The Curated Object

Current Events. Exquisite Exhibitions: The Curated Object Guest Blogs for The Magazine Antiques.

   

 

 
 

 

It was an unanticipated and divine display of affection: We were thrilled when The Magazine Antiques asked The Curated Object's Joanne Molina to do a guest blog for the website. Of course, The Curated Object would also like to recognize the expertise of its senior editors JoAnn Greco and Cappi Williamson-- who never cease to amaze with their generosity. Still dazed, delighted and with bursting hearts we would like to extend our sincere thanks for their most humbling request. 

CURRENT & COMING  |  By Staff

October 7, 2009  |  As part of our recurring series of guest bloggers (see our earlier feature with Art Inconnu here) we are pleased to introduce Joanne Molina, editorial director of The Curated Object—a non-profit media project that promotes fine and decorative arts exhibitions worldwide. We asked Molina to share a "curated" list of current and upcoming exhibitions that aren't to be missed!.....

For the complete article please visit:  The Magazine Antiques

Exhibitions St. Louis. Urban Alchemy/Gordon Matta-Clark. The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. The Curated Object

above image: Gordon Matta-Clark, A W-Hole House: Datum Cut, Core Cut, Trace de Coeur, 1973
Collaged gelatin silver prints
Overall: 13 ½ x 86 ½ in. (34.3 x 219.7 cm)
Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal
© Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

The Pulitzer Foundation, "Photographer: Robert Pettus. Copyright: The
Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts."

The Pulitzer Foundation, "Photographer: Robert Pettus. Copyright: The
Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts."

Urban Alchemy/Gordon Matta-Clark

October 30, 2009 - June 5, 2010

The artist Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978) used neglected structures slated for demolition as his raw material.  He carved out sections of buildings with a power saw in order to reveal their hidden construction, to provide new ways of perceiving space, and to create metaphors for the human condition.  He spoke of his work as an activity that attempted “to transform place into a state of mind by opening walls.”  When wrecking balls knocked down his sculpted buildings, little remained.  He took photographs and films of his interventions and kept a few of the building segments, known as "cuts."  They include a section of an apartment floor (Bronx Floors: Double Doors), three parts of a house near Love Canal (Bingo), a window from an abandoned warehouse on a pier in New York City (Pier In/Out), and the rooftop corners of a house in New Jersey (Splitting: Four Corners). For this exhibition, the Pulitzer is borrowing these very cuts from The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and from the private collection of Thomas and John Solomon.  The Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark and David Zwirner, New York, are also lending nearly fifty photographs, while the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, is providing numerous works on paper, including eleven drawings. Two of Matta-Clark’s films, Fire Child and Conical Intersect, will also be shown, offering a means to understand better the performance aspect of his art.  

The placement of Matta-Clark’s work in the exhibition spaces designed by Tadao Ando at the Pulitzer will encourage new ways of looking at art, architecture, and the urban environment. Ando’s pristine building will not only heighten the roughness of Matta-Clark’s cuts, but it will also recall the artist’s lost interventions.  Both he and Ando sought to break the visual and metaphorical boundaries normally associated with the architectural “box” by allowing light to penetrate spaces in unexpected ways. 

Reminiscent of an alchemist, Matta-Clark pursued the transmutation of a discarded object into something filled with “hope and fantasy.”  He was deeply concerned with the abandonment of buildings and the fate of urban communities. He became socially and politically active during the 1970s and wrote that he focused on buildings, “for these comprise both a miniature cultural evolution and a model of prevailing social structures.  Consequently, what I do to buildings is what some do with languages and others with groups of people: I organize them in order to explain and defend the need for change.” 

The exhibition programming will connect the artist’s social activism to present-day St. Louis. The Pulitzer, in collaboration with Washington University's George Warren Brown School of Social Work, is organizing programs that build upon Matta-Clark’s desire to imbue abandoned objects, buildings, and parcels of land with new meaning.  The Pulitzer hopes to help carry Matta-Clark’s legacy into the 21st century and to inspire a new generation of social activism through creative acts.   An interactive web presence will reflect this community-driven programming at  mattaclark.pulitzerarts.org/transformation. A web catalogue will also correspond with the exhibition at mattaclark.pulitzerarts.org. 

Through art exhibitions, programs, collaborations, and exchanges with other institutions, the Pulitzer aims to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of art and architecture and is a resource for artists, architects, scholars, students and the general public.  

 For more information please visit www.pulitzerarts.org 

Exhibitions Winterthur. Lost Gardens of the Brandywine. The Wintherthur Museum & Country Estate. The Curated Object

 

Winterthur, June 7 1925

 

Winterthur, April 16 1925 

 

Winterthur, June 7 1925

Winterthur tulips violas clematis, May 20 1923 

For those of you who are thinking of spring, even as leaves are falling......

Lost Gardens of the Brandywine, March 27, 2010- TBD

With the start of the Winterthur Garden’s famed spring bloom cycle, beginning with the March Bank, which features more than a million bulbs creating a lush carpet of color on the wooded hillsides, Winterthur will offer a comprehensive series of spring programming. It will include the opening of a new exhibition, Lost Gardens of the Brandywine, on March 27, 2010.

posted by Joanne Molina

Interview. Journalist Brook S. Mason Discusses the State of the Arts. The Curated Object

BROOK S. MASON
US Correspondent
The Art Newspaper

The lovely and talented Brooke S. Mason, US Correspondent of The Art Newspaper author of a design column on artnet, writer for the Financial Times, has take a few moments out of her busy schedule to answer questions on the state of the art world and how she found her place in it....

