Passing Strange and Wonderful: Richard Saja's Shelburne Show Reviewed in ReadyMade

This morning, tipped off by a Facebook status update by embroidery artist Richard Saja, I started my morning with a cup of coffee and the online version of ReadyMade magazine (Aug/Sept 2009 issue).

Saja is the subject of an unconventional exhibition at Vermont's Shelburne Museum this summer, and ReadyMade's Jen Turner was there to cover the story (right here: "How to Catch a Cabin").

The show is titled "The Bright and Shining Light of Irreverence" and features a quasi-domestic site-specific installation of a variety of Saja's work in the museum's Kalkin House. Saja invited a number of other regional artists to help fill out the show. Writes Turner, "Surprisingly enough, it all adds up to a welcoming place where one could imagine spending summer nights sipping mojitos and discussing the weird and wonderful world of Richard Saja."

Quilts, motorbikes, and Lewis Comfort Tiffany are the subject of other exhibitions on view this summer at the Shelburne. I can't imagine a more flavorful weekend trip.


The Bright and Shining Light of Irreverence: Richard Saja and the Historically Inaccurate School
Shelburne Museum
Thru October 25

How to Catch a Cabin
by Jen Turner
ReadyMade (Aug/Sept 2009)

Posted by Amy Shaw for Greenjeans.
Image by Laura Moss for ReadyMade.

Review: Cool Felt at Cooper-Hewitt

I didn't fully appreciate how incredibly versatile a design material felt really is until seeing Fashioning Felt last week at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. Presenting 70+ objects from a range of design and craft fields, the show celebrates the practical versatility and aesthetic possibilities of felted wool.

While I’ve always appreciated the pleasing tactility of felt—all felt is made from wool, by definition—my favorite revelation is how much felt is almost like a natural plastic. As one bit of text mentions, felt has "a versatility rarely found in other materials—it can be made flexible and translucent or very dense and hard; it can be cut without fraying and molded into three-dimensional forms. Felt also provides protection against extremes of temperature and is naturally water repellent, windproof, and fire retardant." Amazing.

Indeed, it seemed strange to be going to an exhibition about felt, a material I associate with warmth and closeness, on such a hot and humid day. Unexpectedly, I found the show to be light and fresh, and it didn’t feel at all dissonant with the season.

Known since 9000BCE (the Neolithic period), felt is thought to the first man-made cloth. There are a few examples of shepherd's cloaks, carpets, and the like to represent these earliest applications.

Most of the rest of the show presents objects made in the last 15 years or so. Surprisingly, although already familiar with some selections, everything seems rather innovative to me -- I realize I don't associate felt with only one form of thing. Why not make jewelry from felt? Why not a chair? Why not use it for good-looking soundproofing? I suppose the many carpets and floor coverings are expected, but some of their forms are not, like perennial favorite Tord Boontje's Little Field of Flowers carpet (pictured at top.) The variety is indeed remarkable. I encourage you to visit the exhibition’s website to see many more images than those I’ve included here.

(And if anyone wants to hook me up with some pieces of German designer Christine Birkle’s lust-worthy clothes for Berlin label Hut Up, like the jacket pictured below right, I'll be your BFF!!)

Fashioning Felt also underscores that whether done by hand, machine, or a combination of the two, felt-making is a very physical, laborious multi-step process. As such, it is also an art and craft unto itself. We can observe this in the three videos running simultaneously along a wall that capture a variety of techniques in action. Happily, I found these videos on YouTube as well: Felt Makers in Mongolia (6:20), the Canadian industrial factory Brand Felt (4:27), and JA Felt making Palace Yurt (10:20). From machines swirling in circles to women pounding their forearms into wet fibers, the actions of felt-making are very ancient and unifying. I could watch all day, and though I myself have little urge to join in, I overheard many finding it inspiring.

I would be remiss not to point out two major attractions within this exhibition. The first is the undulating wall built from shaggy russet-colored wool, heavy felted wool, and felt in many other stages of being (pictured at bottom). It feels animalistic, alive and breathing, and you almost want to roll your body along its mysterious planes. Dutch artist Claudy Jongstra raises her own exotic long-haired sheep to supply her raw materials, then employs enormous vats of boiling water and natural dyes from locally-gathered plants to create panels of richly-colored texture. Almost predictably, the piece is called Inner Moods and is a reflection on "felt's healing qualities."

