The Curated Object

Exhibition Philadelphia. Art Into Fashion: Roberto Capucci. The Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Curated Object

  from "Art Into Fashion: Roberto Capucci" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

from "Art Into Fashion: Roberto Capucci" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

from "Art Into Fashion: Roberto Capucci" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

from "Art Into Fashion: Roberto Capucci" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

from "Art Into Fashion: Roberto Capucci" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Art Into Fashion: Roberto Capucci

March 16 - June 5, 2011

by JoAnn Greco

The room is just about pitch black, but as your eyes adjust, shocking plays of color come into focus. Dress after dress, alive in hues of neon orange and vivid turquoise, deep amethyst and the rubiest of garnet. Laid in color fields, they're profusely pleated, knife-sharp, like so much origami, and formed into sumptuous roses and abundant accordion folds.

These are the works of a "boy wonder," a post-New Look genius who took the forms populated by Christian Dior and made them his own. They are the singular objects crafted by Italian fashion designer Roberto Capucci.

At first, Capucci drew inspiration from nature, with masterful creations like "Nova Gonne" or Nine Skirts, a dress formed of  concentric circles reminiscent of the movement of water as it's disturbed by a tossed stone. Just a few years later, though, in the swinging '60s, the designer turned to materials like bamboo and straw and peebles, seeing wonderful possibilities in adorning fabric.

Some of these works are bizarre, not beautiful, and ultimately Capucci's one-of-a-kind pieces became more abstract and sculptural. Indee,d some were not even meant to be worn. By the 21st-century, this designer — now 81-years-old— was indulging in works that skewed more to the curious, almost the scientific. By removing the constraints inherent in designing for the female form (those arms, those hips, those breasts!), Capucci has given himself a pass. 

For this viewer, this endlessly imaginative artist reached his peak in the '80s and '90s. It was then, already leaning toward dress-as-sculpure- that he created his most fabulously folded and colored works. These voluptuous items are the most swoon-worthy, the most "Capucci" of the works on hand — and the most artful.

For more information please visit: The Philadelphia Museum of Art

 

Exhibitions/Events NYC. Asia Week New York March 18-26, 2011. The Curated Object

Ogawa Haritsu (Ritsuō, 1663-1747), lacquered and inlaid wood sculpture of Benkei. Signed: Haritsu, with seal: Kan Height: 11¹³/16 in, 30 cm; width: 10⅝ in, 27 cm; depth: 11⅞ in, 30.2 cm Courtesy of Sydney L. Moss, Ltd.

Asia Week New York

March 18-26, 2011

By JoAnn Greco 

Incorporating five auction houses and 17 museums and Asian cultural institutions, this year's Asia Week also showcases specially-curated exhibitions at nearly three dozen galleries.

In addition, the Japan Society is pleased to announce the Japan Earthquake Relief Fund. The Japan Society has created a disaster relief fund to aid victims of the Tohoku earthquake in Japan. Over the years, Japan Society has partnered with several Japanese and American nonprofits working on the frontlines of disaster relief and recovery. 100% of your generous tax-deductible contributions will go to organization(s) that directly help victims recover from the devastating effects of the earthquake and tsunamis that struck Japan on March 11, 2011. 

To make an online donation, visit www.japansociety.org/japan_earthquake_relief_fund 

You can also contribute to the Japan Earthquake Relief Fund by sending a check to: Japan Society, 333 East 47th Street, New York, New York 10017, Attn: Japan Earthquake Relief Fund. 

Please make checks payable to Japan Society and indicate “Japan Earthquake Relief Fund” on the check. For additional information, please email japanrelief@japansociety.org. 

From today through June 30, 2011 50% of all ticket and admission sales to Japan Society events including Bye Bye Kitty!!! will go to Japan Society's Earthquake Relief Fund. 

From a Qing dynasty jade carved bowl to a host of ornamental jewels to contemporary porcelain sculpture, this weeklong event shines a spotlight on familiar and new artworks from China, India, Japan, Korea, southeast Asia, and the Himalayas. Many exhibits pose provocative questions about the intersection of contemporary and classic Asian art.

Annysa Ng, Ambiguous Space aka Hua Xuan, 2009, Ink on silk, Two panels: 30 x 40 inches each, overall dimension 30 x 80 inches, Seal: Tian jin cao tang, Courtesy of China 2000 Fine Art

China 2000 Fine Art, for example, presents "New Shoots Off the Old Trunk," a look at whether today's scrolls and prints have broken free of tradition or simply expanded on it.

Yuriko Matsuda (b. 1943), Rock Paper Scissors, 1995, Porcelain with overglazed enamel design, left: H21" x W12.5" x D5"  right: H22" x W12 x D5.5" Courtesy of Dai Ichi Arts, Ltd.

