The Curated Object

Exhibitions Chicago. Speaking in Paper: The Works of Marilyn Seward. Columbia College’s Center for Book & Paper Arts. The Curated Object

From the ongoing collaborative project, "Treewhispers"

A photo of the late Marilyn Seward
 

Speaking in Paper: The Work of Marilyn Seward

June 9 – August 21

Gertrude Stein said, "History takes time. HIstory makes memory." The tactile nature of history, memory and time-- a complex interplay of affect and idea-- can be witnessed in the many folds of the life of paper. From its fecund origins in the earth and throughout its journey through generations of hands and hearts, it has a life of its own.  Marilyn Seward's work is a validation and illumination of this medium as one which merrily and mercilessly records every crease, every line and every slight variation of tone or hue. This memorial exhibition shows how, in her hands, and as her legacy, it can be a fingerprint of humanity. -- Joanne Molina

The Center for Book & Paper Arts is pleased to present a 40-year collection of the ground-breaking hand papermaking works by the late Marilyn Sward titled, "Speaking in Paper."  Sward founded Paper Press Studio, which together with Artists Bookworks, became Columbia College Chicago’s Center for Book & Paper Arts. 

"Speaking in Paper" features Sward’s extensive artworks that range from alternative photographic processes on handmade paper and extensive travel journals to the ongoing collaborative project Treewhispers, a shared compilation of handmade paper, artwork, poetry, stories and other visual and written connections.

 “She was an important artist during a critical period when hand papermaking was coming into its own as a fine art medium,” said Pamela Paulsrud, colleague and co-curator of the exhibition.  “Marilyn touched and inspired so many – her life woven through the creative process while simultaneously building community.”

 "Speaking in Paper" is curated by Sward’s Center for Book & Paper Arts colleague Audrey Niffenegger, with Pamela Paulsrud and Stephen DeSantis.

For more information please visit:  www.colum.edu/bookandpaper

 

Exhibitions Wilmington. Modern Morphism: Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture. The Delaware Museum of Art. The Curated Object

Jumping Dog, 2008, Melody Ellis, Earthenware, slips and glazes, steel, 7 1/2 x 3 1/2 x 8 inches, courtesy of the artist

Unspoken Series: Maybe, 2010, Peggy Fowler, Stained porcelain, stoneware, cone 6, 3 1/2 x 5 x 2 1/4 inches, Courtesy of the artist, photograph by Pamela Theis

LURE (albiflora), 2010, Leigh Taylor Mickelson, Porcelain, glaze, under glaze, steel, 69 x 15 x 15 inches, courtesy of the artist

 

Modern Morphism:  Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture

August 7, 2010 – October 3, 2010

Part of the Museum’s Outlooks Exhibition Series, the Delaware Art Museum presents Modern Morphism: Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture. This exhibition encourages viewers to explore the interconnectedness of art and nature. Clay was sculpted into forms based in nature, and then further transformed by the artists’ imagination into something unreal. The works can be organized into the following groups: anthropomorphism (imbuing the form of an animal or inanimate object with human features or behaviors), biomorphism (having a nonrepresentational form or pattern that resembles a living organism), and rhizomorphism (comprising a root-like structure). This exhibition includes 18 works by 13 artists drawn primarily from the region. The guest curator is Jacqueline Jrolf.

Sponsors: This exhibition is made possible, in part, by grants from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.This exhibition is supported, in part, by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

About the Outlooks Exhibition Series

Modern Morphism:  Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture is part of the Delaware Art Museum’s Outlooks Exhibition Series, which encourages community involvement in the creation of exhibitions that will be hosted by the Museum.  The Delaware Art Museum accepts proposals for Outlooks exhibitions from organizations, community groups, and residents of our surrounding area, contributing to the Museum’s mission of providing an inclusive and essential community resource.  All Outlooks exhibitions are displayed in the Ammon Galleries on the Museum’s second floor.  

