The Curated Object

Exhibitions NYC. Avant-Design: Divine Dissonance. The Magnificent Seven Series & The Cleto Munari Furnishings Collection. GD Cucine Showroom. The Curated Object

Sandro Chia: Fantasmini (Little Ghost) cabinet and mirror, Le Faccette (Little Faces) rug

Lawrence Ferlinghetti Io Sono te? (I am you?) table

Lawrence Ferlinghetti table , Mimmo Paladino Gold cabinet, Giorgio Cattano Mammut (Mammoth) bench

Mimmo Paladino: Gold cabinet, Black & White cabinet & mirror

Marcello Morandini: Posseduta (Possessed) arm chair, Risoluta (Resolute) bench

Marcello Morandini: Posseduta (Possessed) arm chair, Risoluta (Resolute) bench (detail)

Marcello Morandini: Contenuta (Contained) cabinet

Mimmo Paladino: Gold cabinet

Mimmo Paladino: Scudo (Shield) cabinet and table

Mimmo Paladino: sword (detail) from his table-Battaglia di San Romano (the Battle of San Romano)

 

Alessandro Munari: Disordinata (Disorganized) totem cabinet

Cleto Munari: Palafitte (Pilings) table & Alessandro Munari: Disordinata Collection (Disorganized)

 

Mark Strand Tavolo table

Mark Strand drawing


Avant-Design: Divine Dissonance. The Magnificent Seven Series & The Cleto Munari Furnishings Collection

by Natalie Fasano


In his 1939 essay, “Avant-Garde and Kitsch,” Carl Greenberg wrote, “If the avant-garde imitates the processes of art, kitsch, we now see, imitates its effects.”  Though Greenberg later amended his more controversial positions on taste, kitsch and the mass market; namely, that the socialist model provided the only political framework capable of proliferating “good taste” to the masses, his musings on the nature and attitudes of the avant-garde remain foundational for seriously examining an evolving artistic movement. 

Cleto Munari Design Associates was founded in 1972, the product of the eponymous designer’s intense and lifelong relationship with avant-garde architect, and thesis advisor to Mario Botta, Carlo Scarpa.  Joining the company in 1993, Alessandro Munari continues with his uncle to uphold the company’s interest in the preservation of the artistic process and adherence to the artist’s interminable and individual search of both truth and goodness within the confines, and under the control of, the dictates of his or her chosen medium.

“My story is a simple one,” says Cleto Munari of his artistic vision; “one of friendship with those who have shared my love of art, design, poetry, of working and "making" things… Like all the other people I worked with, I wanted to represent the single designers' ideas and philosophy, especially those ones which did not belong to the well-defined and limited world of design…I have always meant to realize something unique in the world market and touch, when possible, an ideal of beauty which has always been my distant horizon.”  “The Magnificent Seven Series,” now on view at the GD Cucine showroom, 227 West 17^th St. in New York City, features a limited edition series of furniture, rugs, cabinetry and other household objects, designed in collaboration with seven leading avant garde designers architects, painters, sculptors and literary figures of the mid to late 20^th century: Marc Strand, Mimmo Paladino, Marcello Morandini, Giorgio Cattano, Dario Fo, Alessandro Mendini, and Mario Botta.  With this new series, the Munari’s have once again proven their uncanny ability to translate an artist’s individual aesthetic—in any medium—into fluid and functional designs.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s “I am you?” aluminum and printed glass dining table is among the more arresting pieces on display. The base of the glass features a cascade of colored rectangles; each neither bleeding into nor refracted from its successor. Upon this bed of geometric color lies an abstract nude, suggesting the presence of both man and woman, yet without recognizable beginning—or end—to form. Composed in thick deliberate caresses of white paint, it is a work of both the painter’s self-reflection and admiration of another.  Considered the father of the “Beat” movement, Ferlinghetti (b. 1914), Yonkers born poet, anarchist and painter, interprets the role of the artist as inextricable from that of the political and social activist. His poem, “I am you?” elaborates on his vision of mankind, distilled even past the point of gender, in the pursuit of some absolute and unified truth: “Man half woman/Woman half man…in each of us androgynous…I would say/there is only one here/in the end as in the beginning/one body breathing/one body singing/and the body is us/the body is our selves/and I am you.” 

Where Ferlinghetti saw the artist as a necessary cog in the machine of social and political revolution Mark Strand (b. 1934), Canadian poet and critic’s brand of bohemianism goes further, to the artist’s ultimate removal from society. Rather than be influenced by the confusing and conflicting ideologies of the late 60’s, this new school of Beat poets, in an effort to isolate themselves from the conflict above, went underground.  Trying to make sense of the oppressive anxiety, self-consciousness, and fear of the period, they pursued sense in the individual human experience, and a self-sustaining, poetic form—of sound, stanza and self. Strand’s “Man and Camel” table, made of aluminum and sand blasted glass, is an object of extreme beauty; the materials are aptly chosen, as Strand’s poem references the “sifting sound of windblown sand.”     

In a period marked by artistic efforts at “going further,” Sandro Chia and Mimmo Paladino emerged as the fathers and forerunners of the Italian Transavanguardia (beyond avant garde) movement of the late 1970’s/early 1980’s. Thiers was a period marked by confusion, when artistic schools and movements had become as varied as their students, and each influenced by one of many possible permutations of the complex and conflicting political ideologies running rampant across the social landscape. Greenberg, in his 1968 essay and apology for “Kitsch,” “Avant Garde Attitudes” said of art: “everything conspires, it seems, in the interests of confusion.  The different mediums are exploding…not only the boundaries of art, but the boundaries between art and everything that is not art are being obliterated…And to add to the confusion, high art is on the way to becoming popular art, and vice versa.”  

Drawing from the neoclassical model, the Transavanguardia artists positioned themselves in direct defiance of the anti-intellectual environment engendered by what they perceived to be the minimalist and conceptual artistic and design movements gone too far.  They worked to reinsert the emotional into the experience of contemporary art, a world that had gone too far in the distillation of complex and difficult emotions to those too simple, too kitsch and far too interested capitalistic tendencies towards mass production and appeal. Drawing from figurative art and symbolism as well rural tradition and ancient forms, Paladino and Chia’s designs regained control over their individual artistic processes and mediums, repatriating the pieces of the fragmented soul (Ferlinghetti’s Man and Woman, perhaps?) into a single, unified work of art.  Of the “Magnificent Seven” series, two carpets, “Le facette” by Chia and “Battaglie di San Romano” provide an audience with wonderful opportunity, at both comparison of two great contemporaries and better understanding of a highly complex and difficult moment in art history.  Made of the exact same materials and dimensions, the pieces leave one’s eye to subjective consideration, allowing one to trace the artist within the image without obstacle. 

“Art in any medium,” Greenberg wrote, “boiled down to what it does in the experiencing of it, creates itself through relations, proportions.  The quality of the art depends on inspired, felt relations or proportions as on nothing else…no amount of phenomenal, describable newness avails when the internal relations of the work have not been felt, inspired, discovered.” Marcello Morandini’s signature black and white geometric patterns indicate the advent of controlled graphic design and the Futarist movement.  Like the Transavanguardia artists, Morandini’s plastic designs are suggestive of movement, yet they do not rely on representational themes to generate mass appeal.  Instead, they exist solely for and of themselves.

"The Magnificent Seven” transforms the “well-defined and limited” world of design into one of innumerable creative possibilities. Cleto Munari had already encountered Scarpa’s drawings, shaping his friend’s outlines into recognizable forms—images of tables, chairs and cabinetry were derived from Scarpa’s landscapes and urban monuments.  This experimentation soon led to others. Most recently, Munari conceived of a series of furniture, and called upon his friends; the founders, detractors and defenders of the avant-garde movement, to help him realize it.  This startling openness to collaboration, at times outside of an artist’s realm of personal experience, is refreshing. 

The creative depth exhibited by artists throughout the period of production and design is scrupulously documented in an exhibition folio, published alongside every Munari launch. Formatted beautifully, and with acute attention to editorial cohesion and fluidity, these publications provide their audience both with detailed information to potential collectors as well as an entertaining story, for anyone interested in the production process. By focusing on spatial context, Munari and GD Cucine  highlights the relational dynamic of each chair, mirror, carpet, cabinet and table situated in the large, two story showroom. 

Munari’s close attention to context assures that the intellectual value of each work, the emotion, is not lost.  He chose to augment this element, emphasizing this element of artistic effect.   Coquettes, one admires them initially for their singular beauty, and perfection of form. On reflection, however, one finds a wink, a hint at something more universal as each piece finds itself always already evoking emotions rooted in the movement of cultural memories-- and it's there we recall what it means to say we're human.  

The emotion invoked upon consideration is eventually recognized as nothing unique itself, but it is recognized as a shared part of some blissfully intuited, yet untouchable, whole.