At Dai Ichi Arts, contemporary artists impart new hues and forms to porcelain — as well as experiment with an array of applied techniques like perforation and gilding — in "Delicate and Daring: the Porcelain Art of China and Japan.

 

Lobed Tray, Brass 18^th-early 19^th Century 19 x 14 x 2 cms Courtesy of MD Flacks Ltd.

 A Set of Four Painted Bronze Mat Weights in the form of Liubo Players Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C. – A.D. 8) Heights 2¾  inches – 3⅜ inches (7 cm – 8.6 cm) Courtesy of J.J. Lally & Co.

Of course, the valuable treasures of the past are never given short shrift. MD Flacks introduces American audiences to Chinese scholar's trays, which served as a vital component in 17th-, 18th-, and early 19th-century rituals involving burning incense, drinking tea, calligraphy and painting. And J.J. Lally & Co. unveils a show of ancient vessels, figures, animals cast and inlaid in bronze and made from 1500 B.C. to 220 A.D.

The Tale of Bunsho, The Saltmaker, illustrations attributed to Tosa Mitsuoki (1617-1691) ink, colors, gold and silver on paper set of three hand scrolls (detail) each scroll approximately 32.8 by 1287 cm Courtesy of Scholten Japanese Art

Some of Japan's smallest treasures — inro, pipeases, and netsuke are on view at London's Sydney L. Moss and Scholten Japanese Art.

Shiva Nataraja, South India, Tamil Nadu, Chola Period, 11^th century, Bronze, Height: 35 ¼ inches (89.5 cm), Courtesy of Art of the Past

The multi-media "Saundarya — 35 Years on Madison Avenue" at Art of the Past explores paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts from South and Southeast Asia that attempt to induce saundarya, a state of heightened consciousness realized through experiencing art.

anonymous (Detail of Panel 2), Guo Ziyi's Banquet Screen, 19th century, eight-panel folding screen, ink and color on silk, full mounted: 57.75 x 138 in. (146.7 x 350.5 cm), single panel mounted: 57.75 x 17.25 in. (146.7 x 43.8 cm), full painting: 45.5 x 124.75 in. (115.6 x 316.9 cm), Courtesy of Kang Collection Korean Art

KooNewYork and Kang Collection present a wide range of classic Korean works, from paintings to antique furniture. 

Joan B. Mirviss, Ltd.

Joan B. Mirviss, Ltd.

 

Joan B. Mirviss, Ltd,

Ten years in the making, "Birds of Dawn: Pioneers of Japan's Sodeisha Ceramic Movement," at Joan B Mirviss Ltd., turns the spotlight on three pioneers of Japan's avant garde ceramics movement.

Museum exhibits include "The Emperor's Private Residence: Treasures from the Forbidden City" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the observance of the centennial of the Newark Museum's outstanding Tibetan collection, and Cloisonne: Chinese Enamels at the Bard Graduate Center Galleries.

Auctions include Chinese snuff bottles at Bonham's, modern and contemporary Indian art at Christie's, and fine Chinese ceramics at Sotheby's

For more information please visit:  Asia Week NY 2011

Exhibitions NYC. Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (Of A Crazy World). The Jewish Museum. The Curated Object

Maira Kalman, Le Corbusier Sink, 2006, gouache on paper.  Collection of Jane and Patrick Curley.

 

 

Maira Kalman, Damien Hirst/Manolo Blahnik, 2008, gouache on paper.  Courtesy of the artist and Julie Saul Gallery, New York.

Maira Kalman, Woman with Face Net, 2000, gouache on paper.  Courtesy of the artist.

 

Maira Kalman, Self-Portrait (with Pete), 2004-5, gouache on paper.  Courtesy of the artist.

 

 

Maira Kalman, Man Dances on Salt, 2007, gouache on paper.  Collection of Tom and Claire O’Connor.

 

Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (Of A Crazy World)

March 11- July 31, 2011

By JoAnn Greco 

Brown paper packages tied up in string may be one of her favorite things, but illustrator Maira Kalman is just as likely to be drawn to a "garbage can in Paris," she says, "because I look at all of life's everyday objects with pleasure."  While her work is certainly very pretty, she's also keen on the "absurd, the humanistically askew moments of life," she adds.

Her late husband Tibor Kalman is arguably more famous in design circles — he created some of Benetton's most controversial ads, and it's his name that's most closely associated with such MoMA-favorites as crumpled-"paper" paperweights and hands-awry watches — but the work and mind that Maira reveals in this exhibit, organized by the University of Pennsylvania's Institute of Contemporary Art, is certainly as diverse, creative, and charmingly off-kilter as anything he produced. 

The 100 works presented here shine, first and foremost, with quiet beauty and subtle whimsy. Washed in lemon yellows and hyacinth lavenders, these gouaches and colored pencil drawings depict a cozy world of dogs and books, a place where the pleasures of writing, thinking, and observing are keenly felt and the pace is never rushed. Culled from a 30-year-ouevre of work for The New Yorker and from her book illustrations, once seen, they become instantly identifiable. "My sensibility remains much the same," Kalman laughs, "year after year."

