The Curated Object

Exhibitions Philadelphia. Pleasures and Pastimes in Japanese Art. The Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Curated Object

 
Shimotsuma Shoshin (Japanese, 1551 – 1616), Noh Mask, Momoyama period (1568-1615), late 16th century. Carved wood with painted decoration. 8 5/8 x 5 3/8 inches. Made in Japan. Purchased with the J. Stogdell Stokes Fund, 1970. Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

Artist Unknown, Pair of Flutes, Japanese, Edo period (1615-1868), 18th century. Made in Japan. Lacquered bamboo, cherry wood bark, ivory. Flute 1: 15 3/4 x 1 3/16 inches; Flute 2: 14 9/16 x 13/16 inches. Purchased with funds contributed by Andrea M. Baldeck, M.D. Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

Banura Shōgo (Japanese, 1901 – 1982), Writing Box. Japan, Showa period, 1930-1940. Dry lacquer (kanshitsu) base in dark green, with deep red lacquer edges, designs in gold and raised lacquers (taka-makie), interior with gold and silver scattered flakes (nashiji). 8 1/2 x 7 1/2 x 12 5/8 inches. Made in Kyoto, Japan. Gift of Jeffrey Cline and William Knospe in honor of Frederick R. McBrien III. Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

 Yokoi Kinkoku (Japanese, 1761-1832), Catching Fish under Willows in the Rain. Edo period, c. 1800. Ink and colors on silk, mounted as a hanging scroll; fitted wood box Exclusive of mount: 44 3/8 x 16 3/8 inches Made in Japan. Partial purchase with funds contributed by Maxine and Howard Lewis, and partial gift of Sondra Milne Henderson in honor of the memory of Anne d'Harnconcourt, 2009. Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

Artist/maker unknown. Dish with Design of Fish. Japanese, Edo Period (1615-1868), c. 1700. Glazed porcelain with underglaze decoration; Kutani ware; "Blue and White."7/8 x 8 1/4 inches. Made in Japan. Gift of R. G. Rincliffe, 1969, Philadelphia Museum of Art 
 

 

 Pleasures and Pastimes in Japanese Art

January 9, 2010 - Fall 2010

By JoAnn Greco

Looking for insight into a culture? — take a closer look at how it plays. And one way to do that is to examine the objects used in such pastimes. For the Japanese, who elevate everything to art and who accompany the art of making that art into a highly-detailed set of rules (i.e. the  "way" of tea, of flower arranging, of ceramics), the mono (things) associated with relaxing and hobby-making range from fishing to drinking sake. Even the higher arts — such as performing in Noh theater (the Japanese have a great tradition of staging these stalwarts in little towns with ordinary farm folk assuming the classic roles) and writing poetry (also not just for professionals) — merit consideration when examining this oft-rigid nation at ease.

The objects in this lovely exhibit, then, range from paraphernalia associated with the tea ceremony — ikebana materials, incense games, and pottery — to musical instruments and sake vessels. Also on hand is an ancient card game based on one hundred classical poems and played out in celebration of the New Year, and a host of Noh masks and costumes. A stunning 17th-century hand drum, crafted of black and gold lacquer on wood, works wonders in capturing many of the traditional elements of Japanese craft in one gleaming form. It may be small — it stands just 11 inches high — but it sure says a lot.

For more information, please visit: The Philadelphia Museum of Art

Exhibitions Missoula. Tom Foolery: The Vendorama Series. The Missoula Art Museum. The Curated Object

Tom Foolery, Cowboys n’ Critters, The Vendorama Series. 

Tom Foolery, Hotel Montana, The Vendorama Series
 

Tom Foolery: The Vendorama Series

January 20 – May 9, 2010

Tom Foolery is a Montana artist whose miniature, narrative dioramas are inviting, playful, and laced with satire. The Vendorama Series, Foolery’s signature tableaus, built into the bodies of old vending machines and juke box selectors; focus on small Western town streetscapes. To view the works and all the details within these intimate environments, one must approach the artwork and peer into the window of each work’s little world. Only then is the viewer invited to explore the Happy Heifer Gallery to get a glimpse of the tiny artworks within Foolery’s larger imaginative artwork. He invites viewers into these worlds, luring them into voyeuristic pleasures as the details of the places are discovered. Viewers can find the bronze sculpture of a cowboy riding a buffalo in the satirical Old West Gallery, for example, and they can learn the literal meaning of the title in Close the Blinds as one peeks into an apartment window above the storefront. In every piece, Foolery invites his visitors to explore his meticulously crafted places until hopefully, he says, “the viewer gets absorbed and suspends disbelief, if even for a moment.”