For more information please visit: The GD Cucine Showroom at 227 West 17th Street. The entire Furnishings Collection can be viewed at www.cletomunari.com

 

 

Exhibitions NYC. Birth of the Modern: Style and Identity in Vienna 1900. The Neue Galerie. The Curated Object

 

 

Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) (form), Hilde Jesser (1894-1985) (décor), Beaker, Vienna 1916, Execution: Johann Oertel & Co., Novy Bor (Haida), Czech Republic for the Wiener Werkstätte, Bubbled glass, painted black, Ernst Ploil Collection, Vienna, Photograph © Ernst Ploil, Vienna

Egon Schiele (1890-1918), Portrait of Gerti Schiele, 1909, Oil, silver, gold-bronze paint, and pencil on canvas, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Purchase and partial gift of the Lauder family, 1982, and Private Collection, Photograph © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, New York

Otto Wagner (1841-1918), Collector’s cabinet for Nikolaus Dumba, ca. 1890, Execution: Unknown, Solid mahogany with oak veneer; enamel plaques (Japan, second half of the Nineteenth Century), Wien Museum, Vienna, Photograph © Wien Museum, Vienna

 

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918)m Hope II (Vision), 1907-08, Oil, gold, and platinum on canvas, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder, and Helen Acheson Funds, and Serge Sabarsky, 1978, Photograph © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, New York

 

 

Koloman Moser (1868-1918), Vase, Vienna 1903, Execution: Johann Lötz Witwe exclusively for E. Bakalowits Söhne, Vienna, Iridescent glass, Ernst Ploil Collection, Vienna, Photograph © Ernst Ploil, Vienna

 

Birth of the Modern

Vienna 1900: Style and Identity

February 24-June 27, 2011

 

By Natalie Fasano

"Thursday he read a book on dreams by Freud...it was a revelation. 'So that's it,' Lucien repeated, roaming the streets, 'so that's it...' everything became clear to him. This strange feeling of not existing, this long emptiness in his conscience, his somnolence, his perplexities, his vain efforts to know himself which met only a curtain of fog...'My God,' he thought, 'I have a complex...'" Sartre, "The Wall"

Before the disillusionment of total war and the collapse of the Austrian Empire, when the world was in the midst of considerable technological innovation, industrial expansion and social redefinition, Vienna emerged as one of the cultural cornerstones to the modern art and design movements.  The Vienna Secession and, later, the Weiner Werkstatte schools of art, architecture and design were organized around the principles of unity, or totality, across the arts. Gustav Klimt, the Secession’s first president, Otto Wagner, Josef Hoffman, Egon Schiele and others actively engaged themselves in the period’s efforts to progressively redefine the role of art, and the Empire, in modern society. 

Early 20^th century Viennese art is as much a product of the modern art and design movement, as it is a progenitor of it.  Austrian identity, and the role of Vienna in a Western climate of rapid social and cultural reform, underwent significant redefinition at the turn of the century. Modern artists and designers, inspired by Freud’s groundbreaking work in the field of psychoanalysis began to explore the identity of the individual in a new language-- the Freudian lexicon. However artists individually interpreted this new movement, it provided new vantage point for them to explore the age-old complexities of individual experience and identity.

“Birth of the Modern: Style and Identity in Vienna 1900” at the Neue Galerie provides thorough representation of the artistic environment in turn-of-the-century Vienna.  A room dedicated to Otto Wagner, “the father of modernism,” features pieces that aptly display the architect’s adherence to the tenets functional simplicity.  However accessible to the general populace Wagner’s exquisite designs proved to be on the auction block, they give insight to the origins of this uniquely Viennese interpretation of “austerity.” Conflict between traditional opulence and modern simplicity is rooted in the city’s ongoing identity crisis, leaving it wide open to artistic interpretation and innovation. Paintings by Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, Klimt’s young protégé, provide an interesting look into the emerging psyche of 20^th century Viennese visual art.  Schiele’s haunting portraits are Klimt’s ladies flayed to the bone, contorted in a level of self-consciousness that inspires both disgust and recognition in the removed spectator. 

Josef Hoffman and Karl Moser collaborated often throughout their careers, giving rise to a unique aesthetic that would come to define the Modern art movement. Featuring geometrical patterns and favoring function over opulence, Hoffman and Moser’s pieces are examples of Wagner-inspired, beautiful simplicity and logic in Viennese design.  Hoffman’s consistent use of cubes and squares in his designs preface the later work of visual artists like Picasso and Mondrian, and the larger Modern Art movement in the 1920’s.  Moser’s vase in iridescent glass at first resembles an overturned bowl, or an object whose posture prohibits function.  When the true form—the vase—is recognized, function is restored and the truth of the object revealed. Hilda Jesser’s beaker in bubbled glass, painted by Jesser and designed by Hoffman, her former professor of architecture at the Vienna School for Applied Arts, is the perfect example of artistic collaboration during this period.

On March 3, 2011, Phllips de Pury auctioned 52 works of 20^th century Austrian design at its new offices on Park Avenue.  Sixty-six percent sold, and impressive pieces by Wagner Hoffman, and Moser swept off the block, and into private homes. The continued interest of collectors and curators in this period of Viennese art and design suggests the achievement of something close to perfection from the Weiner Werkstatte community. The pieces continue to sell because they continue to reveal something close to truth in its admirers.  Focus on the internal rather than the external environment gave rise to an incredible moment of artistic production in 20^th century Vienna. What an individual perceives of him or her self in a Schiele painting may not necessarily beautiful, but it will be profoundly honest. 

For more information please visit: The Neue Galerie

Exhibitions NYC. Guitar Heroes: Legendary Craftsmen from Italy to New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Curated Object

Luigi Mozzani (Italian, 1869-1943), Chitarra-lyra (harp guitar), ca. 1915, Cento, Italy, Spruce, ebony, maple; L. 33 in. (83.8 cm), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, The Jonathan & Faye Kellerman Foundation Gift, 2008 

 

James D’Aquisto (1935–1995), Teardrop Solo Special model archtop guitar(serial number 1246), 1993, Greenport, New York, Private collection, Photograph from Archtop History, Inc. from the book ARCHTOP GUITARS: The Journey from Cremona to New York by Rudy Pensa and Vincent Ricardel.

In 1957, the New York musician Pete Girardi ordered a custom made instrument from the maker John D’Angelico and the result was an unusual shaped archtop guitar with a “fin.” In 1993, the collector Scott Chinery commissioned D’Angelico’s student James D’Aquisto to build this guitar, his own take on the iconic form. 

 

Musician Steve Miller with his D’Aquisto double cutaway Electric Centura model guitar, Photograph from Archtop History, Inc. from the book ARCHTOP GUITARS: The Journey from Cremona to New York by Rudy Pensa and Vincent Ricardel.

 

Antonio Stradivari (1644–1737) “The Rawlins” guitar, 1700, Cremona, Italy, Lent by the National Music Museum, The University of South Dakota, Vermillion, Photo by Bill Willroth, Sr.

The famed luthier (stringed instrument maker) Antonio Stradivari built a handful of guitars, of which four are known to survive. Stradivari’s guitars are the earliest known guitars that use the same basic wood choices of spruce for the top and maple for the sides and backs.  These are the same woods used for violins, and are standard wood choices for modern day archtop guitar builders.  

John Monteleone (born 1947), The Four Seasons guitars, 2002-2005, Islip, New York, Private Collection, USA Photo © Archtop History, Inc. from the book ARCHTOP GUITARS: The Journey from Cremona to New York by Rudy Pensa and Vincent Ricardel.

Angelo Mannello (1858–1922), Mandolins, ca. 1900, New York, Gift of the family of Angelo Mannello, 1972 

Italian immigrants around the turn of the twentieth century built traditional Neapolitan style bowlback mandolins.  Two exquisite examples, decorated with ebony, ivory, mother-of-pearl, and tortoiseshell, were made by the craftsman Angelo Mannello an immigrant to the City from Morcone, Italy, who had a large workshop in the Bronx.  

Guitar Heroes: Legendary Craftsmen from Italy to New York

Feb. 9 - July 4, 2011

By JoAnn Greco

The fine Italian hand of craftsmanship is well in evidence at The Met. It's showing up in an unlikely place: the lovingly made, glossily beautiful creations of three modern Italian-American luthiers who have inherited their culture's long tradition of guitar- and mandolin-making.

The exhibit begins with a sampling of those predecessors, about 100 string instruments made in southern  Italy — in and around Naples — during the 17th, 18th and 19th, centuries, as well as by the immigrants who came to American and produced them in New York at the turn of the 20th century. A highlight is The Rawlins, one of four known surviving guitars made by Antonio Stradivari. It's a surprisingly spare affair, crafted from the same woods — spruce for the top and maple for the sides and back – as those used in the master's more famous violins.

The second part presents 50 works from the three modern maestros, John D'Angelico (1905-1964), James D'Aquisto (1935-95), and John Monteleone (born 1947). Each has devoted himself to the archtop, a kind of guitar invented in the 1890s by Orville Gibson that features the familiar convex back and front — borrowed from the violin — an effect that produces a fuller sound. 

The works of these three men have been owned by jazz greats from Django Reinhardt to Chet Atkins to George Benson. 

D'Angelico made a name for himself by adapting the newly-created Gibson tradition to his own specifications, and many of his works are resolutely of their time: Art Deco masterpieces. As a teenager, D'Aquisito hung out at D'Angelico's Little Italy shop and quickly became an apprentice guitarmaker. As he grew more confident, D'Aquisito developed his own style, eliminating plastic ornaments and generally stripping down the models to produce a cleaner sound (hmmm....shades of Stradaveri?). A model made for Paul Simon features mother of pearl inlay but is otherwise clean and luxuriously spare. Other models by D'Aquisto on exhibit showcase his patented marine blue stain. 

Monteleone, in turn, began learning from D'Aquisito in the 1980s. Showier and more determinedly "artistic" than the others, his work is best exemplified by a quartet on view here. Called "The Four Seasons," the guitars are clad in exotic woods like African paduak, alpine spruce, and tiger maple, and easy identifiable to very clearly reflect their nomenclature: fiery golds for autumn, palest cream for winter, a sky blue for spring, and a sunburst of reds and yellows for summer. Inlaid with mother of pearl, turquoise, rubies, and even diamonds, there's nothing simple or streamlined here. They, too, it turns out, are of their time.

For more information please visit http://www.metmuseum.org

 

Exhibitions Chicago. RE:COLLECTIONS, Collecting and Archiving as a Creative Practice. Columbia College, Hokin Gallery. The Curated Object

 

The Gaze, by Nicholas Copernicus Ernst

Shakers, by Casey Hohs

Squaring the Circle, by Wesley Groves, 12 screen prints, 15x15”

 

RE:COLLECTIONS – Collecting and Archiving as a Creative Practice

Feb. 10-April 1, 2011

As a teacher, editor and writer (and general lover of all things curious and divine), I am always inspired by the energy and imagination of students. And in a world where getting a chance to have one's work seriously considered is increasingly shrinking (despite our techno-crazy universe) this exhibition is certain to be a rare treat for artists, curators and thinkers alike.

