The Curated Object

Exhibitions Philadelphia. The Peacock Male: Exuberance and Extremes in Masculine Dress. The Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Curated Object

Man's "Paper" Shirt,  Late  1960s.  Artist/maker  unknown,  German.  Multicolored  printed  spun‐bonded  polyester  (paper),  31  1/2  x  64  inches  (80  x  162.6  cm).  Philadelphia  Museum  of  Art,  Purchased with  funds  from  the  gift  of  Mrs.  Victor  M.  Friar,  2009.  



Herald's  Tabard,  1707‐14.  Artist/maker  unknown,  English.  Silk  satin  weave  with  silk  and  gilt fabric  appliqué;  silk  and  gilt  thread  embroidery  in  couching  and  satin  stitches  and  laid  work;  glass beads,  Center  Back  Length:  34  inches  (86.4  cm).  Philadelphia  Museum  of  Art,  Gift  of  Elizabeth Malcolm Bowman  in  memory  of  Wendell  Phillips  Bowman,  1930. 

 

Man's  Jacket, c.1950s.  Browning  King & Co. Black and white zebra‐striped  plush.  Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of Louis C. Madeira,1979. 

 

Man's  Jacket  with Miró‐Inspired   Designs,  Fall/Winter  1991‐92.  Designed  by  Yohji Yamamoto, Japanese, born 1943.  Red and brown wool,  Center  Back  Length:  33  ¼  inches  (84.5  cm). Philadelphia  Museum  of  Art,  Gift  from  the  private  collection  of  John  Cale,  2000.   

 

Man's  Bondage  Suit:  Jacket  and  Trousers  with    Attached  Knee  Strap,  c.  1990. Designed  by  Vivienne  Westwood,  English,  born  1941.  Bright  orange/red   wool.  Philadelphia  Museum  of Art,  Purchased  with  the  Costume  and  Textiles  Revolving  Fund,  2000.  

Man's  Shoes,  c.  1973.  Artist/maker  unknown,  Italian.  Black  and  brown  leather,  red  suede. Philadelphia  Museum  of  Art.  Gift  of  Darrel  Sewell,  1989.   

The Peacock Male: Exuberance and Extremes in Masculine Dress

January 22 - June, 2011

By JoAnn Greco

Looking around the small gallery devoted to exhibiting a brisk survey of three centuries of male clothing, one might be tempted to murmur, "Peacock? What peacock?" True, there's a plume-laden, sparkle-burdened Mummers costume on hand, but that's cheating. More typical is another ensemble that nods to Philadelphia roots: a year 2000 or so getup created from Phillies-logoed wear. It's an ugly mashup that, like many other outfits on display here, seem to suggest that men when they try to be "peacocks" simply jumble color and pattern, not masterfully create complete looks.

Even the oldest items on display, from 18th-century Europe, are rather muted affairs, compared to what womanly counterparts might have been wearing. Richer colors and patterns do show up in the exhibit's best vitrine, one filled with top hats, linen slippers, and kerchiefs from the mid-19th-century. And a vitrine of male paraphernalia from the 1920s, '30s and '40s — spats, suspenders, collars, boater hats — suggests the elegance of Noel Coward or Fred Astaire.

Newer pieces skew animal (1950s), psychedelic (1960s), autumnal (those awful mustards and browns from 1970s leisure suits), and hip hop graphic. A few contemporary names — Yohji Yamamoto, Vivienne Westwood, and Gianni Versace — make the cut, too. 

It's all very interesting, but not beautiful. When it comes to showing off, this exhibit seems to tell us, men don't have a patch — or a bejeweled bodice — on women.

For more information please visit: The Philadelphia Museum of Art 

Exhibitions NYC. The Diary: Three Centuries of Private Lives. The Morgan Library and Museum. The Curated Object

 

 St. Augustine (354–430). Confessiones. Strasbourg: Johann Mentelin, ca. 1465–70. Title page of the first printed edition. Purchased by Pierpont Morgan before 1913. photography by Graham Haber, 2010.

Diaries of Henry David Thoreau (1817– 1862), 1837–61, with pencils made by J. Thoreau & Co., the Thoreau family pencil factory. Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1909. photography by Graham Haber, 2010.

Manuscript diary of Albert Einstein (1879– 1955), 1922–23. Gift of The Heineman Foundation to The Dannie & Hettie Heineman Collection, 1981. photography by Graham Haber, 2010.

William S. Burroughs (1914–1997).The Retreat Diaries (first edition, inscribed by Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg). New York: City Moon, 1976. Gift of the family of Carter Burden. photography by Graham Haber, 2010.

Manuscript diary entry by Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855), in a minuscule hand, 1836. Bequest of Helen Safford Bonnell, 1969.photography by Graham Haber, 2010.

 

Miniature Dutch almanac and blank book, 1776. Bequest of Julia P. Wightman, 1994.photography by Graham Haber, 2010.

Manuscript chess diary of John Ruskin (1819– 1900), ca. 1880s. Bequest of Helen Gill Viljoen, 1974. photography by Graham Haber, 2010.

 

The Diary: Three Centuries of Private Lives

January 21 - May 22, 2011

By JoAnn Greco

The questions surrounding the purpose of keeping a diary or journal seem especially relevant in these over-sharing times of tweets and blogs. And the idea of a physical testimony of how we spent our days and what we thought while whiling them away is, too, pertinent as increasingly these impressions are confined to the netherworld of cyberspace.

The material objects on display here range from leatherbound to marbelized, from ledger-sized to a few square inches. Some are typed, some are written in code. Words laid down in plain old handwriting range from the swoopingly elegant to the meticulously tiny. The works of the genre's big guns — from Samuel Pepys to Anais Nin — all show up here and while their content is, of course, endlessly fascinating, their very solidness enthralls, too.

The repositories in which writers choose to wrap their words tell us a lot about the eras in which they lived, of course. But Henry David Thoreau's inclusion of a delicate sketch of a feather he found near Walden Pond, Pepys' reliance on a hieroglyphic-like shorthand, and Tennessee William's selection of a small blue journal sprinkled with cream polka dots to help him through a rough patch ("a black day to begin a blue journal," he wrote on page one), also reveal much about the writers themselves. 

And when words are avoided altogether, such as in Bob Dylan's Matisse-like sketch of a Memphis hotel room or Albert Einstein's mathematical doodle, we are rewarded with a very clear picture of where the diarist was at a very particular moment.

Whether, like Williams working through hard times, or like John Steinbeck dissecting the creation of one specific project ("The Grapes of Wrath"), these diaries serve specific purposes. Even Pepys, with his oft-mundane ramblings, turns out, of course, to be a great chronicler. 

But, we learn — and from our own experience, we already know this! — writers hate to look back on their own musings.

The great New Yorker humorist says his journals are "full of rubbish," the Victorian critic John Ruskin was probably thankful he left some pages blank while going through troubled times, and novelist Kingsley Amis, upon looking back, simply jots in a margin, "thank God I no longer feel this way."

For more information please visit www.themorgan.org

 

Exhibitions NYC. The Tenets of Taste, The Thomas Hope Collection of Philip Hewat-Jaboor at Carlton Hobbs Gallery. The Carlton Hobbs Gallery. The Curated Object

 

Detail of the

Ancient Roman Mosaic Glass Tabletop /Carlton Hobbs

 

 

 

 

An Imperial Giltwood Gueridon, The Top Veneered With Ancient Mosaic Glass Fragments Attributed to the Workshop of Francesco Sibilio Bearing the Monogram of Nicholas I of Russia. The Top Rome, circa1825; The Giltwood Gueridon Russian, circa 1825. /Carlton Hobbs LLC

 

 

 

 

An Interesting Set of Four Drawings of Torcheres. English, circa 1790. /Carlton Hobbs LLC

The Tenets of Taste: The Thomas Hope Collection of Philip Hewat-Jaboor at Carlton Hobbs-- Until Feb. 18, 2011 (Final Days!)

by Natalie Fasano

“ It is never an attestation of a value, or even of our imperfect sense of one, it is never a tribute to any truth at all, that we shall represent that value badly. It never makes up, artistically, for an artist's dim feeling about a thing that he shall "do" the thing as ill as possible. There are better ways than that, the best of all of which is to begin with less stupidity.” -- Henry James, 1881. 

