Design

One of Calvin Tompkins' Bachelors has shuffled off stage left. As the New York Times obituary makes clear, Rauschenberg's impact on the Visual and Performing Arts is pretty much incalculable.

I can't remember when I didn't know of Rauschenberg's work, having probably been exposed to a few pieces in my teens on a weekend getaway to the Art Institute of Chicago, but one of my favorite experiences that encompasses Rauschenberg and his cadre of New York pals was seeing the Merce Cunningham Dance Company perform at Lincoln Center in 1999. There in one place--literally and figuratively--were Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, David Tudor, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Morton Feldman, Bob Rauschenberg and, as something of a weird bonus Mikhail Baryshnikov, Gavin Bryars and Jim O'Rourke.

The Library for Performing Arts actually has a DVD of one night that I attended in addition to other videos and printed material relating to Rauschenberg's work with the MCDC as well as his experiments in Performance Art. In addition, the Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs has a plethora of material outlining Rauschenberg's entire career.

Goodbye 20th century!

Programming is great. Not only do I get to select the programs I present, I am then rewarded 10 fold by attending interesting and entertaining programs and I get paid for it! What could be better? About a year ago I happened to be reading Christopher Gray’s Streetscapes column in the Real Estate Section of the Sunday New York Times. It is the first column I read in the Sunday paper. Generally the focus of the Streetscapes column is a building. However on Sunday, April 29, 2007 Christopher Gray did something quite different. On that day the Streetscapes column was devoted to a man, Paul Shaw. Mr. Shaw is a designer and design historian, specializing in architectural lettering.

The subject of the article was completely new to me and I found it fascinating, exciting even. In the article Christopher Gray went on a walking tour with Paul Shaw whose focus was on letters: letters on buildings, in the subway and on monuments, letters which appear everywhere in the city. After reading the article I had experienced a visual revelation, allowing me to see beyond my pedestrian eyes. I found myself looking anew at buildings, monuments and signs that before I would glance over.

I knew Paul Shaw would present a wonderful program and decided to invite him to come speak at the library. I contacted Christopher Gray and inquired about Mr. Shaw. Christopher confirmed my thoughts about Paul Shaw and happily provided me with contact information. After receiving Mr. Shaw’s email address I wrote a lengthy email to him, introducing myself and what I do, followed by a polite request for him to come speak at the library. My wishes were granted with a response of “yes, I’d be happy to speak at the library!”

Months went by and then came the creation of the promotional materials for the program. There was further correspondence between Paul and I about content and title of the program. Initially there was some confusion between Paul and I about what the title should be for the program. Paul’s title was, how should I say, not the most exciting it should be to attract an audience. Paul’s title seemed geared to a specific audience, with perhaps more expertise in the field of typographic design, definitely not appropriate for a general audience. We went back and forth on this discussion for a few more emails till Paul understood what I had been politely trying to tell him. We want people to come to the program, not avoid it. “Oh” he said. “You want something more jazzy sounding.” “Yep, exactly!” I said. The next title fell right into the perfect range of jazzy/sexy. Then came the wrangling with the look of the flyer. Naturally Paul wanted to see everything and I was happy to oblige. He is a designer and I was told by my supervisors to expect it. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be problematic. We create an effective, nice looking flyer, with an already established template. It was initially created with lots of input from present and former employees. Hence we produce a solid looking flyer. Many of our patrons have told me how handsome the flyers look and I take this as a good sign. Paul made some comments and some changes and I tried to appease his requests. Finally we came to an agreement on an appropriate flyer that he could be happy with. Phew!

The night of the event we got our biggest crowd ever, 135 attended. And Paul Shaw did not disappoint. If ever there was a blockbuster program, this was it! Paul worked hard on his presentation, you could tell. He had us on the edge of our seats. He presented a program in three parts: letters in the subways, letters on apartment buildings and finally letters on department stores (Paul Shaw counts Lord & Taylor as a former client). Interesting stories, as well as a bit of design theory and history melded into a fascinating and visually exhilarating experience. It's all in a letter, I just never knew how much. Paul Shaw will be coming back in the fall to do another program. I hope you can attend!

Generally in the same subject area, I have included a review of Helvetica, Gary Hustwit’s 2007 documentary that uses the legendary typeface to weave a broader story about typography, graphic design and visual culture in the last half-century.

Francis Bacon had a studio showroom in South Kensington that was reproduced in a 1930 issue of The Studio. He was one of three designers profiled for “The 1930 Look in British Decoration,” and his interior is sparsely geometric and modern, not the lavish French Art Deco style, but much more Breuer and Bauhaus. I asked Mark Stevens for some clarification about the motives behind Bacon’s visual leanings.

PAB: Does it make sense to you that he artistically gravitated toward the more austere modernistic aspect of the period?

MS: I think his desire was to find what was most radical or “advanced” in the period. A pared-down style probably seemed more challenging than more lush style did. Pared-down furniture was also probably easier – and less expensive – to make.

PAB: What about those white rubber curtains?

MS: Texture and touch was important to him from the first. Later, he would become a master of the flesh, with a truly tactile sense of the body. He often wore a leather jacket.