The second is Janice Arnold's aforementioned Palace Yurt (pictured here). Created for installation inside the museum's first-floor conservatory, it is an all-white gauzy construction of wool felted into silk, Tencel, soy, and linen to an endless array of ethereal effects. You can easily find a spot along the curving window seat to enjoy being inside while thumbing through the exhibition catalogue. It goes without saying that this would be an awesome spot for a small wedding.

The subtext of the show is that we the need to continue and deepen our thinking about environmental, economic, and societal sustainability vis-à-vis design. "The qualities that have made felt indispensable to nomadic life resonate with today's design needs," reads one bit of wall text. I don’t need to beat this drum right now, but I hope this show reflects Cooper-Hewitt’s commitment to encouraging no design without sustainability.

This sustainability message is underscored when one exits the show and heads upstairs to Design for a Living World. There one is surrounded by ideas for how to use sustainable raw materials in architecture, product design, and much more. A durable and apparently travel-ready show--it's very heavily built-- I hope this exhibit, developed by the Nature Conservancy, reaches many people. It's engaging for many ages, the kind of experience kids leave wanting to go home and try making something they just saw. Which is a really good thing.

Though not a "kid's exhibition" by any means, Fashioning Felt will also interest children; I think kids would derive a lot of creative ideas and a greater appreciation of their physical world. However I would have loved to see included in the exhibition some representation of felt products made for children. With so many clever felt toys out there and the way felt is so integral to educating young children in many cultures, it would have been an appropriate and engaging component.

When you go to Fashioning Felt, and you should go, be sure to check out the many good felt-based gift items in the design shop (which are alas not available through their webshop). Felted sea stones, colorful felt jewelry by Hisano Takei, crazy primates… you’ll just have to go see it all for yourself. Bring your lunch and sit in the museum’s fine garden beforehand. It’s a surprisingly perfect way to spend a hot summer afternoon.

Fashioning Felt
March 6 - September 7, 2009
Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
2 East 91st St.
New York, NY
212-849-8400

Posted by Amy Shaw for Greenjeans.
Images courtesy of Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

Greenjeans Recommends: The Phillipe de Montebello Years at the Met

Amidst all the amazing art there is to see in NYC every day, there's one show I saw a few weeks ago that keeps coming back to mind. It also makes me lament that we don't use the word "decorative arts" any more. (Someone remind me, what's so dishonorable about that phrase?)

It's no secret I'm a big fan of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the 10 years I've lived in NYC, I've gone there as often as possible, sometimes as much as once a week. And I can tell you -- no one does big amazing shows like the Met.

There's a show on there now, though, that trumps all others I've seen: the exhibition assembled by curators from every department in honor of the 30 years Phillipe de Montebello has served as director of the Met.

This show presents 300 of the most unusual, exciting, and beautiful works of art culled from the 84,000 (!!!) works collected during the venerable director's tenure.

Eighth century Chinese scroll with a horse painted by Han Gan? Check. Five foot long silver serving tray from France like the one owned by George Washington? Check. Stunning Vermeer painting that inspired a novel and a movie? Check.

Besides these treasures, I was amazed by the full set of 52 playing cards from the 15th century, the quilt by a 19th century American girl who collected signatures by the world's luminaries and stitched them together with pieces of silk, the Walker Evans photograph from 1936 of the New Deal Barbershop, the mesmerizing watercolor drawing of a bat by a 18th century Indian artist, the most beautiful painting by Celia Thaxter, one of my favorite flower painters ever.... and I'm not even scratching the surface.

It would be much better for you to go see for yourself. And if you can't, or can't wait, check out the website for the exhibition here -- you'll find pictures and descriptions of every object.

Oh Met, how do you do it???

The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Through February 1, 2009

Posted by Amy Shaw for Greenjeans.
Images all sourced from the Met here.

Greenjeans Review: Louise Bourgeois at Guggenheim

(Note: I don't know what's up with the font tonight. Can't seem to fix it...)

“You, my daughter, need never handle a needle. Women are not supposed to be only craftswomen, they are supposed to have a career.” So admonished her mother when Louise Bourgeois was a girl, assisting her parents in their tapestry repair business by stitching in missing motifs. Her mother, an ardent feminist, had greater dreams for her daughter. [Ref.]

I wonder if she’d ever have imagined her daughter would become one of the greatest sculptors in modern Western art, one known among other things for her use, physically and metaphorically, of needle and thread.