There are many qualities attributed to “value” when it comes to the industry of art and design, and it is not always the most important piece that commands the highest market price. As of yet, no universal authority on the monetization of artistic style has emerged to definitively answer the age-old question—is it really worth it?  Carlton Hobbs, one of the worlds foremost dealers in 17th, 18th and 19th century antiquities and works of art would respond that any thing, even the smallest snuffbox, is always worth having— just as long as it appears to the buyer to be constructed of “layers of excitement,” a source of endless stimulation. Hobbs’ close friend, private art consultant and collector, Philip Hewat-Jaboor, agrees with him.  “When it comes to dealing,” he adds, “only buy things that do that to you.”

Recently, Jaboor presented his collection of Thomas Hope furniture, the largest to be sold since 1917, at the Carlton Hobbs Gallery.  Hobbs and his Partner cum Gallery Directrice Stephanie Rinza expertly integrated the new pieces into the Gallery’s existing collection—so impressive it’s almost off-putting—giving further credence to their mutual conception of objective value and belief in structural perfection. “Dealers have to allow their personal feelings to come through what they bought,” Hobbs explains of his profession; “it’s why you have a relationship with certain dealers, you just know that everything in their gallery is something they’re excited about.  You trust in their eye.”

Of course, the value of a piece is not solely subject to the whims of personal sentiment.  A certain consciousness of history and tradition, and of how successfully a designer translates qualities of the past, without gross neglect the present, must come into account when considering stylistic integrity. Thomas Hope was not a stupid man, and his commitment to “doing the thing well;” namely, in rendering elements of classical design intelligible to 19^th century taste, was adhered to with academic exactitude. A wealthy Dutch and British banker endowed with the financial means, free time and “eye” for interesting objects—requisites of a successful 19^th century cognoszenti—Hope’s success was well apportioned to his abilities.

His book “Household Furniture,” published in 1807, reads like a step-by-step guide to the provenance of the Regency style; this first interior design publication, replete with sketches and notes from Hope himself, is a highly valuable artifact to individuals such as Hobbs and Rinza, who are deeply involved in the research and documentation of design history.

It is no small wonder that the Philip Hewat-Jaboor collection of Thomas Hope designs had an animating effect on the Gallery. Indeed, the volume of visitors since the opening was excitedly remarked upon.  It is also unsurprising that the two men, when called to reflect upon the success of the exhibition and the history of its Dutch patron, appeared themselves to be constructed of layers of excitement. “The Hope things here,” Hobbs explains, “are obviously in a different environment. But they work just as well.”  That is the attribute of a quality object. Wherever they are placed, they can hold their own.  Scale is also important; an object of fantastic design works whether it’s six inches or six feet high.” One can imagine Hobbs’ excitement when Jaboor’s crates arrived, and with what youthful pleasure a place for each piece was found.

Both Hobbs and Rinza did well to scatter Hope’s designs throughout the Gallery, showcasing this ability to “hold their own” beside equally fantastic objects—of varying dimensions and periods of design— acquired by Hobbs and Rinza over the years. Touring the Gallery with Jaboor, my attention was called to a number of objects that, though familiar to him by now, did not cease to amaze and excite. “If you are going to start collecting, or to spend money, there is no reason not to. One deserves the best.”

“Today, there is a certain seriousness, a desire for knowledge [among collectors.]  The ante has been raised, and people ought to have the very best,” says Hobbs.  Both men throughout our discussion mentioned the idea of the “best,” and more than once.  I marveled at the ease with which they used such a loaded, and complex, word. Evidently, the “best” is not only attainable, but there are also those—like Hope, Hobbs, Jaboor and others—capable of seeking it out.  To Jaboor, Peter Wilson, former Chairman of Sotheby’s Board, stood out as a man with “the most phenomenal eye and feel for commerce.  He could become so focused on one thing, so dismissive of everything else, wanting only the best.”  In this case, the “best” was an inches high ebony sculpture residing on a forgotten shelf.  An encounter with the “best” “makes your heart beat the fastest.” 

Both Hobbs and Jaboor were hopeful of the future of design collection in America. The willingness of Museum directors, curators, dealers and consultants to assist in research efforts has resulted not only in major gifts to Museums and identification of provenance for dealers, but also in a tremendous amount of new information available to collectors. Regarding the current scarcity of  “top level objects” over the past ten years, Hobbs remarks:  “collectors aren’t all hoarders.  There is a slower turnaround because of this remarkable new generation. They have taken to commissioning contemporary art, as well as restoring and rebuilding these very large country houses, and looking after them because they are able to do it.” If anything, it is the scarcity of quality objects that lends excitement to the contemporary moment. “I have a network of people who find great things; I was in South America a long time ago, but it always shocks me how a small, unpublished country home in Northern England can still have a stock of great things.” 

Both Jaboor and Hobbs were optimistic of contemporary architecture and design, noting the vast opportunity available to emerging talents in China, where “so much has to be built there. They are lending a carte blanche to architects, letting their imagination really let loose.”  One talent stood out in Hobbs’ mind, a young architect whose shellfish and plant inspired designs will be able to be viewed from space.  “I thought, ‘Thank God something amazing is going on.’”

Hanging above an enormous white mantelpiece, in an upstairs atria of the Gallery, directly to the right of the marble foyer currently housing Hope’s Duchess Street Settee, designed in 1802, were four pencil drawn sketches of torches.  On one, the third from the left was written: “I choose this.”  Though not a design of Hope’s, this particular design was the “best” to someone. The genius of longevity for men like Hope lay in the fact that a lot of people agreed with them. 

For more information please visit: The Carlton Hobbs Gallery

 

 

 

Exhibitions Wichita. The Art of Adornment: Artists Embellish the Body. The Wichita Art Museum. The Curated Object

 

Marjorie Schick, Schiaparelli’s Circles, 2005. Painted wood, canvas, and thread. On load from the artist, courtesy of the Wichita Art Museum

Gina Westergard, Eclipse (Funerary Urn) 2005. Copper, sterling silver, gold leaf, palladium leaf, enamel paint, chrysoprase, On loan from the artist, courtesy of the Wichita Art Museum

Larry Schwarm, Melvin Miller, Greensburg, KS, 2000. Color photograph. On loan from the artist, courtesy of the Wichita Art Museum

Larry Schwarm, Ann, Emporia, 2001. Color photograph. On loan from the artist, courtesy of the Wichita Museum of Art

The Art of Adornment: Artists Embellish the Body

January 23-May 29, 2011

 

The Wichita Art Museum explores one of the most basic of human elements: to define and express one’s uniqueness by adorning the body. Centuries of artists have sought inspiration from the human form, and the exhibition The Art of Adornment: Artists Embellish the Body, celebrates the age-old muse - the human body. 

Guest curator and art dealer Trish Higgins, along with the Museum’s Chief Curator Stephen Gleissner, have currated a new and unique exhibition that invites artists who have already made their mark in a particular medium to create art that either theoretically or literally adorns the human body. This eclectic mix of objects ranges from sculptures featuring wigs as their foundations, to photographs of tattooed bodies and jewelry of precious metals as well as found objects. The goal of the exhibition is to give viewers a peek inside the human psyche.

For more information please visit: The Wichita Art Museum

Exhibitions Holon. Post Fossil: Excavating 21st Century Creation (and check out the mad cow chair). Design Museum, Holon. The Curated Object

Mad cow by Samuel Ben Shalom for Talents, courtesy of The Design Museum, Holon

Yuval Shaul, Black Jaw, courtesy of Design Museum Holon

  Shir Atar, Elevation, courtesy of the Design Museum, Holon

Guus Van Leeuwen_Domestic Animals_Radiator, 2008, Photo by Renee van der Hulst

Tal Gur Cad Katan, 2004 courtesy of the Design Museum, Holon

 

Post Fossil: Excavating 21st Century Creation 

January 27 - April 30, 2011 Time has come for extreme change. Society is ready to break away from last century for good. To break with creative conventions, theoretic rules and stigmas that now are questioned, challenged and broken. To break with a materialistic mentality replacing it with the crafted materialisation of modest earth-bound and recomposed matter.   Time has come for extreme change. Society is ready to break away from last century for good. To break with creative conventions, theoretic rules and stigmas that now are questioned, challenged and broken. To break with a materialistic mentality replacing it with the crafted materialisation of modest earth-bound and recomposed matter. In the aftermath of the worst financial crisis in decades, a period of glamorous and streamlined design for design's sake comes to an end. A new generation of designers retrace their roots, refine their earth and research their history, sometimes going back to the beginning of time. In this process, they form and formulate design around natural and sustainable materials, favoring timber, hide, pulp, fibre, earth and fire. Like contemporary cavemen, they reinvent shelter, redesign tools and manmade machines, and conceptualize archaic rituals for a more modest, content and contained lifestyle. Like a Fred Flintstone of the future. Lidewij Edelkoort | Exhibition Director   For more information please visit: Design Museum, Holon

