The London Design Festival is an annual event, held to celebrate and promote London as the design capital of the world, and as the gateway to the international creative community.

The London Design Festival 2015 will be 19 - 27 September

The London Design Festival was conceived by Sir John Sorrell and Ben Evans. Building on London's existing design activity, their concept was to create an annual event that would promote the city's creativity, drawing in the country's greatest thinkers, practitioners, retailers and educators to a deliver an unmissable celebration of design.

First staged in 2003, the London Design Festival is one of the world's most important annual design events. The Festival programme is made up of over 350 events and exhibitions staged by hundreds of Partner organisations across the design spectrum and from around the world. 

Image: Textile Field by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, supported by Kvadrat, 2011

For details:  http://www.londondesignfestival.com/about

TOURS

2015 HOUSE, STUDIO & LANDSCAPE TOURS

Visit Manitoga, the House, Studio and Woodland Garden of pioneer industrial designer, Russel Wright (1904-1976). Tour Dragon Rock, Wright’s experimental home which he built onto the rock ledge of an abandoned quarry while masterfully orchestrating the surrounding landscape into a series of outdoor rooms of varying character and delight.

Tours are offered from May 1 through November 9 on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays at 11:00 am and 1:30 pm. Tour ticket sales begin on March 16, 2015 at Brown Paper Tickets.

On view in Manitoga's central Quarry Pool: Sanctuary by artist Stephen Talasnik

General admission is $20; Seniors/Students/ Manitoga and National Trust members $15; and $10 for children under 12; $35 for Extended Tour (see details below). Tours are led by professional guides and limited to 12 people.

Reserve your tour at BrownPaperTickets.

THE TOUR EXPERIENCE

Tours begin with a short film about Wright's life and design legacy. Visitors then follow the upper Quarry Path to Dragon Rock. Along the way, the tour features stunning views of the House and Studio, an ascending stone staircase, a field of mountain laurel, and the exquisite moss room. Visitors approach Dragon Rock by crossing the majestic waterfall via a wood plank bridge. Interior spaces are defined by expanses of glass, innovative materials use, and seamless connections to outside terraces. The Tour concludes by following a stepping stone path over the Quarry Pool dam to the Visitor/Guide House.

IMPORTANT TOUR INFORMATION

Tours last 90 minutes and are conducted rain or shine. Please wear sensible walking shoes and dress for weather. Visitors must be able to negotiate uneven ground, several bridge crossings with no handrails and a series of 40 stone steps. PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A MODERATE HIKE.

Pets are not permitted and visitors are asked not to take photographs on regularly scheduled tours (see Extended Tour offering for photography opportunities).

Visitors not on a ticketed tour may view the House and Studio from a designated view spot but are asked not to enter the Quarry Pool Path reserved for guided tours.

Please avoid disappointment and purchase tour tickets in advance. If a tour is not sold out, tickets may be available for purchase at the Visitor/Guide House on a first-come first-serve basis.

Visitors meet at the Manitoga Visitor/Guide House next to the parking lot located at 584 Route 9D in Garrison, NY. 

SANCTUARY TOURS with the artist will be held on Sat. May 30 and Sat. Oct. 17 at 1:30pm. Reservations required at BrownPaperTickets.

EXTENDED TOURS  Enjoy a House, Studio & Landscape Tour and remain onsite for two additional hours to sketch, photograph, write or just be inspired! Offered on select Saturdays throughout the season: May 16, June 20, July 18, August 15, September 19 and October 10. $35; reservations required at BrownPaperTickets.

ARTIST-LED TOURS with Stephen Talasnik are scheduled for May 30 and October 17 at 1:30pm.

SUNSET TOURS Enjoy a late afternoon tour of the House, Studio and Woodland Garden with Tom Krizmanic, AIA, LEED AP, STUDIOS Architecture and Manitoga Board Member. Then soak in the majestic sunset on Dragon Rock’s living room terrace overlooking the Quarry Pool while enjoying light refreshments and cocktails. A Manitoga exclusive, new this year! $75 per person; space is limited; reservations required at BrownPaperTickets.

