Wood Goes Against Grain at MAD

Posted on September 14, 2013 by MsSusanB

Pablo Reinoso’s whimsical wooden shoes

All those years walking up and down the aisles at craft fairs may have you convinced that there’s nothing new in wood art. Get over to the final days of Against the Grain: Wood in Contemporary Art, Craft, and Design at the Museum of Art and Design.

It’s not what you’d expect, and curator Lowery Stokes Sims has done a magnificent job in telling us what’s trending now with forward-looking artists on the scene.

In short, she focuses her two-floor exhibition on seven trends that she sees: Artists, like Ai Weiwei, working on socio-political themes, whimsical designers who make us smile, digital artists pushing the envelope with wood, collages, virtuoso technique, takes on trees, and works that just capitalize on the beautiful texture in the wood itself.

Check out our Flickr feed for views of some of our favorite works, and MAD’s four-minute video as Sims herself walks you through the show, the artists, and her thinking about the pieces and themes.

Steam-bent ash chairs by Christopher Kurtz

But let’s focus on some of our favorites, which you can see on Flickr.

Wood as fashion: What about these shoes by Pablo Reinoso? If you’re thinking Dutch wooden shoes, think again, because these dainties are inspired by Thonet chairs, that he’s embellished with long, wooden “tails”. Or wooden hats by fashionable Moody & Farrell of London.

Music: How did Maria Elena Gonzalez go from looking at a fallen birch tree to creating paper-thin birch rolls that can create stunning music on a player piano? Watch and hear it all on this video of her player piano in action.

Laurel Roth’s Hominid: Chimpanze (2011) from vere wood with Swarovsky crystals in the teeth

How-did-they-do-that category: Bud Latvin’s gravity-defying wooden spiral sculptures, Christopher Kurtz’s impossible steam-bent chairs, and Elisa Strozyk’s wooden textile.

Recycled surprises: Think about what it took to turn 8,000 recycled chopsticks into a collapsible sofa. Good going, Yuya Yoshida.

If you can get to this show today or tomorrow, go. If not, take time to meet Leonard Drew in his studio, see his wood works in progress, and hear what success in wood feels like:

Patching Up the Emperor’s Carpet

Posted on August 2, 2013 by MsSusanB

Installation view of the Emperor’s Carpet, second half 16th century. Iran, Safavid period (1501–1722). Source: The Met.

If royal guests had walked all over your Persian carpet for the last 600 years, how many repairs would you need? Before coming to the Met, the 16^th-century Emperor’s Carpet, covered in animals and poetry, was once owned by the Shah of Iran and the Hapsburgs.

Since this large, beautiful carpet arrived in New York 60 years ago, the Metropolitan Museum was only able to display it twice because it was in such fragile shape. When they turned it over, they saw it had been patched over 700 times. How could they stabilize it and install it in their expansive New Galleries of the Art of the Arab Lands on the second floor?

You’ll find out all about the behind-the-scenes work analyzing, stabilizing, patching, and repairing it in the micro- show, Making the Invisible Visible: Conservation and Islamic Art.

Restored corner of the Emperor’s Carpet.

The show features all manner of science, technology, and process that the magical conservators put to work for other pieces, too – ceramics, tapestries made of gold and silver threads, wood, and works on paper over the last 2,000 years. One of our favorites is the child’s coat made from antique pashmina. They also have examples of the natural materials that were crushed and pounded into pigments for all these beautiful dyes and paints.

Although the gallery is tiny, the Met decided to send visitors on a treasure hunt by providing a brochure through which seekers of conservation wizardry can locate the Emperor’s Carpet and other works throughout the dozens of Islamic Art galleries. See the details on these and more our Flickr site.

Child’s coat from India on display in the show. Tailored in the late 19th c., but but fabric woven late 18th c. The textile is from Kashmir and is likely pashmina.

One of the shockers is seeing what the conservators reckon are the true colors of the 1707 Damascus room, long a favorite of Met period-room fans. The science showed that the darkened panels that we’re so familiar with were once bright, bright blue and gold.

If you can’t see the conservator’s showcase before August 4, read about all the science and technology on line at the special web site. You’ll find links to the stories of rehab for the carpet, the child’s coat, the gold-weave chadar, and more.