The scoop:

The Hokin Gallery at Columbia College Chicago will host RE:COLLECTIONS – Collecting and Archiving as a Creative Practice, an exhibition featuring installations by students exploring collecting, not just as a hobby, but as an artistic medium. 

In the exhibition the artists take on a range of subjects as diverse as the material world itself. With items ranging from hours of    NSYNC performances on VHS tapes, to eerie portraits of strangers, to Chicago sports paraphernalia, students from the Art & Design Department, the Department of Exhibitions and Performance Spaces and the Arts Entertainment & Media Management Department have turned a variety of collectables into works of art.

After roaming flea markets and thrift stores, sifting through family attics and searching archives, newspapers, library picture files, and even their own apartments, the artists’ distinctive collections are presented by the student-run Hokin Project in their very first exhibition.

For more information please visit: The Columbia College Hokin Gallery

 

 

NYC Events. What You are Doing this Thursday (2/17): Going to Jen Renzi's panel, "Making It: Challenges Facing the American Designer." at The Museum of Arts & Design. The Curated Object

All Is Vanity & Milk Stool, PEASANT COLLECTION BY ALISSIA MELKA-TEICHROEW, The leather strap and hardware keep the delicate easel-like structure of the mirror in place, photo from Mocoloco

Jonah Takagi of Atelier Takagi

Maple slab coffee table and Garrett, courtesy of BDDW (their pieces are beyond exquisite!)

Round Deux of Dan Rubenstein's curated series: The Home Front: American Furniture Now  is Jen Renzi's panel: 

Making It: Challenges facing the American designer 
February 17, 2011, 7:00pm 
$12 General, $10 MAD Members and Students with Valid ID 

It's no surprise that Jen Renzi, one of the wunderkinds of all-things design, is hosting this candid, sincere, and important discussion about American design. Paired with Alissia Melka-Teichroew, Jonah Takagi, and BDDW’s Tyler Hays (all featured on her blog for FastCompany, Co.Design ), this is a conversation not to be missed! And bring your friends... they will thank you.  

For more information please visit: MAD

Exhibitions Vienna. Brilliant Times: European Art Nouveau Jewellery. The Leopold Museum. The Curated Object

Kirchgaessner & Kraft, Pforzheim, belt buckle, ca. 1903-1905, Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt

 

Hans Christiansen, Wiesbaden, J. Friedmanns' Nachfolger, D. & M. Löwenthal, Frankfurt/Main (production), belt buckle, 1901, Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt

 

Josef Hoffmann, Vienna, Company of J. Souval, Vienna (production), for the Wiener Werkstätte, Square brooch, 1910-11, On loan from a private collection

 

BRILLIANT TIMES: European Art Nouveau Jewellery

February 2, 2011- June 6, 2011 

In early 2011, the Leopold Museum will be mounting Austria's most comprehensive exhibition to date on the topic of Art Nouveau jewellery. This exhibition is to present exquisite objects from the Hessian State Museum in Darmstadt as well as from private collections. The holdings of the Hessian State Museum are based on the Arts-and-Crafts collection of the Dutch court jeweller Karel A. Citroen (*1922). Citroen began collecting in 1952, at a point in time when it was not at all fashionable to collect artisan craftwork from the Art Nouveau. By 1959, the Amsterdam-based jeweller had succeeded in bringing together several hundred objects from all over Europe, with the main focus being on jewellery.

The 220 jewellery objects from Citroen’s collection number among the highlights of the Hessian State Museum’s holdings. Works on display will also include those of the renowned Parisian jewellers, goldsmiths and enamellers René Lalique (1860–1945) and Georges Fouquet (1862–1957), as well as creations by André-Fernand Thesmar (1843–1912) and Lucien Gaillard (1861–1933). At the close of the 19th century, René Lalique touched off a revolution in the field of jewellery design. He designed sumptuous jewellery for the fin-de-siècle world, and his customers included important turn-of-the-century personalities. These works’ richness of colours and forms, coupled with the preciousness of the employed materials, seems virtually inexhaustible. Lalique was also an inspiration for Viennese jewellery-makers around the turn of the century; the Viennese, however, then proceeded to develop their work in a completely different direction.

The peculiarity of Viennese Jugendstil art and the differences between it and the Art Nouveau style elsewhere in Europe are made clear with objects on loan from private collections, some of which have never or only seldom been shown publicly. In the collection of the Hessian State Museum, Viennese Jugendstil jewellery is represented by only a few pieces. While the Secessionists Joseph Maria Olbrich (1867–1908) and Kolo Moser (1868–1918) at first worked in the so-called “floral Jugendstil” style, the period that had begun by 1900 at the latest saw a the emergence of an underlying architectural theme which was oriented in particular toward the connection of vertical and horizontal structures.

1903 saw the establishment of the production community known as the “Wiener Werkstätte”. Its designers, above all Kolo Moser, Josef Hoffmann (1870–1956) and Bertold Löffler (1874–1960), held the view that jewellery as an art form should demonstrate not the wealth, but rather the individuality of its wearer. They preferred semi-precious stones and silver to diamonds and gold, for they believed that the value of their jewellery pieces was derived above all from their extraordinary design and quality of workmanship, and less from their actual material value. Germany is represented by Hans Christiansen (1866–1945) and by examples of jewellery from the jewellery-making centres of Hanau and Pforzheim. Jewellery from Denmark is also present in the form of works by Georg Arthur Jensen (1866–1935).

Furthermore, the exhibition includes Dutch jewellery by Bert Nienhuis (1873–1960) and Jan Eisenlöffel (1876–1957), as well as pieces by the legendary Russian goldsmith Carl Peter Fabergé (1846–1920). Belgian Art Nouveau is represented by works of the jewellery producer and designer Philippe Wolfers (1858–1929). Jewellery from Great Britain by William Hair Haseler (1864–1949) will also be shown, as well as pieces of jewellery and works in gold by the British architects and designers Henry Wilson (1864–1934) and Charles Robert Ashbee (1863–1942), and further objects produced by Liberty & Co.

For more information please visit: The Leopold Museum 

Exhibitions Prague. P. Rada! Paráda! Pravoslav Rada: Art Ceramics. Decorative Arts Museum, Prague. The Curated Object

 

Hlava s rudými rety, Plastika, 1988, Keramika v.45,5 cm,š.26,5 cm,p.8,7 cm foto: UPM

reverse view, same as above 

Hlava s pruhy, Plastika, 1988, Keramika, v.45 cm,p.9 cm, foto: UPM

Plastika Jak šlo vejce do světa, Pravoslav Rada, 1958, Keramika, v.34 cm, foto: UPM

Plastiky Elfové s hudebními nástroji, Pravoslav Rada, 1963, Keramika, v.34 cm, foto: UPM

caption and credits same as above

caption and credits same as above 

Plastika Homér myslící na Chiméru, Pravoslav Rada, 1963, Keramika, v.43 cm, foto: UPM

Váza antropomorfního tvaru, Pravoslav Rada, 1961, Keramika, v.42 cm, foto: UPM

Dóza s portrétem malíře Kamila Lhotáka, Pravoslav Rada, 1984, Keramika, v.21,5 cm, p.20 cm, foto: UPM

Závěsný reliéf hlava s růží, Pravoslav Rada, 1985, Červenice, v.4,5 cm, p.32 cm foto: UPM

Pták se žlutozelenými znaky, Pravoslav Rada, Keramika, 70. léta 20. stol. v. 14 cm, foto: UPM and Pták se zelenočervenými  znaky, Pravoslav Rada, Keramika 70. léta 20. stol. v. 8 cm foto: UPM

Kočka ležící s modře pruhovaným ocasem, Pravoslav Rada, Keramika, 70. léta 20. stol. V. 5 cm,d. 12 cm foto: UPM and Kočka sedící se zelenými puntíky Pravoslav Rada, Keramika, 70. léta 20. stol. p. 12 cm foto: UPM

Jídelní soubor, aspirantská práce na VŠUP, Pravoslav Rada, Porcelán, 1961, foto: UPM

Pravoslav Rada, foto: archiv P.Rady

Fontána ve Vlašimi, Jindřiška a Pravoslav Radovi, (architekt Fencl), Keramika, 1983 foto: archiv P.Rady

 

P. Rada! Paráda! Pravoslav Rada: Art Ceramics

February 3rd—April 25th, 2011

 

Pravoslav Rada — a classic of Czech ceramic art — has devoted a lifetime particularly to studio figurative work, ranging from animal sculptures (fish, cats and birds), mythical creatures (elfs, angels and archangels) to human figures. Rada’s extensive and varied oeuvre is endowed with wit, humorous exaggeration and subtle irony, as well as a certain detachment and pensive wisdom. The artist employs a broad range of ceramic materials, including porcelain and a variety of surface finishes. He makes bold use of bright, contrasting glazes, applies decals and transfers photo images (for example, of the Suchý and Šlitr tandem of artists). Rada has produced numerous inventive sculptural installations that have enriched public spaces, such as shopping centres, schools and housing estates. Just like his smaller pieces, these sculptures are highly expressive, instantly identifiable and, above all, truly original. 

The exhibition presented at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague is intended for visitors of all ages: the oldest generation will be reminded of the times when Czech ceramic art was at its pinnacle, the middle and young generations will appreciate that contemporary art can also carry a message and be graspable, while the youngest visitors will enjoy the playfulness and energy with which Rada imbues his ceramic objects.