For more information, please visit The Delaware Museum of Art

Exhibitions Syracuse. The Scarab Vase—Celebrating 100 Years. The Everson Museum of Art. The Curated Object

 

Adelaide Alsop Robineau, Scarab Vase, 1910, Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY photograph by David Revett

Eugene Taylor, Adelaide Alsop Robineau At Work On The Scarab Vase c1910-1911, Art Academy, University City, Missouri
 

The Scarab Vase—Celebrating 100 Years

June 12, 2010 - August 29, 2010  

By Jane Librizzi

“Craftsmanship like Mrs. Robineau’s is a precious blending – knowledge, skill, judgment, taste and, above all, a sense of beauty.  She had all that pottery needs.”  – Royal Cortissoz, excerpted from his obituary of Aldelaide Alsop Robineau published in the New York Herald Tribune February 24, 1929.

She could have been describing herself when Syracuse ceramic artist Aldelaide Robineau (1865-1929) called her Scarab Vase “The Apotheosis of the Toile” to honor the work of anonymous craftspeople everywhere. The vase required more than one thousand hours of labor, the ingenious use of tools, including a dental pick, for intricate carvings. No doubt, she could have also been recalling the frustration she felt when, upon first firing, cracks appeared in the glaze—only to be followed by a sense of vindication when her chosen method of repair worked; a method more difficult than the one suggested by her teacher, Taxile Doat.  

Robineau had spent a lifetime mastering her craft. She studied painting with William Merritt Chase in New York City, and ceramics at Alfred University. Encouraged by her husband, French émigré Samuel Robineau, Adelaide founded the journal Kermaic Studio in 1899 and for the next quarter century, she used its pages to share her technical mastery of high-fired porcelains. In 1905, her first show in New York City garnished attention from the Tiffany Studio. 

Indeed, Robineau triumphed in 1911 when her vase shared in the Grand Prize at the International Exposition in Turin, Italy. The judges averred that, if the rules allowed, they would have awarded the prize solely to Robineau.

Still, further drama would help cultivate the mythic aura that would surround her Scarab Vase.  On Monday, February 15, 1989, thieves broke into the Everson Museum after the museum closed, removed the bolted plexiglass cover that protected the vase, and substituted another piece for the seventeen-inch aqua porcelain.  When the theft was discovered, museum staff replaced the imposter with a picture of the vase bearing the legend “Stolen.” Ronald Kuchta, then museum director, lamented the loss of “the Mona Lisa of ceramics.” Only after the F.B.I. broke up an international art-theft ring, was the Scarab Vase returned – intact.  

The Everson Museum is partnering with Strathmore By The Park Home Tours, Syracuse Ceramic Guild, the Arts & Crafts Society of Central New York, and Clayscapes Pottery for the Strathmore Festival, a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Adelaide Alsop Robineau’s Scarab Vase. The vase was purchased by the museum from Samuel Robineau in 1930, along with 47 other Robineau  porcelains.

For more information please visit: The Everson Museum of Art  

 

Exhibitions Montgomery. Fantasies and Fairy Tales: Maxfield Parrish and the Art of the Print. The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts

Ectasy," 1930, Calendart 38 3/4" x 18", Heritage Auctions

"Sing a Song of Sixpence," 1910, Lithography, 8 1/2" x 20 3/4", Heritage Auctions 

Lantern Bearers-"The Lantern Bearers," 1910, Lithograph, 11 1/2" x 8 3/4", Heritage Auctions 

"Florentine Fete," 1916, Lithograph, 8 3/4" x 14 3/4", Heritage Auctions

"The Lute Players," 1922, Lithograph, 17 1/2" x 29 1/2", Heritage Auctions

   "Old King Cole," 1911, Hand colored lithograph, 10" x 40", Heritage Auctions

Fantasies and Fairy Tales: Maxfield Parrish and the Art of the Print

October 28-January 9, 2010

Maxfield Parrish was one of the early 20th century’s most popular and well-known artists. He trained as an illustrator with famed illustrator/teacher Howard Pyle, and soon his distinctive compositions were being reproduced as illustrations and advertisements. Committed to the popularization of American art, his works were both inherently beautiful and inspiring to millions.

