national
artblog goes to florida, california and new york too.
Shelley Spector Working at NextFab Studio and Sarah McEneaney at Tibor de Nagy
NextFab Studio is a high-tech shop in West Philadelphia that enables architects, industrial designers, and artists to create prototypes or small runs of products. Its staff of twenty includes engineers, designers, electronics specialists, photographers, and others who are available for training and technical help. I met Shelley Spector there last week to see what she’s been doing during the past six months that she’s had a residency at NextFab through Breadboard, an organization at the University City Science Center that promotes community outreach around technology and manages the Esther Klein Gallery, among other projects. Any artist who makes ‘things’ ... More » »
In New York–the Mormons, the Dubins and Maurizio Cattelan
What a relief to do an overnight in New York–it elevates the one-day marathon to a true vacation. This one included Renaissance portraits at the Met, Maurizio Cattelan at the Guggenheim, The Book of Mormon on Broadway and the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side. The Mormons and the Dubins Back in April, my son Alex had a birthday, but we came up short on a gift. Alex loves musicals, so Murray tracked down tickets to the Book of Mormon for Alex, Lindsey and us. The wait has been long, but worth it. As musicals go, The Book of ... More » »
Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones at the Bard Graduate Center for Decorative Arts
Some hats are designed to protect the wearer – from rain, sun, or falling objects. Others are less utilitarian, but much more fun. The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) invited the prominent British milliner, Steven Jones, to create an exhibition from their world-renowned collection and the literally, spectacular result will be on view at the Bard Graduate Center for Decorative Arts through April 15, 2012. Jones, who’s created hats for both the British royal family and the Rolling Stones, clearly had the time of his life.
‘Resonance; Looking for Mr. McLuhan’ at Pratt Manhattan Gallery
2011 was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Marshall McLuhan and to mark the occasion, Pratt held an exhibition, Resonance; Looking for Mr. McLuhan, curated by Berta Sichel, director of the department of audiovisuals and chief-curator of film and video at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, and Mariano Salvador, also of the Reina Sophia; it ran Oct. 21-Dec. 21, 2011. In the 1960s McLuhan was widely derided by fellow academics for his extremely popular books that dealt with the implications of changing technology upon human relations. Forty-five years after the publication of Understanding Media (1962) and ... More » »
Art Miami and Design Miami, 2011
On the way to Art Miami, held this year in the midst of a group of other fairs in Wynwood, across the bay from Miami Beach, I ran into Jayson Musson who was heading off to see a friend at Scope, one block south. Jayson had come to Miami to do Hennessy Youngman Presents: His History of Art at the NADA fair on December 1, and commented that the entry price to Art Basel Miami Beach was prohibitive. It was. I mentioned that those of us in Philadelphia wish him well, but also wish his descriptor, living in New York ... More » »
Art Basel Miami Beach 2011
I decided to take it easy at the fairs this year, assuming that, as with large conferences, I’d certainly discover interesting work but was unlikely to predict ahead of time just where I’d find it. One obvious new feature of Art Basel/Miami Beach this year was the prominence of furniture. Some of it was part of the work on display, such as Dan Peterman‘s Running Tables at Klosterfelde, Berlin, despite the fact that the staff were sitting on the built-in seats to eat their lunch; I assume his recycled plastics can handle the wear.
Peter Funch’s scenes of the hive – an interview
Peter Funch‘s photography project titled Babel Tales merges documentary photography with manipulated photography. Peter stands and waits on street corners for days on end in the same position, photographing individuals walking down the street and then merges each individual within an a concept-driven collective (the neo-collective). The individual is forced into hive consciousness, fact and fiction collide to create a clever series of photographs that smartly uses image manipulation technology.
Sophie’s Room
On a beautiful October weekend – ripe with the scent of the fall vegetation now enveloping the local greenmarkets and some end-of-summer nostalgia for warmer, sunnier days, I followed the directions in a press announcement to a small hotel on the upper east side. The hotel, located on a tree-lined street off Madison Avenue, was smart and orderly and seemed very European – like an international transplant of exacting good taste. The small lobby was bustling. I felt as though I was setting out on adventure with great expectations. When I requested directions to Sophie’s Room, the staff immediately responded ... More » »
Near the Brooklyn Bridge
On a visit to see Alex and Lindsey in Brooklyn, we walked over to DUMBO. The blue lights of this installation caught our eyes–a beautiful shade of blue–so we entered what were basically the remaining four walls of an old tobacco warehouse, now a public open-air space along the waterfront.
Typography at MoMA
The clearest possible introduction to the thinking behind new typefaces is part of a larger exhibition, Standard Deviations: Types and Families in Contemporary Design, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (through January 30, 2012), but the typography section works perfectly well on its own. Featuring the recent acquisition of twenty-three digital typefaces – a first for MoMA’s design department - this sub-section of the exhibition is the most lucid and informative introduction to design thinking I’ve seen at the museum. It’s an introduction to typography primarily for readers, rather than designers.
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