STUDIO-ONLINE

(L) Incense Stand, 17th century
Cloisonné
33 1/4 x 26 1/2 x 19 in.

(R) Gord Peteran, Inception Stand, 2006
Electrical wire
31 x 24 x 24 in.

Inspired by China: Contemporary Furnituremakers Explore Chinese Traditions brings together 27 masterpieces of historic Chinese furniture with 27 pieces of contemporary studio furniture created specifically for the exhibition. The 22 contemporary artists represented come from the U.S., Canada, Japan and China. Shown together, the works reveal a surprising exchange of ideas and inspiration across time and geographic boundaries. The exhibit also marks the increasing opportunities for cross-cultural exchange among contemporary artists in North America and China, as China makes its entry into the global art community.

Museum of Arts and Design
40 W. 53rd St.
New York, NY
Telephone: (212) 956-3535
Web site: www.madmuseum.org

This exhibit looks at how the conditions particular to Minnesota and other areas in northern latitudes with extreme climates contribute to SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and the ways in which artists have depicted the the people of this area and their subjective responses to the climate in this part of the country. The artists’ works include photography, installation, video, sculpture and painting and focus on space as it relates to and is affected by light and atmosphere. As they explore subjective experiences of sadness and isolation, the artists suggest connections between physical and psychic space.

Frederick R. Weisman Art Musem
333 East River Road
Minneapolis, MN
Telephone: (612) 625-9494
Web site: http://www.weisman.umn.edu

Theo Jansen, Animaris Percipiere Primus, 2005. Photo: Kevin Kennefick

The surprising works displayed in this exhibit include meticulously crafted animals that move on their own, healing machines that exude beneficial energy, love-filled performances and statues that honor past and present deities. With their deeply-held personal truths, the “believers,” the artists who dare to believe in order to create, courageously defy skepticism, irony and, often, reason.

In their works, the artists contemplate some of the most fundamental questions that have long captivated philosophers, scientists and spiritualists, from the nature of matter, the possibility of immortality and the elements of identity, to the dynamics of human interaction, the limits of physical capacity and the power of the human mind.

Among the Believers are Bas Jan Aders, the Icelandic Love Corporation (ILC), Yoshua Okón and Fritz Haeg, CarianaCarianne, Sister Mary Corita, Erkki Kurenniemi, Jonathan Meese and former hobo Emery Blagdon, who created the healing machines.

Selections from The Believers will be on view through December 2007.

MASS MoCA
87 Marshall Street
Building 4, Second floor
North Adams, MA
Telephone: (413) 662-2111
Web site: http://www.massmoca.org

Clothing, accessories and textiles from the collection of the Charleston Museum are on view in a year-long exhibit, Clothes to Dye For, which examines color symbolism and color theory. The show unravels the history of dyeing and illuminates the role of Eliza Lucas Pinckney and the importance of indigo to the Lowcountry; the Spanish introduction to Europe of tiny South American cochineal insects full of red dye; and dangerous concoctions such as Scheeles’s green, a lightfast dye that is extremely poisonous to dyer and wearer.

Sections of the exhibit are devoted to specific colors and have sparked a series of special color-related events. For more information, visit: www.charlestonmuseum.org

Charleston Museum
360 Meeting St.
Charleston, SC
Telephone: (843) 722-2996
Web site: www.charlestonmuseum.org

Gifford Beal (1879-1956), On the Hudson at Newburgh, 1918, Oil on canvas, 36 x 58 ½ in., The Phillips Collection, acquired 1924

Among the earliest acquisitions of the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, were major examples of American Impressionism. This show features many of these works by members of the first generation of American painters who were influenced by the technique, palette and subject matter of the French Impressionists. Featured in the show are Childe Hassam, Ernest Lawson, Maurice Prendergast, Theodore Robinson, Robert Spencer, Augustus Vincent Tack, John Henry Twachtman, Julian Alden Weir and others whose works were acquired for the collection in its early days. The exhibit demonstrates how American painting at the turn of the 20th century changed and responded to the Impressionist aesthetic.

Named for collector Duncan Phillips, the Phillips Collection opened in 1921 and is America’s first museum of modern art. Phillips was a banker and co-founder of the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company. The collection is housed in Phillips’s 1897 Georgian Revival home and building additions in the Dupont Circle area of Washington, DC.

The Phillips Collection
1600 21st St., NW
Washington, DC
Telephone: (202) 387-2152
Web site: www.phillipscollection.org

Indian War Canoe

Organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Canada, this exhibit spotlights Emily Carr (1871-1945) with approximately 200 works (paintings, drawings, watercolors, caricatures, ceramics, sculpture, hooked rugs, books, maps, photographs and ephemera), 150 of them executed by the artist.

Considered during her lifetime to be an eccentric woman, Carr was a remarkable person, writer and painter. She is best known for her canvases of the landscape of the northern coast of British Columbia and of First Nations villages with their monumental totem poles. The show examines her legacy and the political and social context in which her art developed.