Exhibitions Prague. Adolf Vrhel: Photographs. Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague. The Curated Object

Adolf Vrhel, Herec Miroslav Horniček doma, 1970, Foto: UPM

 

Adolf Vrhel, Návrh výzdoby vstupní haly elektrárny A1, cca 1970, Foto: UPM

 

Adolf Vrhel, Konstrukce, 1963, Foto: UPM

Adolf Vrhel, Návrh výzdoby podniku ZEZ, Rychnov nad Kněžnou,1967, Foto: UPM

Adolf Vrhel, Autoportrét, 1967, Foto: UPM

Adolf Vrhel, Reklama podniku Kara, Trutnov 2. pol. 60. let, Foto: UPM

 

Adolf Vrhel: Photographs

January 27th—April 17th, 2011

Czech photography of the 1960s was highly variegated in terms of theme and genre. Adolf Vrhel (1935—1975) was one of the numerous outstanding figures in photography of the time. Although he graduated in architecture, he became a professional photographer, collaborating mainly with the Domov (Home) magazine. He produced a great many photos of home furnishings and decorative arts created by an entire generation of young designers in the fields of furniture, textile, glass, ceramics and fashion clothing. Concurrently, he designed and realized monumental photographic compositions for interiors. These works featured details from nature and attested to his fascination with the world of modern technology. 

For more information please visit: Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague

 

 

 

 

 

Exhibitions Tokyo. 300 Years of Meissen. The Suntory Museum of Art. The Curated Object

Vases with Mythological figures
Model mid 18th century
Manufactured ca. 1880-1900
Museum of MEISSEN Art, MEISSEN Manufactory

300 Years of Meissen

Saturday 8 January 8 - March 6, 2011

The year 2011 coincides with the 150th anniversary of Japan-Germany trade relations and the previous year, 2010, marked the 300th anniversary of the establishment of the German factory at Meissen, the birthplace of Western porcelain. In recognition of these landmarks, this exhibition presents the drama of the birth of Western porcelain along with the complete story of its 300-year history through a selection of the very best of the roughly 20,000 pieces in the collection of the Museum of MEISSEN Art, MEISSEN Manufactory. Much more than cultural heritage with a history, this collection plays an important role as a precious resource that continues to sustain the production of Meissen ware even today, and represents a museum that could be possible only at a “living manufactory”.

On par with spices and silks, the most precious of trade articles between East and West, Chinese porcelains became known as “white gold” and gradually attracted the fascination of the European nobility from the time of the Age of Exploration onward. One wildly enthusiastic collector of these porcelains was Friedrich AugustⅠ(known as August the Strong, 1670-1733), Elector of Sachsen. Under his order, alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger developed a formula for manufacturing porcelain wares, which had hitherto been a mystery to the West. In 1710, the Royal Porcelain Manufactory was established at the castle in Meissen overlooking the Elbe River, raising the curtain on the 300-year story of Meissen.

This exhibition offers an overview of the superb technique and refined design sensibility of Meissen ware as represented in the styles of each period of its development, from the pre-porcelain invention of red Böttger stoneware to Kakiemon copies and Chinoiserie that reveal a yearning for the Orient, and from August’s magnificent porcelain menagerie fantasy to graceful rococo styles, epic monuments of the international expositions, and masterpieces of the Art Nouveau and Art Deco eras.

For more information please visit: The Suntory Museum of Art

Exhibitions Hanford, CA. Modern Twist: Contemporary Japanese Bamboo Art. The Clark Center for Japanese Art & Culture. The Curated Object

Detail from Tanabe Chikuunsai III (b.1940), Arrow bamboo "Squares and circles" 2005 CCJAC (2007.060)

 

Uematsu Chikuyū (b.1947) "Moon Rise on Autumn Fields" Sculpture/Fruit Basket 2007 CCJAC (2008.106)

 

Tanioka Shigeo (b.1949) "Wind from a Long Distance" Flower Basket 2007 CCJAC (2008.016)

Contemporary Japanese Bamboo Art

January 29 – March 19, 2011

 Originally from China, bamboo baskets have been made in Japan since the 8th century, from which time they were used for holding flowers for scattering in Buddhist rituals. Bamboo objects became intimately connected with the two forms of ceremonial tea presentation, each defined by the type of tea used, that developed from the 9th century. For chanoyu, powdered green tea or matcha is whipped in tea bowls with a bamboo whisk. The sencha tea ceremony, which is perhaps less well known in the West, uses green leaf tea (sencha) in Chinese-style teapots and teacups. Flower arrangements in bamboo containers play a role in both traditions, particularly in sencha. Baskets imported from China became popular for sencha tea ceremonies, and during the 19th century Japanese artists were predominantly engaged in reproducing the most complex forms.

Compared to other decorative and applied arts of Japan, such as ceramics, textiles, and lacquer, bamboo art is a small field. Despite its low profile, it has received local and international recognition. Bamboo works are accepted into the two main annual competitive expositions of new works by living artists, the Japan Fine Arts Exhibition (Nitten) and the Exhibition of Japanese Traditional Art Crafts, as well as to other regional competitions and shows.

 

Bamboo works remained predominantly utilitarian in nature until the mid-20th century, when a small number of artists began to experiment with nonfunctional, sculptural forms. Since then, bamboo artists have proven to be highly creative by challenging the conventions of basketry and pushing their medium to new conceptual and technical limits. Because of a strong interest abroad, many artists are now also active in creating bamboo sculptures, which have become an important source of income for them.

Bamboo is a highly demanding medium that requires a long time to master. In general, bamboo artists acquire their skills by apprenticing with senior artists for several years. Whereas an artist of any medium could use bamboo in his or her art, a “true” bamboo artist knows how to harvest bamboo and masters numerous plaiting techniques. A bamboo artist must first learn how to process and manipulate the material, as it cannot be simply bought in a store. An elaborate, high-quality basket will take a trained artist three to four months to make. Solid technical knowledge and skills are therefore vital, but to succeed as an artist, creativity and innovation are essential as well.

The artistic forms that emerged beginning in the mid-20th century have influenced “traditional” baskets, which have become increasingly sculptural in form. Modern Twist: Contemporary Japanese Bamboo Art presents 26 bamboo artworks by 12 different artists of which all but one are still actively designing and creating new artworks. The unique exhibits date from the mid-1960s to 2010 with a strong emphasis on works made during the last ten years.

For more information please visit: The Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture 

Exhibitions Milan. Graphic Design Worlds. The Triennale Design Museum. The Curated Object

KesselsKramer,Now even more… campagna pubblicitaria per Hans Brinker Budget Hotel di Amsterdam, 1996.

 

NORM, Superficial, manifesto (ABCDE), 2010 Serie di manifesti (10 serie limitate di 64 manifesti) Edited and Designed by © NORM, Zurich.

Mieke Gerritzen, copertina del libro "Everyone is a Designer in the age of Social Media" design.

Logo di KesselsKramer

 

Graphic Design Worlds

January 26-March 27, 2011 

Graphic design is a discipline that is undergoing great change while developing its own, specific, critical discourse. It is immersed in communication, at different scales and sizes, but its is also a translator and builder involved in relationships and producing knowledge. Graphic designers design a territory in constant transformation, which offers interesting prospects for understanding the development of culture and contemporary society. 

Always intertwined with different disciplines (art, music, fashion, cinema, architecture, etc..), graphic design is also increasingly able to extend itself and develop critical positions. "Graphic Design Worlds" suggests that the general public should examine this recent phenomenon. It's not so much an exhibition about "graphic design," but rather an exhibition how graphic design always carries with it various possible interpretations. It suggests that we think about the multiple pathways that lead to graphic design and how they are linked with understanding the world. This is particularly important in a country like Italy where there is a culture of design excellence.

The notion of "worlds" has been chosen by the curator to shed light on graphic design's plurality, diversity of approaches and points of view - the worlds of graphic designers - that animate contemporary graphic design. Furthermore, the term refers to the relations of worlds that graphic design and graphic designers with the world, with the contexts in which they operate, with the society they serve, with the visual and material culture to which they relate and contribute to configure. 

