New takes on modern design, William Wegman’s art are highlights at Krannert Art Museum

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“10104 Angelo View Drive”, “Hopper Origami”, “In the Bauhaus”, “Untitled Project: Eames Armchair Rocker (+ Walden)”, Conrad Bakker, Dorit Margreiter, William Wegman

“Untitled Project: Eames Armchair Rocker (+ Walden)” by Conrad Bakker, 2012. Oil on carved maple wood. | Photo courtesy of © Conrad Bakker.

CHAMPAIGN, ILL.- Modernism has ignited a new passion among designers and collectors, who value the movement’s objects as historical icons. It also has inspired artists who are using modernist design objects in their own work to comment on the movement’s cultural significance. That artwork forms the exhibition “MetaModern,” opening at Krannert Art Museum on Jan. 29. It is one of five temporary exhibitions at the museum. The opening night reception is 6 p.m. Jan. 29, with comments by “MetaModern” co-curators Ginger Gregg Duggan and Judith Hoos Fox.

“As early as 2003, we were seeing work that started to focus on this idea of reinterpreting or modifying modernism by artists that were too young to grow up with it,” Duggan said. “It’s been just long enough, approximately 90 years since Bauhaus came about, to have some historical perspective.”

Duggan said the current artists interpreting modernism are manipulating the objects themselves – modifying or transforming or even destroying them in ways that comment on modernism.

For example, Conrad Bakker, a painter, sculptor and University of Illinois art professor, has a series of paintings in the exhibition called “Untitled Project: eBay (Ding).” They are based on modernist objects for sale on eBay and the photographs documenting damage to those objects.

“Instead of looking at a Mies van der Rohe chair for its beauty, he’s looking at a closeup of a crack in its leather,” Duggan said. “A lot of modernism is about machined surfaces and perfection. He’s shining a light on human presence and what we do to these objects.”

The exhibition includes “My Decoy” by Brian Jungen, in which he transformed a Verner Panton cone chair into a Native American drum; a video projection by Josiah McElheny based on the J. and L. Lobmeyr chandeliers from New York City’s Metropolitan Opera House; and William Cordova’s “Endless Column,” which reproduces Constantin Brancusi’s 1918 “Endless Column,” reconstructing it from lampshades.

Krannert Art Museum is the first of six locations around the country that will present the “MetaModern” exhibition.

“Hopper Origami” by William Wegman, 2014. Oil and postcards on wood panel. | Photo courtesy of © William Wegman.

Also opening Jan. 29 is an exhibition of work by artist William Wegman that will include a number of his photographs of Weimaraners, for which he is best-known.

The exhibition, titled “Artists Including Me: William Wegman,” will include photographs, drawings and paintings. It will feature some of his paintings from the last 10 years, in which he used postcards to create narratives about what might be happening beyond the frame. It also will include work that relates to other well-known artists or artwork, often in a humorous way.

“There are some great paintings that reference the expressionist Wassily Kandinsky and others that playfully relate to Edward Hopper,” said Kathryn Koca Polite, co-curator of the exhibition with museum director Kathleen Harleman.

“I’m not really making fun of great art, but I’m playing with it, I suppose,” Wegman said. “That’s something that I would have avoided in 1970 and the late 1960s – I didn’t want any art references. I thought that was cheap to make fun of or to appropriate other art, and I didn’t really care for that. I’m just sort of admiring it and using it now, and spending as much time thinking about it and being around it – it’s kind of natural to me.”

Wegman, who earned his master of fine arts degree from the U. of I. School of Art and Design, will be at Krannert Art Museum for an artist talk at 5:30 p.m. March 5.

“In the Bauhaus” by William Wegman, 1999. Color Polaroid. Photo courtesy © William Wegman.

Both the Wegman exhibition and another new exhibition, “Versions and Revisions,” include pieces that relate to recognizable artists or styles, in the same way the artists in the “MetaModern” exhibition “are riffing directly from these iconic modern designs,” Koca Polite said. She curated the “Versions and Revisions” exhibition, which opens with the others on Jan. 29. The exhibition features works from the 1960s through the early 2000s that are part of the museum’s permanent collection.

“Speculative Visions of Pragmatic Architecture” is curated by U. of I. architecture professor Jeffery Poss and features the work of four U. of I. faculty members in the School of Architecture’s Detail and Fabrication program. Their work focuses on the process of making and the evolution of ideas manifested in physical form.