Carr is the subject of Susan Vreeland’s fascinating novel The Forest Lover (Penguin, 2004). In the book, Vreeland recreates Carr’s life as a testimony to courage, creativity and self-direction. Determined to pursue her dream of capturing indigenous art forms of Indian tribes of British Columbia by painting them on her canvases, Carr was the target of disapproval from her family and social circle.

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
1379 Sherbrooke St. Pavilion
Montreal, Canada
Telephone: (514) 285-1600
Web site: www.mmfa.qc.ca/en/index.html

This exhibit of 48 drawings on paper demonstrates the vitality and innovation in American drawing of the past decade. The featured works reflect the diversity of contemporary art as a whole and support the wide range of approaches to format, process, materials, imagery, concept and context. Ranging in size from intimate to monumental, they incorporate various media including watercolor, graphite, colored pencil, conté crayon, gouache, charcoal, collage, pen and ink, and cut and cast paper.

Russell Crotty, Ingrid Calame, Julie Mehretu, Leonardo Drew and Anthony Goicolea are among the established and emerging artists whose works are on view. While some of these artists exploit traditional qualities associated with drawing, others have taken the practice into new territory.

Telefair Museum of Art
121 Barnard St.
Savannah, GA 31412
Telephone: (912) 790-8800
Web site: www.telfair.org

Robe à la française
Yellow silk taffeta brocade
Circa 1735, France or Italy
The Museum at FIT, 2006.56.2, Museum purchase

The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology has a charming exhibit of clothing designed by influential fashion designers from the past and present who have presented their personal conceptions of “luxury” in haute couture. Shown in the museum’s Fashion and Textile History Gallery, the display comprises 150 examples from the 18th century through the present, and includes garments and accessories designed by the “big” names in fashion history: Worth, Poiret, Chanel, Dior, Balenciaga, Lavin, Hermès, Valentino and Yves Saint Laurent among them. Younger houses and designers include Rodarte and Yeohlee.

The Museum at FIT
Seventh Avenue at 27th Street
New York, NY 10001
Telephone: (212) 217-5800
www.fitnyc.edu/museum

Michele Oka Doner (United States), Terrible Chair, 1991
Bronze
5 ½ x 3 x 2 ½ in.

Collector George Beylerian’s personal collection of miniature chairs are the subject of this novel exhibit at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. Beylerian’s tastes are quite expansive, and his miniature chair collection is, as well; these chairs are by turns elegant and whimsical, iconic and idiosyncratic, witty and rustic, basic and fantastic.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the show is how acutely it reflects collecting “mania,” or in this case, “chairmania,” the urgent necessity that fuels an interest so deep that it becomes an obsession.

Beylerian has played a pivotal role in bringing the most modern European design philosophies to America. In the 1960s, he promoted Italian design and plastic home furnishing to the American market through his store, Scarabaeus. In the 1970s, he established the Casa Idea Shop at Bloomingdale’s. Later, he was a creative director for Steelcase Design Parnership and founded Material ConneXion in New York.

A longtime importer of European furniture, Beylerian began by collecting some of the most influential and sought-after chairs in modern design. When he realized that space limited the number that he could fit in his home, he turned to miniatures and models.

Visitors to the show will have great fun as they view chairs made from truly surprising materials: paper tickets, cigarette lighters, hot dog rolls, and wheat and roses, to name just a few of the marvels to be discovered.

Museum of Arts and Design
40 W. 53rd St.
New York, NY 10019
Telephone: (212) 956-3535
Web site: www.madmuseum.org

The Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin has a full calendar of programs planned for the museum’s Summer of Masterworks. Two exhibits feature prominently in the line-up: A Century of Grace: 19th-Century Masterworks from the Dahesh Museum of Art, New York (May 18-Aug. 5); and Master Drawings from the Yale University of Art Gallery (June 1-Aug. 12).

Programs and events organized for the exhibits include:

Art Fix: Drawing
(Thursdays, June 21, July 5 and July 19, at 6 p.m.)
Participants explore works of art in the exhibit Master Drawings from the Yale University of Art and techniques used to create them. Suppliles will be provided.

An Academic Century: An Introduction to 19th-Century Art (Sundays, June 24, July 1 and July 8, at 2 p.m.)
This lecture series focuses on painting, architecture, sculpture and printmaking. Call (512) 471-9205 to register.

Blanton Book Club (Thursday, July 12, at 6 p.m.)
This month’s book club selection is The Greek Myths by Robert Graves. The discussion will address the imagery in A Century of Grace.

The Nude and the Lewd: Alexandre Cabanel and the Birth of Venus (Sunday, July 15, at 2 p.m.)

Free public lecture by Lisa Small, associate curator of the
Dahesh Museum, New York, who will recount the story of Cabanel’s famous painting, which caused a stir at the 1863 Paris Salon.

Blanton Museum of Art
The University of Texas at Austin
MLK at Congress
Austin, TX 78701
Telephone: (512-471-7324
Web site: www.blantommuseum.org