If you have eight minutes, take a look at three years of work on the royal carpet by the Met’s magicians:

Amazing Baby Shoes Under the Met’s Stairs

Posted on July 25, 2013 by MsSusanB

Infant-size palm leaf sandals (only 2 x 5 in.) made at the Kharga Oasis, Byzantine-era Egypt (4th-7th c.)

Will all the excitement over babies this week (the Royals and the Fallons), you might want to sneak a peak at some of the most perfect infant shoes ever, on display at the Met’s micro-exhibit, Objects from the Kharga Oasis, right under the grand staircase just past security until August 4.

Back in the 1930s, Metropolitan Museum archaeologists found this pair of infant sandals crafted beautifully from palm leaves at an oasis in the western Egyptian desert that was one of the earliest frontier Christian communities serving the trans-Saharan caravan routes.

The shoes are tiny – only about 2 x 5 inches – and were made during the Coptic (Byzantine) era sometime between 300 AD and 600 AD. There are also 1,500 year-old linen tunics and caps for kids and adults nearby, too. It’s amazing that the clothing survived at all.

Totally wearable Kharga bracelet. Iron from 4th-7th c. Egypt. Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Besides building churches (and there are plenty of photos and illustrations in the show), the communities around Kharga were busy growing grains, sesame, olives, and grapes. They apparently had a huge business making and exporting wine to the thirsty Egyptians 150 miles east along the Nile and 400 miles northeast in Cairo.

Drawing upon a ceramic craft tradition that was happening at the oasis since Old Kingdom times (2600 BC), potters cranked out transport jugs for the vino (shown here) and decorated them with grapevine paintings. The show has jewelry, tombstones, and photos of early Christian churches, but the brand-new-looking baby shoes are really the stars of the show.

Among dozens of ceramic items dug up by the Met are grapevine-decorated earthenware jugs to transport locally made wine from the Oasis to the Nile and upriver to Cairo.

First Ladies of Spanish Dance at NYPL Performing Arts

Posted on July 23, 2013 by MsSusanB

There’s no way to cool off the Spanish heat you’ll experience at the dance-til-you-drop exhibition Flamenco: 100 Years of Flamenco in New York, currently in the last weeks at NYPL’s Library of Performing Arts at Lincoln Center (until August 3).

NYPL gives us videos, recordings, a few costumes, and other memorabilia, but mostly you’ll hear the castanets and rapid-fire footwork of the best of the best. Who knew that the first woman to appear in front of Edison’s movie camera was Carmencita, the Spanish sensation who debuted at Niblo’s Garden in 1889, and had a fairly good run at Koster & Bial’s Music Hall on 24^th and Sixth Avenue. Her portrait by Sargent is at the Musee d’Orsay and her portrait by Chase at the Met. Here’s a link to Edison’s 1894 flick.

Carmencita’s fan photo (c. 1890). Source: NYPL Billy Rose Collection

This first Spanish-dance craze was further fueled in 1916 by the arrival in New York of La Argentina (Antonia Merce), Spain’s first modernist dance artist who fused classical dance, regional styles, and Flamenco. A decade later, she returned with a full company and presented New York’s first full-length Spanish dance-theater piece. By then, Ruth St. Denis, Martha Graham, and Ted Shawn were already incorporating Latin moves, gestures, and rhythms into their performances, and La Argentina’s company had a spectacular run. Here she is in a solo.

Although there’s lots more to the story, one of the best parts of the exhibition features photos, albums, videos, and recordings of the fast footwork of Carmen Amaya, who Sol Hurok billed as “The Human Vesuvius” in her 1941 New York debut. She could kick the 15-foot train of her dress right into the air.

Amaya’s innovation is that she injected a bit of the Gypsy style into Flamenco and was somewhat of a Spanish-dance rule-breaker – sporting tight-fitting trousers to show off her super-fancy footwork. Superstars Dietrich and Hepburn were also wearing trousers at the time, but it was a first in Amaya’s field of work.

Good move, Carmen, as shown in this clip from Follow the Boys, a 1944 all-star vehicle released by Universal to boost morale during the War. It’s like watching a great jazz tapper at work. Move over, Riverdance people.

Source: Archival clip, Follow the Boys, from the DVD, Queen of the Gypsies, A Portrait of Carmen Amaya.

