As ever, the Museum of Arts and Design is fab fun. Today, between Parts 1 and 2 of the majestic Wolf Hall, I had time to see the mannequin exhibit. You think you’ve seen it all, right?
Designer Ruben Toledo created these mannequins for Ralph Puccini to display jewelry and accessories. I guess someone decided the figures are pretty fantastic, too, and deserve their day under the lights.
The workshop for assembly
I laughed at the 1988 “Birdland,” first understanding it as bird-brained. You know, the fashion industry. Not to be confused with “The Nile,” which references Ancient Egypt.
You know I loved the plus-sized gal, a compact (to my eye) size 16. Here’s “Birdie” (what is it with these birds?) from 1999.
Another new show at MAD features mid-century and contemporary women artists. Vivian Beer combines two of my favorite design forms of shoes and chairs –well somebody has to! — with “Anchored Candy No. 7” from 2014. Yes, that’s automotive paint in hot red.
And Eva Zeisel’s “Belly Button Room Divider” out of ceramics from 1957 did it again. Another belly laugh with MAD.
Caught my eye,
the contrast of the quiet observer and the manic mannequin:
The current exhibit of Latin American artists, like so many of their shows, mixes unlikely materials with functionality. Like the chairs made out of lace cloth by Diana Cabeza.
Sebastian Errazuruz from Chile. has a shoe-art wall. Love it! For me, the show stopper is his commentary on labor and consumerist excess. The Atlas with the world of the golden stiletto on his shoulder. This in a time when women are spending well over a thousand dollars for glass slippers.
At my personal time of questioning/questionable vision, I particularly enjoyed the exhibit of Richard Estes‘ paintings, watercolors, silk screens, and photography. He’s a photo-realist who has long depicted pop culture with his stylized muscle-car paintings and other scenes with hyper-realized reflections. Here are his street scenes of New York.
Richard Estes, Sunday Afternoon in the Park, 1989. oil on canvas
Look at the vantage points he plays with. Overhead at the automat. Straight on with a couple lounging on a rock at Central Park, with the distorting city panorama.
Richard Estes, Automat, c1971, oil on masonite
In several works he distorts viewer understanding of reality and vision. His confusing self portraits like this one with his reflection on the Staten Island Ferry. His presence is a shadow, a reflection. He’s really inaccessible. More like a mirage.
Richard Estes, Self Portrait, 2013, oil on board
You might not be surprised that my favorite is “The Eye Man” from 2014. Look at how he plays with reflection, being able to see, signs, windows onto another world. “Use It or Lose It” one sign at the lower center reads. Ain’t that the truth?
The art world never stays still. Now digital and video are the hot new forms of expression. At the Museum of Arts and Design new exhibition ‘Out of Hand‘, artists explore the hybrid world of the computer and the artist joining together to make pieces.
There’s the microphone you can talk, sing, or whistle into and create a vase-like object on the screen above. There’s the ‘white space’ to step into to make an object. I’m wearing a red shirt with a black and white vest. When I stepped into the zone, a wreath-like donut formed on the overhead screen, melding the three colors.
3-D printer
An organization called Shapeways from Long Island was there today, demonstrating how the make objects using a 3D printer.
She’s on the turning platform
The resulting object
I watched a couple step onto a platform and kiss. While they held their pose, a huge scanner continually scanned the length of their bodies and the platform slowly turned, so that the scan captured information from each angle. Over about a seven hour period, a 3D printer will print out a four or five inch tall, full color, plastic version of their kiss. But only if they order it from the website.
Not all the objects take that long to print, which happens in layers, resulting in a solid piece. This intricate toy with moving pieces could be printed in only thirty minutes and cost only a few bucks.
A toy-thing with moving parts
You can also upload your own design and concept, pick one of 30 materials, including ceramics and metals, and create your own custom object. They also have a marketplace you can shop. The Shapeways tag line: “made in the future.”