Foolery built his first miniature environment into the dashboard of his Nash Rambler thirty-three years ago. He moved to using the inside of the small Kodak Brownie camera body, then theatre spotlights. Foolery had begun to play on the notion of the viewer as voyeur and the spotlight’s interiors offered a unique stage to present his narratives, a theme that persists in The Vendorama Series at MAM. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Foolery exhibited extensively with numerous solo and group exhibitions from Los Angeles to Seattle. That work tended to poke fun at the pretense of the art world as he became more familiar with it while living and working in San Francisco. In 1993, Foolery moved back to Montana, built his home and studio where he now lives and continues to create his wonderful follies focused on our more local Western scene.

Exhibitions Chicago. (Re)membering Modern in "Moholy: An Education of the Senses." The Loyola University Museum of Art. The Curated Object

Light Prop, 1930 Courtesy of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, NY, © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS) New York/ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Light Prop 2, Courtesy of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, NY, © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS) New York/ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Light Prop 3, Courtesy of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, NY, © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS) New York/ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Light Prop Detail, Courtesy of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, NY, © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS) New York/ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
 
(Re)membering Modern, Moholy: An Education of the Senses

January 19, 2010-May 9, 2010

By Anastasia Kruglyashova

Light, space, time, motion – the four major forces of the world’s existence all intertwined in a dramatic visual “stage play” in the multifaceted artwork of the great Austro-Hungarian modernist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, whose retrospective exhibition is currently on view at the Loyola University Museum of Art in Chicago. Exploring the depths of visual perception by experimenting with the fundamental natural phenomena of our physical originis the essential characteristic of Moholy-Nagy’s work, and the title of the exhibition – An Education of the Senses – exposes just that, the artist’s major enchantment with the idea of enlightening our senses, bringing literacy to our emotions. 

"Moholy: An Education of the Senses," demonstrates Moholy-Nagy’s ever-evolving vision, largely delving into the realm of not what we see, but rather how we see, and the forces that influence our perception. Starting with the artist’s transcendental photographs and films of city life in Gallery 1 that focus on the visual quality of objects, the exhibition then takes the viewer on a journey into a purely abstract world of Moholy-Nagy’s works, such as photograms (or photographic light drawings) created from a direct relationship with light and multiple experimentations around the idea, continuing with the artist’s study of geometric forms in lithographs in Gallery 3, and the effect that resulted from a combination of the artist’s research of light and geometry in the sculpture in Gallery 4. The excerpt from Moholy-Nagy’s book Vision in Motion in Gallery 5 underlines the exhibition’s fundamental goal, highlighting the artist’s ideas about the development of creative self by experimentation – the concept that unified the artists and architects of the Bauhaus school.  

To Moholy-Nagy the spirit of machinery replaced the transcendental spiritualism of the past, and the artist saw purity in it, being free from the class-consciousness. Moholy-Nagy believed in the power of machinery, especially the development of photography and film that largely took place in the 1920s and 1930s. The artist realized their untold expressive potential and their power to shape modern vision and sensual perception by experimenting and creating never before seen techniques such as photomontages, photograms (works made without a camera by putting objects on or near light sensitive paper and exposing the paper to light) or photographs combined with typographic images. Moholy-Nagy was interested in creating a radically new language that he believed could change our perception of the world. That language was all about experimentation, not a mere reproduction characteristic of the past traditions. Moholy-Nagy felt film and photography had given humankind the opportunity to experience space in a new way, and to espy surroundings and the existence itself with new eyes. So, the advancement of technology allowed perceiving to realize new dimension – new soul of industrialism.