There are Thurbersque self-portraits and Hockney-like interiors. There's a Matissean love of color and pattern, and a fondness for vignettes. And, of course, there are the famed homages to Saul Steinberg, made during what Kalman calls her "mapping" phase. One, which appeared on the cover of The New Yorker a few months after 9/11, shows "New Yorkistan," a crazy patchwork quilt of neighborhoods like Irate, Lefrakhis, and Botoxia.

At the show's opening, she described how every day she takes a walk and comes back, inspired. She added, "the objects in my home, too, make me happy." Thanks to ICA curator Ingrid Schaffner, this installation includes a generous heaping of such Kalman domestic accoutrements and collectibles. They range from old wooden ironing boards to stacks of weathered suitcases, from lamps to ladders, from bobby pins to balls of yarn. Also here: examples of Kalman's work in other media, notably textiles for fashion designers Kate Spade and Issac Mizrahi, and some of the industrial design pieces she created with her husband for his company, M&Co. In fact, this exhibition says, the "M" in the name stands for Maira. 

Humorously surreal on the one hand, poignantly observant on the other, Kalman's work is, always, contradictory, charming, and complex.

For more information www.thejewishmuseum.org

 

Exhibitions San Francisco & NYC. Balenciaga: Spanish Master. The de Young Museum of Art & The Queen Sofia Spanish Institute. The Curated Object

Balenciaga evening ensemble, 1967. Courtesy of Balenciaga Archives, Paris.

 

Balenciaga evening dress and stole, 1952. Frances McLaughlin-Gill / Vogue; Copyright © Condé Nast.

 

Balenciaga evening ensemble with toreador bolero, 1946. Christian Bérard / Vogue; Copyright © Condé Nast.

Balenciaga evening dress, 1964. Courtesy of Balenciaga Archives, Paris.

 

Balenciaga flamenco-inspired evening dress, 1951. Henry Clarke / Vogue; Copyright © Condé Nast.

 

Balenciaga “Infanta” evening dress, 1939. Copyright, R.J. Horst—Courtesy Staley/Wise Gallery, NYC.

 

Balenciaga: Spanish Master

By Cappi Williamson

A cool Spanish breeze is blowing down Park Avenue in the form of the Balenciaga: Spanish Master exhibition at the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute. Shocking pink, plush carpets usher patrons in from the icy outdoors and welcome them to a world created by couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga: a world of monarchs and monks, bullfighters and beauty.  The idea for the exhibit originated with Oscar de la Renta, Chairman of the Institute’s Board, and is curated by Vogue European Editor at Large Hamish Bowles. Bowles showcases Balenciaga’s unmatched talent and Spain’s rich regional history in equal measure.

On the first level of the Institute, a small selection of showstoppers lines a dimly lit room where Spanish guitar plays, creating the feeling of sultry Catalan night. At the sight of a 1954 red velvet evening coat inspired by a cardinal’s robes, one woman whispers, “…the stitching, the stitching,” as a nearby design student sketches a fanciful hat (on loan from Bowles’s personal collection) in her tiny notebook (a note to students: pencils only in the Institute).

The pink carpet winds downstairs to a larger room of creations: an evening gown takes its cue from a mantón de Manila, fringed silk shawls embroidered with brilliant floral motifs. Another gown was designed with a short jacket, edged in silk balls in homage to the bullfighter’s costume, but Bowles doesn’t shy away from showing interpretations of the master’s work. Rather than exhibiting Balenciaga’s original look, Bowles chooses1960s socialite Pauline de Rothschild’s interpretation of it: she paired the jacket with pantalets for a bold evening look that more closely mirrors the matador’s attire.

Many of Balenciaga’s creations are displayed with their artistic inceptions: Velázquez's portraits of courtiers and royalty, or a note about the deep, midnight blacks so prevalent in the Spanish mourning tradition. The incredible 1939 “Infanta” dress stands beside Velázquez’s “Portrait of the Infanta Maria-Margarita daughter of Felipe IV, King of Spain” and a gilded, chain-linked cocktail dress stands next to images of Spanish nobility dressed in armor. 

But the designer’s influences were not restricted to courtiers, the religious élite, or bullfighting showmen of his native land. The famous sack dress takes its shape from a fisherman's smock and a peasant’s apron became a white ottoman-cotton short dress, so precise in its cut and angle, in Balenciaga’s supple imagination. “Balenciaga revolutionized fashion by referencing the sturdy, utilitarian garments worn by the Spanish laboring classes—as well as the attitude and philosophy that shaped them—to create a new paradigm of mid-century elegance,” explains Bowles.