How has arts journalism changed since you began? What do you make of these changes?

BM: From a handful of publications that included coverage of the art market, dozens and dozens of sites, event oriented mags and luxury brand magazines have emerged.

 

How do you think these changes have affected the industry as a whole?

 

BM: They’ve really raised the bar for serious art market journalism.

Can you talk about the rise of people’s interest in design in the last ten years? What do you think fuels this interest?

 

BM: With a greater portion of the population college educated and receiving some exposure to design whether it is sitting on Eames chairs or using Dansk ice buckets, that specialty was a natural to take off.  Now, that look is further reinforced with midcentury design and later stocked on a bevy of TV sets while showcased in fashion mag spreads. Just look at Mad Men (I have a story in the works on that).

 

How do you think reporting on exhibitions has changed and why? Many museums have been radically rethinking curatorial processes and also the ways in which the museum is related to local and international communities.

 

BM: I think with both the general audience and journalists growing in sophistication, there is an effort for greater analysis and more insightful criticism follows naturally.

 

What is the single most profound and important exhibition you have covered this year? Why?

BM: Certainly, the Museum of Modern Art’s current exhibition “Ron Arad: No Discipline ” is sparking fireworks as to attendance and attention.  Hands down, it’s bristling with mega volts in terms of new ideas on presentation. For my review and a tour of the show, see:

http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/mason/ron-arad8-4-09.asp

 

 

What advice do you have for curators and also museumgoers in terms of creating and participating in an exhibition?

 

BM: A further useful lesson can be gleaned at the MoMA. Point one: Hands down, MoMA’s Arad show points out how dramatic staging reins in visitors. Point two: simply note the difference in attendance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibitions  “Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul” and "The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion” which closed in August. 

Yes, the Afghan show brought in visitors but there were endless streams of crowds through the captivating fashion show.  Why the discrepancy?   “Model as Muse” staged well researched and styled vignettes like that compelling exhibition of models draped in Halston as well as Yves St. Laurent’s fabulous Russian line.  That single vignette which was really a recreation of the Studio 54 VIP Room in the basement magically conjured up the decade of the seventies with Alicia Bridges top of the pop charts song “I Love the Nightlife” playing.   Visitors were practically glued to it. It was brilliant staging while roping in steep visitor numbers.

The VIP Room with Yves Saint Laurent and Halston, 1970s Gallery, from the exhibition The Model as Muse 

 

I see every reason antiques should be treated more frequently in the  same way as fashion positioned with the appropriate room décor, period accessories and music of that time frame.  Such a mélange of staging would have knocked up the Met’s “Art of the Royal Court: Treasures of Pietra Dura from the Palaces of Europe” in 2008 into the upper echelons of museum excitement and attendance.

  

The pietra dura furniture and objects alone were stellar and the wall texts instructional but that entire presentation needed to be enlivened to bring in substantial crowds.

 

On the whole, I find far too many decorative arts exhibitions falling into a rather old fashioned way of presentation.  Some might even dub that mode geriatric.

 

What do you think the journalists role will be in terms of thinking about art, reporting on art and assisting in the creation of public dialogues about specific goals for artists and the cultural capital they provide?

 

BM: I think journalists need to ferret out both the sensational stories as well as smaller ones.  Certainly, it would prove useful if museums stepped up and included serious journalists on panels, symposiums and lectures to discuss the role of the market in collecting, new shifts, new price hikes.

 

In terms of thinking about art market and the effects of the global recession, what advice do you have for cultural institutions and private collectors who are struggling in this market?

 

BM: With endowments withering, cultural institutions today more than ever must rely on private philanthropists. In doing so, museums, historic houses and sites as well as other cultural institutions must make serious efforts to entice an entire new generation of philanthropists on multiple levels.

For those reading this interview and wondering how you managed to launch you career, can you discuss how and why you decided to become a journalist who covers the fine and decorative arts and design markets? What was compelling about the industry and the topic as well as how you trained for that role?

 

BM: For me, it was a eureka moment. I was 20 years old, cruising in the Mediterranean while touring Greek and Roman sites with the great Gothic Revival scholar and Johns Hopkins University professor Phoebe Stan ton and her family.  I’d been avidly reading Souren Melikian in the Trib and decided I wanted a journalistic career with total immersion in the art market.  My backup was to work for Mrs. Parish.

 

In terms of training, I began with post-graduate work in 18th century French painting at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.  Later I worked on the Trenton Times when it was owned by the Washington Post and covered everything.  I followed that up with a stint as one of 12 special students at Princeton University and took economics.