In many cases Parrish’s original paintings were a direct result of his commercial enterprises. Before abandoning figurative work in the 1950s, Parrish undertook hundreds of commissions for book illustrations, magazine covers, advertisements and lithographs that reveal both his sense of humor and his eye for graphic design. Taking advantage of the refinements of color processing that allowed for meticulously detailed and brilliantly illuminated mass reproductions, the works Parrish created for translation into lithographs would become some of his most popular and enduring imagery.

“Fantasies and Fairy Tales: Maxfield Parrish and the Art of the Print” is organized by the Trust for Museum Exhibitions, Washington, DC and International Arts, Memphis, TN, and sponsored in Montgomery by Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama, LLC and Mr. and Mrs. Ted W. Giles.

For more information please visit: The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts

 

Exhibitions Minneapolis. Mao to Now: Chinese Fashion from 1949 to the Present. The Goldstein Museum of Design. The Curated Object

Design by Liu Canming

The Oriental, Design by Wu Haiyan 

Design by Liu Canming

Mao to Now: Chinese Fashion from 1949 to the Present 

October 2, 2010 to January 17, 2011 

Chinese culture changed drastically between 1949 and the present. The evolution of Chinese fashion reflects how the culture transformed. “Mao to Now” is divided into three periods: pre Mao (1912 to 1948), the Mao era (1949 to 1977), the era of the nondescript Mao suit and the post‐Mao era (1978 to present), which demonstrates how, after Mao, Chinese fashion began to exhibit an increasingly dramatic melding of Chinese and Western design expression. 

The exhibition is curated by Dr. Juanjuan Wu, Assistant Professor, College of Design, University of Minnesota, Dr. Marilyn DeLong, Professor, College of Design, University of Minnesota and Mingxin Bao, Professor, Fashion, Art & Design Institute, Donghua University 

The work of four top Chinese fashion designers will be included in the exhibition: Wu Haiyan, Liu Canming, Wang Yiyang, and Zhang Da. In addition to the items of dress and accessories, the exhibition will feature photographs by high‐profile Chinese journalists 

Wu Haiyan is Associate Dean and Professor in the College of Design at the China Academy of Art. She is also the Vice Chairman of the China Fashion Designers Association. She has published extensively in fashion and design. In addition, she runs a design company WHY DESIGN. Her designs have been exhibited in many cities worldwide including Paris, New York, Tokyo and Berlin. 

Liu Canming is Associate Professor in the Fashion Art & Design Institute at Donghua University and teaches fashion design. He is the Chief Art Director of two popular brands, ZIGE and CM∙Loose. He received his bachelor’s degree from the Fashion Institute at Donghua University and his master’s from the European Institute of Design (IED). He was one of China’s “Top Ten Fashion Designers” in 2007 and has shown designs at Chicago Fashion week in 2008 and 2009. 

Wang Yiyang runs two fashion labels: ZUCZUG and CHA GANG. He received his bachelor’s degree in fashion design from China Textile University (now Donghua University), where he taught fashion design. Chen Yifei hired Wang Yiyang to design his new brand, Layefe, in 1997. He was very successful at Layefe and later launched his own labels in 2001 and 2004, respectively. ZUCZUG now has over forty stores in China. 

Zhang Da created the women’s wear label BOUNDLESS in 2005. He received his bachelor’s degree from the North‐West Institute of Textile Science and Technology (now Xi’an Polytechnic University). His works have been exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum and his designs have been shown in many countries across the world. 