While the exhibit will soon be leaving New York, West Coasters will have the opportunity to experience Balenciaga’s Spain when the show travels to the de Young Musuem in San Francisco on March 26th. The de Young show will include an extra fifty or so objects not seen in New York.

A symposium on the influence of Spanish culture on the work of Balenciaga will take place at the de Young on opening day and features speakers Hamish Bowles; Pamela Golbin, chief curator of the Musée de la Mode et du Textile at the Louvre; Miren Arzalluz, curator of the Balenciaga Foundation and author of Cristóbal Balenciaga: La forja del Maestro (1895–1936); and Lourdes Font, associate professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Tickets are $24.

Due to the success of the show, the Institute has been obliged to keep its galleries open until 8 P.M. from Wednesday through Saturday until the exhibit’s close on February 19^th. The show creates a dramatic narrative that captures its audience: it’s Balenciaga’s own story – the story of a devout Catholic boy from a Basque fishing village – seen through the lens of Spain’s historical splendor and high drama. 

 For more information please visit: The Queen Sofia Spanish Institute and the de Young Museum

Exhibitions Los Angeles. Rodarte: States of Matter. MOCA Pacific Design Center. The Curated Object

Rodarte, photo by Autumn de Wilde

Rodarte: States of Matter 

March 4- June 5, 2011

This exhibition presents recent work in fashion and costume design by Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte. Installed as a series of interrelated conceptual vignettes, both static and in motion, the installation portrays garments as charged sculptural objects.

Curated by MOCA Associate Curator Rebecca Morse, and designed by Alexandre de Betak, the exhibition features pieces from Rodarte’s Spring 2010, Fall 2010, and Fall 2008 runway collections, as well as original ballet costumes designed by Kate and Laura for the feature film, Black Swan.

Kate and Laura received their bachelor's degrees in liberal arts from UC Berkeley in 2001. Following their graduations, they returned to their home in Pasadena and launched Rodarte in 2005. Since then, they have launched 12 collections and won multiple awards, including the CFDA Womenswear Designer of the Year in 2009.

Rodarte: States of Matter is their first solo exhibition on the West Coast.

Rodarte: States of Matter is presented by Swarovski.

Rodarte: States of Matter is made possible by endowment support from The Ron Burkle Endowment for Architecture and Design Programs. Additional support is provided by the City of West Hollywood. Generous support for MOCA Pacific Design Center is provided by Charles S. Cohen.

 

Exhibitions Pittsburgh. You Are Here: Architecture and Experience. The Carnegie Museum of Art. The Curated Object

Candida Höfer, German, b. 1944; Pinacoteca Querini Stampalia Venezia I, 2003, C-print; Courtesy of Sonnabend Gallery

  Candida Höfer, German, b. 1944; Fundacao Bienal de Sao Paulo XI (CH-317),2005, C-print; Courtesy of Sonnabend Gallery

Candida Höfer,German, b. 1944; Fundacao Bienal de Sao Paulo XI (CH-317), 2005, C-print; Courtesy of Sonnabend Gallery

 

You Are Here: Architecture and Experience

March 5–May 29, 2011 

The Heinz Architectural Center

“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” With this simple statement, Winston Churchill brilliantly conveyed our complex relationship to architecture: The physical forms of buildings are subject to their designers’ control, but the impact the built environment has on us is unpredictable, subjective, and often indefinable. You Are Here brings together work by two artists who take different approaches to exploring our engagement with the architectural world. German photographer Candida Höfer’s lush color photographs of historic and contemporary cultural spaces absorb the viewer with both their scale and detail. Employing the seemingly disparate media of video and etching, French-born Cyprien Gaillard probes the messy, charged legacy of the Modernist housing block abroad. At once disjunctive and complementary, these two bodies of work capture the constant oscillation between what we make of our buildings, and what they make of us.

For more information please visit: The Carnegie Museum of Art 

 

Exhibitions Los Angeles. William Leavitt: Theater Objects. MOCA, LA. The Curated Object

William Leavitt, Painted Image, 1972, oil on canvas, wood easel, 66 x 33 1/2 in. The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, purchased with funds provided by John Baldessari, photo by Brian Forrest

William Leavitt, Interior with Cactus Painting and Spiral, 1984, pastel on paper 33 1/4 x 41 3/4 in.  photo by Brian Forrest, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, gift of Mike Kelley

 

WILLIAM LEAVITT: THEATER OBJECTS

March 13, 2011 - July 3, 2011

 