For more information please visit: Decorative Arts Museum, Prague

Exhibitions Bath. What Will She Wear? The Enduring Romance of the Wedding Dress. The Fashion Museum, UK. The Curated Object

The Contesse Mortemart wearing a wedding dress by Worth, 1930s from the Fashion Museum's collection of photographs of wedding gowns by Paris couturier Worth, which will also be part of the display.

Baronne de Rochefort wearing a lace wedding veil, 1930s. Photograph from the Worth Archive, Fashion Museum, Bath and North East Somerset Council

 

What Will She Waer? The Enduring Romance of the Wedding Dress,

February 14, 2011-8 January 8, 2012

This special display to celebrate the Royal wedding in 2011 will showcase some of the finest wedding dresses from the Fashion Museum collection. The display will also include a previously unseen archive of photographs of couture wedding dresses from the 1930s.

For more information please visit: The Fashion Museum, UK

 

 

Exhibitions Houston. Circa 1900: Decorative Arts at the Turn of the Century. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The Curated Object

Vase, manufactured by Rozenburg Den Haag, decorated by H. G. A. Huyvenaar, 
1903, eggshell porcelain, the MFAH.

 

Josef Hoffmann, Vitrine (Model no. 600/9), made by Jacob & Josef Kohn,
c. 1905–08, ebonized beech, glass, and brass, the MFAH.

 

Carlo Bugatti, Armchair, c. 1890–1900, wood, vellum silk, copper, brass, and possibly pewter, the MFAH.

  Emile Gallé, Water Lily Vase, c. 1895–1900, cameo-cut glass, the MFAH.

 

Circa 1900: Decorative Arts at the Turn of the Century

Feb 26 2011 - Jul 31 2011

This exhibition features European decorative and fine art from about 1890 to 1910. Works by artists such as Hector Guimard, František Kupka, Edvard Munch, and Vilmós Zsolnay illustrate the fascination of the period with dreams, nature, and the exotic—as well as the creeping unrest felt in Europe as the old century ended and a new, uncertain, one began. Circa 1900: Decorative Arts at the Turn of the Century also features several Art Nouveau items collected by Dominique de Menil that are now part of the Menil Collection.

Circa 1900: Decorative Arts at the Turn of the Century is organized by the MFAH.

This exhibition receives generous funding from: Continental Airlines

For more information please visit: The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

 

Exhibitions Oklahoma City. George Nelson: Architect, Writer, Designer, Teacher. Oklahoma City Museum of Art. The Curated Object

Marshmallow Sofa, 1956
Photo: Vitra Design Museum Archiv

Storage Wall, published in Life
Magazine, 1945
Photo: Vitra Design Museum Archive

 

Coconut Chairs and ottoman, 1956
Photo: Vitra Design Museum Archive

 

Ball Clock, 1948
Photo: Vitra Design Museum

 

Swaged Leg Group: Swaged Leg Chair (1954) und/and Swaged Leg Desk (1958)
Photo: Vitra Design Museum Archive

Fairchild House, 1940/41
Photo: Vitra Design Museum Archive

George Nelson, ca.1965
Photo: Vitra Design Museum Archive

George Nelson: Architect, Writer, Designer, Teacher.

February 3 – May 8, 2011

Editors's Note: I rarely interrupt a listing and reserve my comments for my own work, or if I pen a review for CO, but I had to say that this exhibition looks fantastic.  Run, walk, skip, hop and GET to this exhibition.

George Nelson (1908-1986) was one of the most influential figures in American design during the second half of the twentieth century. With an architectural degree from Yale, he was not only active in the fields of architecture and design but also a widely respected writer and publicist, lecturer, curator, and a passionate photographer.

George Nelson: Architect, Writer, Designer, Teacher celebrates the birth of this iconic American designer, who would have turned 100 in 2008. Organized by the Vitra Design Museum to commemorate this occasion, the exhibition is the first comprehensive retrospective of Nelson’s work. It includes over 120 three-dimensional objects, including examples of chairs, benches, desks, cabinets, lamps, and clocks as well as over 50 historical documents, including drawings, photographs, architectural models, and films. The exhibition is divided into five subject areas. Numerous furnishings by Nelson from the collection of the Vitra Design Museum—not only classics but also lesser known pieces—form the core of the exhibition.

Nelson’s office produced numerous furnishings and interior designs that became modern classics, including the Coconut Chair (1956), the Marshmallow Sofa (1956), the Ball Clock (1947) and the Bubble Lamps (1952 onwards). As design director at Herman Miller, a leading US manufacturer of modern furniture design, Nelson had a major influence on the product line and public image of the company for over two decades. He played an essential role in bringing the company together with designers such as Charles Eames, Alexander Girard, and Isamu Noguchi. Early on, Nelson was convinced that design should be an integral part of a company’s philosophy, and by promoting this viewpoint, he also became a pioneer in the areas of business communication and corporate design.

Watch the Video

Exhibition Sections

The first section, Nelson and the House, highlights George Nelson as a pioneering planner and designer of the modern single family home during the 1940s and ’50s. Key items include architectural photographs of one of his first townhouse designs, the Sherman Fairchild House (New York, 1941); his bestselling book on modern housing, Tomorrow’s House (1944); and photographs and a model of his modular, prefabricated Experimental House (1952-57). Additional objects on view are images of his famous Storage Wall (1944) and original furniture pieces, such as the Herman Miller Case Goods (1946), Comprehensive Storage System (1959), Coconut Chair (1956), and Marshmallow Sofa (1956).

The extraordinary diversity of design tasks taken on by Nelson extended beyond furniture design. The Corporate Design section showcases Nelson’s numerous clients, Abbott, Alcoa, BP, Ford, Gulf, IBM, General Electric, Monsanto and Olivetti, as well as the United States government. Through brochures, advertisements, and vintage audiotapes, visitors explore Nelson’s success in developing corporate design at Herman Miller. He established his own firm, George Nelson & Company, in 1947 and ran it for more than three decades. Along with exhibitions, restaurant interiors, and showrooms, George Nelson & Company designed kitchens, flatware and dishes, record players and speakers, birdhouses and weathervanes, computers and typewriters, company logos and packaging, rugs and tiles.

Nelson was also a prominent innovator in the development of the modern office environment. Several of his functional designs can be seen in the section devoted to The Office. Iconic examples include the L-shaped desk (1947), which was a forerunner of the workstation; Action Office (1964); and Nelson Workspaces (1977).

The exhibit design section focuses on Nelson’s role as head designer of the American National Exhibition in Moscow (1959). The Chrysler Pavilion at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair and Nelson’s exhibition work for The United States Information Agency are also highlighted.

The final section provides an overview of George Nelson as an author, editor, and one of the most important thinkers and visionaries in the realm of twentieth-century design. In addition to showcasing the numerous articles and books published by Nelson, this section shows some of his films and slide presentations, in which he addressed the topics of urban planning, consumerism, and aesthetic perception in Western society. Nelson’s analytical eye, his ability to go beyond mere questions of form and to think in the larger context of practical applications, and his achievements in the area of design education make his work—today more than ever—significant and highly relevant.

An exhibition of the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany. This Exhibition has been generously sponsored by Herman Miller

For more information please visit: The Oklahoma City Museum of Art

Exhibitions Newark. The Glitter & The Gold: Jewelry From the Newark Museum. The Newark Museum. The Curated Object

Newark’s output as a jewelry center is well represented in this display, an icon of which is the “Butterfly Lady” brooch, designed in 1904 by Newark’s Henry Blank & Co. Small in scale, covered in translucent enamels and highlighted with small diamonds, the “Butterfly Lady” vividly represents America’s fine jewelry industry, which tamed the exotic art nouveau jewels of Europe to appeal to the vast American market. 

The Glitter & The Gold: Jewelry From the Newark Museum

Feb 2.-TBD

The launch this month of the Lore Ross Jewelry Gallery places the Newark Museum in unique company as only the fourth museum in the United States with dedicated display spaces for the exhibition of their permanent jewelry collections. The Newark Museum’s large and diverse collection of European and American jewelry began in 1911 with the gift of a rare New York 18th-century gold pocket watch.

The Lore Ross Jewelry Gallery is located on the second floor of the historic 1885 Ballantine House and opens with an exhibition entitled "The Glitter & The Gold: Jewelry From the Newark Museum," showcasing a broad cross-section of masterworks from the Museum’s extensive jewelry holdings, dating from the early 1700s to the present day, including objects from Newark’s own historic jewelry industry. 

One of the highlights of the inaugural display is a rare diamond aigrette ornament, designed in Europe in the 1740s to reflect the West’s fascination with the arts of India.  Modeled as a spray of feathers tied with a bow, the aigrette is set with dozens of rose-cut diamonds from the Golconda mines of India.

“The aigrette,” said Newark Museum Senior Curator and Curator of Decorative Arts Ulysses Grant Dietz, “marked the beginning of the desire among aristocratic consumers in the West for all-diamond jewelry.  A modern-day parallel to that piece is a glittering art-deco bracelet, made in the late 1920s in Philadelphia by J. E. Caldwell & Co., one of the premier jewelers in America. South African diamonds, cut into a wide range of geometric shapes, bring the glitter and dazzle of the Jazz Age to its design.” 

More contemporary work in the exhibition includes a daring abstraction in silver, designed by Henning Koppel for Georg Jensen in 1948; as well as a chic cuff bracelet of lacquered iron inlaid with gold, designed by Angela Cummings for Tiffany & Co. in 1978.

According to Dietz, a well-known speaker and writer on jewelry history and a member of the Board of the American Society Jewelry Historians, future exhibitions in the new gallery will include a section dedicated to showcasing jewelry made in Newark. The Museum began acquiring Newark-made jewelry in the early 1990s to document the City’s historic 100-year position (1850 -1950) as America’s premier jewelry manufacturing center. 