The aim of "Graphic Design Worlds," then, is not to propose a comprehensive and final survey, but rather to present the wealth of graphic design through a selection of significant experiences for visitorr, over the course of the exhibition. 

The more than thirty invited graphic designers will show their "worlds" and present their approaches to the "world," using different languages, locations, skills possible. Although each foray into these questions is different, what these designers share is a critical awareness of graphic design.

Featured in the exhibition: Åbäke, Brave New Alps, Anthony Burrill, Nazareno Crea, De Designpolitie, Dexter Sinister, Julia, Elliott Earls, Daniel Eatock, Experimental Jetset, FF3300, Fuel, Thomas Garner, Mieke Gerritzen, Wintermute, Christophe Jacquet (Toffe ) KesselsKramer, Kasia Korczak, Zak Kyes, Harmen Liemburg, Lupo & Burtscher / Waterfront, Geoff McFetridge, Metahaven, Joseph Miceli, M / M (Paris), Na Kim, Norm, Radim Pesko, Mathias Schweizer, Office Temp, Tankboys, Thonik, Francesco Valtolina. 

The exhibition will also present work of the critic Max Bruinsma and historical Emily King, in collaboration with Thonik respectively and M / M (Paris).

For more information please visit: The Triennale Design Museum 

 

Exhibitions St. Louis. Island Press: Three Decades of Printmaking. Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. The Curated Object

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Celebrate 40,000 Years of American Art (1995). Collagraph from one Sintra plate on unknown paper, 2/20, 78 3/16 x 53 1/2". Master Printer: Kevin Garber. Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis. Gift of Island Press, 1995.

 

Tom Friedman, Vanishing Point (2006). Photogravure from 25 shaped plates and five blind embossments on Somerset satin paper, BAT (ed. 12), 42 7/8 x 40 3/8". Master Printer: Tom Reed.  Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis. Gift of Island Press, 2006.

Roy Lichtenstein, Study of Hands (1981). Lithograph from four aluminum plates and silkscreen from two screens on Rives BFK paper, 19/24, 31 5/8 x 32 7/8". Master Printer: Dan Gualdoni. Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Donald Samuels, 1981.

Chris Duncan, Everything All at Once (2009). Relief print and intaglio from 339 plates in 25 colors with collage on Somerset satin paper, BAT (ed. 12), 60 x 60". Master Printer: Tom Reed. Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis. Gift of Island Press, 2010.

 

Island Press: Three Decades of Printmaking

January 28-April 18, 2011

Since its formation in 1978, Island Press has evolved from a traditional contract print shop — producing high quality editions in standard media and formats —into a uniquely collaborative and educational enterprise known for complex, large-scale works by a range of nationally and internationally renowned artists. In January, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will explore that evolution with Island Press: Three Decades of Printmaking. Curated by Karen K. Butler, assistant curator of the Kemper Art Museum, the exhibition will survey more than two-dozen works highlighting the press’s history of technical innovation, artistic experimentation and student participation.

Housed within Washington University’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, Island Press was established by Peter Marcus, now professor emeritus of printmaking. Originally called the Washington University Collaborative Printmaking Workshop, the press takes its name from a massively oversized etching press — 60"wide by 120" long — that Marcus built in the early 1990s with St. Louis machinist Warren Sauer, a design they dubbed “The Island Press.”

Though university-affiliated presses typically exist as independent entities separate from the academic structure, Marcus sought to integrate press operations with the school’s teaching mission, allowing students to assist visiting artists and the master printer at all stages of creation and production. Joan Hall, currently the Kenneth E. Hudson Professor of Art, who became director of the Press in 1999, would expand Marcus’s original aims by involving students in new areas of production, such as fabricating handmade paper and assembling three-dimensional collage elements.

During the press’s first decade, artists such as Peter Dean, Rafael Ferrer, Joyce Kozloff, Roy Lichtenstein and David Nash largely engaged traditional printmaking techniques, such as lithography, etching and occasionally monotype, in ways that reflected the period’s dominant trends, such as expressionist painting and identity politics. Notably, Lichtenstein’s Study of Hands (1981) combined two techniques, lithography and silkscreen, that were not usually joined together — an innovative practice that in many ways prefigured the experimental and multidisciplinary approach that would become increasingly characteristic of the press.

In the 1990s, artists including Michael Berkhemer and Joyce Scott created works of dramatic size and scale while exploring the use of nontraditional methods and materials, such as mixed media, handmade paper and appropriated imagery. At the same time, prints by Sue Coe, Annette Lemieux, Juan Sanchez and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith investigated questions of race, identity and political engagement. In her provocativeTrademark (1992), Hung Liu highlighted the historical repression of women as well as the complex legacy of economic and cultural exchange between East and West by juxtaposing an historical photo of six Chinese prostitutes with a Western-style painting of a woman from the Chinese Imperial Court.

Over the last ten years, Island Press has continued to produce large-scale, mixed-media works of striking technical and conceptual complexity. Chris Duncan’s vivid Everything All at Once (2009) employed 339 separate printing plates in 25 different colors — a labor-intensive assembly accomplished only with the help of student printmakers. Works by Chakaia Booker, Squeak Carnwath and T. L. Solein combine a range of techniques — from etching, collagraph and monotype to chine collé and digital photography — to create dense, atmospheric surfaces. Meanwhile, Tom Friedman’s Vanishing Point (2006), though titled for a traditional pictorial device used to create the impression of depth, offers a somewhat ambiguous meditation on the history of artistic practice. Does this image of Friedman’s scattered, receding possessions, mourn, reclaim or mock Renaissance conventions?

Most recently, Ann Hamilton, the inaugural Arthur L. and Sheila Prensky Visiting Artist at Island Press, has worked with students and master printer Tom Reed to create a site-specific installation. The ongoing, as-yet-untitled work encompasses experiments with cast paper, newsprint, carbon paper, letterpress, laser cut printing, digital printing and photolithography, as well as more traditional forms such as etching and engraving. Like many of Hamilton’s installations, the piece is both collaborative and interactive, exploring the intersection of language, visual image and physical gesture.

Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, part of Washington University's Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, is committed to furthering critical thinking and visual literacy through a vital program of exhibitions, publications and accompanying events. The museum dates back to 1881, making it the oldest art museum west of the Mississippi River. Today it boasts one of the finest university collections in the United States.

Supporters

Support for Island Press: Three Decades of Printmaking is provided by Washington University’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and by members of the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

For more information pleas visit: Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum 

Exhibitions Ústí nad Labem Czech Republic. Michaela Thelenova, When you return home from work, it will all be nicely tidied up. Galerie Emil Filla at Armaturka. The Curated Object

  from the series When you return home from work, it will all be nicely tidied up...,2010
digital print, 90x60 cm

from the series When you return home from work, it will all be nicely tidied up...,2010
digital print, 90x60 cm

from the series When you return home from work, it will all be nicely tidied up...,2010
digital print, 90x60 cm

from the series When you return home from work, it will all be nicely tidied up...,2010
digital print, 90x60 cm

Michaela Thelenová: When you return home from work, it will all be nicely tidied up... 

Jan 26 - Mar 4, 2011 

 

h u n t k a s t n e r is pleased to represent the Czech artist Michaela Theleno as a guest artist at the solo exhibition of Michal Kalhous, curated by Michael Kolecek. She will be presenting "When you return home from work, it will all be nicely tidied up". In this new series of work, which includes eleven digital prints and – in a first for the artist - a video work in three parts, the artist develops upon the theme of the domestic environment that she explored in her earlier series Thoughts of a Wife, which was presented in Washington DC at the Katzen Arts Center and the Forms of Transformation exhibition at the Brno House of Arts in 2008, and MUSA in Vienna in 2009. As always, the artist continues to find endless inspiration in her most immediate environment. 

“I am interested in investigating and defining household systems and structures, the principals which lead to their creation, and to play with their inherent absurdities. I am also fascinated by the kind of household phenomena and manifestations that are elusive enough to pass through our homes unnoticed. My inspiration comes from real moments and situations that I reconstruct, exaggerate, and magnify with gentle hyperbole, bringing them to the limits of perfectionism, or, on the other hand I document a specific moment affected by a dose of peculiarity or an everyday miracle. In both cases, I balance on the edge of reality and fiction.”