Virtual Visit to the Met’s Punk Couture Show

Posted on July 19, 2013 by MsSusanB

Too hot to get over to the Met this weekend and climb up all those high stairs out front? Stay in the comfort of your air-conditioned home and take this virtual tour of the Met’s Punk: Chaos to Couture show (closing August 14).

Curator Andrew Bolton explains the real-life inspirations for much of the iconic looks in this show –people from music, pop, and celebrity worlds, taking you through the galleries one by one, emphasizing the importance of recycling and deconstruction to the haute couture designers of today.

Our favorites: Rodarte’s crochet looks alongside those of Westwood and McLaren, McQueen’s faux recycled trash bag dresses, Chris Bailey’s spiked Burberry ensemble, and the great finale – Comme des Garcon’s amazing collection with trousers, mutton sleeves, and disassembled pieces of clothing brilliantly attached for maximum punch to the runway models.

Look closely, remember, and enjoy.

Mardis Gras Indians Land in NC Beach Town

Posted on June 28, 2013 by MsSusanB

“Chief Albert Lambreaux: No Hum Bow, Don’t Know How” costume. In the pilot, the character returns to his devastated home six months after Katrina, enters, and emerges in this costume.

Towering feathered headdresses, intricate beaded panels, plumes, and miles and miles of ruffled edging adorn more than a dozen Mardis Gras Indians that are camping out until November 3 at the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, North Carolina.

The dazzling incarnations are all part of the exhibition, Well Suited: The Costumes of Alonzo V. Wilson for HBO’s ® Treme. Alonzo was on hand for the opening, where he explained the challenges he faced designing elaborate, 60-lb. Mardis Gras Indian costumes for the actors playing characters living in New Orleans’ Tremé neighborhood (the Third Ward) in the months after Hurricane Katrina.

The African-American men who bead the panels and feather the elaborate costumes for their Mardis Gras Indian tribes typically take all year to execute their visions, which reflect their position in the tribe (e.g. the Big Chief, Second Chief, Spy Boy, Wild Man). To meet HBO’s production schedule, Alonzo and his team often had a much shorter time to create the patches, headdresses, staffs, panels, and shoes for the script’s characters.

Alonzo Wilson explains how the cycle of life and the seasons are reflected on the beaded apron of the “Big Chief: Tree of Life” costume.

For the series, Alonzo felt it was important to embed part of each character’s story into the stories being told on the panels, even if the costume was only seen for a few minutes on TV. Thankfully, the exhibition (and our Flickr feed) lets you closely examine some of this character development-in-beadwork – a chief shedding a crystal tear for his hurricane-damaged home, a white buffalo evoking the return of bounty post-Katrina, and stunning use of hurricane weather symbols amidst a bold S.O.S.

Originally mounted by the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, curator Bradley Sumrall was impressed by Alonzo’s use of narrative that broke through the typical Hollywood stereotypes of African Americans and Indians. “We could have just done a show with traditional Mardi Gras Indian costumes, but Alonzo’s work had so much narrative built in.” With the mix of African-American, Native American, government, city, and current-event references, Bradley felt the layers of meaning in such intricate craftwork was an achievement worthy of a fine-art exhibition.

"Spy Boy: Katrina Memorial" costume. Feathers on lower half spell out "S.O.S.", the international distress signal, using the universal symbol for hurricanes from weather maps.

“Spy Boy: Katrina Memorial” costume. Feathers on lower half spell out the “S.O.S.” distress signal, using the universal weather-map symbol for hurricanes.

The NC stop for the show is a way for others to understand a bit more about New Orleans people, neighborhoods, and culture. Plus, Wilmington is Alonzo’s hometown. The movie and slide show inside the gallery provide an even deeper window into to this achievement – showing how Alonzo and his crew learned from the traditional craftsmen, shared new beading techniques, and received some “rescue help” from the locals when the production deadlines were too much to handle.

The exhibition all adds up to win-win storytelling about Alonzo, his team, New Orleans, and the Indians. Read an interview with Alonzo on the HBO blog and see behind-the-scenes production photos on page 40 of the Wilmington magazine Salt.

Mary Cassatt’s Tech Start-Up Chronicled by NYPL

Posted on June 18, 2013 by MsSusanB

Woman Seated in a Loge (1881). The only lithograph Cassatt ever did, personally inscribed to Mr. Avery.