CUSTOM GROUP TOURS are available by appointment, allowing for a more focused experience of the architecture, landscape and/or collections at Manitoga. To arrange please call 845-424-3812 or email us.

Photos: Dining Area: Tara Wing Photography; Meadow: Manitoga Archives

For details:  http://www.visitmanitoga.org/tours-page-1/

It’s preview party time for the Detroit Area Art Deco Society as the mid-century enthusiasts open up the Michigan Modernism Exposition onApril 24, 7 – 10 p.m.

Join the Deco Society as introduce our new partner Bob Bockius and Dave Strickler of Mitchell Displays, Inc. 

Mitchell is guided by a strong commitment to personal service and reliability, and this growing enterprise is quickly becoming one of the rising stars in the show management business adding The Michigan Modernism Exposition to their lineup.

Please welcome Bob, Dave and Karen Cook as they set the stage for an amazing show stacked with great dealers.

This annual art deco affair offers you and your guests first dibs on some of the best 20th century antiques and fine arts from the international market while enjoying complimentary wine and hors d’oeuvres.

Swing by our Tiki bar for a special cocktail!

Preview party tickets are $75 in advance and $100 at the door and can be purchased by clicking this line or at or daads.org or by calling 248-582-3326. 

Proceeds from the preview party benefit DAADS scholarship, restoration and preservation programs.

Location: The Southfield Civic Center 26000 Evergreen Road 

(at 10 1/2 Mile Road) Southfield, MI

Preview Party: Friday April 24, 7pm - 10pm

Modernism Expo: Saturday 10am - 6pm, Sunday 12pm - 5pm

http://hosted-p0.vresp.com/251931/1c7956d446/ARCHIVE

Gallery 24

The Art Institute of Chicago

Despite his significant contributions to the Chicago skyline and groundbreaking early hotel design for the Las Vegas Strip, Milton Schwartz remains an under-recognized figure from an important period in American architecture. The son of an engineer, Schwartz studied at the University of Illinois, where he was inspired to become an architect by the lectures of Frank Lloyd Wright. After a few years in the construction industry during World War II, Schwartz founded his own Chicago architectural practice and soon completed his first project—a visionary co-op building, 320 Oakdale, combining passive solar technology with a dynamic aesthetic of glass, aluminum, and modern brise-soleil. Schwartz went on to specialize in high-rise apartment buildings and designs for leisure and hospitality, most notably his iconic tower and restaurants for the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas. 

With their modern forms, advanced engineering, and innovative materials, Schwartz’s award-winning hotels and motels reflect the attitude of the automobile and jet ages. For his work in Las Vegas, he paired this vocabulary of concrete, metal, and glass with fantastic new environments integrating water, color, lighting, and scenography. Among the first large resorts of the modern Las Vegas, the Dunes Hotel became a symbol of midcentury American decadence in both popular culture and the iconoclastic architectural theory of the postmodern era. Together, Schwartz’s beautifully rendered drawings of towers, hotels, signage, and interiors present images not only of heroic midcentury construction, but of the expanded languages of modern architecture in America.  

Milton Schwartz. 320 Oakdale Apartment Building, Chicago, Illinois, Perspective Drawing, 1953/54. Gift of Audrey K. Schwartz.

http://www.artic.edu/exhibition/midcentury-mood-milton-schwartz-america-1953-1965

Photo by Annie Laskey/L.A. Conservancy

From architecture to public art to public space, Los Angeles' Central Business District is a microcosm of the growth and development of Los Angeles.

From the 1880s when Victorian mansions crowned Bunker Hill, to today when sleek skyscrapers define the downtown skyline, the built environment of the Bunker Hill area has constantly evolved, reflecting the tastes, aspirations, and economics of the city’s population.