For more information please visit: The Goldstein Museum of Design

Exhibitions Atlanta. European Design Since 1985: Shaping the New Century. The High Museum. The Curated Object

 

European Design Since 1985

June 5 - August 29, 2010

BY JoAnn Greco

This sweeping survey — 155 designers, 240 pieces — begins dramatically enough with an entry room of several large pieces that give proof to the power of CAD in today' design. Mathias Bengtsson's "Slice Chair" stacks undulating layers of laser-cut aluminum sheets to form a gleaming thing of beauty. Ron Arad's "This Mortal Coil" similarly uses steel to shape a bookshelf that resembles a nautilus.

Upstairs, though, things get more interesting — the works seem less about "art" and more about process, an approach that's more craft-like, that while still bringing art to useful objects doesn't strive to turn them into monumental think pieces. 

Rooms here are divided into several movements, several of which overlap in the chronology and intent: Decorative, Geometric Minimalism, Biomorphic, Neo-Pop, and Conceptual. Highlights include Yoichi Ohira's glass vases, a seamless blend of Japanese colors and motifs with the Italian glassmaking tradition (Decorative), familiar chairs from Artemide and Vitra, and commonplace products like Tynant's cobalt water bottles and Ikea's gazillon-selling long-spouted watering can (Biomorphic). 

The exhibit ends where it begins, with conceptual pieces (on a smaller scale) such as Philippe Starck's lamp with a gold-plated pistol serving as its base. Starck is of course well-represented throughout the exhibit, but the other familiar names here, from relative newcomers like Marcel Wanders to iconic groups like Memphis and Droog, highlight that in the relatively short span of years showcased European design has enjoyed an incredibly fertile period.

For more information please visit: The High Museum

  
 

Exhibitions Minneapolis. Flights of Fancy. The Goldstein Museum of Design. The Curated Object

Formal dress NY-USA de la Renta, Oscar 1975-1983 Donor: Kremen, Virginia (black with black feathers on bodice) Photo by Evan Baden

Folding fan 1930-1939 Donor: Peyton, Betty (six green ostrich feather folding fan)

Hat, USA Durand, Norman 1960-1969 Donor: Stein, Mrs. Marion (boxy hat with red white green and black feathers, sm brim)

Hat 1960-1969 Donor: Schwarzrock, Shirley P. (red feather turban shaped hat)

 

Hat c. 1940 Donor: Wedes, Kirsten (blue felt hat with neat and feathers that resemble wings)

Coat France Sonia Rykiel 1970-1975 Donor: Sylvia Markus Mohn (peach feathered coat)

Pavane, Robe du soir, de Worth Barbier, George 1921

Jacket Place made: unknown Mackie, Bob Date made: unknown Donor: Willard, Emily (yellow short jacket with feathers on shoulders)

Hat 1890-1899 Donor: Wheeler, Lola Edna Schuelter (brown straw hat adorned with velvet roses)

Flights of Fancy: A History of Feathers in Fashion 

June 12-September 12, 2010

Curated by Goldstein Museum of Design Assistant Curator Jean McElvain, Ph.D. and Research Assistant Angelina R. Jones; Organized in conjunction with The Raptor Center and the Bell Museum of Natural History. 

Flights of Fancy is a colorful and thought-provoking exhibition which explores the historical and contemporary use of feathers in western fashion. Feathered apparel from the late 19th through the 20th centuries from the GMD collection will be on exhibit including garments designed by Bill Blass, Sonia Rykiel, Victor Costa, and Oscar de la Renta. 

Study skins of birds from the Bell’s collection will be included as examples of birds whose feathers were commonly used in the fashion industry. Visitors also will be presented with information on the social connotations associated with feathers in historical and contemporary dress. 

Related Programs: 

Opening June 11, 2010, 6-8pm (presentation at 6:30), McNeal Auditorium 

Join Adam Barnett, interpretive naturalist from the Raptor Center, for an opportunity to see live birds of prey up-close. Four live birds will be on view during a presentation that details the natural history of these birds and their preservation. 