Newark’s output as a jewelry center is represented with an iconic piece known as the “Butterfly Lady” brooch. Designed in 1904 by Henry Blank & Co., the brooch is covered in translucent enamels and highlighted with small diamonds. The “Butterfly Lady,” while small in scale, vividly represents America’s fine jewelry industry, which tamed the exotic art nouveau jewels of Europe to appeal to the vast American market.  Its Parisian counterpoint is a spectacular neck-plaque from circa 1900 by French jeweler Louis Aucoc, who trained René Lalique. The curved plaque, which might originally have been worn on a seed-pearl choker-style neck piece, features translucent lavender poppies and tiny diamonds that give the effect of moonlight shimmering across a pond.

The Newark Museum’s new gallery was conceived as a personal tribute to the late Lore Ross, whose interest in jewelry and design was an abiding passion, and to mark Mrs. Ross’s bequest of $1 million to the Museum’s ongoing capital and endowment fund-raising initiative, according to Board Chair Arlene Lieberman.  

Lore Ross, who died in February, 2009, was a “loyal friend of the Museum and of Newark, a woman of true substance and style,” said Museum Director and CEO Mary Sue Sweeney Price.  “The Museum and its trustees are grateful for her support of our decorative arts collection, enabling us to create a permanent gallery devoted to our fabulous collection and the legacy of Newark’s jewelry industry.”

She and her husband, noted Philanthropist Eric Ross, who died in 2010, lived in Essex County for more than 60 years, and together were major benefactors of such New Jersey institutions as NJPAC and the JCC of Metrowest as well as the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, and Ben Gurion University in Israel, among many others.

 “The Museum also thanks the many donors whose gifts have expanded the collection’s holdings, especially those gifts associated with important family histories that might be otherwise lost,” Dietz said.  “As Curator of Decorative Arts, it has long been my mission to create a link between jewelry and other aspects of the decorative arts such as silversmithing and contemporary craft.  With each new addition to our growing jewelry collection, we enrich our ability to tell the many remarkable stories of jewelry’s role in the world of culture and design.”

Dietz said the jewelry display in the Lore Ross Jewelry gallery will continue to change over time, as new additions to the Museum’s collection are added. The gallery will be open during regular Museum hours.

To round out a day of appreciating objects beautiful at the Museum, visitors to the new Lore Ross Jewelry Gallery are urged to also see Posing Beauty: African-American Images from the 1890’s to the Present, a unique exploration of the ways African-American beauty has been portrayed in the media.

For more information please visit: The Newark Museum 

 

Exhibitions Minneapolis. Smart House, Livable Community, Your Future. The Goldstein Museum of Design. The Curated Object

 Image courtesy of The Goldstein Museum of Design

Image courtesy of the Goldstein Museum of Design

Smart House, Livable Community, Your Future 

February 5 - May 22, 2011 

The first of 70 million Baby Boomers will reach age 65 in 2011. The size and impact of this post-World War II generation will challenge America’s resources, communities, and concepts of what it is to be a “senior.” An AARP survey quoted in the Wall Street Journal (9/19/09) found that 85% of surveyed individuals age 50+ said they wish to remain in their community for as long as possible. 

What does the desire to continue living independently mean for the design of homes for aging Baby Boomers, and for the design of communities?

The home-related needs of aging Baby Boomers are the same as for any age group: a comfortable structure that provides a base for activities and for relationships; an opportunity for expressing one’s self through personalized choices of furnishings and objects; safety and security; and a place that provides continuity and “roots.” As Boomers age, a home’s design, furnishings and tools can accommodate changes that commonly accompany aging. 

The exhibition will look like a small, attractive home inhabited by fictional, 65-ish homeowners, Jim and Sarah. Visitors will be encouraged to try out everything they see, starting with a welcoming flat-threshold doorway. Jim and Sarah have renovated their 1960s home so that they can continue to enjoy their active, engaged lifestyle. Visitors can sit in a power-lifted chair, handle easy-to-use-kitchen utensils, scoot around the kitchen on a wheeled chair to try out lower counters, operate an easy-open window, sit in a fully-adjustable desk chair at an ergonomically-designed desk, and observe wall colors and lighting that ameliorate the impact of changing vision. The bath will feature a walk-in shower and reinforced wall for grab bars. Visitors will learn about a Fall Guard alert system, auto-dispensers for medications, special environmental controls, and tools and technologies that allow Jim and Sarah to do the activities they enjoy and keep them connected to the world. 

Through notes between Jim and Sarah and brief videos, visitors will be privy to the challenging decision-making process that the couple went through during the renovation and what they especially appreciate about the design features of their transformed home. 

Financial support for the exhibition includes: Center on Aging, University of Minnesota; Institute of Museum & Library Services; Metropolitan Area Agency on Aging. GMD is supported in part by a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. 

In addition to generous sponsorship for specific exhibitions, all GMD programming is supported in part by the Minnesota State Arts Board in cooperation with the Minnesota State Legislature, GMD Members, and the College of Design. 

For more information please visit: The Goldstein Museum of Design

 

Exhibitions Zurich. Type in Motion. Museum für Gestaltung Zürich. The Curated Object

H5 (François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy & Ludovic Houplain), Logorama, 2009, © Autour de minuit, Paris |

Kevin Blanc, Tiger Dust, music video for Yello, 2009, © Yello 

 H5 (Antoine Bardout-Jacquet & Ludovic Houplain), The Child, music video for Alex Gopher, 1999, © by the authors

H5 (Antoine Bardout-Jacquet & Ludovic Houplain), The Child, music video for Alex Gopher, 1999, © by the authors 

Jenny Holzer, Visitor Center Novartis Campus, 2006/07, © 2006 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

NoDesign.net, Jean Louis Fréchin & Uros Petrevski, Wanomirror, interactive mirror, 2009, © by the authors

MK 12 / FX Cartel, Stranger than Fiction, film still from the opening credits, 2007, © Participant Media

Kyle Cooper / Imaginary Forces, Se7en, film still from the opening credits, 1995 © Imaginary Forces

Saul Bass, North by Northwest, film still from the opening credits, 1959, © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

 

Type in Motion

February 2 - May 22, 2011

 

Whether on the computer screen, on television or even on building facades – through the digitalization of everyday life we regularly encounter type in motion. The exhibition in theMuseum für Gestaltung Zürich shows these new ways of reading the world.

The digitalization of everyday life has led to the situation that everywhere today we see words, sentences, or indeed entire texts, that move – whether it be on the computer screen, on television or on the facades of buildings. Designers employ considerable ingenuity to use dynamic typefaces in very different kinds of appliances. In this way they expand and change the ways in which we can “read the world”. We react more attentively, we obtain a great deal of information, much of it constantly updated, on a small surface area, or we are entertained in a surprising way. Often the rhythm of these texts is harmonized with music or sounds that we hear at the same time.

This exhibition shows for the first time the most important tendencies in the field of type in motion, using music videos, title sequences from feature films as well as inter-active space installations. These focal points of the extensive universe of dynamic typography are surrounded by commercials and short films, media facades, motion graphics for TV and radio, digital post-cards and logos from all over the world.

Rhythm and Music

The moving text in a moving image is often closely linked with music. In music videos this is particularly visually and acoustically obvious in the case of song texts that can be read and heard simultaneously, heightening each other’s effect and at times inviting us to sing along. Ever since Bob Dylan’s epoch-shaping “Subterranean Homesick Blues” from 1967 and the first music videos of the 1980s this connection has lost nothing of its apparent attraction. Clips for Prince, Alex Gopher, No Doubt, Wir sind Helden, Kanye West or Yello show that this development has grown to cover all genres and styles of music.

Feature films and advertising

At the start of a feature film there is usually a title sequence that, through its content and design, sets the mood for the world of the respective work. The often substantial amount of text about the persons involved in the film, which today is usually found in the credits at the end of the film and thus forms an elaborate final motif, can, with help of animated typeface, be presented in an attractive form. Like in an advertising film the design possibilities extend from a sober and functional kind of lettering to playful or monumentally and spatially invasive typographical presentations.

Public space

Media facades that dominate entire buildings have been attracting increased attention in urban space for quite some time now. For instance the eBoard, which is replacing the printed poster more and more and allows changing texts to achieve a high density of information on a limited surface area. A further advantage is that the contents of the texts can be kept up to date. The additional aspect of movement expands outdoor advertising to include striking new qualities. With around 120 works by over 80 designers the exhibition “Type in Motion” offers a wide ranging report on these significant changes in the contemporary communication and media worlds. Using experiments with lettering presented in the form of interactive installations, the exhibition also allows us a glimpse of the future.

For more information please visit: Museum für Gestaltung Zürich 

 

Exhibitions London. Bad Seed: Michael Petry’s Second Installation. Sir John Soane's Museum. The Curated Object

Blue Small' Michael Petry 'Bad Seed' installation at Soane Museum

 

Bad Seed: Michael Petry’s Second Installation. 

February 4 - March 12, 2011

Having explored the Museum and Soane’s life within it through the first phase of his collaboration, this second phase will see the display of a contrasting installation produced in response.  Drawing upon the Romantic elements of the collections and displays (including paintings by Henry Fuseli and Maria Cosway, as well as rooms such as the Monk’s Parlour), Petry’s new works will evoke the presence of the incubus and succubus - two favourite themes of Romantic artists and writers of the Regency period.

For more information please visit: Sir John Soane's Museum

Exhibitions NYC. Seeing Red: Hungarian Revolutionary Posters, 1919. MoMA. The Curated Object

Mihály Biró (Hungarian, 1886-1949). NÉPSZAVA: Magyarország népköztársaság (People's Voice: People's Republic of Hungary). 1918. Lithograph and newsprint, 37 x 25" (94 x 63.5 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder, 2009.