The soft muted colors enhance the digital qualities of the photographs (90x60cm, face-mounted on plexiglass) and underline the tranquil, mesmerizing moments that were captured in the midst of a rhythmic routine of endless mopping, sweeping, wiping, folding, bending, stretching and washing, to be carefully saved and placed aside for later study, examination and contemplation. The video work, here presented in 3 parts on digital frames all hung in a row on the wall, is accompanied by a short sound track of a woman repeatedly singing the text “the only exception that you are”. The dreamy romantic dance portrayed in each video, upon prolonged and closer inspection, is in fact just a never-ending exercise in futility - making the bed, vacuuming, doing the laundry – chores, that in real life, we are condemned to have to repeat over, and over, and over again. There is no conclusion, but there is also no feeling of anxiety brought on by the realization of the impossibility of completion; it all seems quite natural, and pure, and, somehow reassuring.

Despite the fact that Michaela Thelenová (1969, Chomutov, ČR) lives and works outside of the main cultural centers, namely in the region of Ústí nad Labem - a city in the industrial and coal mining region of North West Bohemia, and a part of the historicaly important Sudentenland – she continues to be a significant presence on the Czech contemporary art scene. The curator Michal Koleček explains: “(Thelenová) works almost entirely with still digital images, but her photographs do not meet the expectations of this medium. Instead of a high-fidelity technical record, they fragment reality; they break it and remodel it into new semantic connections. Michaela Thelenová composes individual pictures in series and replaces the traditional scheme of visual representation with a kind of combinatory matrix, while the photographs themselves do not refer to anything but their own ambiguity and their message comes forth only during the process of confrontation with other pictures in the given series. By means of this non-privileged way of imaging, the artist places the issues of social communication and the process of the penetration of public perceptions into the sphere of the natural world in the center of attention.”

For more information please visit: Hunt Kastner and Galerie Emil Filla at Armaturka  

Exhibitions Madrid. Dorit Margreiter: Description. Museo Reina Sofía. The Curated Object

  Dorit Margreiter. Case Study # 22, 2001, Courtesy private collection, Christine König, Wien 

Dorit Margreiter, courtesy of Museo Reina Sofía

Dorit Margreiter, courtesy of Museo Reina Sofía

Dorit Margreiter: Description  

January 12 - April 25 

For over a decade, the artist Dorit Margreiter (Vienna, 1967) has been reflecting on modern architecture, on its preservation and its destruction, and on the relationship between visual systems and the economic and social contexts of architecture. Her activity shows a connection with that of a generation of Austrian artists, such as Florian Pümhosl, Martin Beck and Mathias Poledna, who, with the specific condition of the artistic medium as their point of departure, meditate on recent history and on the social and political weight of modernity, thus diluting its formal specificity.

The starting point of the exhibition is Zentrum (2004-ongoing), a nexus of pieces that acts a hinge for the four film installations presented, and also for the rest of the exhibition. This piece, a commission for the contemporary art centre of Leipzig, had as its genesis “Brühlzentrum,” a residential complex from the early sixties which, in consonance with functionalist logic, included housing, a theatre, a restaurant and a kindergarten. For the occasion, the artist focused on the logotype of the complex and reproduced it in the form of neon lettering, maintaining Leipzig's esteemed traditions of neon signage and typographic design. She accompanied it with three other signs. Rounding out the set of four signs is a 16 mm film that captures the final illumination of the original sign and also a short video documenting the ingenious way that the artist and her assistants managed to bring about this feat. Appearing in a small fragment is the word analog, written in the same typeface as the resurrected sign, in clear reference to the weight of analogy in this exhibition, in the senses of both equivalence and relational likeness.

A process similar to analogy can be perceived in the production of the rest of the work as well: the recording of footage in digital format subsequently transferred to film is a break with the logical succession of media. In the same way, the typeface of the sign was used in the website and press releases for a project of the Dia Art Foundation, which brought considerable unexpected circulation of this piece. In a new reading of the relationship between new and old technologies, the gentle drift of letters hanging from cinematic sculptures does not make reference to digital media. Instead, as mobiles made of sheet metal cut outs, it evokes the origins of hot metal typesetting. Text and image at the same time –although the image is not fixed and the text far from legible–, these mobiles conflate fine arts and vernacular traditions: modernist sculpture, design artefacts or children's toys.

Not incidentally, her typeface recalls prototypes devised by Bauhaus associates Josef Albers and Herbert Bayer. Conceived in 1926, Albers’ Kombinations Schrift was created, like Bayer’s Universal alphabet, from a highly restricted repertoire of simple geometric shapes. Modular and standardized, Albers’ headline font was devised for broad application in an industrial era whose hallmarks were speed, economy, and convenience. At a time when, according to its prophetic inventor, the magazine was replacing the book as the principal tool for communication, graphic signage of all kinds would play an increasingly crucial role in contemporary life. Suspended delicately from cross beams, the elements that comprise Margreiter’s letters are scaled one to one with the now lost originals on the Brühlzentrum building. At once text and image — though the image is not fixed, and the text far from legible — the mobiles conflate fine art and vernacular traditions: modernist sculpture, design artefacts, children’s toys.

Los Angeles, where Margreiter has lived periodically, is the site of various works related to architectural icons such as Pierre Koenig's Case Study House #22, and the emblematic Sheats-Goldstein residence, which has been the set of numerous films (ranging from Charlie's Angels, 2003, to The Big Lebowski, 1998). Whether in the guise of Hollywood films or magazine features, photography is the vehicle through which these houses have gained international renown. Her film installation 10104 Angelo View Drive (2004) speculates on the ways in which, in these trophy residences of the modern architecture movement, reality and fiction are interdependent. By contrast, Original Condition (2006) reflects on the shifting ideologies that have transformed, in little more than a decade, many of the Case Study Houses from dilapidated residences into the preferred homes of the intellectual bourgeoisie.

"Poverty Housing. Americus, Georgia (2008, in collaboration with Rebecca Baron)" also investigates the circulation of images of modern architecture, although in this case the social context to which it refers is different. This film installation, shot in documentary style, shows replicas, based on photographic images, of shanties found in South African slums. Conceived as an architectural "theme park" in rural Georgia, it may have been designed to prick the consciences of its neoliberal visitors, yet it cannot escape a certain delectation in the aesthetics of poverty.

This descriptive rhetoric, which reviews the documentary genre through an analysis of its enunciation, is the one chosen by the artist to examine architecture understood as housing, space, interiors, display and exhibition. For Dorit Margreiter, the representation and the discourse of modern architecture are tightly interwoven.

For more information please visit: Museo Reina Sofía   

Exhibitions Milan. Cinema with a Hat. Borsalino and Other Stories. Triennale Design Museum. The Curated Object

Tratti dal film La fabbricazione dei cappelli Borsalino - produzione Milano Film, 1912. Versione restaurata dall’Archivio Nazionale Cinema d'Impresa, Ivrea in collaborazione con Musil, Brescia.

 

Tratti dal film La fabbricazione dei cappelli Borsalino - produzione Milano Film, 1912. Versione restaurata dall’Archivio Nazionale Cinema d'Impresa, Ivrea in collaborazione con Musil, Brescia.

  © Gianluigi Toccafondo

  © Gianluigi Toccafondo

© Gianluigi Toccafondo

 

Cinema with a hat. Borsalino and other stories.

January 18 - March 20, 2011

Warning: this is a summary based on my terrible Italian translation of their information. I highly suggest that you go to the website and take a look at the additional information, as my little blurb offers only the most basic information. 

This exhibition is the exploration of a myth, a journey through contemporary art, a look at the emotional, humorous, nostalgic, poetic and unconventional that creates a bridge between cinema and the history of costume, specifically the hat.

It is designed by Elisa Fulco, curator of the Foundation Borsalino, and curated by film critic Gianni Canova. The exhibition not only tells the story of the men's classic felt hat, which still bears the name of the founder Giuseppe Borsalino, but also shows how the hat illustrates the changes and deviations in the protagonist in the film.

Borsalino has a special place in the history of cinema. Chosen by Jacques Deray to represent the style of the Thirties, the company name became the title of two famous cult films with Jean Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon, Borsalino (1970) and Borsalino & Co (1974). The exhibition also offers the opportunity to discover previously unpublished documents that reveal the collaborations between the cinema and Borsalino: drawings by Jacques Fonteray, Parisian costumes in the two films mentioned, the work conducted by Gianluigi Toccafondo for the exhibition, as well as the national premiere of an unpublished restored version of a documentary film "Borsalino Industrial Company" in 1912 made by Luca Comerio.

