For over three decades, Chus Burés has been collaborating with artists, filmmakers, fashion designers, and others on the creation of wearable artworks. In these works, Burés brings to life, in physical form, the dialogues and the encounters of different aesthetic ideas. Trained in interior design in Spain, Burés has always understood body language and body ornaments as a means of cultural expression. In his work, Burés embraces unconventional materials and experimental designs that translate each individual collaboration. This exhibition is focused on his work created with major Latin American artists, revealing different aspects of their practices. Chus Burés collaberators include Antonio Asís, Tony Bechara, Carlos Cruz-Díez, Sérvulo Esmeraldo, Horacio García Rossi, Carmen Herrera, Alexis Leyva Machado o Kcho, Julio Le Parc, Macaparana, Marie Orensanz, César Paternosto, Jesús Rafael Soto, and Luis Tomasello. About the artist Chus Burés is a Spanish designer who is passionate about body language and clothing as a means of cultural expression. He learned about the jewelry trade in workshops based in Barcelona and Madrid, where he subsequently established a studio where he could collaborate with fashion designers, photographers, and artists. These artists include Pedro Almodóvar, Bigas Luna, and Adolfo Arrieta, as well as international brands like Agnés b. in Paris and Akris in Switzerland. Burés has also worked with the Whitney Museum of American Art, for whom he designed an exclusive collection. Art as Ornament will be presented in Americas Society Library and Archives exhibition space from September 6, 2023 through May 18, 2024.
]]>MoMA, Floor 1, 1 South Any act of good design must also be an act of empathy, respect, and responsibility toward all living organisms and ecosystems––as well as future generations. By translating scientific, technological, and social revolutions into objects and behaviors, design can be an agent of positive change and play a crucial part in restoring the fragile ties between humans and the rest of nature. Life Cycles: The Materials of Contemporary Design explores the regenerative power of design as it shifts its focus towards a more collaborative rapport with the natural world. The objects in this exhibition highlight the entire life cycle of the materials they are made of. From extraction to reuse or disposal, designers are exploring new ways––sometimes drawn from old traditions––to enlist materials in their efforts to bring ecosystems into balance. Cow manure collected from the streets of Indonesia is transformed into casings for loudspeakers and lamps. Bricks made from crop waste and fungi mycelium are used as a carbon-neutral building material. Bees fabricate honeycomb vases over human-made forms. These objects demonstrate that design can be elegant, innovative, and compelling, while at the same time offering new strategies for repairing our planet. Organized by Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator, and Maya Ellerkmann, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design.
]]>An innovative installation, featuring some of the most important objects in the Brooklyn Museum collection, has been developed to create new ways of looking at art and exploring the Museum by making connections between cultures as well as objects. Scheduled to open on April 19, 2012, Connecting Cultures: A World in Brooklyn, on long-term view in the newly renovated Great Hall, near the main entrance, provides for the first time a dynamic and welcoming introduction to the Museum's extensive collections, which range from ancient Egyptian masterpieces to contemporary art, representing almost every culture around the world, both past and present. "This remarkable cross-collection presentation, built around some of the most exceptional works in the Museum, better enables the visitor to explore the collection galleries by providing a model of how to make connections between cultures and how to better understand the ways that different peoples have addressed many of the same issues throughout time," states Museum Director Arnold L. Lehman. "For the very first time, our visitors have the opportunity to sample the breadth and depth of our holdings as they enter the Museum." "Over the course of the twentieth century, the Museum collected on a grand scale, making works of art that had previously been reserved primarily for the elite available to the public. As works of art became available to the many rather than the few, their meanings often changed. Deconstructing those meanings on a basic level provides an understanding of the Brooklyn Museum's collections as a resource for study," comments Chief Curator Kevin L. Stayton, who has coordinated the presentation, working with the Museum's curators. The installation is organized around three main sections: "Connecting Places," "Connecting People," and 'Connecting Things." In viewing the juxtaposition and combination of works from different cultures around the world, the visitor will be asked to consider the importance of the idea of place to the definition of culture and the self; the ways in which people represent themselves in the works of art that help define them; and the role of objects, or things, in supporting identity, both personal and cultural. The "Connecting Places" section presents artworks that reflect the human fascination with the physical world around us and how it relates to spirituality. The landscapes in which people live and