Still using a flip phone? Don’t know how to code? There’s nothing wrong with sticking with what you know, but expanding horizons with new technology is always good. In 1876, it’s exactly why Mr. Degas invited 32-year-old Mary Cassatt into his studio, showed her some of his printmaking techniques, and encouraged her to jump in and try something new. She did, and her technological triumph is the story of NYPL’s illuminating third-floor show, Daring Methods: The Prints of Mary Cassatt, which ends Saturday.

The show gives you a new slant, documenting this American artist’s struggle to make new work, push her technical boundaries, and mash up styles to total critical acclaim at the turn of the last century. NYPL found itself in a unique position to mount this show, since art dealer/print collector Samuel Putnam Avery made an unprecedented donation back in 1900 — more than 17,000 19^th-century prints, including dozens and dozens he purchased directly from Cassatt as evolved her printmaking between 1878 and 1898.

The Letter – 1891 color print with drypoint and aquatint. This is an earlier state (iii/iv) of Cassatt’s famous print minus the wallpaper pattern and letter on the desk

This show provides art-lovers with a unique, chronological walk-through of Cassatt’s technical trial-and-error, beginning with her early drypoints (1878 costume studies suggested by Degas), simple drypoints and etchings, and her only litho (see right). Cassatt continued to experiment throughout the 1880s, perfecting her softground, drypoint, aquatint, and etching techniques, often mashing them together – brave moves by a stylish, curious female artist of the modern era.

Gallery visitors walk slowly from print to print, taking in the subtle changes, redirects, and reworks of this modern, mid-career artist determined to find status and success in the male-dominated Parisian art scene of the late 19^th century.

The NYPL curators decided to hang multiple versions of similar subjects side by side, so you can really examine the mind of the artist at work. It’s interesting that Cassatt let Avery have prints off cancelled plates that she pulled after the “good” print run was finished. You’ll see the scratched-up images in the show next to the best ones.

The Fitting – 1891 color print with drypoint and aquating, printed with three plates

The Fitting – 1891 color print with drypoint and aquatint, printed with three plates

In 1890, everything changed for Cassatt, when she saw an exhibition of Japanese woodblock prints took the Parisian cultural community by storm. It was the moment that her technical experiments paid off and her printmaking vision, style, and legacy became sharply focused. In the last portion of the show, you witness her brilliant response — making intaglio look like woodblock, applying multiple areas of bright color, injecting pattern into domestic surfaces, and zooming in for low-angle close-ups of private moments in women’s lives.

Enjoy NYPL’s selections from Mr. Avery’s collection and spend some time examining the multiple states of the most beloved prints in the Impressionist canon, mash-ups of aquatint and drypoint. It’s a master class in color, ink, and composition.

If you can’t get to the show this week, download the PDF and take a look at Ms. Cassatt’s technical journey. Then go out and try something new.

Impressionist Line Ends at Frick

Posted on June 12, 2013 by MsSusanB

Toulouse-Lautrec, The Jockey, 1899. Color-printed lithograph on cream wove paper

Toulouse-Lautrec, The Jockey, 1899. Color-printed lithograph on cream paper

If you’re already nostalgic for the grand Impressionist show that ended at The Met, you can still find your favorites filling the Frick’s two downstairs galleries and the room next to the gift shop. While the Clark Art Institute (Williamstown, Massachusetts) was undergoing renovation, the Frick borrowed some of their finest works on paper for the gem-of-a-show, The Impressionist Line from Degas to Toulouse-Lautrec: Drawings and Prints from the Clark.

If you loved seeing Al Hirschfeld apply his pen and ink to paper in our last post, you will delight in perusing how lines by Degas, Manet, Lautrec, and Gaugin created a profitable niche in the rapidly expanding art market at the 19th century’s end. (By the way, Hirschfeld fans, who knew that Monet drew crazy caricatures to support himself early in his career? Claude’s Man with a Snuff Box looks like it was drawn in the 1950s…not the 1850s!)

Toulouse-Lautrec, Miss Loïe Fuller (1893), Lithograph printed touched with gold and silver powder. Source: Clark Art Institute

Although a few politically charged works are in the show (like Manet’s 1874 print of the Commune uprising The Barricade), the majority are masterworks of portraiture, everyday life, cafes, and modern entertainments like horseracing, circuses, and boulevard promenades. Some of our favorites are Degas’s sketches of horses in motion and Lautrec’s circus-themed sketches that he drew from memory while in rehab.