For more information please visit: The Triennale Design Museum

 

Exhibitions Palm Springs. Steel and Shade: The Architecture of Donald Wexler. The Palm Springs Art Museum. The Curated Object

Wexler and Harrison, Royal Hawaiian, 1960, Palm Springs, CA, 1960, photograph © Juergen Nogai, 2010

Wexler and Harrison,Steel House, 1962, photograph © Juergen Nogai 2010


Wexler and Harrison, Steel House, view of kitchen/dining room, 1962, Palm Springs, CA, photograph © Juergen Nogai, 2010

 

Donald A. Wexler, AIA, Wexler Family House, (interior) 1955. Palm Springs, CA, photograph ©Juergen Nogai, 2010

Donald A. Wexler, Associates, AIA, California Federal Savings and Loan, (now Citibank), Palm Desert, CA, 1985, photograph © Juergen Nogai, 2010

 

Steel and Shade: The Architecture of Donald Wexler

January 29, 2011 - May 29, 2011

Donald Wexler practiced architecture during what he calls the “golden age” of California architecture from the immediate postwar years through the 1970s. This was a time when architects enjoyed considerable freedom to employ new materials and technologies in their search for functionally beautiful architecture. The extremes of the desert climate forced Wexler to develop a sustainable architecture, which was not only successful functionally, but achieved a timeless aesthetic appeal. During a career that spanned almost six decades, he designed numerous houses, condominium complexes, as well as banks, office parks and schools. The primary objects in the exhibition will be drawn from the Donald Wexler Collection, housed in the ENV Archives-Special Collections, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and will include original presentation drawings, working drawings, photographs and models. These will be augmented by a number of professional photographs and new models fabricated by Cal Poly students, including a full-scale sectional steel model illustrating the prefabrication system Wexler used in the steel houses. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue with essays by co-curators, Lauren Weiss Bricker, Ph.D., professor of architecture, Cal Poly, Pomona and Sidney Williams, curator of architecture and design, Palm Springs Art Museum.

Organized by the Palm Springs Art Museum and California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, this exhibition is funded in part by the museum’s Architecture & Design Council, CALCRAFT Construction, Mitre & Bevel, Escalante Architects, Helene Galen, Daniel Patrick Giles, Hamptons Modern, Thomas Jakway and Stephen Tripp, Harold Matzner, Brian McGuire, Ph.D., the City of Palm Springs, Modernism Week, Weldon Color Lab, American Institute of Architects/California Desert Chapter, and Friends of Donald Wexler.

 

 

Exhibitions Vancouver. The Long Take: Videos on Architecture and Social Space. Audain Gallery at SFU. The Curated Object

Clemens von Wedemeyer
Silberhöhe (2003)
35mm transferred to DVD, 10 min, color
Film still
courtesy Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris
(c) Clemens von Wedemeyer

THE LONG TAKE:
VIDEOS ON ARCHITECTURE AND SOCIAL SPACE

January 13 - February 26, 2011

Public Opening: January 12, 2011 at 8pmThe exhibition opening will be preceded by a talk by participating artist, Terence Gower at 6:30pm.

This group exhibition gathers national and international artists whose work seek to represent the scales, angles and details of architecture and the urban territory as well as the more hidden relations of the city, such as gender and space and the effects of socio economic processes. The large-scale projections of these works will transform the space of the Audain Gallery and the show opens up a discussion of urban imagibility and artistic strategies of representation.

Mark Lewis is one of Canada’s most renowned and internationally acclaimed artists; this exhibition will feature his work, Children’s Games, Heygate Estate (2002) which explores the modernist estate, located in London England, that currently awaits demolition. In this video, the camera steadily tracks along an oppressive, raised concrete passage between working-class apartment buildings while children play in the yards and the alleys below.

Terence Gower’s Ciudad Moderna (2004) explores the city as a built environment by using clips from the source film Despedida de Casada (Dir. Juan de Orduna): through a process of re-editing, Gower isolates the architecture by transforming scenes into perspective renderings that highlight the modernist architecture of Mexico, such as the Museum of Anthropology and the Hotel Presidente in Acapulco.

Dorit Magreiter’s Pavilion (2009) explores the relationship between interior and exterior by examining the concept of the Pavilion as an exhibition space and speaks to the contingent relationship between the status of the image and the space inside as well as outside of the projection. Here, the pavilion becomes the site of multiple interactions exploring the way in which architectural spaces determine social behavior.

The exhibition also features Natascha Sadr Haghighian and Judith Hopf’s Villa Watch (2005) and Clemens von Wedemeyer’s Silberhoehe (Silver Heights) (2003).

For more information please visit: The Audain Gallery

 

Exhibitions Philadelphia. Kickin’ Back: Design for Leisure & En Route: Dylan Beck and Diane Pepe. The Philadelphia Art Alliance. The Curated Object

Dylan Beck, Filigree Log, 2010; Porcelain, copper wash, walnut, Courtesy of the artist

S. Casey Gleason, Campfire Lite, 2010; luminaire, gypsum. Courtesy of the artist

 
Paul K. Guillow, Inc. Jet Stream, balsa wood model plane

Diane Pepe, Takeda Walk, 2007; Basswood, brass, river stones, Courtesy of the artist

 

Kickin’ Back: Design for Leisure, in collaboration with Andrew Dahlgren. In the first floor galleries, and two solo installations as part of the Art Alliance's ongoing En Route Series, with local artists Dylan Beck and Diane Pepe. 

January 25-March 25, 2011

Kickin’ Back: Design for Leisure

Kickin’ Back is a juried and invitational exhibition at the Philadelphia Art Alliance in collaboration with Andrew Dahlgren. Designers and architects from the Mid-Atlantic region were selected based upon their interpretations of the concept of leisure that either complement and/or comment upon what constitutes contemporary states of rest or play. From public spaces such as retail environments and parks, to objects that provide comfort or promote interaction in private environments, the work featured in the exhibition provokes questions about what surrounds us in our daily lives, and elaborates on how design impacts our downtime.  Participating designers include: Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Patrick Barendt, Carrot Grant, Chris Wright Cycles, Cutesy but not Cutesy, Design Circle, Inc., Fabric Horse, Friday Architects/Planners, Greenleaf Steel Rule Die Corporation, Haley Tricycles, and many more.
 
Dylan Beck - Yesterday’s Tomorrow: New works
Dylan Beck’s mixed media sculptures incorporate the use of ceramics with materials common in construction, retail and home environments. Using iconic décor such as filigrees and other ornamentals found in architecture, his primary subject is the affects of suburban sprawl on the environment. Parallel to this, Beck is also aesthetically influenced by typography, using satellite and aerial images to form the basis of his final forms. As Beck notes, “Within this domain, my interests range from concepts of land use and automobile-centered planning to the psychological effects of living in the ‘non-places’ of a hypermodern world. Hypermodernity has created places that have no relation to the natural environment in which they reside. These places include airports, shopping malls, and various housing developments among others.“ 
 
Diane Pepe - Connections: Sculptures and collages
Diane Pepe is influenced by untouched beauty of nature. Her structures, made primarily of wood and brass are combined with river stones that have been polished over time by their surroundings. Her work is a combined of what is organically beautiful as found in nature with a superimposed structure that represents a sense of order and containment. Initially influence by the people she met during a trip to Kochi, Japan, her works and installations become more widespread in their meaning. She states. “This concept has shifted to a more universal investigation of the dichotomy between the emotional/passionate side of human nature and the ordered/structured elements that we engage to control or order these emotions.” These are explored in larger works beyond the journey series in works such asTransition, Center and her most recent work Echo 12. 
 
For more information please visit: www.philartalliance.org 

Exhibitions Corning. Mirror to Discovery: The 200-Inch Disk and the Hale Reflecting Telescope at Palomar. The Corning Museum of Glass. The Curated Object

                          

Workers Painting the Shipping Crate
Photograph by Ayres A. Stevens, Corning Glass Works United States, Corning, NY
Photo: black and white. 24 x 19 cm
George V. McCauley Archive, the Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY
Copyright Corning Incorporated.

Inspecting the Disk
Photograph by Robert Yarnall Richie
United States, Corning, NY
1935–1936
Photo: black and white, 21 x 25 cm
Corning, Incorporated, Department of Archives and Records Management, Corning, NY
Copyright Corning Incorporated.

Corning Civic Observatory Museum
Photomedia Department, Corning Glass Works
United States, Corning, NY
1948?
Photo: black and white, 21 x 26 cm
George V. McCauley Archive, the Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY (116506), used with permission of Archives, Corning Incorporated.