Experience the skyscrapers, plazas, and public art that define the bustling financial district today, and discover how they relate to both the past and the future of Los Angeles, one of the great cities of the world.

Key Information

Schedule: 1st & 3rd Saturdays

Time: 2 p.m.

Length: 2-1/2 hours

Walking difficulty: Route covers about ten blocks; includes stairs and hills

Wheelchair accessible: Yes

Cost: $10 general public, $5 Conservancy members (up to 2 admissions at Individual level; up to 4 admissions at all other levels), $5 children 12 and under

Meeting location: Pershing Square. See "Getting There" tab for further meeting and parking details.

Walk-ins accepted; Note that patrons with paid reservations have priority

No pets

Strollers not recommended

For details:  https://www.laconservancy.org/events/modern-skyline-walking-tour

Why do objects matter? What kind of stories do they help tell? Through a series of micro-exhibitions curated by a diverse roster of collaborators, Objects and Voices reveals the multiple ways we work with, learn from, and enjoy objects of art.

This collection-based exhibition is divided into a series of small thematic presentations organized by distinguished professors, artists, museum professionals, UChicago students, and notable Smart alumni. These vignettes reveal the diverse perspectives, passions, and expertise of their curators while raising bigger questions about the interpretation of creative and cultural objects, the role of audiences, and the transmission of knowledge through art.

As with Carved, Cast, Crumpled before it, this special 40th anniversary exhibition takes over the entirety of the Smart Museum—permanent collection and special exhibition galleries alike—and mixes traditional and non-traditional presentations of the Smart’s collection of Modern, Asian, European, and Contemporary art. Together with GalleryX, these projects illustrate how objects and stories are intertwined, preserved, re-interpreted, discovered, and re-invented at a university art museum like the Smart—indeed, how we all can connect with and be inspired by our experiences with art. 

Micro-exhibitions and collaborators

Objects and Voices micro-exhibitions are coordinated by Anne Leonard, Smart Museum Curator and Associate Director of Academic Initiatives

Interaction: British and American Modernist Design
Alice Kain
Assistant Registrar and Coordinator of Academic Initiatives, Smart Museum of Art

Individual Stories and Collective Narratives: Forming the Modern British Art Collection
Keith Hartley
Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

Richard A. Born
Senior Curator and Interim Chief Curator, Smart Museum of Art

Mark Rothko: From Nature to Abstraction
Russell Bowman
Former Director, Milwaukee Art Museum

Between Two Worlds: Asian/American Modern Art
Kris Ercums
Curator of Asian Art and Global Contemporary Art, Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas; Smart Museum Curatorial Intern (1997–2005) and PhD 2014, University of Chicago

Signed and Sealed: Connoisseurship of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Paintings
Jie Shi
Smart Museum Curatorial Intern and PhD candidate in Art History, University of Chicago

Catherine Stuer
Assistant Professor of Art History, Denison University; Smart Museum Mellon Foundation Curatorial Intern (2011–2012) and PhD 2012, University of Chicago

Japan at the Fair, 1876–1920
Chelsea Foxwell
Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Chicago

Literary Narratives in Painting
Frederick de Armas
Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Service Professor in the Humanities, Spanish Literature, and Comparative Literature, University of Chicago

Romantic Inter-Mediality
David Wellbery
LeRoy T. and Margaret Deffenbaugh Carlson University Professor in the Department of Germanic Studies, Comparative Literature, and Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago

Berthold Hoeckner
Associate Professor of Music, University of Chicago

Fragments of the Medieval Past
Aden Kumler
Associate Professor of Art History, University of Chicago

Claire Jenson
PhD student in Art History, University of Chicago

Rong Rong’s East Village
Wu Hung
Smart Museum Consulting Curator, Harrie A. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor of Art History, and Director of the Center for the Art of East Asia at the University of Chicago