This is the first solo museum exhibition and retrospective of the work of Los Angeles-based artist William Leavitt (b. 1941, Washington, D.C.). A key figure associated with the emergence and foundations of conceptual art in Los Angeles during the late 1960s and '70s, Leavitt is primarily concerned with narrative and narrative forms. Since 1969, his works have employed ordinary fragments of popular and vernacular culture and modernist architecture as both props and signifiers to produce a distilled narrative. The culture and atmosphere of Los Angeles has played a significant role in Leavitt's ongoing interest in "the theater of the ordinary" and the play between illusion and reality and nature and artifice that characterizes the city. Surveying the artist's multifaceted 40-year career, William Leavitt will include sculptural tableaux, paintings, works on paper, photographs, and performances drawn from the late '60s to the present. One of the most significant and influential figures working in Los Angeles, Leavitt has created a remarkable oeuvre that has influenced generations of artists, and this exhibition, which examines his extraordinary contributions, is both long overdue and highly anticipated. The exhibition, co-curated by MOCA Associate Curator Bennett Simpson and Ann Goldstein, former MOCA senior curator and director designate at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue featuring an introduction by Goldstein, essays by art historian Annette Leddy and Simpson, an interview with the artist by artist-writer Erik Bluhm, a selected artist's exhibition history and bibliography, and a complete checklist of the exhibition, constituting a comprehensive scholarly overview and examination of the artist's career.

William Leavitt: Theater Objects is made possible by lead support from Amy Adelson and Dean Valentine.

Major support is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Generous additional support is provided by Fundación Jumex, Teiger Foundation, Karyn Kohl and MOCA Happy House, Margo Leavin Gallery, John Baldessari, Edward Israel, John Morace and Tom Kennedy, Steven F. Roth Family Foundation, The Danielson Foundation and Rosette Delug.

For more information please visit: MOCA LA 

 

 

 

Exhibitions Los Angeles. One by One An Exploration of Book as Medium. The Craft in America Study Center. The Curated Object

Julie Chen (Flying Fish Press), Siblia Savage photo

Julie Chen (Flying Fish Press), Personal Paradigms: A Game of Human Experience, 2004, Siblia Savage photo

One by One Logo a print using wood type created by exhibition participant Rebecca Chamlee

 

An Exploration of Book as Medium

March 3- May 14, 2011

The Craft in America Study Center will be celebrating contemporary Book Arts with our exhibition "One by One" an exploration of the book as medium. This exhibition will gather the works of some of the most influential book artists and will be on view at the Craft in America Study Center.

A diverse art form, book arts are not easily defined and contain a variety of traditions, techniques, and technologies. With a history that spans the illuminated books of William Blake, the avant-garde of the early 20th century, and contemporary works, the book arts are an agile medium, reflecting the culture of the times. The Craft in America Study Center will feature works from book artists including, Julie Chen, Kathleen Walkup, Harry Reese, Sandra Reese, Carolee Campbell, Rebecca Chamlee, Barbara Maloutas, Katherine Ng, Joanna Drucker, and more. These artists showcase the art form in all its diversity, from fine press books to flag books. Their three-dimensional pieces, blend text, image and format and engage with themes as diverse as the environment, family legacy, and play.

Complimenting this exhibition are a number of events and receptions. An artist's reception and talk with Julie Chen will be held on March 18th at 5 pm, at the Craft in America Study Center. A reception and discussion with artists Barbara Maloutas, Rebecca Chamlee, and Carolee Campbell at the Craft in America Study Center will be held on April 1st at 5pm.

Events are free, RSVP required, wine receptions to follow.A panel discussion at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library in Los Angeles will take place on March 19th. Julie Chen, Carolee Campbell, and Harry Reese, artists included in the One by One exhibition, will discuss the concept of craft and its relation to book arts. The panel will be moderated by Kathleen Walkup, acclaimed book artist and director of the Book Arts Program at Mills College in Oakland. Free, RSVP required.

For more information please visit: The Craft in America Study Center 

 

Exhibitions NYC. Early Chinese Metalwork in Gold and Silver and Works of Art of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Ukrainian Institute. The Curated Object

 

Parcel-gilt Silver Melon-shaped Box and Cover, Tang period, 618-907, Height: 8.0cm

 

And because we are thinking about Asia Week already....

Early Chinese Metalwork in Gold and Silver and Works of Art of the Ming and Qing Dynasties

March 15-26, 2011

Rare and luxurious articles made for emperors, courtiers and scholars are the focus of the fifteenth annual New York exhibition staged by London gallery Eskenazi Ltd, one of the world’s leading dealers in Asian art.  Early Chinese Metalwork in Gold and Silver and Works of Art of the Ming and Qing Dynasties will take place at the Ukrainian Institute, 2 East 79^th Street, New York, from Tuesday 15 to Saturday 26 March 2011.  The exhibition is part of Asian Art Dealers New York (AADNY) and coincides with Asia Week.

The exhibition will feature exquisitely decorated pieces from the Tang period (618-907 AD), one of the most important being a parcel-gilt silver box and cover in the form of a melon surmounted by a bushy-tailed squirrel, or tree shrew, holding a bunch of grapes.  This charming piece has an excellent provenance having been acquired in Shanghai in the 1950s by the distinguished collector/dealer Walter Hochstadter. 

