> > The New York Times
> > July 26, 2005
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/26/arts/design/26smit.html
> > How Decorative Arts Evolved and Became a Social Movement
> > By ROBERTA SMITH
> > MILWAUKEE - The Arts and Crafts movement, which began boiling up in the
> > indefatigable William Morris in England in the 1860's, was one of those
> > great switching stations of thought built during the Victorian Era and
> > commensurate in its way with Darwinism, Marxism and photography.
> > As suggested by "The Arts and Crafts Movement in Europe and America," an
> > epic exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum, the switching station's
> > inbound tracks included medieval art and the English Gothic Revival,
> > country furniture, Sir Walter Scott's romances and the writings
of
> > Carlyle, plus Ruskin and Emerson and Morris's fury at the Industrial
> > Revolution's harmful effects on design, craftsmanship, the environment and
> > working conditions. "Shoddy is king," Morris famously said. The feeling
> > ignited his do-it-yourself instincts as a designer, craftsman, social
> > reformer and businessman, amply supported by, in all senses, the
> > confidence and cash flow of a well-educated Englishman of means.
> > The outbound tracks lead to, or pass close by, most of modern design as we
> > know it, in terms of movements, principles, dissenting geniuses and home
> > furnishing stores. In other words: Art Nouveau, Wiener Werkstätte, Art
> > Deco, de Stijl and Bauhaus; as well as "truth to materials," "unity in
> > design," design as social reform and the private
(read middle-class)
> > house. Also Frank Lloyd Wright, Ray and Charles Eames, George Nelson,
> > Donald Judd and the anticapitalist, back-to-nature ethos of the
> > counterculture, as well as Design Research, the Door Store, Ikea, Pottery
> > Barn, West Elm and Design Within Reach.
> > Arguing for handcraft, social responsibility and the equality between the
> > fine and applied arts, Morris's back-to-the-workshop movement changed the
> > way design was seen in the West while reflecting larger changes like the
> > rise of the middle class, nationalism, industrialization and individual
> > rights. It proposed a holistic, in many ways utopian vision; it declared
> > the ultimate obligation of design to be quality of life, and that worker
> > and consumer alike were entitled to its
benefits.
> > Much of the movement's scope, vitality and its crusading, often pious
> > optimism is evident in the Milwaukee show, which originated in December at
> > the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where it was organized by Wendy
> > Kaplan, curator of the decorative arts department. Concentrating on the
> > heyday of the Arts and Crafts from 1890 to 1910, it is the first major
> > show to parse the movement's impact on an international scale. At
> > Milwaukee, it flows through 14 galleries whose relatively low ceilings
> > create a fittingly domestic atmosphere. It encompasses more than 300
> > objects by scores of designers, craftsmen and architects whose names are
> > variously famous, unknown and unexpected.
> > Furniture dominates; veritable mini-exhibitions mull over chairness
and
> > buffetness or present self-contained worlds like the entire dining room,
> > from carpet to stemware, designed by Peter Behrens, the movement's German
> > exemplar. A bulky humbleness prevails, along with glowing wood tones,
> > restrained techniques and understated touches of exotic materials like
> > mother-of-pearl or inlaid silver. Josef Hoffmann's tea service in hammered
> > silver is softly luminous, not shiny. One of the show's loudest moments is
> > George Washington Maher's glass mosaic fire surround in hot pink and
> > turquoise; one of its least familiar is Gustav Serrurier-Bovy's almost
> > spectral grandfather clock, which pushes Arts and Crafts toward Art
> > Nouveau.
> > When natural materials aren't in the foreground, plant and flower forms
> > are, in
jewelry, ceramics, textiles, stained glass and graphic design, on
> > bookbindings. The movement's best-known motifs are the widely imitated
> > plant patterns derived from Gothic and Persian precedents to be found in
> > Morris & Co. tapestries (for which Morris resurrected the vegetable dye
> > process) and wall paper (printed by hand).
