Crosscurrents: Art, Craft, and Design in North Carolina
Karen LaMonte: Absence Adorned
Venetian Art Glass: An American Collection, 1840-1970
Marc Chagall: Ceramics
Wearing Propaganda: Textiles on the Home Front in Japan, Britain, and the United States, 1931-1945
Fashioning Kimono: Dress and Modernity in Early Twentieth- Century Japan
Petah Coyne: Above and Beneath the SkinThing: New Sculpture from Los Angeles
Archive
Crosscurrents:
Art, Craft, and Design in North Carolina
2005,
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh. The Mint Museums, Charlotte, 704-337-2037.
110 pages, texts by Linda Johnson Dougherty, Carla M. Hanzal, Huston Paschal
and Melissa G. Post, illustrated. $14.95 paperback.
This catalog documents a juried exhibition open to all artists residing
in North Carolina, presented by the North Carolina Museum of Art (September
25, 2005 –January 8, 2006) and now at the Mint Museum of Craft +
Design through August 6. The 67 works by 24 exhibitors range from scooters
and artists’ books to ceramics, textiles, paintings and photography.
The illustrations are accompanied by descriptive and critical comments
by the four curators and by Mark Richard Leach, Chief Curator of Craft
+ Design at the Mint Museums.
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Gijs Bakker and Jewelry
edited by Yvònne G. J. M. Joris, 2005, Arnoldsche Art Publishers, Stuttgart, Germany. Antique Collectors’ Club, Easthampton, MA, 800-252-5231. 272 pages, essay by Ida van Zijl, in English and Dutch, illustrated. $75.
Making the case for Gijs Bakker as the preeminent Dutch jewelry designer of the second half of the 20th century, Ida van Zijl, who has previously written on Bakker’s industrial design, argues: “His best pieces are not only good in terms of the originality of the concept or the execution of the design—they also redefine the function of jewelry in general.” This monograph on Bakker’s pioneering jewelry is the companion book to a retrospective exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum ’s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands (September 25, 2005-January 1, 2006), in whose collection he is abundantly represented. The boldness of his signature work over nearly 50 years comes through in the large-scale photographs—the early geometric formal style, the oversize aluminum collars, the incorporation of photography, the social commentary. Bakker’s achievement, Van Zijl writes, “has been to bring about fundamental innovation in his field by addressing—at the keenest part of the cutting edge—the relationship with the wearer, the choice of material, the scale of the object and its presentation.”
25 Years of New Glass Review
by Tina Oldknow, 2005, Corning Museum of Glass,
New York, 607-974-8124. 247 pages, foreword by Thomas S. Buechner, illustrated.
$29.95.
Since 1980, the Corning Museum of Glass has published New Glass Review,
an annual survey of international glass work made in the previous year
by emerging and established artists. To create this handsome anniversary
book, Tina Oldknow, the museum’s curator of modern glass, reviewed
the 2,500 works published over 25 years and selected 200 objects to represent
“not what or who is best in glass,” but “what I think
has been significant in the field and who I think has made an important
contribution to it as reflected in the pages of New Glass Review.”
Though the criteria for selection in the publication have varied from
juror to juror over the years, Oldknow says that the emphasis has been
on “the excellence of the idea or function, as well as the high
quality of the aesthetic or technique.” Lists of artists, jurors
and countries represented in the Review are included.
Karen LaMonte: Absence Adorned
2005, Museum of Glass: International
Center for Contemporary Art, Tacoma, WA. University of Washington Press,
Seattle, WA. 800-441-4115. 87 pages, essays by Arthur C. Danto and Juli
Cho Bailer, illustrated. $24.95 paperback.
The dress—as a sculptural form and metaphorical symbol—is
the primary subject of the life-size, cast-glass work of 39-year-old Karen
LaMonte, an American artist who lives in Prague and casts her work in
a foundry there. In this catalog of her first solo museum show in the
United States, at the Museum of Glass through September 4, the essay by
the critic Arthur C. Danto suggests how her works convey “a poetry
of meaning and loss,” and Juli Cho Bailer, the curator, places La
Monte’s sculpture at the intersection of art history, fashion and
theater.