Another small and delightful Tang piece is a silver stem-cup decorated with scrolls and trefoils, stylized scrolling peony plants, and flowers.  This luxury wine cup is rare.  At the time of its manufacture, it was intended for use by the elite; after the art of porcelain-making had been perfected in China, drinking vessels in precious metal would have been redundant.  It was formerly in the Frederick M. Mayer collection, New York, and subsequently a private collection in Japan.  Other fine examples of Tang period silver include a second cup, a fine ladle with an elegantly arching handle and bowl chased with a bird, possibly a goose, in flight, and a parcel-gilt spoon, the bowl chased with two birds standing on a branch with fruit and flowers. 

 

A gold hairpin with unbelievably fine filigree work and crowned with a large flowerhead would have adorned a lady of high status at the Tang court.  A set of two small knives in a sheath, decorated with the most delicate gold openwork, would have been worn by a man of considerable rank; the slender lapis lazuli handles no longer have their iron blades but the gold sheath is remarkable for its finely-woven gold chain, tied with knots that have never been loosened for 1,300 years.

 

An earlier piece from the Warring States period (476-221 BC) is a garment-hook (daigou) inlaid with gold, silver and jade.  This extraordinarily luxurious object was probably made to accompany an important personage in the afterlife.  Notable for the number of different metalworking techniques used to create it, the dragon’s head hook is set with five gold plaques decorated with dragons and coiled snakes.  From the same period is a tiny gold and silver standing figure, probably an official, cast with great realism.  Though only 5.1 cm high, the face, hair and clothing are all depicted with astonishing detail. 

 

A fine early Ming bronze sculpture of a ‘Buddhist’ lion was probably made for the ‘arrow game’ or touhu, or as an incense burner.  The game was played at banquets, the players throwing arrows into the three vessels on its back, the result being that they would concentrate so hard on winning that they would drink less.  The mythical beast is depicted with a lively, striding stance, the forked and bushy tail held high.

 

Jade and rhinoceros horn were highly prized in China.  Weighing in at 10.5 kg is a massive jade carving of a water buffalo from the late Ming-early Qing period, 17^th century.  It is one of a small group of large jade animal carvings and has an excellent provenance having been in both the E.W.L. Atterbury and the Henry Tozer collections in England in the 1940s and ‘50s.   A piece that will raise a smile is the late 18^th century jade bowl with three boys perched on a rocky base as if about to climb over its rim.  A Ming dynasty rhinoceros horn libation cup is particularly unusual as it is inscribed with a date corresponding to 1582 and a poem which may be translated as You, cup, are carved of rhino horn / To cradle drink in large measure. / Though to own you is a pleasure /I must not act like Ji and Ruan.  Ji and Ruan, known for their love of drink, were two of the legendary seven sages of the bamboo grove.  Rhinoceros horn is notoriously difficult to carve and this virtuoso example is in the shape of an hibiscus flower, the handle a sinuous dragon clambering up its stem.  Figural carvings in rhinoceros horn are extremely rare and a late Ming or early Qing (17^th or 18^th century) figure of Bodhidharma, also known as Damo or Daruma, the patriarch of Chan or Zen Buddhism, is a superb example. 

A highly luxurious ‘desk item’ is a cloisonné enamel and gilt copper double container from the Qing dynasty, Qianlong marks and of the period, 1736-1795.  It is in the form of a ‘champion vase’, harking back to archaic vessels in bronze.  The twin containers are elaborately decorated in ravishing coloured enamels and set in superb gilt metal mounts featuring a bear supporting the vase on its back, a victorious bird of prey with outspread wings perched on its head. 

Eskenazi’s exhibitions are always eagerly awaited for the beauty and rarity of the objects offered and these exquisite luxury objects are no exception.  Since the family business was founded in Milan in 1925, the Eskenazi name has become synonymous with expertise in oriental art.  The gallery, which celebrated 50 years in London in 2010, is now in Clifford Street just off New Bond Street in London’s West End.  Giuseppe Eskenazi, who has been head of the business for over 40 years, has an unrivalled reputation for his knowledge and love of the subject and clients have included over seventy of the world’s major museums as well as private collectors.