Presented in Gallery 1 of the exhibition, Moholy-Nagy’s short black and white film "Berliner Stilleben" (Berlin Still Life), 1931 and several photographs lack a storyline as such, but the artist is not interested in creating any intentionally. To him, the city’s spontaneous street life is a plot in itself. Instead, the artist focuses on the visual – on any detail his camera would catch and scrutinize – people and the objects surrounding them, a close study of a facial expression as in the photo image Ellen Frank, 1929, a bridge, or recording the ground from the streetcar in motion as in Berlin Still Life. Close proximity of the random objects raises them to a near abstraction when it becomes challenging for the viewer to recognize the familiar. “Employing extreme cropping, layering forms, experimenting with exposure, and capturing light and shadow, Moholy-Nagy radically alters our perspective”, the exhibition’s promotional material states. 

The artist’s constructivist watercolors and collages in Gallery 3 represent his devotion to the avant-garde ideals of the time that largely influenced Moholy-Nagy’s vision and the way he viewed the development of the modern society. In his work titled G. SMIRG, 1923, geometric forms coincide in the composition; at the same time each form is translucent and so is seen clearly. Moholy-Nagy believed in the ingenious power of each individual within a society and this work manifests his belief that each human being can maintain individualism within a social group. The clear geometry of forms in the work also reflects the artist’s belief in the emergence of a new post-war society free from the past and open to the future.  

The sculptural work "The Light Prop," in the exhibition’s Gallery 4, perhaps, has had the greatest impact on Moholy-Nagy’s whole career as an artist and his followers. Composed of individual mechanical parts, the sculpture turns into a moving mechanism once activated – all the parts driven by the “dynamic-constructive system of forces” seamlessly interact creating a diaphanous interaction between light, shadows and reflections on the surrounding walls. The sculpture – a representation of kinetic art, innovation, and the aesthetic of machinery – is also the motive of Moholy-Nagy’s empirical film titled "Lightplay: Black-White-Grey," 1930. Shown on several large-format projections in Gallery 2 of the exhibition, the film is an all-encompassing study of light, engaging the viewer’s perception in a new experience. 

Consisting of five separate galleries – each a reflection of Moholy-Nagy’s different artistic period [s], from his experimentations with photographs and their derivatives in the form of photo-collages and photograms to other forms of the artist’s creative expression throughout his life including films, lithographs, books, and a single sculptural work based on mechanical principles that proved crucial to his career – the exhibition is an insightful and cogent study of Modernism as visualized by Moholy-Nagy, and an unchallengeable proof that Modernism was much more than a mere “absence of the past tradition” while it attempted to respond to the social changes of the time.

For more information please visit: The Loyola University Museum of Art

Exhibitions San Francisco. Pocket Guide to New Zealand Jewelry. Velvet da Vinci Gallery. The Curated Object

Alan Preston, Pendant: Breastplate 2006, Gold lip oyster shell, vau, gold, 14,5 cm breastplate, 7,5 cm pendant 

Lisa Walker, Necklace: Untitled 2006, New Zealand mussel shells, wool, plastic, glue, fabric, 55 cm

Octavia Cook, Brooch: A Diplomatic Acquisition for the Ambassador of the Bi-Cultural Merger 2008 Bakelite, acrylic, sterling silver, 10 x 8 x 0,8 cm

Warwick Freeman, Brooch: Face Ache 2007, Horse tooth, sterling silver, 2,5 x 2,5 x 2 cm 

Jason Hall, Pendant: Shotgun Heart 2009, Shotgun barrel, linen cord, 3,5 x 1,5 cm

Warwick Freeman, Brooches: Kiwi Footprint stone, sterling silver, 8 x 3,5 x 1 cm 

Anna Wallis, Pendant: Large White Crystal Pendant 2009, Sterling silver, powdercoat enamel, 7 x 4 x 4 cm 

The Pocket Guide to New Zealand

January 13-Feb. 28, 2010

During the Second World War, American soldiers in New Zealand were issued an informative and witty guide to familiarize themselves with the country in which they were stationed. Published by the War and Navy Departments in 1943, Pocket Guide to New Zealand was, as the name promised, a descriptive guide to the history, culture, peoples and language of New Zealand. "Deep in the heart of the south seas", the guide suggested, soldiers would discover a society both similar and different to America. Reassuring readers that New Zealanders were a pioneering society who had been "seeing our movies, listening to our radio, and reading our magazines", the Pocket Guide to New Zealand concluded that American soldiers would meet "a people with some of the British reserve, with many British methods and institutions, but with American outspokenness and directness "plus a working knowledge of American slang."