Times and Places That Become Us
Kenneth Warren
Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of English and the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, University of Chicago

The Naked and the Dead
Kerry James Marshall
Artist

Marcel Duchamp: Boîte-en-valise
Angela Steinmetz
Former Head Registrar, Smart Museum of Art

War Portfolios in Teaching
Martha Ward
Associate Professor of Art History and Visual Arts, University of Chicago

The Museum Classroom: Responsive Art from Beasley Academic Center
Shannon Foster, Candice Latimer, and 5th grade students
Beasley Academic Center, Chicago Public Schools

Paintings and Evidence
Hannah Klemm
Smart Museum Mellon Foundation Curatorial Intern (2013–14) and PhD candidate in Art History, University of Chicago

Iva Olah
Smart Museum Mellon Foundation Curatorial Intern (2012–13) and PhD 2013, University of Chicago

The Gift of Art
Gay-Young Cho
Member, Smart Museum Board of Governors

Alan Fern
Former Director, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Life Member, Smart Museum Board of Governors

W. J. T. Mitchell
Gaylord Donnelley Distinguished Services Professor of English Language and Literature, Art History, and the College, University of Chicago

Peter Parshall
Former Curator of Old Master Prints, National Gallery of Art

Support

This exhibition and its related programming have been made possible by Mary Smart and the Smart Family Foundation; the Smart Museum’s Pamela and R. Christopher Hoehn-Saric Exhibition Fund; the Smart Museum's Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Endowment; Janis Kanter and Thomas McCormick and the Kanter Family Foundation; Barbara Fosco and the Fosco Family Foundation; the University of Chicago Women’s Board; the David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Arts Foundation; Lorna Ferguson and Terry Clark; Jill and John Levi; Amy Gold and Brett Gorvy; and the IFPDA Foundation.

Presented in the Elisabeth and William M. Landes Gallery, Janis Kanter and Thomas McCormick Gallery, Edward A. and Inge Maser Gallery, Robert and Joan Feitler Gallery, Joel and Carole Bernstein Gallery, and Richard and Mary L. Gray Gallery.

Top: Attributed to Wassily Kandinsky, Composition, 1914, Oil on canvas. Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, Gift of Dolores and Donn Shapiro in honor of Jory Shapiro, 2012.51.

WORKS FROM THE CELIA ASCHER DONATION

13.1.2015 - 19.4.2015

SHARE

Louisiana has received eight unique works by Picasso, Miró, Kandinsky, Pollock, Dubuffet, Kiefer and Kelly. They form part of an extraordinary donation, valued at more than 100 million DKK, from the deceased Celia Ascher, New York.

Celia Ascher, the former director of The Riklis-McCrory Collection in New York, has been one of Louisiana's faithful friends and generous supporters since 1977. To mark the receipt of the final part of the donation from The Joseph and Celia Ascher Collection, which comprises a total of 200 works, a selection of 50 works are mounted in The Asger Jorn Gallery of the North Wing. 

Naturally, this selection comprises the eight works which, until Celia Ascher’s passing last year, aged 93, she had kept in her private home in New York. They were her personal favorites.

For details:  http://en.louisiana.dk/exhibition/works-celia-ascher-donation

Music and design—art forms that share aesthetics of rhythm, tonality, harmony, interaction, and improvisation—have long had a close affinity, perhaps never more so than during the 20th century. Radical design and technological innovations, from the LP to the iPod and from the transistor radio to the Stratocaster, have profoundly altered our sense of how music can be performed, heard, distributed, and visualized. Avant-garde designers—among them Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Lilly Reich, Saul Bass, Jørn Utzon, and Daniel Libeskind—have pushed the boundaries of their design work in tandem with the music of their time. Drawn entirely from the Museum’s collection, Making Music Modern gathers designs for auditoriums, instruments, and equipment for listening to music, along with posters, record sleeves, sheet music, and animation. The exhibition examines alternative music cultures of the early 20th century, the rise of radio during the interwar period, how design shaped the “cool” aesthetic of midcentury jazz and hi-fidelity culture, and its role in countercultural music scenes from pop to punk, and later 20th-century design explorations at the intersection of art, technology, and perception.