A man next to me interrupted the young guy explaining the process. “You know, my dentist uses a 3D printer,” he said. “He makes the teeth right there, while you wait.”
This may indeed be the future of art… and dentistry.
Playing catch up with myself today, I went to two museums and two plays (check out my theater log for more), after doing my tour for an especially exuberant group at New York Historical Society.
Happily, the American Folk Art Museum has righted itself in its small Lincoln Center space. The current show on William Matthew Prior demonstrates how style can be an artist choice. As I type that statement, it seems obvious and a little silly. But folk artists are accused of naïveté and lack of skill, hardly the foundation for choosing style.
Pryor’s background is not very clear, but he studied with or at least saw works by Gilbert Stuart. Look at his copy of Stuart’s dollar bill George Washington of 1850 and compare it to his “folk” version about two years later. He obviously can paint in an Academic manner, so why paint the flattened, unfinished looking work after the more polished?
Copy of Gilbert Stuart’s “George Washington,” 1850 Folk version, c1852
At Winterthur, I would interpret this decision due to meeting customer demand. The folk style was preferred in rural areas, even by wealthy patrons. They wanted to differentiate themselves from the polished, slick urban patron and art style. The folk art show doesn’t give us this interpretation, but I think it fits.
Pryor made 1500 portraits. So he had a big business. I would say the notable democratization of his subjects, including painting African Americans, is well represented in the small show. They also include a portrait of William Miller, who found followers for his beliefs, all part of the 19th Century Great Revival of religious spiritualism. Millerism was all about the Second Coming of Christ, which also meant the end of the world. Millerists believed the end would occur between March 1843 and March 1844. Well…
This show is thoughtful and small, making a perfect lunch-time outing or an easy visit if you’re catching something at Lincoln Center. Not far away is the oh-so-cool Museum of Arts and Design. Each show there now is a breath taker.
In Against the Grain, some big names are part, making awesome wood pieces. Al Wei Wei contributes “Grapes,” featuring a cluster of stools. He’s interested in. Chinese history and links the image to the Qing Dynasty and its compromised functionality, like these stools.
Bettye Saar is there with her Mammies and “Herstory,” contrasting real and manufactured black women. And Hope Sandrow’s chicken coops, which I saw on one of Justin Ferrate’s tours, has arrived, with video, at MAD.
Willie Cole worked with a chicken, too, here enormous. The sculpture is an homage to Malcolm X, who reportedly said, “the chickens are coming home to roost,” after JFK’s assassination. Notice that the piece is made out of matches, waiting to catch fire, as well as brooms and marbles.
I really liked the show’s trompe l’oeil, or trick the eye, works. For example, Mark Moskovitz’s “Stack of Wood,” is actually a piece of furniture with hidden drawers that open.
And video has made it to fine craft. “Traffic” by Hunt Clark includes two video projections of traffic onto a shell-like form. Pretty mesmerizing, eh?
In the Playing with Fire of glass works, Tim Tate has inserted a tiny video camera in his ‘bell jar’, which both records and displays, mirror-like, the viewer. So now my looking and looking at the piece from all angles has been recorded, becoming part of the work “I Want to Run Away and Join the Circus.” Too bad I couldn’t capture an image of that for you.
Karen LaMonte’s “Dress 7” is crafted from kiln cast glass. Stunning, isn’t it? I was really into bodies made of glass–look at Steve Tobin’s 1991 “Torso”!
Technology shows up in the jewelry show, too. The wave form from a recorded sneeze, a yawn, and ‘wow’ are transferred into the shapes of jewelry. Elegant pins actually, which hopefully you can make out in this video. Turn the volume up.
As a fitting closure to the museum visits, the last show, After the Museum, features a folk art portrait, with its questions about the future of museums. After my visits, I would say, the future is bright indeed.
More cool things from MAD. By the way, they actually encourage taking pictures!
I laughed at the 1988 “Birdland,” first understanding it as bird-brained. You know, the fashion industry. Not to be confused with “The Nile,” which references Ancient Egypt.