Five decades later, the Pocket Guide to New Zealand Jewelry continues this tradition of cultural exchange, introducing a new generation of Americans to contemporary jewelry made "deep in the heart of the south seas". Small enough to fit in your pocket, yet big enough to survey the best contemporary jewelers currently working in New Zealand, the Pocket Guide to New Zealand Jewelry is an indispensable introduction to the history and practice of adornment in a country that continues to transform cultural influences from England (and Europe) and America into jewelry that American audiences will find both familiar and strange. 

Participating artists: Anna Wallis, Jane Dodd, Jason Hall, Peter Deckers, Fran Allison, Warwick Freeman, Areta Wilkinson, Alan Preston, Renee Bevan, Lisa Walker, Peter McKay, Lynn Kelly, Octavia Cook, Andrea Daly, Pauline Bern, Niki Hastings-McFall

Curated by Dr. Damian Skinner

For more information please visit: Velvet da Vinci

 

Exhibitions Fremantle, Australia. Expanded Ceramithéque Drug Time Present, An Exploration into 1970s and 80s Ceramics. The Fremantle Art Center. The Curated Object

Nite Store by Kathy Morano

Guy Benfield, Mother Door Spirit Level, 2007, performance, Jack the Pelican Presents, New York
 

Guy Benfield: Expanded Ceramitéque Drug Time Present

January 30 - March 14, 2010

Guy Benfield returns to Fremantle Arts Centre to present Expanded Ceramithéque Drug Time Present, an exploration into 1970s and 80s ceramics. A quasi-anthropologist, Benfield takes cues from architectural structures and material culture of utopian groups. He immerses himself in the brown, encrusted ceramics synonymous with the era: relics and reminders incorporated into his own pop-psychedelic aesthetic. In a rare glimpse into the City of Fremantle Art Collection, dated ceramics are incorporated with gusto into Benfield’s chaotic installation. The result is an eclectic collection of objects and textures – the homely brown ceramics of the City of Fremantle Art Collection alongside those of his own creation, contrasted with the faux-wood grain, woven textures and silver foils that permeate his own personal style.

Expanded Ceramithéque Drug Time Present is a point of reflection on the history of ceramics in Fremantle. Still a vestige of creativity in WA, Benfield has used his time in Fremantle to capture the vibrancy and honesty of the ceramic craft. Joined by artist and collaborator Constanze Zikos, Guy Benfields’ opening night performance will transform the gallery space through a séance like disco. His choreographed chorus of silver and clay reflects upon a recent era in which the hand-made, the backyard and the local seemed paramount. 

 

Exhibitions NYC. Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect, Visionary. The Drawing Center. The Curated Object

Study for Metastaseis, 1954, Ink on paper, 9 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches, Iannis Xenakis Archives, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris

Study for Polytope de Montréal (light score), c. 1966, Color pencil on paper, 9 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches, Iannis Xenakis Archives, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris 

Study for Terretektorh, c. 1965 –66, Color pencil on paper, 8 1/2 x 11 3/4 inches, Iannis Xenakis Archives, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris

Study for Metastaseis, 1953, Pencil on paper, 9 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches, Iannis Xenakis Archives, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris

Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect, Visionary

January 15 – April 8, 2010

The Drawing Center announces Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect, Visionary, onview in the Main Gallery from January 15 – April 8, 2010. The exhibition will explore thefundamental role of drawing in the work of avant-garde composer Iannis Xenakis (1922–2001).One of the most important figures in late twentieth-century music, Xenakis originally trained as an engineer and was also known as an architect, developing iconic designs while working with Le Corbusier in the 1950s. This premiere presentation of Xenakis’s visual work in North America will be comprised of samples of his pioneering graphic notation, architectural plans, compelling preparatory mathematical renderings, and pre-compositional sketches—in all, nearly 100 documents created between 1953 and 1984. Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect, Visionary is cocurated by Xenakis scholar Sharon Kanach and critic Carey Lovelace and will travel to the Canadian Centre for Architecture (June 17 – October 17, 2010) and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (November 7, 2010 – February 13, 2011). 