> > The show devotes generous space to the movement's English origins and its
> > enthusiastic reception in America, where Wright (its first proselytizer),
> > Gustav Stickley and the brothers Henry Mather Greene and Charles Sumner
> > Greene devised some of its most complete and exalted expressions. Special
> > attention is paid the work of the lavishly initialed second English
> > generation - C. R. Ashbee, C. F. A. Voysey and M. H. Baillie Scott -
who
> > all helped to spread the Arts and Crafts gospel, often by designing houses
> > that were then furnished by Morris & Co.
> > But the exhibition is most exciting when covering the diverse efforts of
> > true believers, momentary acolytes and fellow travelers from Scotland,
> > Austria, Germany, Belgium, Hungary, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark.
> > (The wide angle approach may signal a trend: a similar show,
> > "International Arts and Crafts," opened at the Victoria and Albert Museum
> > in London in March, and will travel soon to Indianapolis and San
> > Francisco.)
> > More a set of principles than a visual style, Arts and Crafts traveled
> > well, adapting to individual talents, indigenous craft traditions and
> > differing attitudes toward mechanization. Its
back-to-basics sense of form
> > - relatively unembellished by Victorian standards - could bring clarity to
> > mechanical production while retaining a bit of that human touch. The
> > Germans, with a newly unified country that needed to develop a national
> > economy, proved to be excellent at this, opening the way for the Bauhaus.
> > At the same time, the Arts and Crafts emphasis on handcraft encouraged a
> > return to folk traditions and a new consciousness of national identity in
> > relatively unindustrialized regions. Evidence includes the Viking revival
> > metalwork from Norway and, from Finland, a buffet carved with mountains
> > and forests by Valter Jung, and a similarly expressive chair by Eliel
> > Saarinen.
> > This exhibition may initially seem like an especially long
version of the
> > exercises in ostentatious materialism at which today's museums too often
> > excel. You know, the shopping that is not shopping, until, of course, you
> > get to the gift shop at the show's close. But it soon becomes obvious that
> > the show is the design equivalent of a survey of abstract painting from,
> > say, 1910 to 1930 instead of 1890 to 1910 (modernism struck design, then
> > art). And just as modernist painting was galvanized by the potential and
> > challenge of abstraction, so Arts and Crafts gained its chief inspiration
> > from something nearly as new and radical: the private, nonaristocratic
> > home as a place of respite, enjoyment and freedom.
> > Milwaukee's commodious show is enlivened by the debates like those that
> > pervaded early abstraction
between the geometric and the organic or the
> > rustic and the cosmopolitan. It shares a similar longing for some mystical
> > reconnection with nature, religion, folk art and different innocence myths
> > (the child, the primitive, the female). And it is full of startling signs
> > of things to come. Peter Behrens's aluminum and gilt bronze doors for his
> > house in Darmstadt, Germany, from 1901, with their raised geometric
> > sunburst motif, could easily be in the lobby of the Chrysler Building.
> > Also from 1901, an elm settee with a cane seat by Hans Vollmer, a Viennese
> > designer, is so plain as to be 1950's Danish Modern.
> > Arts and Crafts established in a broad way that, as Freud might have said,
> > a chair is rarely just a chair. Perhaps even more than art, design objects
>
> are philosophy in physical form. They must reconcile reality and
> > aesthetics, which means they inevitably encapsulate a designer's views on
> > manufacture, materials, beauty, function, the human body and more. This
> > imposing thought-filled exhibition celebrates the first recognition of
> > design's complex place in the weave of modern life.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>---------
>
> > This summer - two exhibitions for the price of one!
> > The Arts and Crafts Movement in Europe and America, 1880-1920: Design for
> > the Modern World
> > Showcasing more than 300 objects from the Arts and Crafts Movement -
> > furniture, ceramics, metalwork, textiles, and works on paper from the U.S.
> > and 10 European countries.
>
> May 19 - September 5
> >
> > CUT/Film as Found Object
> > An innovative installation of 14 video works by some of today's most
> > influential artists.
> > June 25 - September 11
> >
> >
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