the elements of nature that surround them deeply affect the way people see the world and how they try to understand the universe. This section includes a four-legged bowl (circa 250-600 C.E.), made in what is now Guatemala, that reveals a Mayan concept of the cosmos; an eighteenth-century cosmic diagram, made in Gujarat or Rajasthan, that presents a unique worldview; the monumental 1765 painting Our Lady of Chocharcas Under the Baldachin showing the celebration of a pilgrimage in which Lake Titicaca is almost as significant as the statue of the Virgin herself; a festival hat, probably made around Potosi in the eighteenth century, depicting a triangular mountain that might be the Cerro de Potosi, the source of the silver that enriched the area; Louis Rémy Mignon's monumental painting Niagara (1866), which became a powerful symbol of natural resources that made their potential seem almost limitless; the renowned Century Vase made by the Union Porcelain Works of Brooklyn for display at the Centennial Exposition, in 1876, displaying native animals and scenes of progress unique to the American experience; and a contemporary work, Soundsuit by Nick Cave, that explores man's involvement with nature. The "Connecting People" section investigates the ways in which human beings have represented themselves in artworks, in various cultures through time. A number of the works address the journey from life to death, such as a stunning and rare Huastec stone statue that features a standing human figure on one side and a skeleton on the other. Other works include a kachina doll, in the Brooklyn Museum collection since 1904, that reflects the ways in which the human form can represent the spiritual and universal; and Gaston Lachaise's monumental Standing Woman, a modern work that dignifies the human form and raises it to a level that reflects the humanist tradition. The "Connecting Things" section includes works that carry particular significance to those who make and use them. Among the objects is a group of more than 100 pitchers to illustrate the many permutations of a single form; kero cups used in ritualistic ceremonies that were important to the Andean concept of reciprocity; a coffin in the form of a Nike sneaker, by Ghanaian artist Paa Joe, that reflects the importance of consumer society and global trade in the modern world; and an African staff, a symbol of authority that is the model for an African-American emancipation cane.
]]>The Brooklyn Museum's decorative arts collection occupies the fourth floor of the Museum. The focus of the collection is a group of American period rooms ranging in date from the 18th century to the 20th century. Interspersed with the period rooms are galleries that display an outstanding collection of American furniture, silver, pewter, glass, and ceramics. Additional objects from the decorative arts collection are on display in American Identities.
]]>The American Folk Art Museum is home to the collection assembled over many decades by the Historical Society of Early American Decoration. The Society was founded in memory of Esther Stevens Brazer (1898–1945), a direct descendant of one of Maine’s pioneering families in the tin industry. The Society is dedicated to preserving the techniques of early American decoration in a variety of mediums through their own re-creation of historical forms and through the collection of original works, including decorated tin, furniture, and other objects, as well as stencils, tools, and ephemera related to the development of these arts in America. [Image: Boynton Shop "Apple Basket" (c. 1815–1835) Paint and metallic powders on asphaltum over tinplate]
]]>Louis Comfort Tiffany (American, 1848-1933) was one of the foremost decorative artists of his time. His father, Charles Lewis Tiffany, was the co-founder of Tiffany & Company, the luxury retailer best known for fine silver and jewelry. At an early age Tiffany was exposed to superbly-designed and expertly-crafted objets d’art, undoubtedly stimulating his love and appreciation for exceptional objects and setting him on a self-proclaimed “quest for beauty.” Tiffany began his career as a landscape painter but eventually branched out into interior design and the decorative arts. Over the years he formed a number of companies in both Manhattan and Queens that manufactured leaded-glass windows, lamps, mosaics, glassware, enamels, ceramics, metalwork, furniture, and textiles. These works were available at his Manhattan showroom and in fine retail and jewelry stores throughout the United States and Europe. Tiffany embarked on the production of lamps in the early 1890s. Although the light bulb was patented in 1879, electricity was not widely available until shortly after the turn of the century and even then only the wealthy could afford it. Tiffany’s earliest lamps, made of blown glass or leaded-glass and bronze, were fueled by kerosene. As electric light became affordable and gained popularity, Tiffany began offering his clients the choice of either oil or electric lamps. One of the earliest serious collectors of Tiffany lamps, Dr. Neustadt assembled an encyclopedic collection which included desk, reading, library, and floor lamps as well as hanging shades and chandeliers. He also added leaded-glass windows and bronze desk sets to his collection. In 1967, he acquired some 500 crates of sheet and pressed glass made and used by the Tiffany Studios which were left over after the company went bankrupt in the early 1930s.
