R. J. Preece | art design café

Emily Hall Tremaine’s 1930s: In danger, madness, decadence and publicity

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R. J. Preece - 02 Aug 21

This micro-site and webpage are packed with a lot of new information clarifying Emily’s work and life. Left: Wire service photo of Emily Hall Tremaine (previously Spreckels) wearing in today’s value from USD$14.5-220m in diamonds, and stealing the press at the Beaux Arts Ball in New York,...

Theo van Doesburg’s Space-time construction #3 and Composition XX in the Painting toward architecture exhibitions (1947-52)

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R. J. Preece - 10 Jun 18

The influential Space-time... in the original PtA is also a key element in a travelling exhibition focused on architect Harry Seidler. Next scheduled venue: Chicago, August-September 2018. Harry Seidler: Painting toward Architecture, Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture, City...

Rhonda Zwillinger at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2017)

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R. J. Preece - 02 Jan 18

Rhonda Zwillinger’s recent exhibition was unexpectedly rattling. Ten hours after the experience, I could still feel the accompanying soundtrack. The show opened a door that I found myself not wanting to cross because the situation was so troubling. Though the work progressed from tragedy toward...

Oscar Niemeyer / Roberto Burle Marx. Tremaine House & Painting toward architecture (2017)

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R. J. Preece - 27 Dec 17

Left: Oscar Neimeyer. Beach House for Mr. and Mrs. Burton Tremaine, project, Santa Barbara / (Montecito), California, (1948); Right: Roberto Burle Marx. Design for a garden, (1948). Both in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In summer 2017, a gouache work, Design for a...

Frank Lloyd Wright. Project for Meteor Crater & Painting toward architecture (2017)

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R. J. Preece - 27 Dec 17

Click below to see a black-and-white reproduction of the color drawing showing FLW’s Meteor Crater design, on view in the 2017 MoMA exhibition. See Arthur Drexler’s 1962 book: The drawings of Frank Lloyd Wright, pdf p. 229. In the MoMA exhibition, Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the...

Piet Mondrian. Victory boogie woogie & Painting toward architecture (2018)

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R. J. Preece - 27 Dec 17

Piet Mondrian. Victory Boogie Woogie, (1942-44). Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, The Netherlands. > Make sure to see the overview page for Mondrian’s Victory boogie woogie. A third work with Miller Company (Meriden CT) Painting toward architecture-era (c. 1945-55) roots— and featured...

Painting toward architecture (1947-52) in 2017: Three works, three histories, three Modern mysteries

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R. J. Preece - 27 Dec 17

From left to right: Design drawing for Meteor Crater, Frank Lloyd Wright (this drawing not in MoMA exhibition); Design for a garden by Roberto Burle Marx, (1948), in DB KunstHalle show in Berlin; Victory Boogie Woogie by Piet Mondrian (1943-44). This past summer, three exhibitions at...

Rethinking Painting toward architecture (1947-52) (2017)

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R. J. Preece - 01 Jul 17

Painting toward architecture exhibition as installed at the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston (January-February 1950). Courtesy the Karl Kamrath Collection, University of Texas at Austin architectural archives. (See FN "Photo A" for list of works in the photo.) (This photo was unexpectedly found...

Submerged: Jason deCaires Taylor interview (2016)

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R. J. Preece - 21 Jun 17

Jason deCaires Taylor. Lily with urchins, detail from The Silent Evolution underwater installation consisting of 420 sculptures, (2009). Cancun, Mexico. Photo courtesy the artist. jason decaires taylor underwater sculpture Disillusioned with the rat race, sculptor Jason deCaires...

Ugo Rondinone at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2016)

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R. J. Preece - 15 Nov 16

Maybe it is a good idea to fill a museum [space] with 45 life-like sculptures of clowns supplemented by colorful, rainbow-inspired and cartoon-like works— or maybe not. In any event, Ugo Rondinone chose to do just this in his recent exhibition, “Vocabulary of Solitude,” which also doubled as a...

Mike Bouchet interview: From psychedelic Watershed to symbol of the economic crisis (2015)

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R. J. Preece - 25 Oct 16

Sometimes installing artworks go according to plan. Sometimes artworks are left open for external factors to performatively determine how events unfold. And sometimes things go absolutely pear-shaped with comical effect—and generate new interpretations, shifting the discussion further. Such was...

Sokari Douglas Camp interview: All that glitters is not what it seems (2016)

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R. J. Preece - 24 Oct 16

Born in the Niger Delta, Sokari Douglas Camp is well aware of the harmful effects of environmental pollution in the region. She has made this subject her primary focus, combining it with other challenging issues related to Nigeria and the broader world in works made with her preferred material—...

Damián Ortega interview: The matter of energy (2016)

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R. J. Preece - 24 Oct 16

Narratives about Damián Ortega highlight his early shift from political cartoonist to artist, thereby conjoining his wit and sense of playfulness to incisive critique and intellectual rigor. Even more interesting, however, are the variety of forms and wide range of materials that Ortega uses as a...

Marc Quinn interview: Focus on All of nature flows through us (2015)

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R. J. Preece - 24 Oct 16

Marc Quinn’s All nature flows through us (2011) is an innovative, 10-meter-diameter sculpture sited in a small river north of Oslo, Norway, at the sculpture park of the Kistefos-Museet. It was no easy feat to install. The river had to be temporarily diverted, and the sculpture assembled on site....

Jewel Stern interview: Modernist silver from Meriden-Wallingford (2016)

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R. J. Preece - 28 Sep 16

Specialists and enthusiasts of Modernist silver design definitely know her work. Jewel Stern, curator, writer, and collector showed the topic in its fullest form in her book Modernism in American Silver. The accompanying exhibition that she curated with the same title originated at the Dallas...

Lee Yong-woo interview: The Biennial phenomenon (2014)

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R. J. Preece - 01 Dec 15

What are we to make of the biennial phenomenon, with its rapid expansion across the globe since the 1990s? How are biennials developing, and what are the key issues they face? And why the formation of an International Biennial Association [IBA] in March 2013? To learn about these and related...

Siobhán Hapaska interview: The will to live (2015)

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R. J. Preece - 01 Dec 15

Siobhán Hapaska’s Untitled (Intifada), an installation shown at Rotterdam’s Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, does what any good artwork does: sculpt a mental space for consideration and reconsideration of a subject, encouraging discussion. Over the last 20 years, Hapaska has created a large body of...

Bradley & Hubbard crisis state: Too much of their design history is missing (2016)

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R. J. Preece - 30 Nov 15

For 88 years, the Bradley & Hubbard Company manufactured several designs in the small, central Connecticut city of Meriden (1852–1940), with their products distributed across the United States and Canada. Their designs included fire tools and andirons, desk accessories, lamps and chandeliers,...

Deutsche Bank: A best practice for corporate art engagement? (2015)

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R. J. Preece - 01 Nov 15

The Deutsche Bank art collection, started over 30 years ago, has grown to around 60,000 artworks. Many of the works are installed in [800-900] offices in 45 of the 78 countries where the bank operates, and they are also exhibited in international museum shows. In 1997, Deutsche Bank founded the...

London calling? Exploring the overseas MFA option - A conversation with Cynthia Cruz (2018)

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R. J. Preece - 03 Jan 15

Cynthia Cruz. Still from 5 a Day, (2017). Video, 6:59 in length. Courtesy the artist. cynthia cruz artist video Sometimes cheaper is better. With the skyrocketing cost of university tuition in the United States, as with anything else, perhaps it’s time to do some comparative...