The exhibition will be accompanied by an ambitious schedule of public programs, concerts, and symposia around New York in collaboration with Electronic Music Foundation (EMF), 92YTribeca, Brooklyn Experimental Media Center at Polytechnic Institute of New York University, Diapason Gallery, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), the New York University Percussion Ensemble, the Miller Theatre at Columbia University, and The Morgan Library & Museum. Programs will include a virtual-reality recreation of the programming within the Philips Pavilion, taking place at the Judson Church; a month-long sound installation recreating several of his works; a three-day symposium exploring the composer/architect’s ongoing impact in music and design; performances of Xenakis’s compositions; and a film program. The exhibition will coincide with the 2010 launch of The Xenakis Project of the Americas, under the auspices of the Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation within the Graduate Center of City University of New York.

One of the world’s most widely performed contemporary composers, Xenakis brought together architecture, sound, and advanced contemporary mathematics, moving away from traditional polyphony to create music comprised of masses of sound, shifting abstract aural gestures, linear permutation, and sonic pointillism. A groundbreaking interdisciplinary approach was also apparent in his architectural creations, such as the Philips Pavilion, an icon of twentieth-century architecture, which Xenakis created under Le Corbusier for the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. The design of the Philips Pavilion’s volumetric structure was inspired by the glissandi—glides between pitches—that made up Xenakis’s groundbreaking orchestral work Metastaseis (1953–54). The meticulously rendered works on view in the exhibition burst with kinetic energy and palpable sonic qualities,providing a singular insight into this extraordinary innovator’s process of “thinking through the hand.” In addition, listening stations and preloaded iPods and will provide an intimate aural experience to accompany the works on view.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Iannis Xenakis was born in 1922 in Braïla, Romania, and died in 2001 in Paris, France. A Greek Resistance fighter in World War II, he fled to France as a political refugee in 1947. Having obtained an engineering degree from the Athens Polytechnic Institute, he collaborated with Le Corbusier in Paris from 1947–1959. From 1950–1953, while working with the noted architect, he studied composition at the Paris Conservatory under Olivier Messiaen. Xenakis’s collaboration with Le Corbusier as an engineer and architect yielded innovative projects such as the Couvent de La Tourette (1955) and the Philips Pavilion at the Brussels World’s Fair (1958). Xenakis was also a speculative thinker, the author of such books as Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition; Music and Architecture; and Arts/Sciences: Alloys. He was the founder (1965) and Director of the Center for Studies of Mathematical and Automated Music (CEMAMu) in Paris; Associate Professor, Electronic Music and founder and Director, Center for Mathematical and Automated Music (CMAM) at Indiana University in Bloomington (1967–72); researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris (1970); Gresham Professor of Music, City University London (1975); and Professor at the University of Paris (1972–89). Iannis Xenakis was awarded the Kyoto Prize in 1997, considered the Nobel Prize of Music, and the Polar Prize in 1999.

ABOUT THE CURATORS

Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect, Visionary is co-curated by Sharon Kanach and Carey Lovelace. Sharon Kanach, a Paris-based new music specialist who worked closely with Xenakis until the end of his life, has edited and translated several books of his writings. New York-based critic Carey Lovelace is co-president emeritus of the International Association of Art Critics, U.S. Chapter, anda writer for Art in America, Artforum, and other publications. Lovelace, formerly an avant-garde composer, and Kanach both attended Xenakis’s legendary class at the Université de Paris I, which he led from 1972 through 1989.

For more information please visit: The Drawing Center

 

 

Exhibitions Philadelphia. Philagrafika 2010. Various Venues. The Curated Object

ARTIST: Pepón Osorio 

You’re Never Ready, 2009, 

Inkjet print on confetti, MDF support, 

Courtesy of the artist

You’re Never Ready is a bed of confetti on which the artist printed an enlarged image of an X-ray of his mother’s head which, ghost-like, seems to glow with an ethereal inner light. Using his own story as a means of acknowledging our inability to be fully prepared for the inevitable loss of loved ones, Osorio fuses a celebration of his mother’s life with a potent reminder of her mortality.