Bird Protection and Millinery: Exploring the Role of Fashion Media in the Debate 

September 8, 2010, 3p.m., McNeal Hall, St. Paul Campus 

Amy D. Scarborough, Ph.D. will explore how bird conservation, the Audobon Society, and millinery was discussed and presented in fashion and women’s magazines 

For more information please visit: The Goldstein Museum of Design

Exhibitions San Franciscio & Mosiac Art NOW. A Divine Display: Curating Contemporary Mosaic Art NOW & An Interview with the Inimitable Ellen Blakeley. The Curated Object

Ellen Blakeley's award-winning "Meredith" from her Bark Series, Recycled tempered glass, paint, fallen Live Oak limb

 (2010).

Ellen Blakeley's "Tiny Dancer" from the Bark Series (2010)

Ellen Blakeley's "Vilnius" from the Bark Series (2010)   

 

A Divine Display 

Curating Contemporary Mosaic Art NOW & An Interview with the Inimitable Ellen Blakeley

By Natalie Fasano

“There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.” -- Anais Nin

Often used as a metaphor for the many tenets of life and multidimensional nature of those who make it dynamic, "mosaic" is a cipher for the constance of abundance and grace resulting from the productive tension that creates the collectivity of blossoming form and the individual of each fragment that sustains it. It is an art that consciously reveals the dynamic of art itself.

For centuries this ancient art has offered us the archeological lightening strikes that have allowed us to peer into the domestic and public spaces of civilizations, foreign and familiar.  Catering to the faculty of the imagination, these ancient symbols of civilization linger at the crossroads of fiction and history. 

But what does it mean to consider the mosaic while standing our contemporary cultural landscape where the moving image, and the excessive dominance of the image, is at the height of its reign? Frustrated with being historically marginalized as “craftsmen,” mosaic artists have worked tirelessly at assimilation—to transition from crafts to arts.  Yes, flat, one-dimensional arrangements of colored tiles on the surfaces of infinity pools, guest bathrooms and posh saunas are, in essence, mosaics. They are not, however, indicative of the movement as an art form. To consider the contemporary mosaic almost necessitates a reconsideration of the vehicle of exhibition itself -- and that is what “Exhibition in Print: Mosaic Art NOW" and its Best in Show winner, mosaic artist Ellen Blakeley have accomplished.  The modern movement to reestablish mosaic art has found its voice in guest editor and judge Dr. Scott Shields, Associate Director and Chief Curator for the Crocker Museum, and Bill Buckingham and Nancie Mills Pipgras, editors of “Exhibition in Print: Mosaic Art NOW” 

A print exhibit as well as a “mosaic manifesto,” Mosaic Art NOW’s third annual edition, published in May of this year, features eighteen international mosaic artists, selected from hundreds of submissions, that best illustrate mosaic art as a contemporary form. From the eighteen, Pipgras and her guest judges selected a winner—Ellen Blakeley, of San Franciso California. Her piece “Meredith,” a three-dimensional mosaic made from a hollowed piece of oak, is a rather startling example of mosaic versatility, in form, dimension, texture and technique. ”Meredith” is the first in Blakeley’s ongoing series of mosaics on oak. Her recent works, including “Meredith,” will be featured among similar, contemporary mosaic talents, on July 20, 2010 at the 555 California Concourse Gallery in San Francisco. “Contemporary Mosaic Art: An Exquisite Collection” will continue MAN’s mission of mosaic assimilation, from the page to the park.

Dr. Shields described the selected artists as those who “added to the mosaic tradition and pushed its boundaries [making evident] that the art form is alive and well.” Shields' philosophy is one rooted in the affective quality of art—art, as Horace famously said, for art’s sake. “People can look at a Picasso and like it, because it is Picasso,” Dr. Shields explained.  “It’s great that they know that, but I also think that people should also respond to art for what it is, rather than simply who it’s by.” 