For more information, please visit: The Ukranian Institute 

 

Exhibitions NYC. Color Moves: Art and Fashion by Sonia Delaunay. Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. The Curated Object

Driving caps 
Designed by Sonia Delaunay (French, born Russia, 1885–1979) 
France, 1924–28 
Silk and wool embroidery on cotton 
Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris, Galliera, GAL 1971.24.3 c,d 
© L & M SERVICES B.V. The Hague 20100623

 Bathing suit 
Designed by Sonia Delaunay (French, born Russia, 1885–1979) 
France, ca. 1928 
Knitted wool 
Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris, Galliera, GAL 1971.24.7 © L & M SERVICES B.V. The Hague 20100623 

Design 253 
Designed by Sonia Delaunay (French, born Russia, 1885–1979) 
France, 1928–30 
Produced by Metz & Co 
Printed cotton mousseline 
Private collection 
© L & M SERVICES B.V. The Hague 20100623 
Photo: © private collection 

Coat made for Gloria Swanson 
Designed by Sonia Delaunay (French, born Russia, 1885–1979) 
France, 1923–24 
Wool embroidery on wool 
Private collection 
© L & M SERVICES B.V. The Hague 20100623 
Photo: © Wolfgang Woessner 

Robe poème no. 1328 
Designed by Sonia Delaunay (French, born Russia, 1885–1979) 
France, 1923 
Watercolor, gouache, and pencil on paper 
Museum of Modern Art, New York 304.1980 
© L & M SERVICES B.V. The Hague 20100623 
Photo: © The Museum of Modern Art/ Licensed by SCALA/ Art Resource, NY

Still photo from the film Le P’tit Parigot 
Written by Paul Cartoux 
Directed by René Le Somptier 
France, 1926 
Collection of Antoine Blanchette 
© L & M SERVICES B.V. The Hague 20100623 

 

Color Moves: Art and Fashion by Sonia Delaunay

March 18, 2011, to June 19, 2011

The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum will present the exhibition “Color Moves: Art and Fashion by Sonia Delaunay,” from March 18, 2011, to June 5, 2011. Organized by Susan Brown, assistant curator, and Matilda McQuaid, deputy curatorial director, the exhibition will feature Sonia Delaunay’s designs for textiles and fashion in the 1920s through the 1940s, when she was intensively exploring the relationship between fabrics and contemporary art in terms of movement and color. Among the more than 300 works on view are garments and textiles, with correlating designs, fashion illustrations and period photographs.

Known primarily as an abstract painter and extraordinary colorist, Delaunay (1885 – 1979) applied her talents and theories to all areas of visual expression throughout her career, including graphics, interiors, theater and film, fashion and textiles. She made little distinction between her paintings and her design work, considering all to be part of a practice of bringing art into everyday life. The exhibition features her 1946 oil painting, “Rythme Coloré,” as well as gouaches, illustrated poems and pochoir prints.

“By showing her work at Cooper-Hewitt, the constant interplay between art and design will be strong and clear and by virtue of Delaunay’s glorious colors, a very joyful experience,” said Bill Moggridge, director of the museum. “This will be an extraordinary opportunity to see Delaunay’s work in a context that takes into consideration the diversity of her artistic talent and the deep connections between form, color and movement.”

“Color Moves” surveys the artist’s designs for fashion and textiles, covering two major periods: the 1920s, when she had her own Atelier Simultané in Paris, and the 1930s, when she designed textiles for the fashionable Metz & Co department store in Amsterdam. The exhibition brings together exceptional examples of designs, textiles, garments and photographs from the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris, the Musée de l’Impression sur Étoffes de Mulhouse, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and private collections around Europe and the United States.

Born Sonia Terk in Russia, Delaunay moved to Paris as a young woman and remained there most of her life. In 1910 she married the painter Robert Delaunay, and through the 1910s the two worked closely together on their theory of “simultaneity,” or the sensation of movement and rhythm created by the simultaneous contrasts of certain colors.

The exhibition will begin with her experimental “poem dresses” of the 1910s, which represented a synthesis of word, body and movement. The concept perhaps first coalesced for her in the work with poet Blaise Cendrars, whose poems she illuminated with abstract color forms.

The first large gallery will be devoted to the Simultaneous Boutique, which opened in conjunction with the 1925 Paris Decorative Arts Exposition, and where she exhibited garments that were extensions of her painting practice. The fashions are pure geometric forms in rhythmic patterns and brilliant colors that exactly suited the modern spirit. A display of garments from this period will be on view, including driving caps, bathing suits and a coat made for Gloria Swanson. Black-and-white photographs of models and famous actresses of the day wearing Delaunay’s creations evoke the glamour of Jazz Age Paris in the 1920s.

The second part of the exhibition will examine her work for the Metz & Co department store in Amsterdam, which is virtually unknown in the United States. The completeness of the Metz & Co collection enables Cooper-Hewitt to show Delaunay’s process, from the initial sketch through the finished product, as she developed her technical skills as a textile designer. Metz & Co director Joseph de Leeuw also promoted other artist/designers, including Bart van der Leck and Gerrit Rietveld, and one area of the exhibition will explore the mutual aesthetic influences among these important figures.

 Exhibition Materials

The exhibition will be designed by Toshiko Mori Architect.

A fully illustrated catalog will accompany the exhibition, featuring essays by Matteo de Leeuw-de Monti and Petra Timmer. “Color Moves: Art and Fashion by Sonia Delaunay” is funded in part by is funded in part by The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Coby Foundation Ltd., The Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation, the Ehrenkranz Fund and the Esme Usdan Exhibition Endowment Fund.

