, New York, c. 1962. Photograph: Balthazar Korab. © Balthazar Korab Ltd.

Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future

Jan. 30 - April 27, 2009 

Eero Saarinen (1910-1961) was among the most prolific, unorthodox and controversial architects of the 20th century, creator of the monumental St. Louis Gateway Arch as well as sweepingly abstract terminals for New York's John F. Kennedy International and Washington's Dulles International airports. In January the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will present Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future, the first retrospective to explore the complete career of the acclaimed Finnish American architect.

In the 1940s and '50s Saarinen developed innovative construction techniques and deployed a highly personal, exuberant and often metaphorical aesthetic that defied Modernist orthodoxies and gave iconic form to the postwar American ideals of diversity, openness and unbounded freedom — ideals that persist to this day. At the same time, though often celebrated as a lone, heroic creator, Saarinen worked frequently and enthusiastically with other architects, artists, engineers and clients to create cohesive, harmonious environments across a wide range of architectural scales.

Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future comprehensively examines both aspects of Saarinen's oeuvre, investigating the aesthetic, cultural and political significance of his work within the larger context of postwar modern architecture, while also exploring the personal and working relationships between the architect and his many collaborators. Materials, drawn largely from the archives of Saarinen's office, include drawings and full-scale building mock-ups of more than 50 built and proposed projects — from private residences, to religious and educational buildings, to large-scale urban planning projects such as airports and corporate headquarters — as well as photographs, personal documents, press clippings, films and other ephemera.

The resulting portrait shows the architect to have been guided by a clear vision of modern life as a constant collaborative dialogue. Saarinen also emerges as a man in full command of the most sophisticated — and media-savvy —architectural and design strategies of his age.

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

Posted by Joanne Molina

Exhibitions St. Louis. Selections from the Architecture Discovery Program, Washington University School of Architecture. Sheldon Art Galleries. The Curated Object

Julia Roberts, Willmington, Delaware, Contemplation Space, Basswood Chipboard, Architecture Discovery Program Session I, Summer 2008, photograph by Stan Strembicki. 

Haley Allen, Paris, Tennessee, Contemplation Space, Basswood Chipboard, Architecture Discovery Program Session I, Summer 2008, photograph by Stan Strembicki.

Selections from the Architecture Discovery Program, Washington University School of Architecture

Feb. 20-June 6, 2009

ST. LOUIS, MO - The Sheldon Art Galleries presents Selections from the Architecture Discovery Program, Washington University School of Architecture, February 20 to June 6, 2009 in the AT & T Gallery of Children’s Art.  

 

This exhibition presents over 30 models, architectural drawings, and study models, created by students enrolled in the Architecture Discovery Program of the College of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis over the past two years. The Architecture Discovery Program is an introduction to the study of architecture for students between their junior and senior year of high school. Design Studio, the heart of the program, focuses on how creativity and discovery can foster passion and compassion in architecture. Students also tour architecture offices, visit architecturally significant buildings in the St. Louis area, and participate in several freehand drawing sessions. 

Directed by Liane Hancock, the Architecture Discovery Program has been held in the College of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis every summer for 21 years and draws enrollment from all over the country, including St. Louis.  In conjunction with the high school summer Portfolio Plus program in the College of Art, the Architecture Discovery Program introduces high school students to the art and architecture facilities at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.

 

The not-for-profit Sheldon Art Galleries exhibits works by local, national, and international artists in all media.  Over 6,000 square feet of the galleries’ spaces on the 2nd floor are permanently devoted to rotating exhibits of photography, architecture, jazz art and history, and children's art.  A sculpture garden, seen from both the atrium lobby and the connecting glass bridge, features periodic rotations and installations, and the Nancy Spirtas Kranzberg Gallery on the lower level features art of all media.  The Sheldon actively supports the work of St. Louis artists in all mediums and features a dedicated gallery with museum-quality exhibits by St. Louis artists, past and present.

 

Financial Assistance for this project has been provided by the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency.  Support is provided by the Regional Arts Commission and the Arts and Education Council.

For more information please visit: The Sheldon Art Galleries

Posted by Joanne Molina

Exhibitions St. Louis. Birth of the Cool: California, Art Design and Culture at Midcentury. The Mildred Lane Kempner Museum of Art. The Curated Object

Lorser Feitelson, Dichotomic Organization, 1959, oil on canvas. Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University, Logan, Marie Eccles Caine Foundation Gift. © Feitelson Arts Foundation.


Album cover for Miles Davis's Birth of the Cool (Capitol Records, 1957). Courtesy Blue Note Records.


Charles and Ray Eames, prototype plywood chairs (photograph by Charles Eames), © 1950, Boyd Collection

Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury
Sept. 19, 2008, to Jan. 5, 2009

From painting and architecture to music, film, furniture and the graphic arts, 1950s Los Angeles was an epicenter of American modernism. This fall the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will present Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, a sprawling multimedia exhibition that investigates how the sleek West Coast aesthetic — at once playful and poised, laid-back and sharply articulated — emerged as cultural shorthand for crisp sophistication.