PAB: Certainly the early 1930s were a time of economic struggle in Britain, and by 1932-3, Bacon was moving away from design and into painting. Do you think that once he became acclaimed as a painter, he found his old work in the decorative arts to be an embarrassment?

MS: English society was not particularly interested in advanced continental design, and Bacon’s business was probably not very successful. Most of his customers were friends. For example, the Australian novelist Patrick White bought a desk. But I think Bacon, in his twenties, simply became more and more interested in painting as he grew older. He was already painting as a teenager in the late 1920s.

PAB: In interview after interview when he was older, Bacon consistently belittled his youthful experience as a designer. Why did he do this?

MS: Many artists like to imagine that they spring fully-formed into the world. They do not enjoy acknowledging that they were ever confused or uncertain.

PAB: The 1920s was the age when modernity shone with such new promise. Do you think this affected Bacon, even though his time as a designer was short?

MS: I doubt Bacon was ever very optimistic about the promise of modernity or that he took seriously the utopian aspirations of modernist design. But he remained interested until the end of his life in creating an environment that represents more than just a fashionable interior and, instead, embodies a powerful worldview. Today he is celebrated for establishing what may be the most chaotic and messy space ever inhabited by a sane artist. In fact, after his death, the artist’s studio – litter and all -- was placed on public view in Dublin. I’m sure that Bacon, who had an appealing sense of humor, occasionally smiled at the contrast between his mature working space and the clean, honed clarity of his youth.

Bacon (1909-1992) is known for being a self-taught “force” in modern figurative painting. His subjects often provoke unease in viewers for their gritty, fleshy looks at the human figure laid bare psychologically. Therefore, I was greatly intrigued when I learned that Bacon could be counted among those fine artists (like Raoul Dufy) who had early stints as designers during the Art Deco years.

I turned to Cullman Center scholar Mark Stevens, who is currently at work, with Annalyn Swan, on a definitive Bacon biography, to give me some insight into what effect those years might have had on Bacon.

PAB: Bacon spent most of 1927 in Paris, where he was exposed to the height of Art Deco artistic energy. When he returned to London, he started up as a furniture and rug designer. Do you think his experiences in Paris led to this development?

MS: Before Bacon went to Paris, he spent time in radical Berlin. There he would have seen the most advanced furniture and rug design, and he also came to know elegant and raffish people interested in whatever was new. In Paris, he discovered Picasso.

PAB: One of my reference books up at the Art Desk says that Bacon considered his furniture designs to be “extremely bad copies of Le Corbusier.” Other books, however, state that his furniture and rug designs were actually quite good.

MS: I wouldn’t call them either extremely bad or extremely good. Remember, he was barely twenty years old. He had no formal schooling in art or design. When considered in that light, his work is remarkably precocious. Historically, however, it just amounts to an interesting example of period design. His pieces have flair, but are not especially original.

PAB: Bacon himself called his designs unoriginal and heavily influenced by contemporary French design. However, doesn’t his work seem to reflect a variety of influences from the period, including English and German modern trends?

MS: I’m not an expert in the design of that period – yet! -- but, yes, he seems to draw upon a variety of sources. Creating a pastiche is what most young artists do.

PAB: Did his early work with interiors help him with his later paintings?

MS: In his paintings, Bacon often sets his figures in an abstract geometric space that may well recall his immersion in the edgy designs of the twenties and thirties. The furniture in some paintings is also reminiscent of his early designs.

The Library is home to the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. Every year, a new group comes in with fascinating projects, and work extensively with the Research Library’s collections. This year, we were privileged to have well-known art critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Mark Stevens as a fellow. Mark, who has written about Willem De Kooning, is working on a biography of the famous twentieth century English painter Francis Bacon.

During my research into the Art Deco years, I ran across the fact that Bacon was a furniture and rug designer from 1929 to 1933, and had been influenced by travel to Berlin (1926) and Paris (1927). He lived and breathed the artistic atmosphere of that fascinating era, only to break off his design work and turn to figurative oil painting fulltime. Knowing that Mark has been working away downstairs, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to question him about Bacon’s early years. The next several posts, on April 29 and May 1, brief interviews with Mark Stevens, will recount what I learned from him.

The cloche hat was all the rage in the Art Deco decades. The bell-shaped cloche had a close fit and narrow, dipped brim suited to the shortened, or bobbed, hair of the young flapper. She was a new incarnation of the modern woman, with places to go and things to do. Why, she’d even smoke cigarettes in public!

Want to have a good laugh? Or maybe purchase something, once the offerings are made clear? Go onto www.20sgangstercostumes.com and get yourself a flapper costume. I think my first memory of this stereotypical dress was during an episode of the original Star Trek television series, when Captain Kirk and his landing party ended up on a planet where everybody dressed and acted like 1920s gangsters and molls.

A colleague of mine at the Library knows a place in the Garment District where you can go and have your own cloche hat constructed for you! You can pick out the fabric and trim, and even watch the hat being blocked. We’ve always meant to go there, but invariably we get distracted by something or other at work. One day we will go—if only to release our inner flapper!