If you can’t get to the show, the Frick web site allows you to peruse all of these works in detail (with the curator’s descriptions) by decade, by artist, or by the order in which they’re hung in the exhibition.

For sheer theatricality and delight, Lautrec takes the cake in this show, as shown in the images here. The hand-painted 1896 Lumiere Brothers film below shows silk-clad modern dance pioneer Loïe Fuller making the moves that inspired Lautrec to create dozens of experimental lithographs (sprinkled in gold and silver powder, no less!) of her abstractionist performances.

Yes, it’s all about the line.

If you have time, watch the video of the co-curator’s lecture about Impressionist line and how sketches, watercolors, woodcuts, lithographs, pastels, and improvised etchings created a revolution in affordable art.

Toulouse-Lautrec, The Englishman at the Moulin Rouge, 1892. Color-printed lithograph

Dive Into MAD’s New Jewelry Web

Posted on May 31, 2013 by MsSusanB

MAD’s digital gallery navigation tool, featuring a photo of a model wearing Peter Hoogeboom’s Spanish Collar (1995)

The Museum of Art and Design has spent a lot of time collecting brooches, collars, rings, and pins for its collection — around 200 mid-century pieces over the last few years. About half of MAD’s new stuff is on display in the show, Wear It or Not: Recent Jewelry Acquisitions, which closes this Sunday.

If you can’t get up to Columbus Circle to see the works in person, be sure to check out the new digital archive for the show. MAD has spent considerable time and effort to get its collections pushed out through the web, and the effort really pays off.

This photo of Peter Hoogeboom’s Spanish Collar shows the navigation tools that MAD has designed for its on-line archive that let you zoom in close right in to take in all of the construction details of his ceramic, silver, and brass construction.

Model wearing The Big Spiderweb, No. 2 made of sterling silver in 2005 by Lucie Heskett-Brem, The Gold Weaver. Photo: Louis Brem

Use the + to zoom in, and then click on the arrows to navigate up, down, left, and right across the image. The detail is incredible.

Dive into the archive to zoom in on Robert Ebendorf’s Berlin Wall brooch (made from guess what?), Luis Acosta’s multilayered paper constructions, and The Big Spiderweb. Also be sure to inspect Boris Bally’s brooches that were crafted from recycled traffic signals and the 19^th century Sprocket Cuff from Northern Pakistan. It looks on trend right now.

You’ll be inside the archive for hours, since every time you click on an artist’s work, other related innovations pop up in the sidebar.

And what’s up with that red adhesive piece by Rebecca Strzelec? Take a look at how you wear it!

Luis Acosta’s 2009 bracelet is made of six layers of stitched paper. Photo: Luis Acosta

Liberace Sparkles at Time Warner

Posted on May 25, 2013 by MsSusanB

Dazzling rhinestones and teardrop crystals are providing the antidote to a rainy summer weekend inside the Time Warner Center, where HBO has installed Liberace’s piano, signature suits, and a tower of champagne to celebrate of the debut of the Michael-Douglas-as-Liberace pic Behind the Candelabra.

Up the escalators on the Third Floor, crowds were swimming through glitter Nirvana – Lee’s head-to-toe glamour looks: white cravats, bejeweled lapels, matching boots with rhinestone-studded heels, and the all-important cuff, which framed those flying ring-encrusted hands.

Enjoy it all in the Flickr gallery, because it’s all about the details. Besides, there’s no more Liberace Museum to visit in Vegas, so this is your chance to check out a bit of his million-dollar legacy.

Branding for the HBO film was everywhere, featuring giant pictures of Matt Damon and Michael D, but people mostly hovered about the glass cases to see look after look loaned by the barely-surviving Liberace Foundation.

There were no capes in sight, but plenty of fur-trimmed boots, beaded fringe, and a giant Swarovski crystal. Downstairs throngs were circling Lee’s rhinestone Duesenberg and admiring the bling on the Baldwin.

Check out the HBO movie, but run over to Time Warner to see (for real) what made this man a show business legend. Open 9am to 9pm through May 27.

itsnewstoyou

Susan B's advice on what you shouldn't miss in NYC and other museums

Category Archives: Fashion