Primary Season at MoMA

Speaking of New York (see today’s previous post), last Sunday, The Museum of Modern Art opened ‚ÄúColor Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today.‚Äù According to an article in today’s New York Times, “The show looks at contemporary artists for whom color functions as a ready-made ‚Äî something to be bought or appropriated, rather than mixed on a palette. As Frank Stella famously quipped, ‚ÄúI tried to keep the paint as good as it was in the can.‚Äù’

“Ten Large Color Panels” by Gerhard Richter

An entire wall is devoted to Gerhard Richter’s “Ten Large Color Panels” (1966-71/72), a 31-foot sequence comprised of ready-mixed paint bought from a hardware store. Looking at this brings on happy flashbacks to the color theory class I took while a student at CCS. I use the stuff I learned in that class every day.

Arts and Crafts Auction

I came across an interesting article in The Economist about an upcoming auction at Sotheby’s in London. If you’re a fan of the Arts and Crafts, and Gothic Revival Movements, here’s a chance to at least view one of the world’s most extensive collections.

The auction, scheduled for March 8th, is called The Best of British Design from the 19th and 20th Centuries – Paul Reeves. You can read the entire article here. But I’ll quote the basic details:

Rock and Rollers and hippies have long had a soft spot for the decorative appeal of William Morris’s Gothic Revival, with its fair-haired maidens in flowing robes and its air of medieval mysticism. So it is not surprising that when Paul Reeves decided in 1973 to break out of designing avant-garde clothes for David Bowie, Led Zeppelin and The Who, he started selling Arts-and-Crafts furniture to some of the most famous musicians of the day, including George Harrison and Roger Daltrey.

Mr Reeves has organized a week-long selling exhibition and an auction at Sotheby’s next month. They will show just what a good eye he has, and how crucial he has been in encouraging furniture collectors to buy British design from the Gothic Revival onwards, a turning point in western architecture and interior design. About 120 items from Mr Reeves’s personal collection will be for sale at fixed prices. Another 120 pieces from other collectors—many of whom originally bought them from Mr Reeves—will be sold at auction.

You can view the collection at Sotheby’s online catalog. It’s an amazing collection.

Trends from The Detroit Auto Show

I have a brief report on trends from this year’s Detroit Auto Show. I hope you will indulge me going off-topic a bit this morning. Cars rule here and The Detroit Auto Show is usually a lot of fun. this year, however, everything looked pretty much the same. There were 3 stand-outs. I liked the Ford Flex, Mini-Cooper’s new Clubman, and these cute Chinese electric numbers called Tang Hua Xiao Ya.

Other than that, I saw lots of burnt orange and blue/violet exteriors. The latter ranged from a pretty pastel to a more saturated hue. There. I promised to keep it brief. Do you like burnt orange? In my opinion, the auto world should go bright orange or skip it.

IMM Cologne Awards: The Best of the Best

Five products were singled out for awards as The Best of the Best at the IMM Cologne Show. Here’s a look at the winners.

Kitchen-40, by Leicht-Kuchen, (above) was singled out because of its ability to integrate the kitchen with living areas. The Series 6910 sofas (above right), from Polstermobel, won for its clean lines. Gecko (above left), an adhesive textile product from Creation Baumann, comes in different styles and colors, and can be applied to any pore-free surfaces, such as glass.

Plank won for its folding Miura table, designed by Konstantin Grcic (shown above alongside Grcic’s stool). Finally, Fredericia Furniture’s Stingray was selected for its striking, almost futuristic interpretation of the classic rocking chair.

What do you think? Are these designs “cutting edge” enough to be The Best of the Best?

New Exhibit at Detroit’s Museum of New Art

The Museum of New Art will open an exhibit called Blah, Blah, Blah on January 19th. The exhibit will attempt to “salvage the art object from such obsolescence and herald in a new aestheticism.” The show runs through February 22nd.

As a companion piece, the museum will also launch a competition in search of the first truly-new and original art movement in decades, let alone the century. The winner or winners of this first-of-its-kind contest will receive a full-blown exhibition spanning the Museum of New Art and all its galleries (to be announced at some future date). I’ll keep you posted.

The museum is located in Pontiac, at 7 North Saginaw. See you on opening night!