Ellen Blakeley’s work best exemplifies the relationship between the mosaic artist, or “scavenger,” and resulting work, or beneficiary of opportunity. In San Francisco, during the early 90's, a group of B.B. gun wielding vandals provided her with piles of free glass, from blown out bus windows. Her award-winning recovered oak sculptures, “Meredith,” being the first, were conceived of in a similarly lucky encounter—walking her dogs one morning, Blakeley came across a three-year dead, and perfectly pliable, silver oak tree.  Blakely’s works are the products of serendipitous encounters in her natural environment, an aesthetic that won her a valuable commission last year from the Rockwell Group, designers of the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut.  The Mohegan tribe wanted to showcase 95 glass panels in the casino atrium, and each pane embellished with the tribe’s distinctive medicinal leaves.  

Although she thanks no tangible God, Blakeley continually offers words of respect both of and to an indeterminate, natural force that both directs her artistic vision and provides the raw material for their realization.  At The Curated Object, we offer similar words of gratitude to her for granting us an interview: 

To start, I understand that your work with glass began rather haphazardly, with recovered fragments from blown out bus windows.  Is this true?

In San Francisco, I was living as a single mom just trying to make ends meet.  I saw piles of broken glass everywhere. There were articles in the newspaper; people thought it was bizarre.  Evidently, local teen boys had figured out that shooting glass windows with b.b. guns made them explode, like in an action movie. Because artists are scavengers by nature, I saw this glass as beautiful, free material. I picked up 5lbs one day and began to play with it. 

Were your initial attempts to work with the raw glass successful?  

The glass I recovered was boring, coke bottle green.  I began by painting a board white and gluing glass to it.  A few days later, I splashed some light colors on the board and applied the glass with clear glue. This was my light bulb breakthrough. Most mosaic artists are stuck with someone else’s color choices—they smash plates, use broken tiles.  I began to paint my own backgrounds—I see myself as a painter,  using glass as “color.”

You describe yourself as a creator of functional art—your winning piece appeared more sculptural than functional.  

I started by making art objects and house-ware, mostly mirror frames.  They started to sell like hotcakes; I couldn’t make them fast enough. The design world runs on new— new is God.  I was really lucky to be in san Francisco when all the vandalism was going on.  It was the right place at right time. I was smart enough to recognize something totally cool. I’m tenacious, and I didn’t give up. 

What materials work best with glass?  What are you most fond of using in your pieces?

I’m only limited by imagination.  I use paint, metallic powders, newspaper, fabric, butterfly wings. If it’s flat, and not too thick, I can apply it underneath [the glass].  I just treat the glass with a clear apoxy and laminate it to a piece of wood, like in my bark pieces. 

How do you approach your role in the art world—are you a business woman, an artist, or can you be both?

My heart is the heart of an artist, but I run a tile business.  The artist gets to come out as often as I free up time for her to make art. My business is super busy at the moment, and you have to strike while the iron is hot in this economy.  I have 11 jobs on my board and an accordion crew, about 6 “glassers” on call. Some are students, moms looking to make more money during day. I pay by the piece instead of by hour, so it’s good incentive for them to be fast and accurate.  I guess I’m running a really cool sweatshop.

Though you do run a successful tile business, your bark sculptures are anything but functional.  Out of 305 entries from an international pool of mosaic artists, your piece was name winner of the first annual Mosaic Art Now Exhibition in Print.  You appear to have found some time, then, to work as an artist.  How did you discover your first piece of salvageable wood?

I live an hour north of San Francisco, and walk my dogs in the vineyards every day.  I always walked by this fallen oak tree; a neighbor told me it had been down at least three years. You can’t just pull bark off a tree, it’s like pulling someone’s skin off—you can’t do it.  Again, I was in the right place right time. I kept noticing on my walks these beautiful, weird shapes of bark shedding off of the trunk. One day, I took some home.  One piece was totally flat, and I thought: “Oh, I could glass this.”  