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

 

Exhibitions NYC. Vivienne Westwood 1980-89. The Fashion Museum at F.I.T. The Curated Object

Vivienne Westwood, “Rocking Horse” boot, black leather and wood, Harris Tweed collection, Fall 1986, England, gift of Francisco Melendez A.K.A. François. Photograph © The Museum at FIT, New York.

 

 

 

 

World’s End (Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren), bra top and skirt, brown satin, brown printed cotton, Buffalo collection, Fall 1982, England, museum purchase. Photograph © The Museum at FIT, New York 

World’s End (Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren), unisex ensemble, multicolor striped cotton, Pirates collection, Fall 1981, England, gift of Barbara Hodes.  Photograph © The Museum at FIT, New York.

Vivienne Westwood, man’s two-piece ensemble, red and gold cotton jersey, Civilizade collection, spring 1989, England, museum purchase. Photograph © The Museum at FIT, New York.

Vivienne Westwood 1980-89

March 8- April 2, 2011

Vivienne Westwood 1980-89 will be the first exhibition to focus exclusively on Westwood’s fashions of the 1980s and highlight the significant shift in Westwood’s design style during this decade. Her work of the early 1980s was prominently featured in edgy magazines such as i-D, and her following was comprised mainly of street-style insiders. By 1985, her more structured, feminine, and historically-inspired styles began to attract the attention of the mainstream press and widened Westwood’s audience. The exhibition will include a unisex ensemble from the Pirate collection (1981), a woman’s ensemble from the influential Buffalo collection (1982) and a pair of Westwood’s iconic “Rocking Horse” boots from the Harris Tweed collection (1987). Editorial photographs from magazines such as The Face and British Vogue will further illuminate Westwood’s impact on 1980s fashion, as will runway footage and video interviews with the designer. 

Vivienne Westwood 1980-89 has been organized and curated by FIT graduate students of the Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice program. 

For more information please visit: The Museum at F.I.T.

Exhibitions London. Yohji Yamamoto. The V & A Museum. The Curated Object

YYF AW 2009-10#027  Artist: Photograph by Monica Feudi

YYF AW 2007-08#017  Artist: Photograph by Monica Feudi Date:

Dream Shop by Yohji Yamamoto Artist: Photograph by Ronald Stoops by Ronald Stoops

Dream Shop by Yohji Yamamoto Artist: Photograph by Ronald Stoops

Yohji Yamamoto Artist: Photograph by Koichi Inakoshi  

 

Yohji Yamamoto

March 12 – July 10, 2011

The V&A presents the first UK solo exhibition celebrating the life and work of Yohji Yamamoto, one of the world's most influential and enigmatic fashion designers.

This installation-based retrospective, taking place 30 years after his Paris debut, will feature over 80 garments spanning Yamamoto's career. The exhibition will explore the work of a designer who has challenged, provoked and inspired the fashion world.

 For more information please visit: The V & A

 

Exhibitions London. Marilyn – Hollywood Icon. The American Museum in Britain. The Curated Object

 Negligée from Niagara (1952)

Marilyn’s dressing room keys.  The reverse reads ‘Fox International, Hollywood’.

 

Beaded transparent sheath worn in Some Like It Hot (1959) (a) Studio wardrobe dept label

 

Containers for medicine prescribed to Marilyn (Mrs A. Miller) in Reno, Nevada, while filmingThe Misfits (1961).  While shooting this film – the last she completed – Marilyn suffered a physical and mental breakdown.

Costume worn by Marilyn throughout The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) (a) Publicity still showing Marilyn dancing with Sir Lawrence Olivier and wearing this costume

 

Show costume from There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954) (b) Wardrobe department shot of Marilyn in the costume

Marilyn – Hollywood Icon

March 12- October 11, 2011

For the past 50 years the American Museum in Britain has informed its visitors about the cultural history of the United States in order to strengthen relations between the two countries.  Over 3 million people have visited the Museum since it opened in 1961, averaging around 40,000 visitors a year, including thousands of schoolchildren.  In 2011, the Museum will mark this historical milestone with a major loan exhibition, a gallery trail, three publications, and the opening of two new facilities.  The anniversary year will also feature parties, a film series, and lectures in Bath, London, New York and Washington and much much more.

On view in the main exhibition gallery will be an intriguing show entitled "Marilyn – Hollywood Icon," featuring twenty of the screen goddess’s gowns and outfits, original photographs and posters, and personal items, all kindly loaned by David Gainsborough Roberts, who has one of the largest collections of Marilyn Monroe memorabilia.  Fab@50 presents fifty unusual items in the collection and the fabulous stories that lie behind them, displayed in the Museum’s period rooms within Claverton Manor. 

For more information please visit: The American Museum in Britain