 

Mirror to Discovery: The 200-Inch Disk and the Hale Reflecting Telescope at Palomar.

January 10 - October 30, 2011 

In 1928, the famed astronomer, George Ellery Hale, had a vision. He wanted to build the world’s largest telescope at Palomar Mountain in California—a research instrument that would allow scientists to view the skies as never before.

"Mirror to Discovery: The 200-inch Disk and the Hale Reflecting Telescope at Palomar" tells the story of the creation of the huge mirror (known by the American public at the time as “The Giant Eye”) that made Hale’s vision possible.

The creation of the largest single piece of glass ever made was entrusted by Hale in 1929 to Corning Glass Works using their signature Pyrex®, a special glass designed to resist heat expansion. George V. McCauley, a Corning physicist and engineer, set about achieving what engineers at other companies had failed to do: casting a 200-inch mirror blank. The largest mirror at that time, which was installed in the Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson, CA, measured 100 inches.

In March 1934, Corning poured a 200-inch disk, but part of the mold broke loose during the pouring, ruining the blank. McCauley decided to continue with annealing (a process required to slowly cool the glass) as an experiment. That imperfect disk has become an iconic object in the collection of The Corning Museum of Glass. It has been suspended in the same spot for 60 years, since the Museum opened to the public in 1951.

The second attempt at pouring was successful, and after a year’s annealing time, the disk was finished and taken by train to California. The creation of the disk, and its journey across an economically depressed nation, captured the public’s attention. Famed radio commentator Lowell Thomas called the pouring of the disk “the greatest item of interest to the civilized world in 25 years, not excluding the World War.”

Photographs in the exhibition show the intensive process of the pouring of the disk and include imagery of the special railroad car that carried it across the country. The disk traveled upright on a padded railroad car for more than two weeks. The train traveled only by daylight and at speeds not exceeding 25 miles per hour. It made numerous stops along the way, with much fanfare in each city where it stopped.

The disk remained at Caltech’s optical shop in Pasadena, CA, for the painstaking process of polishing and grinding. Progress on the disk slowed as the nation became involved in World War II, but the disk was finally installed in 1948 in the Palomar Observatory, where it remained the world’s largest effective telescope until 1993, aiding in the discovery of quasars and the first known brown dwarf star. The telescope is still in use, although bigger telescopes now exist at places like the Keck Observatory in Hawaii.

Mirror to Discovery includes photographs, memorabilia, and other selected historic materials from the collections of the Library, as well as reproductions of photographs from the California Institute of Technology.

For more information please visit: The Corning Museum of Glass 

Exhibitions Baton Rouge. Lost in Time—Two Exhibitions in Black and White: American Ruins & The Dark Side. The Louisiana Museum of Art + Science. The Curated Object

Arthur Drooker, Cook Bank (ca.1905), Rhyolite, Nevada, 2007

 

Clarence John Laughlin, Shrouded Woman Against a Plaster Wall, 1940, silver gelatin print. ©The Historic New Orleans Collection, Clarence John Laughlin Archive, accession no. 1981.247.3.196

Lost in Time—Two Exhibitions in Black and White
January 8 - March 2, 2011

American Ruins: Photographs by Arthur Drooker features a stunning visual record of significant architectural sites across the United States. The 50 infrared photographs taken by Drooker are the result of an intensive two-year documentary project. On view are images of ancient Native American dwellings in the Southwest, the remains of Gilded Age mansions on the East Coast, Civil War–era ruins in the South, a colonial settlement in the mid-Atlantic region, a ghost town in the West, and a king’s summer residence in Hawaii. Drooker traveled to 25 historic sites in 16 states. The ruins he selected had to meet certain criteria: they had to be part of a preservation program, have historical value, and represent the geographic and architectural diversity of America.

This exhibition was organized and developed by Arthur Drooker, and all photographs are by Arthur Drooker and circulated through www.guestcurator.com. This program is supported by a Decentralized Arts Funding Grant from the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge in cooperation with the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, and Louisiana State Arts Council.

Augmenting American Ruins: Photographs by Arthur Drooker is a selection of haunting photographs by Clarence John Laughlin that capture a vanishing urban landscape. The Dark Side: Photographs by Clarence John Laughlin, 1935–1961 provides insight into the broad range of themes explored by this American master, who is best known for images of southern plantation architecture. Many critics consider Laughlin the first surrealist photographer in the United States. Born in Lake Charles, Laughlin (1905–1985) spent most of his career in and around New Orleans. On loan from the Clarence John Laughlin Archive at The Historic New Orleans Collection, the 26 black-and-white images demonstrate his brand of Louisiana gothic: old, weathered French Quarter facades and cemeteries, Spanish moss, funerary sculpture, and wrought iron railings.

This program is supported by a Decentralized Arts Funding Grant from the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge in cooperation with the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, and Louisiana State Arts Council.

For more information please visit: The Louisiana Art + Science Museum

Exhibitions London. TRANSLATED BY, A Unique Audio Installation. Architectural Association School. The Curated Object

Photo courtesy of the Architectural Association School of Architecture

TRANSLATED BY 
January 15- February 9, 2011

Translated By is an audio installation at the Architectural Association School featuring the work of 11 leading international authors. Literature and architecture are vehicles to other places and Translated By uses text and objects from these authors to enable the visitor to embark on a personal audio journey through literary places - from creation to the end of the world. Authors include Douglas Coupland, Hu Fang, Hisham Matar, Tom McCarthy, Adania Shibli and Neal Stephenson. 

For for information please visit: Architectural Association School of Architecture

Exhibitions Montgomery. Sculpture by Jaehyo Lee. The Montegomery Museum of Fine Arts. The Curated Object

Jaehyo Lee (Korean, b. 1965), 0121-1110-109(Chaise), 2009, Big cone pine, Lent by Cynthia Reeves Gallery, New York, NY

Montgomery, AL — Sculpture by Jaehyo Lee

January 8- May 8, 2011 

Jaehyo Lee’s sculptures manifest his materials’ most essential nature.   His charred wooden forms studded with burnished steel bolts reveal a refined aesthetic that balances raw sculptural mass with delicate bright lines.  Assemblages of tree trunks and limbs shaped into geometric and biomorphic forms fascinate viewers with the contrasts of rough bark and smooth wood grain.  

Lee graduated from Hongik University in South Korea in 1992.  He won the Hankook Ilbo Young Artist Award in 1997, the Osaka Triennial Award in 1998, the Kim Sae-Jung Award in 2000, and the Japan Hyogo International Competition Award in 2004. 

His work has been exhibited in South Korea, China, Japan, New Zealand, Israel, England, and the United States.  It is in the permanent collections of the National Museum of Contemporary Art, South Korea; the Busan Metropolitan Art Museum, South Korea; the Hyogo Prefecture Museum of Art, Japan; the Osaka Contemporary Art Center, Japan; and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University.  He is represented in New York City by the Cynthia Reeves Gallery, which has loaned the art for this exhibition. The exhibition is sponsored by The James W. Wilson, Jr. and Wynona W. Wilson Family Foundation; MAX, Your Community Credit Union; Adam and Dawn Schloss; and the Alabama State Council on the Arts. 

For more information please visit: www.mmfa.org 

Exhibitions NYC. How to Philosophize with a Hammer. LEE LOZANO: TOOLS. Hauser & Wirth. The Curated Object

 

Lee Lozano, No title, 1963, Oil on canvas, 165 x 203.2 cm / 65 x 80 in, Private Collection © The Estate of Lee Lozano, Courtesy Hauser & Wirth

Lee Lozano, No title, 1964, Oil on canvas, 2 parts, 275.2 x 336.5 x 5.2 cm / 108 3/8 x 132 1/2 x 2 in © The Estate of Lee Lozano, Courtesy Hauser & Wirth

 

 

Lee Lozano, No title, 1963-64, Graphite on paper, 21.5 x 26.2 cm / 8 1/2 x 10 3/8 in, © The Estate of Lee Lozano, Courtesy Hauser & Wirth

Lee Lozano. LEE LOZANO TOOLS 

Jan 12 – February 19, 2011

Philosophers who have written about art and language, as well as the language of art, have long been obsessed with, and dare I say perhaps even fetishized, tools. Wittgenstein had the urge to design door handles and assume the role of architect, and Aristotle, Nietzsche and Heidegger all found themselves intermingling with the "hammer."  But as many close readers and feminist philosophers have suggested (and as many of my friends more brilliant than I have discussed) erotic undercurrents permeate their imagery and authorial "intentions." 