You have cited that artists are, by nature, scavengers.  Your artistic process seems predominantly circumstantial.  What are the thought processes that determine what to do, or make of, a certain material—oak, for example?

I’m a visionary, but not in a religious sense. I see visions and try to make them.  I thought that it would be cool if, when I cut open a tree, it was filled with jewels, if that were how god made it or whatever.  I am not trying to imitate nature, but felt that I was paying my respects.  Whatever I do on the inside of bark pieces is only me paying my respects to the ultimate artist, whoever made this. 

What is your ideal project in the future? 

I’d love to really explore big projects with other architectural firms—creating windows, lighting.  Also floor inlays; we just did an 8ft medallion for a private residence in Florida.  My work looks too delicate to be used as flooring, but its tough as nails. It doesn’t scratch it just glitters. [As for the bark],  Well, I just got a beautiful piece of cherry.  It looks like silver on the outside—who knows where I’ll go. 

To order your addition of Mosaic Art NOW and to contact Ellen Blakely:

$14.95 Retail www.mosaicartnow.com

$ 7.45 Wholesale (min. order 10) http://resale.mosaicrockspress.com

Digital:

www.mosaicartnow.com

http://mosaicartnow.blogspot.com

Facebook: Mosaic Art Now

Twitter: MosaicArtNow

AND

Ellen Blakeley Studio

874 Pauline Court

Santa Rosa, CA 95401

Phone: (707)843-3080

Fax:   (707)843-3084

http://www.ellenblakeley.com

Exhibitions Syracuse. Fit to be Bound. The Everson Museum of Art. The Curated Object

Nancy Callahan, Moving Target, 2010 wood-paper-rubber-metal 20x18x8 inches Everson Museum 

 Rhea Nowak Lumine, 2009 intaglio-and-collograph-on-paper+11.25x89 inches Everson Museum, Photography by David Broda, Syracuse, NY

 Wendy Ann Cross, Between War And Peace, 2010 mixed media 55x13.5x13inches Everson Museum, Photography by David Broda, Syracuse, NY

Kumi Korf from Hole In My Heart, Rikka Press, Ithaca, NY 2009 intaglio prints Washi paper foamcore Board 13x13x0.75 inches, Photography by David Broda, Syracuse, NY 

Miriam Schaer, Of The Errors Of My Heart Too Numerous To Be Counted, 2009, child's dress acrylic found objects, handmade Indian paper 27x17x inches, Photography by David Broda, Syracuse, NY  

Drew Goerlitz, Propositium II, 2003, steel and paper, 72x24x24 inches, Everson Museum, Photography by David Broda, Syracuse, NY 

Tatana Kellner, from Iron video, 2008 silkscreen on fabric, Saatchi Gallery, London UK

Tatana Kellner, Iron book cover, 2008 silkscreen letterpress archival inkjet, International Print Center, NYC

Fit to be Bound

April 17-July 11, 2010

Appearing only five years before the centennial of Francis Picabia’s first experiments with word-images at Alfred Steiglitz’s 291 Gallery in Manhattan, Everson Museum of Art’s "Fit to Be Bound" exhibition reminds us that our acceptance of the cross-pollination of words and images as art works is largely thanks to the legacy of Dada and the Surrealists. Indeed, this exhibition reveals that it is, indeed, the asymmetry between word and image creates an object that is text. That is, an object always already read.

"Fit To Be Bound" is the second in a series of four exhibitions planned by the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York in their series New York State Artists. Forty works by thirty-four artists are on display in two galleries of the museum from April 17 – July 11, 2010.  Works by four artists (Tatana Kellner, Kumi Korf, Claire Maziarczyk, and Miriam Schaer) were invited and thirty were chosen from submissions to the museum.