ARTIST: Betsabeé Romero 

Always finding another cage, 2010, Carved public transportation tires, prints on wire mesh, Installation view at Moore College of Art & Design, Philadelphia
Photo: Amanda Mott, Courtesy the artist

ARTIST: Francesc Ruiz 

Installation view of Francesc Ruiz, “Newsstand,” 2010, 

Wooden structure, printed magazines and newspapers, 

Installation view at Temple Gallery, Tyler School of Art, Temple University as a part of Philagrafika 2010; Philadelphia, PA 

Photo: Image courtesy of the artist.

ARTIST: Óscar Muñoz 

Installation shot of Narcisos (Narcissi) , by Óscar Muñoz (Colombian, born 1951) 

1999. Suite of nine works; charcoal powder on Plexiglas, 

Courtesy of the artist and Sicardi Gallery, 

Photo by Constance Mensh, Courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art

Philagrafika 2010

January 29 through April 11, 2010

Showcasing 300 international artists at some 80 venues, Philagrafika 2010 — the first of what's hoped to be a new triennial in Philadelphia — bills itself as the largest art festival in the United States, and the largest in the world devoted to graphic arts. Conceived by Colombian artist Jose Roca, who lived in Philadelphia a few years ago while on fellowship at the Institute of Contemporary Art, the event is devoted to exploring the dynamic, and often unexpected, role of printmaking in contemporary art. Virtually every conceivable use of print shows up: from illustration to bookmaking, from woodcut to video, from sculptor to fabric. 

The 100 works featured in "Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations [Of A Crazy World]" are some of the more traditional. Washed in lemon yellows and hyacinth lavenders, these gouaches and colored pencil drawings depict a cozy world of dogs and books, a place where the pleasures of writing, thinking, and observing are keenly felt and the pace is never rushed. Culled from a 30-year-ouevre of work for The New Yorker and from her book illustrations, once seen, they become instantly identifiable. There are Thurbersque self-portraits and Hockney-like interiors. There's a Matissean love of color and pattern, and a fondness for vignettes. Kalman's feminine vision of domesticity is further heightened here by the presence of quirky personal objects — old ironing boards, ladders, and ephemera — from her studio and home.

At the nearby Arthur Ross Gallery, also part of the University of Pennsylvania, sculptor Miler Lagos and a cadre of assistants pasted two tons of old newspapers end-to-end, before hand-rolling the resulting carpet into a cylinder that's seven-feet in diameter. Lagos gently singed the paper, then turned the cylinder on its side and viola — the whole thing looks like a cross-section of a felled tree. The work is, he says, "about reversing the printing process, and turning the paper back into a 'tree'."

These two, very diverse, exhibits are part of Philagrafika's largest segment, "Independent Projects." The core exhibition, "The Graphic Unconsciousness" features work by 35 artists from 18 countries at Moore College of Art & Design; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Philadelphia Museum of Art; The Print Center; and Temple Gallery, Tyler School of Art, Temple University. "Out of Print" asks five artists to create site-specific works inspired by the five historic Philadelphia institutions —the American Philosophical Society (APS) Museum; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Independence Seaport Museum; the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and the Rosenbach Museum & Library — with which they are matched. — JoAnn Greco

For more information, please visit philagrafika2010.org

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 

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 

 

Manieristischer Rahmen | Süddeutsch, um 1600 | Inv.-Nr. R 2348 | Bild: Bartholomäus Spranger, Beweinung Christi | Inv.-Nr. 2370 | Kat. Nr. 2

FOTO: BAYERISCHE STAATSGEMäLDESAMMLUNGEN | ALTE PINAKOTHEK

Prunkrahmen im Stil des Rokoko | Ansbach, um 1740 | Inv.-Nr. R 1486 | Bild: Johann Christian Sperling, Markgraf Carl Wilhelm Friedrich von Brandenburg-Ansbach als 13-jähriger Knabe| | Inv.-Nr. 7181 | Kat. Nr. 25