Venetian
Art Glass: An American Collection, 1840-1970
by Marino Barovier, 2004, Arnoldsche
Art Publishers, Stuttgart, Germany. Antique Collectors’ Club, Easthampton,
MA, 800-252-5231. 352 pages, essay by Carla Sonego, illustrated. $110.
More than 250 examples are pictured in this survey of glass made on the
Venetian island of Murano, based on the collection of Donna and Neil Weisman.
Rare late-19th-century pieces, early-20th-century murrine, mosaic works
from the 1920s, glass of the 30s and 40s by the Barovier factory, 1950s
and 60s objects by Dino Martens, Fulvio Bianconi, Archimede Seguso and
others, and works by Americans James Carpenter and Benjamin Moore for
Venini in the 70s are among the highlights. Marino Barovier, from one
of the oldest families of Murano master glassmakers, traces the island’s
periodic decline and rebirth. Carla Sonego profiles the design innovator
Ercole Barovier.
Marc Chagall: Ceramics
2005, Waanders Uitgevers, Zwolle, Netherlands. Antique Collectors’ Club, Easthampton, MA, 800-252-5231. 184 pages, texts by Yvònne G. J. M. Joris, Meret Meyer and Titus M. Eliëns, in English and Dutch, illustrated. $40.
Renowned for his dreamlike paintings, the Russian-born artist Marc Chagall produced a ceramic oeuvre of some 250 objects between 1949 and 1962, most at the Vallauris pottery in the south of France, where Picasso also worked. Nearly 140 of these platters, tiles and vessels, decorated with Chagall’s characteristic imagery—lovers, animals, fables, biblical scenes—in luminous colors, are pictured in this catalog to an exhibition in spring 2005 at the Stedelijk Museum ’s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands.
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Wearing
Propaganda: Textiles on the Home Front in Japan, Britain, and the United
States, 1931-1945
edited by Jacqueline M. Atkins, 2005, Yale University Press, New Haven,
CT, 203-432-0163, for the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative
Arts, Design, and Culture, New York, NY. 376 pages, nine contributors,
illustrated. $65.
A Japanese kimono depicting soldiers dashing through a field of exploding
shells, a British scarf with a map of London during the Blitz and another,
American-made, bearing the Pledge of Allegiance are among the examples
of propaganda on cloth intended to boost morale and fan patriotism during
the Asia-Pacific War and World War II, presented in the catalog of a traveling
exhibition that opened at the Bard Graduate Center (November 18, 2005-February
5, 2006), to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the end of World War
II. Among many topics, the book’s scholarly essays touch on the
wartime context, the role of fashion and textile design in reflecting
popular attitudes toward war and an accounting of the themes, motifs and
metaphors revealed in propaganda textiles.
Fashioning
Kimono: Dress and Modernity in Early Twentieth- Century Japan
edited by Annie
Van Assche, 2005, 5 Continents Editions, Milan, Italy. Antique Collectors’
Club, Easthampton, MA, 800-252-5231. 330 pages, essays by Van Assche,
Anna Jackson, Elise K. Tipton, Reiko M. Brandon and Akiko Fukai, photography
by Stefano Ember. $70.
A dynamic period in the history of Japanese costume is presented with
visual splendor and illuminating commentary in this book documenting an
exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (October 13, 2005-May
1, 2006). Drawn from the Jeffrey Montgomery collection of Japanese folk
art (numbering more than 1,200 objects), the nearly 150 garments illustrated
include semi-formal and casual kimono, haori jackets and underclothes
worn by men, women and children. The works reflect historical continuity
in designs and the techniques used to apply them, as well as breaks from
tradition. The boldly patterned taisho modo-style kimonos of the 1910s
and 20s demonstrate the borrowing of Western design themes, particularly
Art Nouveau and Art Deco. Annie Van Assche, a textile artist and art historian,
surveys the collection in the context of the history of the kimono. Other
essays touch on socio-historical issues affecting kimono fashion. The
allure of the kimonos is conveyed in excellent photographs, especially
in the details that appear opposite the overall image of the garment.