Mihály Biró (Hungarian, 1886-1949). NÉPSZAVA: Magyarország népköztársaság (People's Voice: People's Republic of Hungary). 1918. Lithograph and newsprint, 37 x 25" (94 x 63.5 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder, 2009.

Seeing Red: Hungarian Revolutionary Posters, 1919

February 2, 2011–Ongoing

In the wake of the First World War many artists and writers were seized by a new sense of political purpose. It is widely recognized that the events of 1917 and after galvanized revolutionary aspirations among European avant-gardes and the intelligentsia. Seeing Red: Hungarian Revolutionary Posters, 1919, an installation in MoMA’s Philip Johnson Architecture and Design Galleries, featuresposters by three of Hungary’s foremost graphic artists, Mihály Biró, Sándor Bortnyik and Bertalan Pór, all of whom had been actively involved in the Socialist revolutionary movement that culminated in the short-lived Hungarian Republic of Councils in 1919. The Hungarian publishing, news, and film media were all centered in Budapest, and these posters, composed with dynamic, expressive figuration, became another potent medium for influencing popular opinion. In particular, Biró’s red-hammer-wielding man became one of the most well-known political images of the period, much repeated in Central European political iconography up to the present day. Fleeing from the right-wing backlash that followed the collapse of the Bolshevik revolution, the majority of Budapest’s cultural avant-garde sought refuge in cultural centers like Vienna, Moscow, and Berlin.

The installation is organized by Juliet Kinchin, Curator, and Aidan O’Connor, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art.

For more information please visit: MoMA

Exhibitions NYC. Plywood: Material, Process, Form, MoMA. The Curated Object

Sori Yanagi (Japanese, born 1915). Butterfly Stools. 1956. Molded plywood and metal, 15 1/2 x 17 3/8 x 12 1/8" (39.4 x 44.1 x 30.8 cm). Manufactured by Tendo Co., Ltd., Tokyo. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the designer, 1958.

Charles Eames (American, 1907-1978) and Ray Eames (American, 1912-1988). Lounge Chair. c. 1944. Molded plywood and steel rod, 28 3/4 x 30 1/8 x 30" (73 x 76.5 x 76.2 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the designers, 1973.

Charles Eames (American, 1907-1978) and Ray Eames (American, 1912-1988). Lounge Chair. c. 1944. Molded plywood and steel rod, 28 3/4 x 30 1/8 x 30" (73 x 76.5 x 76.2 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the designers, 1973.

Gerald Summers (British, 1899-1967). Lounge Chair. 1934. Bent birch plywood with pigmented lacquer, 29 5/8 x 23 1/2 x 35" (75.2 x 59.7 x 88.9 cm). Manufactured by Makers of Simple Furniture, Ltd., London. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Barbara Jakobson Purchase Fund and Peter Norton Purchase Fund and Gift of Robert and Joyce Menschel, 2000.

 

Plywood: Material, Process, Form

February 2, 2011–Ongoing

“Plywood,” explained Popular Science in 1948, “is a layer cake of lumber and glue.” In the history of design, plywood is also an important modern material that has given 20th-century designers of everyday objects, furniture, and even architecture greater flexibility in shaping modern forms at an industrial scale. Plywood: Material, Process, Form, and installation in MoMA’s Philip Johnson Architecture and Design Galleries, features examples from MoMA's collection of modern designs that take advantage of the formal and aesthetic possibilities offered by plywood, from around 1930 through the 1950s. Archival photographs illuminate the process of design and manufacture in plywood. Iconic furniture by Alvar Aalto, Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen, and Arne Jacobsen appear alongside organic platters by Tapio Wirkkala (1951), Sori Yanagi’s Butterfly Stool (1956), an architectural model for a prefabricated house by Marcel Breuer (1943), and experimental designs for plywood in the aeronautics industry. The installation is organized by Juliet Kinchin, Curator, and Aidan O’Connor, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art.

For more information please visit: MoMA

 

Exhibitions NYC. Picasso: Guitars 1912–1914. MoMA. The Curated Object

Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973)
Still life with Guitar. Variant state. Paris, assembled before November 15, 1913. Subsequently preserved by the artist
Paperboard, paper, string, and painted wire installed with cut cardboard box
Overall: 30 x 20 1/2 x 7 3/4" (76.2 x 52.1 x 19.7cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the artist

 

Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973) Guitar. Paris, after mid-January 1914 Ferrous sheet metal and wire 30 1/2 x 13 3/4 x 7 5/8" (77.5 x 35 x 19.3 cm) The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the artist

Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973)
Photographic composition with Construction with Guitar Player and Violin. Paris, on or after January 25 and before March 10, 1913
Gelatin silver print
4 5/8 x 3 7/16" (11.8 x 8.7 cm)
Private collection

 
Picasso: Guitars 1912–1914

February 13–June 6, 2011 

Picasso: Guitars 1912–1914 will focus on Pablo Picasso’s cardboard and sheet-metal Guitar sculptures, and the incandescent period of material and structural innovation these sculptures bracket in the artist’s long career. The exhibition will be on view in The Museum of Modern Art’s Special Exhibitions gallery from February 13 through June 6, 2011. Bringing together some 70 closely connected collages, constructions, drawings, mixed- media paintings, and photographs assembled from over 30 public and private collections worldwide, the exhibition situates Picasso’s modest yet revolutionary Guitars within his broader studio practice between 1912 and 1914. The exhibition is organized by Anne Umland, Curator, with Blair Hartzell, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art.

The exhibition takes as its point of departure Picasso’s first Guitar construction, a sculpture made between October and December 1912. Cobbled together from cardboard, paper, string, and wire—materials he cut, folded, threaded, and glued—Picasso’s silent instrument resembled no sculpture that had ever been seen before. Its creation coincided with Picasso’s embrace of a wide range of what were then unconventional materials, including cardboard, newspaper, wallpaper, sheet music, and sand. In 1914 the artist reiterated his fragile, papery Guitar construction in more fixed and durable sheet-metal form. In the early 1970s Picasso donated both works to The Museum of Modern Art.

Picasso: Guitars 1912–1914 was catalyzed by the recent rediscovery of a still-life element in MoMA’s storage that once accompanied the cardboard Guitar in one of the artist’s well- documented but ephemeral Cubist assemblages. From this carefully composed still life, first published in November 1913, Picasso had saved both the Guitar and the semi-circular “tabletop” on which it had rested. Prompted by the careful study of a photograph of the 1913 assemblage by art historian Christine Poggi, the “tabletop” was rediscovered in MoMA’s collection in 2005. To reunite the two pieces is to recognize the variable installations that were integral to the artist’s practice in the years before World War I, and to consider anew the distinct yet interrelated histories of two of his most iconic works. Picasso: Guitars 1912–1914 is the first time that cardboard Guitar will be publicly exhibited with this distinctive tabletop element.

SPONSORSHIP:

The exhibition is sponsored by Hanjin Shipping.

Major support is provided by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Additional support is provided by Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III.

PUBLICATIONS:

In February 2011 the publication Picasso: Guitars 1912–1914 will accompany the MoMA exhibition. Synthesizing archival material and eyewitness accounts, the richly illustrated volume offers new insights into Picasso’s Guitars and the constellation of paintings, constructions, collages, drawings, and photographs that surrounded them in the studio at this breakthrough moment in the artist’s career and in the history of 20th-century art. Hardcover, 8 x 10”. 112 pages; 120 illustrations; 978-0-87070-794-0. $24.95. MoMA is also working on the development of an e-book to follow Picasso: Guitars 1912-1914 that will draw upon the close examination of works assembled on the occasion of the exhibition.

For more information please visit: MoMA

Exhibitions Kansas City. RMB City Opera. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The Curated Object

Cao Fei, Chinese (b. 1978). RMB City Opera, 2009. Courtesy of RMB City. 
© 2010 RMB City Project developed by Cao Fei (SL: China Tracy) and Vitamin Creative Space

RMB City Opera

Feb. 4 - June 5, 2011

RMB City Opera is a single screen video to be projected on one of the walls in the Project Space. It depicts a virtual city including emblematic buildings such as the Guggenheim Museum, the CCTV building designed by Rem Koolhaus, Tiananmen Square, the Olympic Stadium and a giant Duchampian wheel. RMB City Opera is populated by avatars that are created by their masters living in the real world. RMB City Opera is inspired by the Eight Model Works, a propaganda opera from the Chinese Cultural Revolution—so it includes actors and avatars in Red Army uniforms. Other characters who perform song and dance are Batman and Robin, Superman and Superwoman, and others. Themes include romance, reality and identity. RMB City Opera represents a kind of utopia that fuses past, present and future. It is visually complex, set to a beautiful soundtrack, and represents the culmination of Cao Fei’s work with RMB City. Curator: Leesa Fanning

For more information please visit: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art 

Exhibitions Paris. L'Orient des femmes vu par Christian Lacroix. The musee du qui branly. The Curated Object

    Affiche réalisée par Monsieur Christian Lacroix.

 

                                                                          Esquisse de Christian Lacroix pour la scénographie de l’exposition

 

                     

© musée du quai Branly, photo Thierry Ollivier, Michel Urtado 

L'Orient des femmes vu par Christian Lacroix.
February 8 - May 15, 2011

This exhibition is the result of a collaboration between the designer, Christian Lacroix and Hana Chidiac, head of Collections of North Africa and the Middle East at the Musée du Quai Branly. It presents a selection dresses, coats, sails and headdresses decorated with embroidery and applications colors worn by the village and Bedouin Syria, Jordan, Palestinian Territories and Sinai desert.

The objects in the exhibition date from the late nineteenth century to today. It speak to the continuity of traditions and skill, as well as the social and political significance of the items. The exhibition offers a poetic journey of the visitor, imagined by Christian Lacroix. 

Commissioner: Ms. Hana Chidiac, Head of Unit

Heritage North Africa and Middle East Museum du quai Branly.