A second portion of the “Speculative Visons” exhibition highlights the design and preservation work of architecture professor Erik Hemingway. “Erik Hemingway Modernism” documents Hemingway’s preservation work on mid-century homes in Illinois and California.

“10104 Angelo View Drive” by Dorit Margreiter, 2004. Video, transferred to a media file. | Photo courtesy of © Dorit Margreiter and Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna, Austria

Continuing at the museum through May 17 is a significant exhibition of Japanese prints, curated by U. of I. art history professor Anne Burkus-Chasson. “With the Grain: Japanese Woodblock Prints from the Postwar Years” examines the deep history of this diverse art form and the ways in which these prints helped shape perceptions of Japanese culture outside of Japan.

L’Arc en Seine at TEFAF 2015 Design (13-22 March 2015)

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Alberto Giacometti, circa 1925, circa 1928, circa 1929, circa 1980, Jean-Michel Frank, L'Albatros, L'Arc en Seine, Lampe Blackened, Table Veneered, Tables Smoked

Jean-Michel Frank (1895-1941), Table Veneered, with inlaid ivory, the legs joined by an ‘H’. Circa 1929. L’Arc en Seine (stand 612). TEFAF 2015 Design (13-22 March 2015)

Jean-Michel Frank (1895-1941) Tables Smoked, walnut with a top covered with rectangles of shagreen, 84 x 45 x 51.5 cm, 84 x 39 x 51.5 cm. Stamped. Circa 1925. L’Arc en Seine (stand 612). TEFAF 2015 Design (13-22 March 2015)

Jean-Michel Frank (1895-1941), Lampe Blackened, pear wood with ivory plaques. Circa 1928. L’Arc en Seine (stand 612). TEFAF 2015 Design (13-22 March 2015)

Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), L’Albatros. Synthetic resin. Length 167.5 cm. Edition by Diego Giacometti? Numbered ‘6/8’. Circa 1980. L’Arc en Seine (stand 612). TEFAF 2015 Design (13-22 March 2015)

L’Arc en Seine. Directors: RAFAEL ORTIZ, CHRISTIAN BOUTONNET

Ferruccio Laviani, Boffi, Table

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Boffi, Ferruccio Laviani, Table

Ferruccio Laviani, Boffi, Table. Estimate €7,000 – €8,000. Photo Nova Ars

Mahogany table F* Gole Gueridon, ebony legs. Ferruccio Lavini, Boffi Prod., Italia, 2010 ca. Dimensions: 90×75 cm.

Tavolo F* Hole Gueridon con piano in mogano e gambe in ebano. Prod. Boffi, Italia, 2010 ca. Dimensioni: cm 90×75

Nova Ars. Contemporary Art and Design. Lot 180. 9:30 AM PT – Jan 5, 2015

Ferruccio Laviani, dresser

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dresser, Ferruccio Laviani

Ferruccio Laviani, dresser. Estimate €30,000 – €35,000. Photo Nova Ars

Ferruccio Laviani, Comò Luigi XVI (W)Hole in mogano con decorazioni in ottone e piano in marmo Emperador. Prod. Boffi, Italia, 2010 ca. cm 165x90x60

Nova Ars. Contemporary Art and Design. Lot 180. 9:30 AM PT – Jan 5, 2015

Horacio Cordero (1945-2014) et Juan Pablo Molyneux (né en 1946), Hommage à Lucio Fontana, 2013

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Horacio Cordero, Juan Pablo Molyneux

Horacio Cordero (1945-2014) et Juan Pablo Molyneux (né en 1946), Hommage à Lucio Fontana, 2013. Paire de Lampes Rounded Model, Red n°2. Estimation : 30 000 € / 50 000 €. Photo Hôtel des Ventes de Monte-Carlo

Bronze et peinture de voiture métallique. Signées, et numérotées 3/50. EDITION H.CORDERO / J.P. MOLYNEUX – Hauteur : 54 cm

HÔTEL DES VENTES DE MONTE-CARLO. Art Moderne et Contemporain, Design, Art Nouveau, Photographies, le 13 Décembre 2014 à 14h30. 10 – 12 QUAI ANTOINE 1ER – 98000 MONACO. Tel:  00 377 93 25 88 89

‘Anarchy & Beauty: William Morris and His Legacy, 1860-1960’ at the National Portrait Gallery

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Ambrose Heal, ‘Craft of the Guild' brooch, C.R. Ashbee, Cone Chair, Edward Burne-Jones, Edward Carpenter, Eleanor Marx, Eric Gill, Frederick Hollyer, G F Watts, Grace Black, Howard Coster, National Portrait Gallery, Ray Williams, Roger Fry, Terence Conran, William Morris

William Morris by G F Watts, 1870. ©National Portrait Gallery, London.

