Hot Press, Cool Events April 2014

APRIL EVENTS

By Regina Connell.

Editor’s Note: Whoa, where did January-March get to? If you’ve been slightly sloth-like (like yours truly) you might actually be feeling the need to get out and about. Spoken for myself, there’s nothing quite like standing in front of an amazing piece of work to fire up my sense of pleasure, whether it’s a photograph or a fabulous pot. I think it even trumps a great pair of shoes. Usually.  Without further ado, here’s our hand-picked selection of what to do in April. Hope to see you around. And as always, check back here, and camp out on our twitter and Facebook feeds where we update regularly.

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

AltLuxe: The New Luxury. April 2, American Institute of Architects, San Francisco. Consumers of many types are tired of the traditional trappings of luxury. Regina Connell believes that AltLuxury – the new luxury – is about appealing to those consumers and clients who have the taste and income for luxury but want to avoid its associations with big brands and bling. We’re finding that what they’re really looking for is greater pleasure and happiness in their lives and one of the first places they can start is in their environments. By appealing to this need and weaving this insight into their work, architects and designers can do a better job of attracting, designing for, and retaining customers.

The new luxury fixture: Lindsey Adelman

An Homage to In Grimani: Ritsue Mishima, through May 24, 2014, Hedge Gallery. Hedge presents a selection from the body of new work by the phenomenal glass artists, Ritsue Mishima. An Homage to In Grimani pays tribute to the seminal exhibition that took place at the Museum of Palazzo Grimani during last summer’s Venice Biennale. Inspired by the palazzo’s 16th century architecture and decoration, Ritsue created over 2 new pieces for the installation. Ritsue Mishima was born in Kyoto, and has lived in Venice since 1989.

Wheat is Wheat is Wheat: Peddy Mergui. April 12-June 15. Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco. This exhibition explores design and ethics. What is the designer’s role in a field designated to give shape to an idea, and recruited to serve economic interests without necessarily leaving room for moral consideration? Wheat is Wheat is Wheat is a humorous yet provocative commentary on global consumer culture that may just have us questioning our next purchase. The phenomenon of “prestige” and “luxury” as a consumer validation is a reoccurring theme with the artist. What does the consumer actually purchase when he or she pays top dollar for a “BRAND” of wheat/flour, or table salt?

Wheat is Wheat is Wheat at the Museum of Craft and Design

Elevated Corrugated, April 5-June 22. Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco. Elevated Corrugated is a group exhibit featuring ten artists working exclusively with cardboard to create fantastically innovative and breathtaking sculptures of various scale. Participating artists include: Tom Burckhardt, Scott Fife, Taro Hattori, Kiel Johnson, Mike Leavitt, Karen Rudd, Jason Schneider, David Sleeth, Michael Stutz, Ann Weber.

AIA SF Design Awards Gala, April 23, 2014. Join AIA San Francisco and the local architectural community at SFJAZZ Center to celebrate the 2014 AIA San Francisco Design Awards winning projects. The 2014 Gala honors the best of Bay Area architectural design and recognizes achievement in a broad range of architectural work. Winning projects will not be announced until the awards ceremony.

Designing Home: Jews and Midcentury Modernism, April 24-October 6, 2014. The Jewish Contemporary Museum. Both native-born artists and émigrés, most of whom made indelible contributions to American visual culture after fleeing Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in the 1930s, will be highlighted. The exhibition will underscore that these designers, individually talented as they were, did not work in isolation, and that their impact on American architecture and design was rooted in the networks they forged, influential schools and artist colonies they helped found, museum initiatives they shaped, and corporations they modernized with new products, buildings, and advertising campaigns. The exhibition will focus on six design hubs across the United States that were critical in the  dissemination of Modernist design principals from the 1930s to 1950s.

The Possible January 29, 2014–May 25, 2014, at UC Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. Take a day to visit – and to create – at the Berkeley Art Museum’s “The Possible.” The interactive exhibit features various artists of different backgrounds sharing their expertise in many mediums, including crocheting, fabric dyeing, ceramics, and more. Through ongoing workshops the exhibit allows visitors to learn and interact with the displays, to make art, and to create a tactile experience. Concreteworks fabricated a custom indigo dyeing vat to match the concrete in the Mario Ciampi-designed museum, which was built in 1970.    

David Mellor Design History March 14–April 13, 2014, at Heath Ceramics, San Francisco. A unique in-store exhibition that illustrates the design history and process of David Mellor Design’s most iconic cutlery designs from the 1950s to today. You’re not going to want to miss experiencing this one-of-a-kind exhibition of the history and making process of David Mellor Design’s most iconic cutlery designs from the 1950s to today, illustrated through original sketches, technical drawings and flatware prototypes, and objects used in the factory ranging from moulding dies and polishing mops to cutlers trays.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Jacob Hashimoto’s Gas Giant, through June 8, 2014, MOCA (PDC) Los Angeles. Jacob Hashimoto is an artist whose work studies visual experience in space, artifice, and craft through the use of materials such as handmade kites, fiberglass, marble and the skillful use of light. Combining traditional kite-making techniques and painting into sculptural environments, Hashimoto creates massive space-altering installations with thousands of thin paper sheets. For MOCA Pacific Design Center, Hashimoto is producing the third and final edition of Gas Giant. The work was previously presented in Venice, Italy in 2013 Fondazione Querini Stampalia by Studio la Citta and in Chicago.