]]>This special exhibition celebrates a major new installation in the Luce Center for American Art: Visible Storage ▪ Study Center that gives the public access to more than 350 additional objects from the Museum’s collections. Since its opening in January 2005, the Luce Visible Storage ▪ Study Center has housed approximately 2,100 objects in two types of storage units: vitrined cases and paintings screens. The facility also contains forty-two drawers for storage. Beginning in mid-October and in stages over subsequent months, they will be filled with works from the Museum’s renowned American holdings and opened to the public. Once the drawers are full, the number of objects on view in visible storage will rise to 2,500—an increase of almost 20 percent. The drawers’ contents will encompass a variety of objects from the Americas—including art of the United States as well as of the indigenous and colonial peoples of North and South America—and dating from the pre-Columbian period to the present day. Although the works range widely in terms of medium, date, function, and geographical origin, they do share a diminutive scale and suitability for flat storage. Among the objects that will be installed in the drawers are: American and Hopi ceramic tiles; Mexican pottery stamps; jewelry and other ornaments from Native and South American cultures; Modernist jewelry; silverplated flatware and serving pieces; Spanish Colonial devotional objects; American portrait and mourning miniatures; commemorative medals; and embroidery. As in other sections of the Luce Visible Storage ▪ Study Center, objects in the drawers are densely installed to maximize the available space and are grouped by type, medium, or culture. Visitors can learn more about the works by using one of the nearby computer kiosks in the facility, or by accessing the Luce database online. To obtain a list of a drawer’s entire contents, use the Map feature and select numbers 41 through 47. Held in conjunction with the drawers installation, Small Wonders from the American Collections features an eclectic selection of seventy works of art on the walls and in the display cases above the drawers. This exhibition both highlights objects that will be installed in the drawers and reveals a diversity of cultural traditions and artistic practices that constitute American art. A variety of jewelry and objects of personal adornment—although produced by different peoples—function similarly to signify information about the wearer’s identity. Flatware, pins, and other silver items on display reflect a broad array of forms, styles, and uses for this valuable metal. Ceramic tiles made contemporaneously by Native and non-Native Americans provide an interesting cross-cultural comparison with respect to the decoration and marketing of these wares. [Image: Unknown Artist "Fan" (1822–31) Ivory sticks and painted paper mount. ]
]]>Spotlight on the Permanent Collection is the first exhibition featuring a sampling of objects and ephemera drawn from over nine thousand objects that comprise the permanent collection of the Museum of Sex. This ever-growing collection, begun five years ago, covers many aspects of human sexuality. The vast majority of items reflect America's changing attitudes about sex and sexuality over the last 250 years. Spotlight on the Permanent Collection explores eight themes: sex education; mapping sex in America; sex in art; law and public morality; sex in advertising; sex and technology; sex and entertainment; and the significance of the Museum of Sex in New York City. The exhibition includes erotic works by well known artists like Randy Wray, Gerald Gooch and Alex Rockman donated to the museum by the Peter Norton Family and the Lannan Family Foundation. Highlights of the technology collection include homemade contraptions and commercial devices registered with the U.S. Patent Office that prevent, improve or enhance sexual function. Dan Siechert's "Monkey Rocker" or Abyss Creations LLC's "Real Doll" are just a few of the exhibits featured. The gallery development team, lead by John Vollmer and Karen Eckhaus of the Museum of Sex, includes several leading authorities from a wide range of disciplines: Dr. Pepper Schwartz, Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington, St. Louis serves as a key advisor for "Sex Education America." Joshua Berger and Sarah Dougher, authors of the (award-winning) book, XXX: The Power of Sex in Contemporary Design, have curated "Stimulating Sales: Sex and Design." Andrea Tone, Canada Research Chair in the Social History of Medicine Social Studies of Medicine & Department of History at McGill University, and Rachel Maines, Researcher at Cornell University, offer commentary in "Sex and Technology." Dr. Joseph Slade, Professor at the School of Telecommunications, Ohio University and advisor on the exhibition, Stag, Smokers, and Blue Movies, helped to plan the exhibits in "American pornography" which are drawn from the Museum of Sex's Ralph Whittington collection.
]]>The Dinner Party, an important icon of 1970s feminist art and a milestone in twentieth-century art, is presented as the centerpiece around which the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art is organized. The Dinner Party comprises a massive ceremonial banquet, arranged on a triangular table with a total of thirty-nine place settings, each commemorating an important woman from history. The settings consist of embroidered runners, gold chalices and utensils, and china-painted porcelain plates with raised central motifs that are based on vulvar and butterfly forms and rendered in styles appropriate to the individual women being honored. The names of another 999 women are inscribed in gold on the white tile floor below the triangular table. This permanent installation is enhanced by rotating biographical gallery shows relating to the 1,038 women honored at the table. Pharaohs, Queens, and Goddesses is the first such exhibition.
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