The retrospective of artist Louise Bourgeois at the Guggenheim Museum in New York (on view thru September 28) presents work spanning the artist’s staggering 70+ year career, from her early surrealist paintings and modernist marble sculpture to room-like installations from the ‘90s and more recent hand-stitched burlap figures. It is an emotionally charged show, a feast of form, and an absorbing study in the possibilities for visual story-telling.

As incredibly evocative and associative her work is, as viewers we’re never sure how literally we’re meant to take it. Much of Bourgeois’ work is about navigating the puzzle of her childhood memories and it often feels very raw and exposed. Yet at the same time it remains very private, perhaps even coded: a staircase with space behind for hiding, young hands caressing old hands rendered lifelike in marble, an abstract fantasia of patricide. She often furnishes her work with everyday objects she’s collected over the years: large spools of thread, worn children’s garments, small empty bottles of Shalomar. We feel we can relate, even if we don’t know the specifics.

Bourgeois is the type of artist for whom the creative process is cathartic, a salve for her inner self that was wounded by some traumatic experience early in life. We read that her father had conspicuous extramarital affairs and her parents argued terribly, but beyond that we’re left to wonder. We must take her word for it when she embroiders “Art is the guarantee of sanity” and “I need my memories. They are my documents.” (The strong sexuality of her work I think is more a celebration and embracing than some latent admission of abuse as some suggest.)

It follows, then, that so much of her work would concern needles and thread whether literally or figuratively. A gigantic curved needle is threaded with a thick length of flax, large spools of red and blue thread populate a space suggesting a dress shop, rough fabric dolls sport visual hand stitching and overstuffed limbs. There is embroidery, there are balls of yarn, there are paintings of scissors.

Relatedly, labor is also a significant aspect to her work, both in terms of the labor-intensive processes she chooses (needlepoint embroidery, exquisite marble carving and finishing) and the idea of labor as a subject. Her lifelong fascination with life’s everyday labors, whether animal or human, is recurrent: coupling, birthing, building, dwelling, dying. Making art. From the mysterious hive-like Lairs to the bronze spiders, their legs like bent pins, she is creating homage to nature’s thread-makers, weavers, and builders through her own threading, weaving, and building. I couldn’t help but think of the narrative thread of life, the stitching together of memories.

Bourgeois’ work is extremely personal, even private, and yet incredibly exposed. The mood she creates becomes the record: this happened, I saw this, I heard this, I felt this way. Its power lies in how it doesn’t just show us, but pierces us and laces into our own memories and emotions, as though her work is speaking directly to our own experiences, drawing us in tightly together. In this way it recalled to me the sculpture of Martin Puryear (reviewed in this blog earlier this year).

My attempt at grasping the “craftliness” of Bourgeois’ work denies how enormously complex, layered, and mysterious her work is. One could visit the show fifty times and have fifty different experiences. At the age of 96, I am told that Louise Bourgeois still works every day in her Chelsea studio, and hosts regular salons with younger artists so she can stay fresh and inspired. She wrote on one piece, “It is not so much where my motivation comes from as how it manages to survive.” If only we could all own that secret.



Following its presentation at the Guggenheim, the exhibition will travel to the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art in fall 2008 and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington , D.C., in winter 2009. Catalog available.

PHOTO CREDITS (top to bottom):

Louise Bourgeois with FEMME VOLAGE (1951, Coll: Guggenheim Museum, New York), in the mid-1960s.
Photo: Louise Bourgeois Archive

Louise Bourgeois
NO EXIT, 1989
Wood, painted metal and rubber
82 1/2 x 84 x 96”; 209.5 x 213.3 x 243.8 cm.
Fondation Louis Vuitton pour la Création, Paris
Photo: Rafael Lobato
© Louise Bourgeois

Installation view of Spider Couple, Untitled, and Untitled at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2008
© Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation New York
Photo by David Heald

Louise Bourgeois
UNTITLED, 1986
Watercolor, ink, oil, charcoal and pencil on paper
23 3/4 x 19”; 60.3 x 48.2 cm.
Courtesy Cheim & Read, Galerie Karsten Greve, and Hauser & Wirth
Photo: Christopher Burke
© Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois in 2003.
Photo: Nanda Lanfranco

Louise Bourgeois
Red Room (Child), 1994
Mixed media
83 x 139 x 108”; 210.8 x 353 x 274.3 cm.
Collection Musee d’art contemporain de Montreal
Photo: Marcus Schneider
© Louise Bourgeois

Posted by Amy Shaw for Greenjeans.