Organized by the Orange County Museum of Art, Birth of the Cool — named for the groundbreaking 1957 album by Miles Davis — includes more than 200 objects exploring the influences, relationships, and affinities that bound together a disparate group of artists from a variety of fields and backgrounds. The installation, echoing the period it covers, includes a jazz lounge; a gallery of abstract paintings; and a media bar with film, animation and television programming. Also on view will be a variety of archival and documentary images, as well as an interactive timeline and a gallery devoted to modern furniture and design.

In the 1930s and 1940s Los Angeles attracted artists and intellectuals from across the United States and, critically, from Europe. Many of these new arrivals, fleeing the impending war, brought with them tenets of international modernism and found employment and safe haven in Hollywood. The experimental German filmmaker Oskar Fischinger was recruited to Paramount and later worked at MGM and Disney, while the Hungarian-born Jules Engel helped launch the United Productions of America Studio, which pioneered the flat, graphic style of midcentury animation with cartoons such as Gerald McBoing Boing (1950).

By the 1950s the Hollywood Hills were dotted with modernist residences by architects such as Pierre Koenig, John Lautner and Richard Neutra. Constructed largely of glass and steel, these light-filled homes — many commissioned by Art & Architecture's Case Study House program — were open to the elements, with walls and ceilings that seemed to float in space. A similar sense of spatial instability informed the "hard edge" painting of Karl Benjamin, Helen Lundeberg, Lorser Feitelson, Frederick Hammersley and John McLaughlin. These colorful geometric abstractions, with their ambiguity between flatness and depth, stood in sharp contrast to the gestural and emotive fervency of New York abstract expressionism.

Meanwhile the "cool jazz" of Miles Davis, conceived in reaction to then-dominant bebop, helped define "cool" for a national and global audience, and was an important influence on West Coast players such as Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, June Christy, Shelly Manne, Gerald Mulligan, Art Pepper and Sonny Rollins. Portraits and album covers by photographer William Claxton captured the movement's sense of effortless grace, just as architectural photographer Julius Shulman helped popularize the modernist home through carefully staged scenes of middle-class suburban couples living amidst high Hollywood style.

Perhaps no figures better exemplify the creativity and optimism of California cool than designers Charles and Ray Eames. Born and raised in St. Louis, Charles Eames studied architecture at Washington University from 1925-27 and later taught at Michigan's Cranbrook Academy of Art, where he met Ray Kaiser, a Sacramento native. In 1941 the couple married and moved to Los Angeles, where they spent the next four decades reshaping American design. Their molded-plywood furniture, plastic chairs and iconic lounge — all showcased in the exhibition, along with rare film clips and other archival materials — joined pioneering technologies with a rigorous yet lighthearted sensibility, creating works that were innovative, affordable and accessible.

For more information please visit: The Mildred Lane Kempner Museum of Art

-Joanne Molina

Exhibitions St. Louis. A Stitch in Time: Images of Needleworking, 1850-1920. The Saint Louis Art Museum. The Curated Object

Jean-François Millet, French, The Knitting Shepherdess, 1856–57; pastel; 12 1/2 x 9 ½ inches; Saint Louis Art Museum, Gift of the J. Lionberger Davis Art Trust 156:1953

A Stitch in Time: Images of Needleworking, 1850-1920
March 21-May 26

The Saint Louis Art Museum announces the March 21 opening of A Stitch in Time: Images of Needleworking, 1850–1920, an exhibition of eight works on paper from the Museum’s collection that illustrate women engaged in various facets of needlework, such as sewing, embroidering and carding. The exhibition complements the featured exhibition Quilts in a Material World: Selections from the Winterthur Collection, on view March 2–May 26 in the Museum’s Main Exhibition Galleries.

Featuring works by such artists as Childe Hassam and Jean François Millet, this exhibition demonstrates a pronounced interest in the production of handmade crafts during the mid- 19th century’s rise of industrial manufacturing in Europe and America. Artists who depicted needleworking as an occupation for the working classes portrayed the craft with reverence and quiet dignity.

By the late 19th century, needleworking was portrayed nostalgically as a rustic form of labor that was fast disappearing, but it was also promoted as a craft pastime for the middle and upper classes. Women were encouraged to give direction to their artistic talents, and the domestic interiors that they occupied were often represented as spaces of peacefulness and harmony. Many artists used their wives and immediate family members as models for their artwork, showing the women intently absorbed in their activities.

Curated by Eric Lutz, assistant curator of prints, drawings and photographs, A Stitch in Time: Images of Needleworking, 1850–1920 will be on view in Gallery 321 through June 8, 2008.

For more information please visit: The Saint Louis Art Museum
-Joanne Molina