To contact Brooke:

BROOK S. MASON

US Correspondent

The Art Newspaper

38 East 85th Street

New York, NY 10028

Tel: 212 472 9889

Fax: 212 472 1563

Cell: 917 533 6261

Contributing author: The International Art Markets

The Essential Guide for Collectors and Investors

(Kogan Page, 2008) 

Exhibitions Purchase. British Invasion 2? British Subjects: Identity and Self-Fashioning 1967-2009. The Neuberger Museum of Art. The Curated Object

 

Chila Burman

Douglas Gordon, Self-portrait of You and Me

Michael Landy

Mark Wallinger

John Kirby, White Wedding

 

Tigale Hassan, Self-Portrait

Chantal Joffe, Self-Portrait with Esme

British Invasion 2? British Subjects: Identity and Self-Fashioning 1967-2009..

September 13-December 13, 2009

When artist Tracey Emin, who represented Great Britain at the 2007 Venice Biennale, was asked by an interviewer whether she felt British, she replied, "I am British! My passport's British. I was born in London. My dad's Turkish-Cypriot; my mum's from the East End.... I'm definitively multicultural British!" The interviewer’s question was not so strange considering that in the last sixty years, Britain has become a multi-cultural society, transformed by the dissolution of its empire, post-war immigration, and the new social movements embracing minority cultures. This has had a tremendous impact on British culture and notions of identity -- on what it means to be British and conceptions of selfhood.

These themes will be addressed in British Subjects: Identity and Self-Fashioning 1967-2009, an exhibition opening at the Neuberger Museum of Art | Purchase College in Purchase, New York on September 13, 2009. According to Dr. Louise Yelin, curator, the themes “dramatize new notions of identity and present a wide array of artistic practices that constitute self-portraiture today.” On view will be more than sixty works -- masquerade, performance, videos, and installation as well as paintings, sculpture, and photography. Almost all of the artists were born in the post World War II era; many are migrants or children or migrants; some were born in Britain but migrated elsewhere. Among the artists to be included are internationally-acclaimed painter/collage artist Richard Hamilton, Guyana-born Frank Bowling who participated in the 1971 Whitney Biennial, sculptor Mark Wallinger, Ron Mueck, Yinka Shonibare whose work considers issues of race and class, and Hew Locke; emerging artists Caron Geary and Ellie Rees; and women artists Sarah Lucas, Sam Taylor-Wood, Sonia Boyce, Jenny Saville, who invite us to consider the ways that we think about race and nationality through gender and the body.

 “In recent years, there have been numerous exhibitions devoted to contemporary portraiture and self-portraiture and to recent and contemporary British art,” notes Dr. Yelin. “As yet, though, no museum has undertaken an exhibition specifically focused on British self-portraiture since the 1960s. British Subjects and its accompanying catalogue will invite us to look afresh at Britain and British culture in a post-imperial, global age.” Dr. Yelin is Interim Dean of Humanities and Professor of Literature at Purchase College, State University of New York.  Support for British Subjects: Identity and Self-Fashioning 1965-2009 comes from Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art.

For more information please visit: The Neuberger Museum of Art

EXHIBITIONS NEW YORK CITY. NEOCLASSICISM: DISCOVERIES FROM THE 18th to 20th CENTURIES. GUY REGAL LTD./NEWEL. THE CURATED OBJE

 

A Finely Carved Parcel Gilt Mahogany and Bronze Center Table Attributed to Alexandre Maigret

French, c 1815

H 32” x D 41.75”

 

Flow State II

Kevin Kelly

American

H 30” x W 22” x D 10”

 

A Parcel Gilt and Blue Painted Table by Jansen

French, c 1920

H 29.5” x D 23.75”

 

A Cork and Twig Armchair

Norweigian, 1906

H 39” x W 22” x D 22”

Neoclassicism: Discoveries From the 18th to 20th Centuries

October 14 - November 13, 2009

For twelve years, Guy Regal, Ltd. has been holding court on New York's antique furniture row of East 60th Street, staking a claim to the primacy of Neoclassicism, which flourished in the 18th century and in turn hearkened back to decorative arts traditions of the Greeks and Romans. Thanks to its emphasis on balance and line, the style's (straight) legs have made it an enduring one way beyond Regency England, permeating other countries and marching right through Art Deco and into our own age. 

With this show, Regal marks a new and unusual alliance with Newel, LLC, a gallery that specializes in renting antique furniture and objets from all periods to everyone from the television show Gossip Girls to the tony department store Bergdorf Goodman. "They have loads of inventory that a lot of people just never get to see on a retail level," says Regal, "and so I thought it might be a good idea to showcase some of the best pieces in my space. Going through this huge business," he continues, was "like being a kid in a candy shop." 

The 30-piece show (half from Regal, half from Newel) starts with a Greek krater from 300 B.C. "to put everything into context," says Regal; then incorporates a mix of Neoclassic pieces from several ages. Highlights amidst this carefully edited feast of gilt and marquetry include a pair of monumental red cinnabar carved palace vases from 19th-century China, several Regency tables, and a Russian chest or "commode" from 1800. Regal says the two galleries intend to further their relationship by eventually acquiring new pieces together, and by one day opening a new location elsewhere in Manhattan or even in another city.

For more information, please visit www.guyregalltd.com

Posted by JoAnn Greco

EXHIBITIONS NEWARK. ONE HUNDRED PIECES OF ART POTTERY, 1880-1930. NEWARK MUSEUM. THE CURATED OBJECT.

