Displaying items by tag: midcentury

On April 28, the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) unveils a major exhibition examining the contributions and the legacy of women working in the applied arts during the mid 20th century, a time when curatorial attention and prestige were lavished on
 their male counterparts and those working in the fine arts. Installed on two floors of the museum, “Pathmakers: Women in Art, Craft, and Design, Midcentury and Today” showcases works by three dozen artists associated with craft centers such as the Bauhaus in Germany and later, the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan.

Few individuals have had as profound an effect on American furniture design as Paul Evans (1931-1987). A leading figure in the midcentury American studio furniture movement, Evans consistently pushed boundaries with his innovative approaches to metalsmithing and furniture-making. His transcendent works, which defied what everyday objects looked like and how they were made, continue to reveal the fascinating crosscurrents between sculpture and design.

Evans began working with metal in the early 1950s -- first at the Rochester Institute of Technology’s School for American Craftsmen (SAC) in Rochester, New York, where he studied under the influential American silversmiths and designers John (Jack) Prip and Lawrence Copeland, and later at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

 The Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, is currently hosting “Paul Evans: Crossing Boundaries and Crafting Modernism,” the first comprehensive survey of the designer’s work. Paul Evans (1931-1987), a leading figure in the midcentury American studio furniture movement, used metal to create stunning sculptural pieces that defied what everyday objects looked like and how they were made.

“Crossing Boundaries and Crafting Modernism” features 68 works spanning Evans’ varied career. Evans, who studied at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, a leading institution of American contemporary design, began working with metal in the 1950s. During this time, Evans shared a studio with fellow furniture designer Phillip Lloyd Powell in New Hope, Pennsylvania. The pair often collaborated on pieces that melded Powell’s wood prowess and Evans’ metalworking skills. A number of objects from this period are included in the exhibition.

Beginning on July 12, Neutra VDL Studio and Residences, the former Los Angeles home of the Austrian-American architect Richard Neutra, will replace all mid-century furnishings with their Cold War-era counterparts from Eastern Europe. The objects, including chairs, tables, lamps, phones, pictures, books, and cooking utensils, will be provided by the nearby Wende Museum, which is devoted to preserving the Cold War artifacts of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Although the two design cultures share aesthetic tendencies, they have often been examined separately. The provocative installation, titled “Competing Utopias,” will present modern design from the East and West in a unifying context.

According to the Neutra House, the installation is meant to raise more questions than it could possibly answer. For example, Why do design objects from the East fit so seamlessly, often invisibly, into a high design mid-century home from the West? The exhibition looks at the Cold War era from a broader perspective than the typical political lens, focusing on the global competition that took place to see who would define what modernity looked like and how it functioned.

Christopher W. Mount, former Architecture and Design Curator at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, announced that he will open two eponymous galleries -- one in Los Angeles and another in New York City. The California outpost is housed in the Pacific Design Center, a multi-use facility for the design community, and will open to the public on Friday, May 23. The New York gallery, located on the Upper West Side, will be open by appointment only. Both locations will specialize in architecture and design-related material. 

Mount, a curator, writer, and educator specializing in 20th- and 21st-century architecture, design, and graphics, is an active member of the Los Angeles design scene. Last year, he organized the Museum of Contemporary Art’s (MOCA) troubled exhibition, “A New Sculpturalism: Contemporary Architecture from Southern California.” The show faced multiple delays, which Mount said was the result of mismanagement at MOCA. The exhibition took place while the museum’s controversial director, Jeffrey Deitch, was still at the helm.