LONDON.- The first exhibition devoted to William Morris and his influence on twentieth-century life, opens at the National Portrait Gallery on Thursday 16 October 2014.

Anarchy & Beauty: William Morris and His Legacy, 1860-1960 (until 11 January 2015), curated by Fiona MacCarthy, focuses on Morris’s far-reaching politics, thought and design. With portraits, furniture, books, banners, textiles and jewellery, the exhibition includes many extraordinary loans brought together in London for the first time.

Starting with late Victorian and Edwardian Britain, the exhibition and accompanying book explore the ‘art for the people’ movement initiated by William Morris and the artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. It displays the work of Arts and Crafts practitioners inspired by Morris and ‘simple life’ philosophers such as Edward Carpenter and Eric Gill, before showing how Morris’s radical ideals developed through to the Garden City movement and from the Festival of Britain onwards to young post-war designers such as Terence Conran who took up Morris’s original campaign for making good design available to everyone.

Edward Carpenter by Roger Fry, 1894 © National Portrait Gallery, London

Exhibits include William Morris’s own handwritten Socialist Diary from the British Library, his gold-tooled handbound copy of Karl Marx’s Le Capital, lent from the Wormsley Library and Burne-Jones’s spectacular handpainted Prioresses Tale wardrobe coming from the Ashmolean in Oxford. C R Ashbee’s Peacock brooch from the V&A is joined by Eric Gill’s erotic garden roller, Adam and Eve, from Leeds City Art Gallery and Edward Carpenter’s sandals from Sheffield Archive – the sandals that began the sandal-wearing craze amongst the English left-wing intelligentsia.

Edward Burne-Jones, Prioress’s Tale wardrobe, 1859. The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

‘Craft of the Guild’ brooch designed by C.R. Ashbee and made by the Guild of Handicraft, England, 1903 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Curator Fiona MacCarthy says: ‘Now in the 21st century our art and design culture is widespread. But its global sophistication brings new anxieties. We find ourselves returning to many of Morris’s preoccupations with craft skills and the environment, with local sourcing, with vernacular traditions, with art as a vital force within society, binding together people of varying backgrounds and nationalities. This exhibition, as I see it, will not only explore what William Morris’s vision was but will suggest ways in which his radical thinking still affects the way we live our lives’.

Starting with the sometimes violent state of flux of late Victorian and Edwardian Britain as a group of brilliantly radical artists, craftsmen, architects, town planners, sexual and social reformers set out to remake their world, the exhibition introduces us to Morris, a craftsman and designer of extraordinary talent who MacCarthy believes still needs to be recognised as the truly revolutionary figure that he was.

The exhibition shows how the ‘art for the people’ movement had its roots in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’s challenge to accepted attitudes to art and also in John Ruskin’s politically radical perception that every human being has inherent creative talent and that handwork was not inferior to brainwork.

On display is work by the artists and craftsmen of Morris’s inner circle: his lifelong collaborator Edward Burne-Jones; the potter William De Morgan; the radical architect Philip Webb; the furniture makers Ernest Gimson and the Barnsley brothers. A number of important female artists and craftswomen will feature in the exhibition since this was a circle in which women were accepted as co-practitioners with men. Arts and Crafts idealists who set up their own working communities, often in defiance of sexual norms, are included, such as the openly homosexual Edward Carpenter at Millthorpe; C R Ashbee and his Guild of Handicraft in Chipping Campden and the controversial Catholic artist-craftsman Eric Gill in Ditchling.

Anarchy & Beauty: William Morris and His Legacy, 1860-1960 highlights the element of anarchy within the ‘art for the people’ movement which demanded an overturning of accepted values. Showing how Morris was associated with the Russian anarchists Prince Peter Kropotkin and Sergey Stepniak, visitors will see a strong link between ‘art for the people’, women’s education and suffrage – one of Morris’s closest female associates was Eleanor Marx.