Art Direction: Christian Lacroix.

Scenography: Agence Pylon - John Paul Boulanger.

Much, much more detailed information on the website! Please take a more detailed look there...For more information please visit: http://www.quaibranly.fr/

 

 

du 8 février au 15 mars 2011

 

Exhibitions NYC. Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels. The Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. The Curated Object

  Peony brooch 
Designed by Van Cleef & Arpels 
Paris, France, 1937 
Gold, platinum, diamonds, Mystery Set rubies 
Van Cleef & Arpels Collection 
Photo: Patrick Gries/Van Cleef & Arpels 

Orchid brooch 
Designed by Van Cleef & Arpels 
Paris, France, 1928 
Platinum, diamonds 
Van Cleef & Arpels Collection 
Photo: Guy Lucas de Peslouan/Van Cleef & Arpels

Jarretière bracelet owned by Marlene Dietrich 
Designed by Van Cleef & Arpels 
Paris, France, ca. 1937 
Diamonds, rubies, platinum 
Courtesy of Private Collection, New York 
Photo: Patrick Gries/Van Cleef & Arpels 

Camargo brooch 
Designed by Van Cleef & Arpels 
New York, NY, 1942 
Platinum, diamonds, rubies, emeralds 
Private Collection 
Photo: Christie’s 

 

Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels

February 18- June 5, 2011

This was originally supposed to run next week but I couldn't resist! Sigh. - JM

 “Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels” examines the renowned jewelry firm’s significant historical contributions to jewelry design and design innovation, particularly during the 20th century. Organized by Sarah Coffin, curator and head of the Product Design and Decorative Arts department, the exhibition opens Feb. 18 and will run through June 5, 2011.

Since its 1906 opening on the Place Vendôme in Paris, Van Cleef & Arpels has played a leading role in style and design innovation. Pioneering techniques and designs, combined with an attention to craftsmanship, are at the core of Van Cleef & Arpels’ jewelry and small precious objects.

The exhibition features more than 300 works, including jewels, timepieces, fashion accessories and objets d’art by Van Cleef & Arpels, many of which were created exclusively for American clientele, along with design drawings, commission books, fabrication cards and imagery from the firm’s archives.

“As the nation’s design museum, Cooper-Hewitt is delighted to present the work of Van Cleef & Arpels,” said Bill Moggridge, director of the museum. “This is the first exhibition to approach the work of Van Cleef & Arpels from the perspective of a design museum and focus on the establishment of the design house in New York and the role of American style and taste in the market.”

“Set in Style” will be organized by six principal themes: Innovation, Transformation, Nature, Exoticism, Fashion and Personalities.

Innovation: Special commissions have made up an important part of Van Cleef & Arpels’ design history from its earliest days, often combining the imagination (and sometimes gemstones) of the client with that of the designer.

The earliest known existing Van Cleef & Arpels object, circa 1908, is the “Varuna” bell push for the butler, a minutely detailed model of a yacht on a sea of choppy-waved jasper, which is thought to be commissioned by the yacht’s owner, the American Eugene Higgins. The work required the skills of artisans acquainted with the age-old techniques of enameling and stone carving.

Another stylistic innovation was the bracelet with a buckle closure known as the “Ludo,” a nickname for the firm’s founder Louis Arpels, who inspired its design.

Transformation: Objects that transform themselves into other objects, such as a necklace with a pendant that can become a brooch, are a hallmark of Van Cleef & Arpels. A highlight of the transformative works on view is a bird brooch wherein the bird’s wings can become earrings and its tail becomes a brooch. The brooch, commissioned to celebrate the owner’s first child, features the stunning “Walska” 95-carat yellow diamond suspended from the beak of the bird.

Another celebrated technical innovation Van Cleef & Arpels developed is “Zip” jewelry, where the necklace is zipped together to create a bracelet. The technical difficulties in producing this work are evidenced by the length of time it took between its conception in the late 1930s, when the Duchess of Windsor proposed a piece of jewelry that zipped, and its production in 1951.

The theme of transformation also refers to the transformation of a Parisian firm into the U.S. market. With the move of the family to New York at the outbreak of World War II, the idea of an American style took hold and the principles of high-quality execution were transferred to objects that reflected American taste.

Nature: The firm’s whimsical designs are stylized to celebrate the spirit of the natural world rather than reality, and as such, its roses will never appear with thorns and its birds have no claws.

Works on view in this section include the 1937 “Bouquet” brooch, which shows the color combinations of stones to their best advantage without worry about botany, as well as the 1948 “Snowflake” brooch, which captures in gold and diamonds what is a fleeting moment of bright sparkle in the natural world and exemplifies Van Cleef & Arpels’ fanciful style. 

Butterflies are a recurring design motif throughout the history of the firm, and the insects’ wings have been rendered in a host of materials from mother-of-pearl to enamel. The museum’s conservatory will be home to a flutter of butterflies made of Japanese lacquer, applied in Japan by traditional techniques.

Exoticism: The lure of exotic travel and an ever-widening international base of clients inspired Van Cleef & Arpels to produce objects inspired from all parts of the globe.

The Egyptomania of the 1920s, caused by the excavation of King Tut’s tomb in 1922, was put to use immediately at Van Cleef & Arpels, and again in the 1970s when the travelling King Tut show came to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among the works on view will be the 1924 “Egyptian” bracelet, with a soaring bird rendered in emeralds, sapphires and rubies, and the “Egyptian” pendant with hieroglyphic symbols.

With maharajahs as clients, Indian style was not forgotten, and the Maharani of Baroda commissioned Van Cleef & Arpels to design a refined and streamlined necklace based on centuries-old jewels with an Indian cut and feel.

China and Japan produced the sources for the use of lacquer and jade in cigarette boxes, as well as inspiration for jewelry designs, including the “Japanese Garden” clip; the “Chinese Hat” necklace, ring and bracelet set; the “Japanese swords” bracelet; and the “Chinese magician” pocket watch.

Fashion: From its establishment in the early 1900s, Van Cleef & Arpels vaunted accessories at the highest level, such as the necessaire and later the fitted-out clutch, called the “Minaudière,” which contained compartments for items such as a compact, lipstick, comb, mirror, calling or dance-card holder, pill box, space for money or a handkerchief, cigarette case, often with lighter hidden on the side, and many with a hidden clock. An invention of Van Cleef & Arpels, the Minaudière paired well with the clean lines of Chanel and other designers at the height of their popularity in the 1930s.

Other works on view in this section include the “Bronx Cocktail” bracelet, proclaiming the popularity of the cocktail during the 1920s and 1930s, which contains charms of all the ingredients used for the drink, as well as various evening bags, cufflinks and other accessories.

Personalities: Concentrating on those with an American connection, the exhibition will show the impact of trendsetting American women. Objects on view include a tiara worn by H.S.H Princess Grace of Monaco, along with her engagement set; the “Manchette” emerald bracelets, owned by Daisy Fellowes, which could be transformed to become one necklace; Elizabeth Taylor’s amethyst, coral and diamond bracelet and pendant earrings; a bracelet and necklace owned by Eva Peron; “Etruscan” cuffs similar to the ones worn by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis; and the “Jarretière” bracelet owned by Marlene Dietrich, which she wore in the movie Stage Fright.

Exhibition Materials

A site-specific installation will be created by French designer Patrick Jouin.

“Set in Style” will be accompanied by interpretive tools that extend the exhibition beyond the museum galleries. Developed in collaboration with the museum’s curators and educators, a free multimedia tour will be offered to all visitors.

A fully illustrated catalog will accompany the exhibition, featuring essays by exhibition curator Coffin; Suzy Menkes, fashion critic of the International Herald Tribune; and Ruth Peltason, jewelry historian, editor and author.

“Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels” is made possible by Van Cleef & Arpels.

For more information please visit: The Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

 

Art Fairs. Kinetica Art Fair 2011. Ambika P3, London. The Curated Object

David Cranmer has been creating playful and surreal mechanical sculptures since 1998. An interest in unusual sounds mean that these often take the form of musical instruments or automated percussion machines. Cranmer has worked on projects for a wide variety of artists from Antony Gormley to AC/DC. For the Kinetica Art Fair 2011, he will be creating an exciting range of sculptures. Brian the penguin has various percussive items incorporated into his body, which can be triggered by placing bolts around the circumference of 8 rotating wheels. Credit: Brian the Penguin © David Cranmer, Nervous Squirrel

Tomomi Sayuda, a London based Japanese artist, has studied and worked in a variety of creative fields such as product, craft, graphic, space, interactive design and art in London and Tokyo. Her interactive projects are concerned with culture and humour. Oshibe - meaning stamen in Japanese - is a playful interactive music and lighting sculpture representing the optimistic elements in life. Credit: Oshibe © Tomomi Sayuda

Serge Jupin, a London based artist, creates kinetic sculptures and animatronics from recycled domestic objects which he describes as ‘retro-futuristic in design’. Serge is as innovative with his use of power as he is with his choice of materials and powers his machines through a mixture of solar, electricity and wind up devices. Credit: © Serge Jupin, GV Art London 

Kinetica Art Fair 2011

Thursday February 3 -  February 6

The Kinetica Art Fair 2011 (www.kinetica-artfair.com) is the UK's only art fair dedicated to kinetic, robotic, sound, light and time-based art featuring new and ground breaking work. The feature exhibition focuses on the Evolution of Consciousness and will explore the progression of the human body, brain, mind and consciousness in reference to our place in the universe.

Highlights announced to date include:

• Ioannis Michalous who creates sculptures made from material used by N.A.S.A. to collect star dust, made from 99% air and 1% glass.

• Interactive Agents will be exhibiting the Heliosonic Resonator, a sound installations using sonic materials from the sun.

• Carlo Bernardini’s light installations which create illusionary dimensions defying physical walls of space.