The exhibition also fills a gap created by the cancellations of three major exhibitions at larger American museums this year.  Both the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts cancelled Surreal Things, an exhibition that originated at the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts also shelved a planned exhibition of Surrealist photography.

Welcoming visitors at the entrance of the galleries is "Propositium II" by sculptor Drew Goerlitz.  Steel shapes a six-foot stack of paper sheets into something evoking a Chinese pictograph, setting the mood for an exhibition that features works overlapping the unique, the handmade, the printed, and the machined.

Tatana Kellner, a native of Czechoslovakia, created in Iron, a multi-media work where book and video elaborate on the theme of overlooked domestic work, using the moving iron,  like heat applied to invisible ink, to reveal texts about household tasks and a frequent corollary, immigration of women. In the video, an invisible hand moves the iron back and forth over white shirts and the text appears, as if by magic. The book’s cover recalls Man Ray’s Cadeau Audace (1921, Victoria & Albert Museum, London).  A delicious aspect to this work is the way it reminds the viewer of the origins of today’s digital manipulations of images in Surrealist photography.

Claire Maziarczyk’s "Bagua Grid" (2008) is mounted on the wall and groups nine paste paper collages to diagram the spatial wisdom of Feng Shui, using a technique used for endpapers in books since the 18th century. 

Kumi Korf, a native of Japan, discovered intaglio printing in the works of 17th century printmaker Hon’ami Koetsu, founder of the Rinpa School.  One of the Rinpa innovations was to combine painting and architecture by mounting painted scrolls on sliding doors and walls in the homes of the wealthy, making moveable art galleries.  Korf  has also used techniques she learned  from  Rembrandt and Goya, in works that combine calligraphy with western abstraction to tell stories from the Heian period in the 11th century. Korf , who studied   architectural design in Tokyo, attributes her  creation of small-scale imaginary buildings directly to Surrealsim.  "Hole In My Heart" is a diagonal wooden structure, a bookcase if you will, that holds four booklets containing hand-copied poems by four Japanese women, dating from the 9th to 13th centuries, including  Ono no Komachi (one of the Thirty-six Immortal Poets) and Izumi Shikibu (a contemporary of  the author of The Tale of Genji). The poems, in English translation, recount episodes of heartbreak: the death of a child, a lover's betrayal or absence. Korf’s stated intention in uniting the poems is to suggest that creativity mitigates human suffering.

Using the Chinese medium of the folding scroll book, Rhea Nowak’s "Lumine" uses an antique format to give her readers an approximation of her experience in reading the dream books of Carl Jung while immersed in the outdoors.

Nancy Callahan’s "Moving Target" (2010) is a new version of a Surrealist ready-made,  reminiscent of Joan Miro’s L’Objet au Couchant (c. 1935) Pompidou Center, Paris).  Like Miro’s work, the solidity of "Moving Target’s" wood and metal industrial form is subverted by curly wires, bobbing and unconnected, upending the seriousness of mass.

The Surrealist appreciation of the erotic and of the female form is present in Miriam Schaer’s "The Errors of My Heart Are Too Numerous to Be Counted," its stories laced into a bustier. Miriam Schaer teaches at Pratt Institute and" Of The Error Of My Heart That Are Too Numerous To Count" is from her series "The Girdle Books," which uses poetry and sentimental items to create a personal history/narrative.

"Between War And Peace" is a new work by Wendy Ann Cross, an homage in sculpture to the novel as a portal to imaginative freedom. Sitting atop a four foot black pedestal is a bird-cage, door ajar.  Inside the cage and festooning down the side of the pedestal are origami birds and other fanciful shapes, all created from the pages of Tolstoy’s War And Peace.  

Photography by David Broda, Syracuse, NY, unless otherwise noted.

For more information please visit: The Everson Museum of Art

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 Pleasures and Pastimes in Japanese Art

January 9, 2010 - Fall 2010

By JoAnn Greco

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

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

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