Grace Black, Eleanor Marx, 1881 © National Portrait Gallery, London

The exhibition extends beyond Morris’s own death in 1896 to show how his radical ideals developed through the Edwardian decade, highlighting Patrick Geddes, Raymond Unwin and the Garden City movement and the way in which ‘good design’ became available to a wider market through such pioneering home furnishing shops as Ambrose Heal’s. It explores the ruralist revival of the 1920s and 1930s when leading craft practitioners – the potters Bernard Leach and Michael Cardew, the weaver Ethel Mairet, the hand-blocked textile printers Phyllis Barron and Dorothy Larcher – evolved their own alternative ways of life and work in an increasingly materialistic age.

Ambrose Heal by Frederick Hollyer, c.1895 – 1903. Heal Family Collection.

Fiona MacCarthy is a cultural historian, broadcaster and critic whose widely acclaimed biographies include studies of Eric Gill, William Morris (which won the Wolfson History Prize and the Writers’ Guild Non-Fiction Award), Stanley Spencer, Lord Byron and, most recently, Edward Burne-Jones. She is a Senior Fellow of the Royal College of Art and was awarded the OBE for services to literature in 2009. She curated The Omega Workshops exhibition for the Crafts Council and the exhibition Eye for Industry for the V&A, and in 2002, an exhibition on Byron, working with Peter Funnell, for the National Portrait Gallery.

Eric Gill by Howard Coster, 1927 © National Portrait Gallery, London

Frederick Hollyer, William Morris, 1884 © National Portrait Gallery, London

William Morris, La Belle Iseult, 1858 © Tate 2014

Ray Williams, Terence Conran and His Cone Chair, 1950s © Estate of Ray Williams

DARKO GEOMETRIC, the « philosigner »‘s watch

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DARKO GEOMETRIC, Darko Mladenovic, philosigner, watch

DARKO GEOMETRIC. Photo Credit: ©Dimitri Tolstoï

Self-winding mechanical movement with hour, minute and centre seconds display and date. Power reserve of 38 hours. 28,800 (4 Hz) vibrations/hour.
Balance wheel with Darko lion and Darko Watch Co. engraving. 18-carat yellow, pink or white-gold case. Ray Bezel® fluted bezel Opaline silvered guilloche dial with anthracite markings. Lion’s claw lugs. Screw-in crown with D-Wave initial.
Sun Ray type hands. Thickness: 10.30mm Diameter: 39.70 mm Water resistance: 3 bar / 30 m. Sapphire crystal case back.
Hand-sewn alligator leather strap with pin buckle.

There are several ways to approach the creation of a watch. You can start with the inside, like a watchmaker, constructing your movement to see what shape (in the wider sense) the watch will take. Or, on the contrary, you can start with the shape, like a designer, and add the necessary engine afterwards. In the best case, the two approaches would work in parallel.

Darko Mladenovic’s approach is altogether different. This « philosigner », as he likes to describe himself, first mixes up philosophy and design in his personal cocktail shaker. As with his previous creations, Darko (former Creative Director at Swarovski, who has worked with numerous luxury brands such as Lancôme, Christofle, Louis Vuitton, Van Cleef & Arpels, Château Lafite Rothschild and whose Ray crystal sculpture was chosen by Time magazine to be awarded to its list of the world’s 100 most influential people) takes his inspiration from the links that he tries to create between aesthetics, science, philosophy, the spiritual and the technical.

This slow and informed approach to the object gives his creations a singular depth that can be clearly felt, without having to explain in detail the creator’s approach.

Let’s take a look at his watch, the Darko Geometric. It shines all over, it’s a sun. It seems evident, as if it had always existed. If we have the impression that we “recognise” it immediately, it is because it plays on ancient archetypes inherent in our genes since the dawn of time: the Sun, its rays, the idea of light as waves, geometry (crystal, pyramid, circle).
The dial with its concentric waves, crossed by twelve radial rays, extends effortlessly on to the bezel. A veritable sculpture, this sophisticated and luminous Ray Bezel® with its fluting looks as if it has been outlined by the sun’s rays. Even without any hour markers, the Darko Geometric is a model of legibility because it is the shape itself that has an obvious function as an indicator. The time can be read intuitively in the luminous play of the rays, their reflections and their extensions.

All the elements of design and function are connected by what Darko calls a “Grand Simplification”, which was a time-consuming and painstaking process. It gives the piece an internal coherence that can be seen at first glance and which gives the watch its strength, its evidence.
Darko’s brand is only at its very beginnings. The designer has a number of developments on the table, including a probable ceramic version of the Darko Geometric watch, which promises yet more astonishing plays of light, as well as a line of jewellery and accessories. Darko is a name to keep an eye out for.