Fashion
in Colors
curated by Akiko
Fukai, 2005, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution,
New York, NY. Assouline Publishing, New York, NY, 212-989-6810. 248 pages,
eight contributors, illustrated. $45 paperback.
Color rather than chronology was the guiding principle of an exhibition
representing 300 years of primarily Western women’s fashions and
a few contemporary examples from Japan. Organized by Akiko Fukai, chief
curator of the Kyoto Costume Institute, from whose collection most of
the costumes are drawn, the show was at Cooper-Hewitt (December 9, 2005-March
26, 2006) after its debut in Japan. Divided like the exhibition into five
sections—black, multicolor, blue, red and yellow, and white—the
striking catalog, illustrating more than 80 garments, emphasizes color’s
emotional impact. Dresses and ensembles from the 18th and 19th centuries
are interspersed with couturier frocks by Vionnet, Chanel, Balenciaga,
et al. and avant-garde creations by the Dutch designers Viktor & Rolf
(who developed the original concept for the show), and such Japanese innovators
as Rei Kawakubo, Junya Watanabe and Issey Miyake. The book offers brief
profiles of the named designers, an entry for each costume and a glossary
of dyeing terms.
2005. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, 716-270-8232. 131 pages, essays by Douglas Dreishpoon, Nancy Princenthal and Eleanor Heartney, illustrated. $29.99 paperback.
The works of Petah Coyne—from irregularly shaped hanging forms of sand, rubber, clay, mud and wire suggesting mournful organic growths to the extravagantly articulated figural sculptures in wax and a plethora of materials, to her photography—are shown in all their obsessive detail in this catalog of a touring 20-year retrospective now at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (through September 17) after four venues. Curator Douglas Dreishpoon, surveys Coyne’s life and career in the context of the New York City cultural milieu. The critics Nancy Princenthal and Eleanor Heartney explore respectively, the artist’s manifold themes and forms and Catholic imagination.
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Part
Object Part Sculpture
by Helen Molesworth,
2005, Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State University, Columbus. Pennsylvania
State University Press, University Park, 800-326-9180. 286 pages, essays
by Briony Fer, Rosalind E. Krauss, Rachel Haidu, David Joselit and Molly
Nesbit, illustrated. $34.95.
Marcel Duchamp is the point of departure for this companion volume to
an exhibition at the Wexner Center for the Arts (October 30, 2005-February
26, 2006). Not the “Dada-inflected Duchamp of the teens,”
writes curator Helen Molesworth, “but the Duchamp of the 1950s,
who spent the final decades of his career pursuing an abiding interest
in the ties binding desire to the body and to things.” She and the
other contributors consider the impact of Duchamp’s postwar work—which
was “ironically handmade, profoundly erotic and surprisingly prolific”—on
a varied group of 20 artists working from the 1950s to the present, including
Eva Hesse, Louise Bourgeois, Lucio Fontana, Robert Rauschenberg, Lynda
Benglis and Josiah McElheny. Exploring the terrain between painting and
sculpture, and between sculpture and everyday objects, the writers consider
such themes as repetition and representation, bodies and commodities,
the unique and the everyday.
Thing:
New Sculpture from Los Angeles
2005, Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural
Center, University of California, Los Angeles, 310-443-7063. 104 pages,
texts by Aimee Chang, James Elaine, Christopher Miles and Matthew Thompson,
illustrated. $30.
The exhibition of 51 works by 20 artists living in Los Angeles, at the
Hammer Museum, UCLA (February 6-June 5, 2005), was the third in a series
highlighting emerging artists. In his essay defining the type of object
included under the rubric “thing,” Christopher Miles, one
of three curators, writes: “The works in this exhibition reveal
a preoccupation with making objects unabashedly intended to allude, represent,
suggest, and signify. They also reveal a preoccupation with various familiar
objects in the world around us that also allude, represent, suggest, and
signify. . . . Though certainly interested in exploring and addressing
humanity, the artists . . . are getting at humanity through its things—pictured,
referenced, simulated, and embedded in new sculptural works.” The
exhibition was awarded first place for the best thematic museum show nationally
by the International Association of Art Critics.
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