 

Image courtesy of the Newark Museum 

Image courtesy of the Newark Museum 

 

Image courtesy of the Newark Museum 

 

Image courtesy of the Newark Museum 

 

Image courtesy of the Newark Museum 

100 Pieces of Art Pottery: 1880-1930

Sept. 23, 2009 — Jan. 10, 2009

As befits the time period, many of the pieces on display here are Japanese and Japanese-inspired, coming as they did fresh on the heels of the hugely eye-opening and popular Japanese presence at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876. To contrast the new styles that came from America's exposure to this work with that of earlier ceramic decorative arts, the exhibition first showcases a striking deep pink and gold, enamalled piece of Sevres porcelain, dating to Napoleonic times. And, a small display, also at the beginning, pays homage to John Cotton Dane, the founding director of the Newark Museum and the man responsible for building its pottery collection and giving a stamp of approval to the notion of ceramics as art. The rest of the exhibit, however, moves firmly into the realm of modern art pottery. We get a nice summation of the Ohio schools, particularly Rookwood, and a significant piece from master craftsman George E. Ohr. This work, derived from a baluster form central to Oriental pottery, is cleverly pinched and folded in a distinct nod to the Japanese wabi-sabi aesthetic of 'imperfection." From Sevres to Ohr, this exhibit tells us, was quite a long journey!

For more information, please visit www.newarkmuseum.org

Posted by JoAnn Greco

EXHIBITIONS PARIS. LOUIS COMFORT TIFFANY: COLORS AND LIGHT. MUSEE DU LUXEMBOURG. THE CURATED OBJECT

 

Louis C. Tiffany

Vase, c.1900

Verre Favrile

New York, The Museum of Modern Art

Don de Alfred H. Barr, Jr., 1979

© The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed

by SCALA / Art Resource, NY

 

Louis C. Tiffany

Vase, c.1900

Verre Favrile

New York, The Museum of Modern Art

Don de Alfred H. Barr, Jr., 1979

© The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed

by SCALA / Art Resource, NY

 

Louis C. Tiffany

Fenêtre du "Bella Apartment", c.1880

Verre, plomb

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art,

Don de Robert Koch, 2002

©Photo : The Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

Louis C. Tiffany

(Monture en argent de Edward Colonna)

Vase, c. 1897-98

Verre, monture en argent, opales

Collection particulière

©Photo : DR

 

Louis C. Tiffany

Boîte à timbres, c.1905

Bronze doré, mosaïque en verre, verre moulépressé

Collection Dr Gail Evra

©Photo : Richard Goodbody

 

Louis C. Tiffany

Encrier, c.1900-1903

Verre, argent

Newark, The Newark Museum

Don de Mr. And Mrs. Ethan D. Alyea, 1967

©Photo : The Newark Museum

Louis Comfort Tiffany: Colors and Light

Sept. 16 - January 17, 2010

For many, the lamps and stained glass windows of Louis Comfort Tiffany are virtually synonymous with Art Nouveau and so it's fitting that the home of the movement — Paris — should pay tribute to this most American of designers. This exhibition gathers about 160 works — lamps and windows, yes, but also vases, jewelry, watercolors and drawings — and divides them into six themes that follow the development of Tiffany's career. Aside from the large stained-glass windows, which have been dismantled and restored especially for this exhibition, it is the Favrile glass vases that triumph here. Their organic shapes, Japanese inspirations, floral motifs, and vivid tones, alive with the hues of the sea and sky, will strike the most ardent fans anew, and convince those less familiar with this segment of Tiffany's work to give the artist another look. “Visitors to the exhibition will see first-hand evidence of Tiffany’s love of exoticism, rich ornament, fine craftsmanship, and the abstract qualities of color that placed him squarely in many of the artistic movements of his time, from Arts and Crafts and the American Aesthetic Movement to Art Nouveau and Symbolism,” says Barry Shifman, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Curator of Decorative Arts from 1890 to the Present. The exhibit, which  gets its only American showing at VFMA in Richmond from May 29 through August 15, 2010. 

For more information, please visit http://www.museeduluxembourg.fr/

Posted by JoAnn Greco

EXHIBITIONS NEW YORK CITY. REINVENTING RITUAL: CONTEMPORARY ART AND DESIGN FOR JEWISH LIFE. THE JEWISH MUSEUM. THE CURATED OBJECT.

 

Talila Abraham, Dantela, 2004, stainless steel: etching.  Courtesy of the artist, Kfar Truman, Israel. 

Rachel Kanter (American, b. 1970), Fringed Garment, 2005, cotton fabric, cotton thread, cotton floss, fusible webbing.  The Jewish Museum, New York, Purchase: Dr. Joel and Phyllis Gitlin Judaica Acquisitions Fund. 

Karim Rashid (American, b. Egypt 1960), Menorahmorph, 2004, silicone and stainless steel.  Jewish Museum Centennial Commission; Purchase: Tobe Pascher Workshop Commission Program Fund.  

Ami Drach (Israeli, b. 1963) and Dov Ganchrow (Israeli, b. United States 1970), +/- Hotplate, 2003, readymade plate, silk-screened conductive print, and ABS connector housing.  Courtesy of the artists, Tel Aviv.  

Studio Armadillo: Hadas Kruk (Israeli, b. 1970) and Anat Stein (Israeli, b. 1972), Hevruta-Mituta, 2007, plastic chess board, thirty-two knitted skullcaps.  Hadas Kruk and Anat Stein, Studio Armadillo. 