PACIFIC NORTHWEST 

Crafting a Continuum: Rethinking Contemporary Craft, through April 27, 2014, Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, WA.  Crafting a Continuum represents one of the country’s foremost contemporary craft collections. Traveling for the first time, the exhibition highlights the extensive holdings of the Arizona State University Art Museum. ASUAM acknowledged craft as a significant and central part of the art world as early as the 1960′s with the initiation of their collection, which includes works in wood, fiber, and ceramics.

Portland Collects: British Ceramics February 28, 2014–August 23, 2014, at Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland. This exhibition, the first of its kind in Portland since 1951, boldly mingles local and global perspectives by examining the relationship between objects and those who collect them. The exhibition will introduce the public to classic ceramic works by Lucie Rie, Hans Coper, Michael Cardew, Bernard Leach, and others, and incorporate interviews, essays, and student-led tours.

Portland Collects: British Ceramics, photo courtesy of Museum of Contemporary Craft

EAST COAST

Re:Collection April 1-September 7, 2014, Museum of Arts and Design, NYC. An overview of some of the objects acquired during the tenure of the talented Curator Emeritus David McFadden over 16 years.  Re: Collection will also explore some of the material and process-centered themes of McFadden’s exhibitions, such asRadical Lace and Subversive Knitting; Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary; Dead or Alive: Nature Becomes Art;Slash: Paper Under the Knife; Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities; and Swept Away: Dust, Ashes, and Dirt in Contemporary Art and Design. These successful exhibitions have allowed MAD to reveal how the creative process firmly links formal concerns with social, political, narrative, and autobiographical content.

Andy Paiko: New Work March 7–April 26, 2014, at Wexler Gallery, Philadelphia, PA. Wexler Gallery is pleased to present a premiere solo exhibition of new work by nationally renowned glass sculptor Andy Paiko. An opening reception will take place on First Friday, March 7th, 2014. The exhibition will feature Andy Paiko’s new body of glass works featuring ornamental reliquary vases, obscure vessel-ware and large-scale glass installations.  Andy’s unique treatment of glass reflects a decidedly pointed notion that glass has a new and lasting position in our contemporary culture; it is both useful and worthy of aesthetic contemplation.

Metropolitan Vanities: The History of the Dressing Table December 17, 2013–April 13, 2014, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY. Few pieces of furniture have revealed more about leisure pursuits, popular taste, and changing social customs than the dressing table, or vanity. Metropolitan Vanities: The History of the Dressing Table explores the evolution of the modern dressing table.  The age-old impulse to be attractive or fashionable informs and animates much of the dressing table’s lengthy design history, as it does many of the objects associated with the toilette, the ritual in which the dressing table reached new heights of elegance and sophistication. Reviewed by Curated Object here.

CANADA

This Is Not A Toy  February 7–May 19, 2014, 10am–5pm, Canada Design Exchange, Toronto. This is Not a Toy, curated by John Wee Tom and DX Associate Curator Sara Nickelson with Guest Curator Pharrell Williams, is the world’s first exhibition featuring a collection of contemporary sculptures, figurines and artworks created by artists including Takashi Murakami, KAWS, FriendsWithYou, Coarse, Huck Gee, and Frank Kozik. The exhibition explores the conceptual toy – a form made solely as an expression of an aesthetic, concept or idea – as an art and design object as well as a contemporary cultural signifier. On display until May 19, visitors dive headfirst into the realm of designer toys as the Exhibition Hall is transformed into a vibrant and whimsical environment, filled with forms ranging from tiny trinkets to enormous free-standing pieces.

EUROPE

James Turrell: Recent Works February 7, 2014–April 5, 2014, at Pace London. This is James Turrell’s first exhibition at Pace Londonand includes two brand-new works from the artist’s Wide Glass Series. For over three decades, Turrell has used light and indeterminate space to extend and enhance perception. With these new works, he continues his exploration of technological possibilities combined with sensory practices, and invites the viewer into a meditative experience.

Michael Craig- Martin: Objects of Our Time March 28, 2014–May 2, 2014, at The Alan Cristea Gallery at 31 & 34 Cork St. London W1S 3NU. The Alan Cristea Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new work by Michael Craig-Martin. The exhibition, which will take place at 34 Cork Street, will include his new series of twelve screenprints, Objects of our Time, alongside other recent editions in several different media all of which focus on everyday items and iconic objects from the worlds of art and design.  

Martin Gamper: design is a state of mind March 5, 2014–April 21, 2014, at Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London. Influential London-based Italian designer Martino Gamper guest-curates a new exhibition at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery. “Design is a state of mind” will present a landscape of shelving systems, telling the story of design objects and their impact on our lives. This is the second major design exhibition staged by the Serpentine, following Design Real curated by Konstantin Grcic in 2009.

In the Making January 22–May 4, 2014, at The Design Museum, London. The secret life of cricket bats, felt hats, shoes, boots, marbles, light bulbs, marbles, whistles, pencils, coins, horns, lenses and Olympic torches. In The Making, curated for the Design Museum by Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby, captures over twenty objects mid-manufacture, putting the aesthetic of the unfinished centre stage. Varying from the £2 coin to a cricket bat, a surprising range of objects have been chosen by founders of design studio BarberOsgerby, to be exhibited in an incomplete state, celebrating the intriguing beauty of the production process. Reviewed by Curated Object here.

Emmanuel Cooper, April 14–May 1, 2014, at Contemporary Applied Arts, London. A retrospective of the work of late studio potter and arts and crafts writer Emmanuel Cooper. The author of nearly thirty books, he was editor of Ceramic Review, visiting Professor at London’s Royal College of Art, and a regular broadcaster on television and radio. He was awarded an OBE for services to art in 2002.

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