In the spirit of revealing the eros of the invisible, not just theoretically, but also in the chronicling of recent art history, Hauser & Wirth New York will open the first exhibition ever devoted exclusively to a pivotal passage in the brief but dazzling career of Lee Lozano. LEE LOZANO TOOLS will bring together more than two dozen important works from 1963 and 1964, including rarely seen works from private collections. The paintings and drawings depict everyday hardware - exaggerated hammers, razor blades, screwdrivers, and wrenches so anthropomorphized that they appear to be objects in sexualized motion.

As the gallery describes, Lozano has been described as one of the least known great artists of the New York scene of the 1960s and early 1970s. Navigating the transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art, from Minimalism to Conceptual Art, she created a radical, overtly sexual, and aesthetically provocative body of work in a male-dominated art world. She rifled through styles at breakneck speed, from surreal representational drawing and painting, toward abstraction and, ultimately, word pieces and action-dominated art. As vivid and furious as the social and political changes taking place in America at that time, Lozano’s multi-faceted oeuvre, produced over the course of a single decade, traces a ceaseless investigation into the body and issues of gender, and a journey toward authentic and complete individuality in a world bent on creating consensus. -- Joanne Molina

For more information please visit: Hauser & Wirth

Exhibitions London. 6 Hands. The Aram Gallery. The Curated Object

  India Carpenter, Black Twin, 2010 

India Carpenter, Mast Vertical, 2010

India Carpenter, Chain, 2010

Ella Robinson, Bare, 2009

Ella Robinson, Initial experiments, 2009

Dug and Stuff, Peter Marigold, 2010

Dug and Stuff, Peter Marigold, 2010

6 HANDS

January 14– February 19, 2011

The Aram Gallery presents 6 Hands, an exhibition of hand made work by India Carpenter, Peter Marigold and Ella Robinson. 6 Hands presents a series of projects by these three designers which are indicative of their current working style and which favour hand over machine. Whether exploring alternative ways of making, interpreting traditional methods or developing material technique, all three designers share a commitment to experiment, challenge and innovate production methods in design.

The Aram Gallery is interested in the way designers think and work. 6 Hands shows some recent projects, as well as works in progress, as unique artefacts as part of our ongoing commitment to explore the design process.

Director: Zeev Aram

Acting Curator: Ellie Parke

For more information please visit: The Aram Gallery

 

 

Exhibitions Bordeaux. "Album" by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec. Architecture Center, Arc en Rêve. The Curated Object

Studio Bouroullec

Studio Bouroullec

Studio Bouroullec

Studio Bouroullec

 

Studio Bouroullec

Studio Bouroullec

Studio Bouroullec

 

Studio Bouroullec's "Album"

January 17- March 1, 2011

(And this listing is dedicated to a certain Jonathan Loesberg)

Arc en rêve centre d'architecture kicks off 2011 with an exhibition devoted to the work of internationally renowned French designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec. Album is the first exhibition of their work in France, following shows at the Design Museum in London (2002), the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (2004) and the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam (2004).

Presented in the 4,000 quare foot main gallery at arc en rêve in Bordeaux, album is a unique show that aims to present a panorama exclusively made up of pictures, extending from everyday details to a global approach.

In the six exhibition areas, organised thematically, album features some 800 documents, inspirational and preparatory drawings, sketches and archive photos by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec. Their intention is to present all these documents at the same level, whether they relate to industrial projects, galleries, architectural designs or research projects, in order to convey just what lies behind their multi-facetted production. This means that even when there a differences in scale, all the visuals are framed in exactly the same way so that there is no hierarchy between them. For instance, they have chosen to devote an entire wall to about a hundred drawings of chairs that have never been made. The exhibition aims to provide an insight into Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec's unique world, via a mode of presentation that is unusual for a design show; the visitor will discover a panorama that is both unified and multi-facetted, from floor to ceiling. The whole exhibition forms a kind of treasure trail between the various projects and approaches that coexist in their workshops. Each exhibition area, with its deliberately simple presentation method, offers the keys to a better understanding of Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec's work.

On Friday 28 January, arc en rêve centre d'architecture, in partnership with Frac Aquitaine, is organising a conference entitled Blanc d'essai: art, architecture, design to coincide with both album, Ronan et Erwan Bouroullec and Tout ce que vous voulez savoir sur le blanc, a show that opens at Frac Aquitaine on the same day. The conference will bring together personalities and experts from the world of art, architecture, design and industry, and will also explore philosophical and sociological perspectives. -

For more information please visit: arc en rêve centre d'architecture 

  

 

 

Exhibitions NYC. Along the Yangzi River: Regional Culture of the Bronze Age from Hunan. The China Institute Gallery. The Curated Object

Rectangular Bronze Ding with Human Face Design, Shang Dynasty (16th – 11th C. BCE) 38.5 H x 29.3 W x 23.7 D cm. Unearthed at Huangcai, Ningxiang, 1959

Bronze Zun in the shape of an elephant. Shang Dynasty (16th – 11th C. BCE) 22.8 H x 26.5 L cm.  Unearthed at Shixingshan, Liling

 

Along the Yangzi River: Regional Culture of the Bronze Age from Hunan

January 27 – June 12, 2011

The first-ever comprehensive exhibition to focus on ancient bronzes from the middle bank of the Yangzi River will be on view at China Institute from January 27 through June 12, 2011.  Along the Yangzi River: Regional Culture of the Bronze Age from Hunan will present more than 70 technically sophisticated Chinese bronzes, including animal-shaped ritualistic vessels, ornate percussion instruments, bells with intricate patterns, and finely decorated swords and axes from the Hunan Provincial Museum.  The landmark exhibition surveys the story of this regional culture in three ways:  the development and characteristics of Hunan bronzes, their function and patronage, and their cultural connection to central China.  A fully illustrated scholarly catalogue will accompany the exhibition.

The middle bank of the Yangzi River—the longest river in Asia and the third largest in the world—is considered one of the most important areas for the historical study of the Chinese Bronze Age culture that flourished there.  Among the bronzes in Along the Yangzi River: Regional Culture of the Bronze Age from Hunan are gems of ancient Chinese bronze-casting, including a vessel with a human face and others with horse, owl, tiger, and elephant shapes, dating from the Shang dynasty (16th -11th century BCE) and the Zhou dynasty (11th century - 3rd century BCE).  Unearthed from pits, tombs, and sites at Shimen, Ningxiang, and Xiangxiang (today in Hunan Province) over the past few decades and as recently as 2004, the objects were found in a 1,000-mile stretch of land along the river.  

“Bronze was the most important material that was accessible to early man,” said Willow Hai Chang, Director of China Institute Gallery.  “The ‘artistic fossils’ in Along the Yangzi River: Regional Culture of the Bronze Age from Hunan serve as reminders that archaeological history is constantly being rewritten.  For example, the Yellow River is traditionally known as the cradle of Chinese civilization, but now the Yangzi River is being seen as another important source.  This unique exhibition will contribute to a fuller understanding of early Chinese culture and civilization.”

Exhibition Highlights:

Among the highlights is a rectangular bronze vessel from the Shang dynasty with a human face design—the only known example of its kind.  It is thought to be the image of a tribal leader who conducted religious ceremonies; the face is surrounded by a “cloud and thunder” pattern of interlocking lines.  Another Shang dynasty artifact, an elaborately crafted vessel in the shape of an elephant, is almost as rare; among the few existing examples, two can be found in museums in Washington, D.C., and Paris.  A bronze vessel from the same dynasty, used for storing wine, was discovered with jade objects stored inside; it is richly decorated with phoenix and bird patterns.  Large bronze bells with decorative animal-face patterns, usually discovered near mountaintops, are thought to have been used in the worship of a mountain god.

The exhibition is co-curated by Chen Jianming, Director of the Hunan Provincial Museum; Jay Xu, Director of the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; and Fu Juliang, Curator of Bronze Collections, Hunan Provincial Museum; and directed by Willow Hai Chang, Director of China Institute Gallery.

On Thursday, January 27, the Curator's Lecture will be presented with Jay Xu, guest co-curator of the exhibition and director of the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.  One of the leading experts on Chinese antiquities in the U.S., Jay Xu will lecture on the influence of Hunan bronzes.  He has held positions at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  A widely published scholar, particularly on ancient Chinese bronzes and archaeology—his area of expertise, Mr. Xu is the recipient of a number of awards and fellowships.  

For more information please visit: The China Institute Gallery