Jonathan Adler (American, b. 1966), Utopia Menorah, 2006, high-fired brown stoneware with white glaze.  The Jewish Museum, New York, Purchase: Contemporary Judaica Acquisitions Committee Fund.  

Allan Wexler (American, b. 1949), Gardening Sukkah, 2000, wood, gardening implements, eating utensils.  Courtesy of Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York. 

Reinventing Ritual: Contemporary Art and Design for Jewish Life

Sept. 13, 2009 - Feb. 7, 2010

Objects related to Jewish ceremonial occasions seem made for fresh design takes: the menorah with its nine candles, the seder plate with its handy compartments, the outdoor sukkah, with its overtones of the harvest and safe refuge. Just in time for Judaism's High Holy days, the Jewish Museum has collected nearly sixty contemporary works, made over the last decade, that, it says, "highlight the tension between the everyday and the sacred." Celebrated industrial designers like Jonathan Adler and Karim Rashid are here, but so are others who work in video, installation, metalwork, and even comics. Curator Daniel Belasco has sensitively arranged the pieces into four sections, Thinking, Covering, Absorbing, and Building, which take into account the major practices of Jewish ritual: lighting candles, eating, drinking, counting, and praying. 

A penchant for rejecting the literal unifies the assemblage. Norm Paris' "Rubble Fragment" is a mezuzah — a small case positioned at the entryway that holds a rolled-up piece of parchment upon which is inscribed verses from the Torah —  made out of what seems to be a rough piece of concrete that is, he says, "fabricated to look like a remnant from a military-industrial site, retrofitted to become an awkward religious marker." The work is meant to invoke the ravages of ever-lasting conflicts in the Middle East. 

A much lighter piece —ablaze in fuchsia and determinedly amoeba-like in form — "Menorahmorph," could only be the work of Rashim. It, too, however, stresses the need to question ritual, by forcing the participant to light the candles outside of the professed order. With Fringed Garment, Rachel Kanter also indulges in pointed humor: pushing the boundaries of traditional sex roles by combining a kitchen apron and a prayer shawl (until recently worn only by Jewish men). 

Posted by JoAnn Greco

For more information, please visit www.thejewishmuseum.org

 

Exhibitions NYC. American Beauty: Aesthetics and Innovation in Fashion. The Museum at FIT. The Curated Object

Ralph Rucci, Infanta gown in graphite gray duchesse satin, Fall 2004. Lent by Ralph Rucci.  Photograph: William Palmer.

 

Maria Cornejo, One dress in felted grey wool, 2003.  Lent by Maria Cornejo. Photograph: William Palmer.

American Beauty: Aesthetics and Innovation in Fashion
November 6, 2009 - April 10, 2010 

The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) presents American Beauty: Aesthetics and Innovation in Fashion, the first exhibition to explore how the "philosophy of beauty" is allied to the craft of dressmaking. Each of the 75 looks on display was chosen to exemplify the relationship between technical ingenuity and artistic excellence. Curator Patricia Mears has focused on approximately 25 American fashion designers, ranging from the obscure, such as Jessie Franklin Turner, whose work dates from the late 1910s, to rising stars of the present day, such as the Mulleavy sisters of Rodarte. Other designers featured include Adrian, Bonnie Cashin, Maria Cornejo, James Galanos, Halston, Elizabeth Hawes, Charles James, Charles Kleibacker, Claire McCardell, Norman Norell, Rick Owens, Ralph Rucci, Isabel Toledo, Pauline Trigère, Valentina, Yeohlee, and Jean Yu.

"The garments in American Beauty are connected by one overriding criterion: They have all been created by designers who utilized the craft of dressmaking as the point of departure to create beautiful, wearable objects," said Patricia Mears, deputy director of The Museum at FIT. "This focus on construction further illustrates that each designer's method of attaining innovative shapes and forms could only have come about because craft was the central focus of the creative process. While this exhibition most definitely is not a retrospective, the range of clothing types included in American Beauty is comprehensive in that it includes both high- and low-priced fashion from the past 100 years of American fashion."

American Beauty includes such dressmaking disciplines as draping, geometric forms, tailoring, and rigid construction from a broad spectrum of clothing styles, including daywear, suits, evening gowns, and active wear. The link between aesthetics and innovation will further be explored by illustrating the diversity of creative styles in the United States, from highly functional and economical ready-to-wear garments to elaborate couture creations and Hollywood costumes. The exhibition will be designed by Charles B. Froom.

For more information please visit: The Museum at FIT

Exhibitions Helsinki. Finnish Jewelery 1600 - 2009. Design Museum, Finland. The Curated Object

 

 Eva Gyldén, Cameo 1929. Photo Rauno Träskelin.

 

Björn Weckström/Lapponia Jewelry, Planetaariset laaksot 1969. Photo Winfrid Zakowski.

Finnish Jewelry 1600-2009

October 16, 2009-Jan. 24, 2010

This exhibition will be the first comprehensive presentation of Finnish jewellery from antiques to contemporary conceptual art jewellery. It will follow changes in the meanings and design of jewellery over the decades. Exhibits will include masterpieces made by jewellers of the Fabergé era in St. Petersburg, elegant cameo pieces by Eva Gyldén from the 1920s, uncluttered jewellery design from the 1950s by Elis Kauppi, Bertel Gardberg, Börje Rajalin and Paula Häiväoja, Björn Weckström’s forceful Lapponia jewellery of the 1960s, and the most interesting achievements of the jewellery industry and designers from recent decades.  