• Jim Bond’s work features fragile mechanical skeletons and hybrid electronic moving pieces.

• BasedonAir have created a life-size interactive flight simulator.

An art fair like no other, it will feature both existing works and new pieces created especially for the Fair. It will include art that talks, workshops, performances and more. Over 35 galleries and organisations specialising in kinetic, electronic and new media art are taking part and over 150 artists exhibiting. Tickets start at £10. Work ranges in price from £200 - £35,000. The second annual Kinetica Art Fair in 2010, run by Kinetica Museum, attracted over 10,000 people with work sold to visitors, collectors and galleries around the world. 

Kinetica Art Fair 2011 Feature Exhibition - The Evolution of Consciousness

The Kinetica feature exhibition will explore the evolution of the human body, brain, mind and consciousness in reference to our place in the universe, where we are at this time, and what it means to be human. The works exhibited aim to increase awareness to the evolution of us as a species and expose various dimensions in our quest to further human potential. The multi-disciplinary works will be representative of: matter, waveform, space, time, gravity, spirituality / religion, harmonics, destruction, genetic engineering, modification, behaviour and relationships. 

Alongside the fair and to compliment the Feature Exhibition there will be a daily events programme of performances, talks, presentations and workshops entitled 'Body, Brain and Consciousness' which will explore how new and ancient ideas, tools and technology can interact with and extend the capacities of the human body and the brain, and how the effect of these may impact on the evolution of human consciousness.  

After the fair it will be available as a Kinetica Museum resource from the Kinetica Museum website: www.kinetica-museum.org 

Kinetic art is art that has a life of its own. Pioneered by world famous artists including Maholy Nagy, Jean Tinguely, Marcel Duchamp and Alexander Calder during the 1900s, modern contemporary kinetic and electronic artworks utilise and warp technology itself, to explore, nurture and comment on our evolutionary processes and challenge scientific and universal exploration. 

 

Exhibitions Baltimore. Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe. The Walters Art Museum. The Curated Object

Reliquary with Tooth of St. John the Baptist: German (Lower Saxony), rock crystal vessel: Egyptian (Fatimid), reliquary: 1375/1400; vessel: 10th or 11th century, silver gilt, rock crystal, 45.5 × 14.6 cm, The Art Institute of Chicago, gift of Mrs. Chauncey McCormick (1962.91)

Nuremberg Relic-Book, Peter Vischer, 1487, printer's ink on parchment, hand-colored, 21 x 14 cm, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Incun. 1487.H4 Rosenwald Coll. no. 120

Reliquary of the Head of St. Sebastian, Rome (?), refashioned second quarter of the 9th century, partially gilded silver, niello, 19.5 × 22.5 × 20.5 cm, thickness of silver 3 mm, Musei Sacro, Museo Vaticani, 60864, Photo © Vatican Museums

Reliquary of the Man of Sorrows, Bohemian, 1347—49, silver gilt, enamel (cahmplevé), semiprecious, 29.5 x 21.3 x 12.7 cm, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, 57.700

Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe 

Feb. 13–May 15, 2011

The Walters Art Museum will host an exhibition offering visitors a glimpse into the Middle Ages, a time when art mediated between heaven and earth and wondrous objects of gold, silver and precious gems filled churches and monastic treasuries. Relics, the physical remains of holy people and objects associated with these individuals, play a central role in a number of religions and cultures and were especially important to the development of Christianity as it emerged in the Late Roman world as a powerful new religion. On view at the Walters Feb. 13–May 15, 2011,Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe is the first exhibition in the United States to focus on the history of relics and reliquaries—the special containers to display the holy remains of Christian saints and martyrs. The exhibition is organized by the Walters Art Museum in partnership with the Cleveland Museum of Art and the British Museum.

For more information please visit: The Walters Art Museum

Exhibitions Milwaukee. Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century. The Milwaukee Art Museum. The Curated Object

Frank Lloyd Wright, Side Chair for the Gregor Affleck House, Bloomfield Hills, MI, 1940-41, Cypress plywood, 29 3/4 x 28 5/8 inches.

Purchase, with funds from the Margaret and Loock Foundation. Photo credit, Efraim Lev-er

George Mann Niedecken, Combination Writing Desk, Daybed, and Lamp, 1910-11. Designed for Edward P. Irving Residence Decatur, Illinois

Frank Lloyd Wright, Unity Temple, Oak Park, Illinois, 1905-08 © 2010 Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona

Taliesin East, photo © Jim Steinhart/Travelphotobase.com

Frank Lloyd Wright, Taliesin I, Spring Green, Wisconsin, 1911© 2010 Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona

 

“So here I stand before you preaching organic architecture: declaring organic architecture to be the modern ideal and the teaching so much needed if we are to see the whole of life, and to now serve the whole of life, holding no ‘traditions’ essential to the great TRADITION. Nor cherishing any preconceived form fixing upon us either past, present or future, but—instead—exalting the simple laws of common sense—or of super-sense if you prefer—determining form by way of the nature of materials...”
— Frank Lloyd Wright, An Organic Architecture, 1939

 

Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century

February 12- May 15, 2011

 On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s home, studio and school in Spring Green, Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Art Museum will present a major exhibition offering a fresh perspective on celebrated architect and designer Frank Lloyd Wright’s seven-decade career. The exhibition will run from February 12 through May 15, 2011.

"Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century" surveys more than 150 works, including drawings —33 of which have never been exhibited publicly— scale models, furniture, and photography as well as video footage of Wright and several key projects.  Reflecting on Wright’s impact during his lifetime and his significance today, the retrospective will highlight the many triumphs of Wright’s career and focus on his grand opus of suburban planning, Living City (1958) which, though never realized, was the culmination of all his work. This blueprint for Wright’s urban utopia incorporated the natural environment into everyday life.

 

“Wright defined organic architecture as being appropriate to ‘place, people and time’ and designed around those elements. He wanted to connect with new technology and use it to advance his architecture,” said Brady Roberts, chief curator for the Milwaukee Art Museum. “Wright’s design for suburban communities integrated nature, affordable homes, enlightened workspaces, parking, and other aspects of daily living, all in a repeatable model.”

 

Examining major projects including Unity Temple (Oak Park, Illinois, 1905), Fallingwater (Mill Run, Pennsylvania, 1936), Johnson Wax (Racine, Wisconsin, 1936, known today as the SC Johnson Administration Building), Taliesin (1911–59), and Taliesin West (Scottsdale, Arizona, 1937–59), the exhibition will analyze Wright’s objectives and illuminate the pioneering vision of the man known as America’s greatest architect.

“Wright was a prophetic thinker, decades ahead of his peers. In many ways, key aspects of his career relate to issues and practices of architecture today, including sustainability and efficiency,” said Roberts. “In examining Wright’s concern with material and space efficiency, economical use of manufactured materials, attention to local environment, and use of natural light, we see his profound contribution as a visionary for architectural practice in the twenty-first century.”

Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century is organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Phoenix Art Museum in conjunction with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale. The exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum celebrates the centennial of Taliesin in 2011, which is also the 10th anniversary of the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Santiago Calatrava–designed Quadracci Pavilion. The exhibition will travel to the Phoenix Art Museum in 2012.

For more information please visit: The Milwaukee Art Museum

Exhibitions West Palm Beach. Fabulous Fakes: The Jewelry of Kenneth Jay Lane. The Norton Museum of Art. The Curated Object

Snake Bracelet, 1960s. Rhinestones along its body, with a gilded base-metal head and green glass eyes. 3 inches diam. Photography by Erik Gould, courtesy of Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design and Kenneth Jay Lane.

Flamingo brooch, 1990s. Lane created this pin with glass gems and base metal, inspired by the Duchess of Windsor’s famous 1940 Cartier original. Photography by Erik Gould, courtesy of Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design and Kenneth Jay Lane.

Fabulous Fakes: Jewelry by Kenneth Jay Lane

February 3-May 1, 2011

Catch a rare glimpse of the work of Kenneth Jay Lane, the major American maker and designer of costume jewelry who continues to lead the industry. Lane, a stalwart of the fashion world, is widely credited with making costume jewelry as glamorous as million-dollar baubles. Hundreds of his creations – the likes of which have been worn by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Nancy Reagan, Diana Vreeland, Britney Spears and countless other women from every walk of life – are featured.

Mr. Lane commented, “I am particularly pleased that my retrospective exhibition will be at the Norton Museum. Palm Beach is one of the last bastions of glamour and where many of my friends and clientele live. When I began almost 50 years ago I never imagined that my work would become vintage and collectible.”

A compelling figure and master of the bon mot, Lane is not only a long-established presence in society circles but a charming and wildly popular showman on QVC. He has outfitted First Ladies and Hollywood royalty in his fakes, and his early pieces now fetch hundreds of thousands at auction. Lane’s 1996 memoir, Faking It, is considered an industry bible.

After earning a BA in Advertising Design from the Rhode Island School of Desgin in 1954, Lane briefly worked in the Vogue art department before embarking on a career as a shoe designer for Christian Dior and Arnold Scaasi. In the early 1960s, he created several costume jewelry pieces to match his bejeweled shoes, and a legend was born. The first designer to make beautiful and witty jewelry affordable to the masses, Lane considers himself a fine jeweler who works in plastic, rhinestones, and other inexpensive materials. “I believe every woman has the right to be glamorous,” he has said. “Style has little to do with money.”

The exhibition, Fabulous Fakes: Jewelry by Kenneth Jay Lane, was organized by Henry Joyce, an independent curator of decorative arts and design, in conjunction with Kenneth Jay Lane who loaned objects, advertisements, photographs, and research to the exhibition. Joyce, formerly was Curator at Shelburne Museum of Art, Vermont and organized several exhibitions and historic building reinstallations. 

For more information please visit: The Norton Museum of Art