FOTO: BAYERISCHE STAATSGEMäLDESAMMLUNGEN | ALTE PINAKOTHEK

Laubwerkrahmen | Deutsch, um 1639 | Inv.-Nr. R 2331 | Bild: Anonymer Künstler | Inv.-Nr. 13031 | Kat. Nr. 6

FOTO: BAYERISCHE STAATSGEMäLDESAMMLUNGEN | ALTE PINAKOTHEK

  

 

Kabinettrahmen | Deutsch, um 1680 | Inv.-Nr. R 2295 | Bild: Paul Troger, Simeons Lobgesang | Inv.-Nr. 10689 | Kat. Nr. 13

FOTO: BAYERISCHE STAATSGEMäLDESAMMLUNGEN | ALTE PINAKOTHEK

Ornamentrahmen im Stil des Rokoko | Mannheim, um 1750 | Inv.-Nr. R 1174 | Bild: Adriaen van der Werff, Nächtlicher Kinderschwank | Inv.- Nr. 264 | Kat. Nr. 66

FOTO: BAYERISCHE STAATSGEMäLDESAMMLUNGEN | ALTE PINAKOTHEK

Ornamentrahmen im Stil des Rokoko | Würzburg, um 1750 | Johann Wolfgang von der Auwera (1708-1756) | Inv.-Nr. R 643 | Bild: Simon de Vos, Sieben Werke der Barmherzigkeit | Inv.-Nr. 6642 | Kat. Nr. 54

FOTO: BAYERISCHE STAATSGEMäLDESAMMLUNGEN | ALTE PINAKOTHEK

Goldene Leiste, Ohrmuschel-oder Lutmarahmen | Holländisch, um 1660 | Inv.-Nr. R 1404 | Bild: Caspar Netscher, Schäferszene | Inv.-Nr. 110 | Kat.Nr. 9

FOTO: BAYERISCHE STAATSGEMäLDESAMMLUNGEN | ALTE PINAKOTHEK

Rokokorahmen | Passau, um 1776 | Inv.-Nr. R 2268 | Melchior Hefele (1716-1794) | Bild: Sebastian Vrancx, Reitergefecht | Inv.- Nr. 10707 | Kat. Nr. 71

FOTO: BAYERISCHE STAATSGEMäLDESAMMLUNGEN | ALTE PINAKOTHEK

Louis-XVI-Rahmen | Aschaffenburg oder Mainz, um 1780 | Inv.-Nr. R 2293 | Bild: Christian Georg Schütz d. Ä. (1718-1791), Rheinansicht bei Mainz | Inv.-Nr. 6434 | Kat. Nr. 78

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

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

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 


MORE

INFO:  312.369.8687 www.colum.edu/adgallery 

 

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.

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

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 

Exhibitions Baltimore. Beauty and the Brain: A Neural Approach to Aesthetics. Walters Art Museum. The Curated Object

La dame de Delos (The Woman of Delos), Jean Arp, 1959, plaster, 14 5/8 x 18 7/8 x 9 ½ inches, Adler & Conkright Fine Art, New York

Computer-generated Array, Computer-generated array based on La dame de Delos (The Woman of Delos), Jean Arp, 1959, Adler & Conkright Fine Art, New York 

Beauty and the Brain: A Neural Approach to Aesthetics

Jan. 23- April 11, 2010

Why do some works of art appeal so strongly to the human mind? Are artists really neuroscientists, trying to discover new and powerful ways to stimulate perceptual mechanisms in the brain? This collaboration between the Walters Art Museum and the Zanvyl Krieger Mind-Brain Institute at The Johns Hopkins University is a pioneering study in neuroesthetics, a new approach to the neural basis of the aesthetic experience.

Beauty and the Brain is both an exhibition and an experiment. Visitors will be invited to explore aesthetic spaces created by digitally morphing original works of art. Subject areas include modern abstract sculptures by renowned 20th-century artist Jean Arp. Responses from participants will be used to analyze how 3-D shape characteristics define aesthetic preference. The results will form the basis for experiments measuring aesthetic responses in the human brain with functional magnetic resonance imaging.

This exhibition is funded in part by The Johns Hopkins University Brain Science Institute.

For more information please visit: The Walters Art Museum