For more information please visit: The Design Museum of Finland

Exhibitions Chicago. Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage. The Art Institute of Chicago. The Curated Object

 

Marie-Blanche-Hennelle Fournier
French, 1831–1906

The Madame B Album, 1870s

 

Frances Elizabeth, Viscountess Jocelyn
English, 1820–1880

"Diamond Shape with Nine Studio Portraits of the Palmerston Family and a Painted Cherry Blossom," from the Jocelyn Album, 1860s

 

Maria Harriet Elizabeth Cator
English, died 1881

Untitled page from the Cator Album, late 1860s/70s

 

Georgiana Berkeley
English, 1831-1919

Untitled page from the Berkeley Album, 1867/71

 

Elizabeth Pleydell-Bouverie (English, died 1889) and
Jane Pleydell-Bouverie (English, died 1903) or
Ellen Pleydell-Bouverie (English, 1849-?) and
Janet Pleydell-Bouverie (English, 1850-1906)

Untitled page from the Bouverie Album, 1872/77

 

Constance Sackville-West (English, 1846-1929) or
Amy Augusta Frederica Annabella Cochrane-Baillie (English, 1853-1913)

Untitled page from the Sackville-West Album, 1867/73

Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage

Oct. 10-Jan. 3. 2010

Collage is commonly thought of as a modern art form, but the act of “playing with pictures” has a long, rich, and surprising history. Sixty years ahead of the avant-garde—and more than a century before Photoshop—aristocratic Victorian women were already experimenting with photocollage. This world-premiere exhibition is the first to comprehensively examine this little-known phenomenon, presenting many eye-opening works that have rarely—and in many cases never—before been displayed or reproduced. See Playing with Pictures at the Art Institute before it travels to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. It might change the way you look at the Victorian age.

During the Victorian era, photography became remarkably popular and accessible, as people posed for studio portraits and exchanged these pictures on a vast scale. The makers of the collages shown here cut up these portraits and placed them in elaborate watercolor designs in albums. With their sharp wit, absurd senses of humor, and dramatic shifts of scale akin to those Alice experienced in Wonderland, these photocollages stand the rather serious conventions of photography in the 1860s and 1870s on their heads, debunking stuffy Victorian clichés with surreal, subversive, and funny images. Oftentimes, the combination of photographic portraits with painted settings inspired dreamlike and even bizarre results: placing human heads on animal bodies; situating people in imaginary landscapes; and morphing faces into common household objects. Such images reveal the educated minds as well as accomplished hands of their makers, as they take on new theories of evolution, the changing role of photography, and the strict boundaries of aristocratic society. Together they provide a fascinating window into the creative possibilities of photography in the Victorian era and enduring inspiration for photographic experimentation today.

Playing with Pictures showcases the best of these albums and loose pages from collections across the United States, Europe, and Australia; 40 pages are shown in frames on the wall, while 11 separate albums are displayed in cases, accompanied by “virtual albums” on computer monitors for visitor interaction. One of the highlights of the exhibition is an exciting addition to the Art Institute’s permanent collection: the Madame B Album, a fascinating album of more than 140 pages of photographs and watercolor designs, which was acquired in 2005 and is on public display for the first time. “Madame B” has been identified as Blanche Fournier, the wife of a French diplomat. In her clever, whimsical, and surreal world, photographic portraits dot the tail feathers of a turkey, faces decorate the wings of a colorful butterfly, and a secret language of flowers communicates hidden meanings.

For more information please visit: The Art Institute of Chicago

Exhibitions London. Remembering Jan Kaplický Architect of the Future. The Design Museum. The Curated Object

 

Lord’s Media Centre, Marylebone Cricket Club, London, 1994.
Photo: Timothy Davey

 

Southbank Cultural Center, London, collaboration with Anish Kapoor, competition entry, 2001
Photo: Timothy Davey

 

Green Building, concept, 1990
Photo: Timothy Davey

 

Umweltbehorde, Hamburg, competition entry, 1991
Photo: Timothy Davey

 

Electric car, concept, 1995
Photo: Timothy Davey

Remembering Jan Kaplický Architect of the Future

July 1 – November 1, 2009

Jan Kaplický, who died earlier this year, was the Czech architect responsible for some of the most remarkable buildings that Britain has ever seen. Lord’s cricket ground holds the press box he built with his former partner, Amanda Levete – it was their first major project and won the Stirling Prize.

Kaplický also designed the Selfridges department store in Birmingham, 2003 and yet even more remarkable are the buildings that Kaplický designed, which the world will never see – to say nothing of his stream of ideas for solar powered vehicles, electric cars, jewellery, bikinis and double-decker buses. This exhibition will celebrate the work of a gifted architect and designer.