Source: Europa Star December – January 2013/14 Magazine Issue

J.M. Frank par HERMES n°05179-13 (réedition). Rare table basse

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Hermes, J.M. Frank, parchemin, table basse

J.M. Frank par HERMES n°05179-13 (réedition). Rare table basse. Estimation : 7 000 € / 8 000 €. Photo Cornette de Saint Cyr

en bois entièrement recouvert de parchemin blanc. Dimensions : 26 x 125 x 50cm.

CORNETTE DE SAINT CYR BRUXELLES, Hermès Vintage, 19 Octobre 2014 à 15h. CHAUSSÉE DE CHARLEROI, 89 – 1060 BRUXELLES. Tel: +32 (0)2 880 73 80.

J.M. Frank par HERMES n°009030-11 (réedition). Exceptionelle table basse

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galuchat, Hermes, J.M. Frank, table basse

J.M. Frank par HERMES n°009030-11 (réedition). Exceptionelle table basse. Estimation : 14 000 € / 15 000 €. Photo Cornette de Saint Cyr

en bois entièrement recouvert de galuchat écru. 50 x 80 x 42cm.

CORNETTE DE SAINT CYR BRUXELLES, Hermès Vintage, 19 Octobre 2014 à 15h. CHAUSSÉE DE CHARLEROI, 89 – 1060 BRUXELLES. Tel: +32 (0)2 880 73 80.

Christie’s launches ‘Chinese Contemporary Design: A Dialogue between Tradition and Modernity’

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"Big World", "Dragon Dance", "Gentleman", ‘Bo Luo’, porcelain tea set, quadruple screen, Shang Xia, Zitan

An Exceptionally Large ‘Bo Luo’ Lacquered Zitan Desk, Shang Xia / 2014, 248 x 96 x 73cm. Estimate: RMB 3,500,000-4,000,000 US$ 570,000 – 650,000. Photo: Christie’s Images Ltd 2014.

SHANGHAI.- Following a successful touring of private sales, exhibitions and previews in Paris, Hong Kong and New York, Christie’s announced an exciting new category, Chinese Contemporary Design, that will be officially launched at Shanghai 2014 autumn auction.

Inspired by the historical beauty of 5,000 years of Chinese culture and craft, these modern design pieces represent a large range of furniture, ceramics, and works of art made from the finest of raw materials such as porcelain ‘as light and delicate as an eggshell’, precious and rare woods such as zitan and huanghuali, Chinese traditional natural lacquer, silk from Suzhou, bamboo from Sichuan and white Hetian jade from Xinjiang. Some lost techniques are being revived here such as the application of gold powder on natural bamboo.

Twenty unique pieces designed by Shang Xia will be for the first time offered for sale during the Shanghai auction on October 24, 2014. All have been produced in conjunction with local Chinese masters of their craft from different provinces who integrate the warmth, balance and harmony of Chinese grace into all the products and are designed to match the elegance of today’s modern aesthetic.

Each piece represents a continuous dialogue that transcends the past, the present and the future, as designers seek to preserve the skills of past Chinese artisans from the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties. Today, they try to pass these traditions on and push them to new limits, by incorporating innovative technical skills such as carbon fiber.

Géraldine Lenain, International head of Chinese Works of Art, said, “As a response to the strong demand of the market, we are delighted to bring new art offerings to the Chinese market. The new category fits contemporary aesthetics and modern lifestyle into the great tradition Chinese craftsmanship. This is an extraordinary start for Christie’s and we hope to continue to share the vibrant creativity as we deepen our connections with collectors in China.”

Shang Xia, « Big World », pineapple red paint on carbon fiber chair « up and down », 19 1/4 x 20 1/8 x 32 1/4 inch (49 x 51 x 82 centimeters). Estimate: RMB 600,000-650,000 US$ 98,000 – 106,000. Photo: Christie’s Images Ltd 2014.

Shang Xia, « Gentleman », manual double-sided embroidery quadruple screen « up and down », 94 1/2 x 69 1/4 x 13 3/8 inches (240 x 176 x 34 centimeters) Estimate: RMB 800,000-1,200,000 US$ 130,000 – 196,000. Photo: Christie’s Images Ltd 2014.

Shang Xia, « Dragon Dance », bamboo buckle gilt porcelain tea set « up and down », 97 5/8 x 37 3/4 x 28 3/4 inch (36 x 36 x 2 cm.). Estimate: RMB 320,000-350,000 US$ 52,000 – 57,000. Photo: Christie’s Images Ltd 2014.