Every Friday at 5:45 p.m., join us for screenings on the 1963 Scopitone—an early music film jukebox.

For full details:   http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1523

Alexander Calder
Chat-Mobile (Cat Mobile), 1966
Painted sheet metal and steel wire
20 x 26 x 26 in. (50.8 x 66 x 66 cm)
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Leonard and Ruth Horwich Family Loan
EL1995.10
© 2010 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

MCA DNA: Alexander Calder traces the development of the artist’s ideas over a 50-year career, in particular, his exploration of how art can move in response to its physical environment. The exhibition presents examples of Alexander Calder’s (American, 1898–1976), mobiles, stabiles, and works on paper dating from the 1920s to the 1970s—a selection of the museum’s in-depth holdings of the seminal artist’s work. The core of this collection comes from the Ruth and Leonard Horwich Family Loan, which Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago has housed, cared for, and displayed since 1995. The Horwich family were, and remain, preeminent collectors of surrealist and Chicago Imagist art; and, as some of the founders and earliest supporters of MCA Chicago, helped to build the museum’s collection.

Trained as an engineer, Calder applied his knowledge of mechanics to colorful abstract shapes. Activated by air currents, his dynamic mobiles are ever-changing compositions. Marcel Duchamp invented the word mobile to describe Calder’s revolutionary work. Even Calder’s Flamingo (1973)—located in Chicago’s Loop—and his other static sculptures, dubbed stabiles by Jean Arp, evoke movement as they invite viewers to contemplate them from every angle.

The city of Chicago was important to Calder. In 1935, the Renaissance Society and the Arts Club of Chicago hosted one of his early solo exhibitions in the United States. The Horwich family amassed a significant Calder collection, befriending the artist and ultimately acquiring more than two dozen of his artworks. In 1974, as part of the inaugural ceremonies for Flamingo, then-Mayor Richard J. Daley declared a “Calder Day,” and Calder was carried to the sculpture’s dedication by a circus-themed parade on State Street. As part of these festivities, the MCA mounted a major Calder exhibition, and his art has been a steady presence in the museum’s galleries ever since.

MCA DNA: Alexander Calder is part of an ongoing exhibition series featuring iconic works from the MCA Collection and is organized by Michael Darling, James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

Thursday, October 9, 2014–Sunday, March 8, 2015

Gallery 292

Renowned abstract artist Jesús Rafael Soto was a pioneer—and ultimately lifelong practitioner—of the Op and kinetic art movements, which prioritized both optical illusion and physical dynamism. After training in Caracas, Soto moved to Paris in 1950, where he participated in the seminal 1955 group exhibition Le Mouvement at Galerie Denise René, considered a crucial launching point for postwar experimentation with interactivity and perceptual experience. Believing that perception involves the entire body and not just the mind, Soto and his peers sought to revise the fundamentals of how an audience engages with art.

In 1967 Soto created his first so-called pénétrable, a kind of luminous environmental sculpture that not only invites but in fact demands audience participation. One of only about 30 ever produced by the artist, this iconic installation is on display for the first time since 1986. An early example of Soto’s signature environments, Pénétrable de Chicago presents thousands of transparent filaments hanging from the ceiling in a rectangular formation. Visitors are thus invited to enter an immersive forest of plastic tubes that shimmer and shift in response to every movement. “We are in the world like fish in water,” Soto once explained. In keeping with such a metaphor, his multisensory pénétrables render our passage through space fully palpable.

Sponsors
The restoration and exhibition of Pénétrable de Chicago were made possible through the generous support of the Community Associates of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Jesús Rafael Soto. Pénétrable de Chicago, 1971. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Randall Shapiro.