For more information please visit: The Design Museum

Exhibitions Washington, DC. Man Ray, African Art and the Modernist Lens. The Phillips Collection. The Curated Object

Man Ray, Untitled (Commemorative figure of a queen, Bangwa Kingdom, Cameroon, 19th century, Paris, Musée Dapper), c.1933. © 2009 Man Ray Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Man Ray, African Art and the Modernist Lens
October 10, 2009-January 10, 2010

Man Ray translated the 20th-century modernist taste for African art into photographs that reached a popular audience. About 60 of his photographs, many never before exhibited, along with more than 40 photographs by his contemporaries, including Cecil Beaton, Walker Evans, and Alfred Stieglitz, will appear side-by-side with 20 of the African objects featured in the images. The exhibition explores the pivotal role of these photographs in shaping the perception of non-Western objects as fine art. Man Ray, African Art and the Modernist Lens is organized by International Arts and Artists.

For more information please visit: The Phillips Collection

Exhibitions Washington, DC. Golden Seams: The Japanese Art of Mending Ceramics. The Freer Gallery of Art. The Curated Object

Tea Bowl
Japan, Mino or Seto ware
Muromachi period, early 16th century
Stoneware with iron and ash glazes over iron slip;maki-e lacquer repairs
6.3x16.8x16.8 cm
F1900.53

Golden Seams: The Japanese Art of Mending Ceramics

November 8, 2008-November 8, 2009

Clay vessels are remarkably durable, yet they are vulnerable to breakage if mishandled or dropped. This small exhibition presents 13 ceramics from China, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan that were mended and enhanced by a unique method created by Japanese craftsmen. This distinctive technique was based on the longstanding practice of using plant resin lacquer as an adhesive, but Japanese craftsmen transformed the appearance of the repair by sprinkling the lacquer with powdered gold, thus creating a new component for appreciation. "Gold" lacquer repairs became closely associated with ceramic utensils used for tea (chanoyu).

For more information please visit: The Freer Gallery of Art

Exhibitions Washington, DC. Brian Jungen: Strange Comfort. The National Museum of the American Indian. The Curated Object

Brian Jungen, Crux (as seen from those who sleep on the surface of the earth under the night sky) (detail), 2008. Suspended mobile depicting five animals. Steel, new and used suitcases, and wooden rowboat. National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, 26/7253. Photo by Ernest Amoroso, NMAI. ©Brian Jungen. Brian Jungen, Crux (as seen from those who sleep on the surface of the earth under the night sky) (detail), 2008. Suspended mobile depicting five animals. Steel, new and used suitcases, and wooden rowboat. National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, 26/7253. Photo by Ernest Amoroso, NMAI. ©Brian Jungen.

Brian Jungen, Crux (as seen from those who sleep on the surface of the earth under the night sky) (detail), 2008. Suspended mobile depicting five animals. Steel, new and used suitcases, and wooden rowboat. National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, 26/7253. Photo by Ernest Amoroso, NMAI. ©Brian Jungen.

 

Crux (as seen from those who sleep on the surface of the earth under the night sky), 2008.

Steel, new and used suitcases, and wooden rowboat.

Approximately 26'2 x 19'8 x 16'4

Photographed while installed at the 2008 Sydney Biennale. Photo courtesy Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver.

National Museum of the American Indian 26/7253.

©Brian Jungen.

 

 
Carapace, 2009. Industrial waste bins, 11.63' x 26.25' x 21.9'. Courtesy of the artist, Casey Kaplan, NY, and Frac des Pays de la Loire, France. Photo: Mathieu Génon. ©Brian Jungen.

 

Blanket No. 7, 2008. Professional sports jerseys, 69 x 53½”. Sender Collection. Courtesy of the Sender Collection. ©Brian Jungen

Prototype for New Understanding #23, 2005. Nike Air Jordans, 18½ x 20½ x 5 7/8”. Collection of Debra and Dennis Scholl, Miami Beach, Florida.

Courtesy of Debra and Dennis Scholl. ©Brian Jungen.

 

The Prince, 2006. Baseball mitts and dress form, 82 x 24 x 19 ½”.  Sender Collection. Courtesy of the artist and Casey Kaplan, NY. Photo: Adam Reich. ©Brian Jungen.

 

1980, 1970, and 1960, 2007.

Golf bags with golf balls, and painted golf tees

139 x 38 x 27 in., 151 x 29 x 30 in., and 156 x 48 x 36 in.

Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

L, purchased with the assistance of The David Yuile and Mary Elizabeth Hodgson Fund, 2007.

M, Promised gift of Rosamond Ivey.

R, Promised gift of Michael and Sonja Koerner.

Photo Credit: Craig Boyko.

© 2009 Brian Jungen.

Brian Jungen: Strange Comfort

October 16, 2009–August 8, 2010 

Brian Jungen transforms the familiar and banal into exquisite objects that engage themes of globalization, pop culture, museums, and the commodification of Indian imagery. Jungen (Dunne-za First Nations and Swiss-Canadian, b. 1970) first came to prominence with Prototypes for New Understanding (1998–2005), which turned Nike footwear into masks that suggested Northwest Coast iconography. Later works have included a pod of whales made from plastic chairs, totem poles made from golf bags, and a massive basketball court made from 224 sewing tables. Strange Comfort is a major survey that features Jungen's iconic works, as well as monumental new pieces never before seen in the United States. The exhibition is organized by National Museum of the American Indian Associate Curator Paul Chaat Smith.

For more information please visit: The National Museum of the American Indian

Exhibitions Washington, DC. Fabrics of Feathers and Steel: The Innovation of Nuno. The Textile Museum. The Curated Object

Mercury, Reiko Sudo and Keiji Otani, 1997. 100% silk

Fabrics of Feathers and Steel:
The Innovation of Nuno

October 17, 2009 - April 11, 2010

The worldwide success of Japanese fashion designers owes much to the talented textile designers and manufacturers who enable their creative visions. Led by artistic director and co-founder Reiko Sudo, Nuno (meaning “functional fabric” in Japanese) integrates the techniques, materials and aesthetics of traditional Japanese textiles with cutting-edge technologies in order to create some of the world’s most innovative and influential fabrics. Experimenting with an eclectic array of materials ranging from stainless steel and aluminum to bamboo and bird feathers, as well as unorthodox finishing methods, such as burnishing, burning, and chemical dissolving, Reiko Sudo and her team have broadened the parameters of contemporary textile design. 

The exhibition will feature 18 examples from the Nuno studio, dating from the time of the company’s founding in 1984 to the present day. The fabrics will be hung in galleries adjacent to the showing of Contemporary Japanese Fashion: The Collection of Mary Baskett, inviting visitors to experience the design process from start to finish – from structure to style.

For more information please visit: The Textile Museum

Exhibitions Washington, DC. Contemporary Japanese Fashion: The Mary Baskett Collection. The Textile Museum. The Curated Object

Dress, Fall/Winter 1990/91, Issey Miyake (b. 1938), Japan. Collection of Mary Baskett

Contemporary Japanese Fashion: The Mary Baskett Collection
October 17, 2009 – April 11, 2010

In the 1970s and early 1980s, Japanese designers Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto shocked the fashion world by introducing avant-garde styles that challenged received Western notions of “chic.” Informed in part by Japanese traditions such as the kimono, obi and the art of origami, these designers produced radical garments with shapes and textures often incongruous with the natural contours of the human body. Their designs—characterized by asymmetry, raw edges, unconventional construction, oversized proportions and monochromatic palettes—effectively overthrew existing norms and set the stage for the postmodernist movement in the fashion industry. Miyake, Yamamoto, and Kawakubo remain three of the most successful designers in today’s fashion world, and under their tutelage a new generation of Japanese talent has emerged.

This exhibition, an expanded version of an earlier showing at the Cincinnati Art Museum, will include approximately 40 garments from the collection of Mary Baskett, an art dealer and former curator of prints at the Cincinnati Art Museum who has been collecting and wearing Japanese high fashion since the 1960s.

For more information please visit: The Textile Museum

Exhibitions Greenwich. Alchemy: Magic, Myth or Science? The Bruce Museum. The Curated Object

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alchemy: Magic, Myth or Science?

September 26, 2009 - January 3, 2010

Offering a multi-faceted introduction to the practice of alchemy from ancient times through its flourishing in the 16th and 17th centuries, this major, interdisciplinary exhibition explores the history of alchemy and both the science and art it inspired. The show features mineral specimens, scientific instruments, paintings and prints, historical documents, and appropriate animal specimens to describe the practice of alchemy and its place in the beginnings of modern chemistry. The exhibition is organized by the Bruce Museum and is a registered resource for the Year of Science 2009 sponsored by the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science. The exhibition is underwritten by a Committee of Honor under the leadership of the Bruce Museum Science Committee, and with support from the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism, Sun Products Corp., and the Charles M. and Deborah G. Royce Exhibition Fund.

For more information please visit: The Bruce Museum

Exhibitions NYC. Design USA: Contemporary Innovation. The Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. The Curated Object

 

Design USA: Contemporary Innovation

October 16, 2009–April 4, 2010

Design USA celebrates the accomplishments of the winners honored during the first ten years of the prestigious National Design Awards. The exhibition features outstanding contemporary achievements in American architecture, landscape design, interior design, product design, communication design, corporate design, interaction design, and fashion. Developed in collaboration with the renowned firm 2x4, Design USAfocuses on innovation through the lens of technology, material, method, craft and transformation.

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

Exhibitions NYC. Body Parts: Ancient Egyptian Fragments and Amulets. The Brooklyn Museum. The Curated Object

Right Eye from an Anthropoid Coffin. Egypt, New Kingdom or later, 1539−30 B.C.E. Obsidian, crystalline limestone, blue glass. Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.1951E

November 19, 2009–October 2, 2011
Special Exhibitions Hall, Egyptian Galleries, 3rd Floor

Body Parts features thirty-five objects that represent individual body parts in ancient Egyptian art from the Brooklyn Museum’s collection, many of which will be displayed for the first time. While traditional exhibitions of ancient art focus on reconstructing damaged works, this exhibition uses fragmentary objects to illuminate the very realistic depiction of individual body parts in canonical Egyptian sculpture. The ancient Egyptians carefully depicted each part of the human body, respecting the significance of every detail. When viewed individually these sculptures and fragments reveal ancient notions of the body, as well as details of workmanship, frequently unnoticed in more complete sculptures. 

This exhibition is organized by Yekaterina Barbash, Assistant Curator of Egyptian Art, Brooklyn Museum.

For more information please visit: The Brooklyn Museum