I was so intrigued by the Christian Louboutin exhibition at F.I.T., it led to me rummaging around our catalogue in pursuit of further information. One thing I discovered was an authoritative scholarly work on the shoe industry in Europe, with focus on fashion rivals France and England. Giorgio Riello’s A foot in the past: consumers, producers and footwear in the long eighteenth century offers significant information about the textile and production history of shoes and boots.

In the process of locating this book, however, I began to see how shoe history researchers could become easily confused with their findings. The problem lies in our Library of Congress Subject Headings. The obvious term to use is shoes. Yet there is another term that was adopted at a later date: footwear. To do a thorough search, it helps to search both terms. The tricky part is in the age difference between the terms; shoes will yield more citations because it’s older and been around longer, yet newer, and often more up-to-date works on the subject will only show up under the heading footwear.

Now, for the even more tricky fact! When one searches shoe industry and footwear industry, more citations show up under the newer footwear industry heading. Again, this is undoubtedly because so much more has been researched and written about this subject, as with all costume history, over the last ten years or so.

The exhibition of Christian Louboutin shoes at the Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology is a must-see for those who love or loath high heels. French designer Louboutin gained fame for learning well from the “everything old is new again” maxim. His shoes have his signature red sole, a convention that may come down from the days of King Louis XIV.

At the same time, despite his historical references to footwear from the late eighteenth through nineteenth centuries (see the illustration above), Louboutin moves his shoe designs from the pretty to the provocative. The exhibition text delightfully suggests the sexual and other connotations that spring to mind when we look at a pair of spiked heels.

Alas, I belong to the legion of women who have had to put heeled shoes behind them. It didn’t help that I never had the kind of legs that looked slinky when thrust into a pair of really high heels. Yet this exhibition allows for plenty of fantasizing. To give yourself a preview, in order to get in the mood for a trip to F.I.T., go to Google Images and put in Christian Louboutin’s name. Prepare to be dazzled—and more than a little bit excited…

Sung to the tune of any Amy Winehouse song:

Spring is coming early this year,
Just in time to erase any fear,
I might have of wearing a silly bonnet,
With lots of flowers and bunnies on it.
After all Easter is more than just a religious holiday,
It’s the time that the fashion-conscious hit the streets to say-
We’ll wear whatever it takes to get on the air,
You wouldn’t believe the time it took to prepare
This chapeau in the greatest taste,
Couldn’t let all that tinsel go to waste…
My grandmother wore hats year round,
But that craze has gone to ground.
I’ll wear this hat and look really funny,
All to honor that cute Easter Bunny.

And the Easter Bunny replies with the immortal words from the Bugs Bunny cartoon:

“I’m the Easter Bunny, hurray—
I shoulda stayed in bed today!!!!”

After a delay necessitated by my jaunt to the Southwest, I can turn my attention now to the latest fashion summaries. I usually find that the New York Times Style Magazine serves as an excellent bellwether for the latest word on fashion musts, pop culture, and targeted consumerism. The February 24 “Women’s Fashion Spring 2008” offers a wrap-up of all the trends in the recent round of spring fashion shows. The results are actually fairly agreeable and promising. First of all, the colors on view are great. Red is one, already foreseen in all the glamorous gowns worn by attendees of the Academy Awards. But I was also struck by the effusive hues of blue, yellow, and mint green that appeared in ads.

To my great pleasure, articles in the magazine offered many takes on everything old is new again, including mentions of Pre-Raphaelitism, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and retro modernism. Textile designs seemed to be tributes to ornamentation from those periods. An American actress from the 1920s was treated to a flapper evaluation. Big cuff bracelets were in evidence, a satisfying sign to me! Accessories were sensible and attractive, with one huge exception. The platform and stiletto shoes shown in spreads were among the most obscene styles I’ve ever encountered; the milder versions of this footwear had “dominatrix” stamped all over them.

Two exhibition footnotes that appeared must be shared. The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) is having an exhibition on that enigmatic designer, Madame Grès, maker of divine draped and sensual dresses, through April 19; and “Wiener Werkstätte Jewelry” will show at the Neue Galerie here in NYC starting March 27. Got to see that one: the Wiener Werkstätte contributed greatly to Art Deco’s liveliness.

I’m going on hiatus for a week. My destination is Phoenix, Arizona, now fully recovered from its Superbowl hospitality. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Heard Museum Indian Market and Guild Fair, always held on the first weekend in March. An important venue for the sale of American Indian art, like the famous Santa Fe Indian Market, this event draws general enthusiasts, tourists, and dedicated collectors like me. 650 of the best Indian artists in North America gather to sell an array of delectable arts and crafts.

American Indian art draws much appreciation and canny speculation. One of its joys is that you can find quality arts in a wide spectrum of price ranges, from extremely high end to surprisingly affordable. Indian art is also a good collectible investment. I have bracelets and inlay jewelry I bought nearly fifteen years ago that have quadrupled in market value. Pre-1950 Navajo and Pueblo bracelets are almost impossible to find in the antique marketplace, so today’s artists are making their own tributes to their elders’ work. I’m on the hunt for at least two of these contemporary creations, especially since prices are rising fast as demand grows. I’ll let you know later next week how my quest turns out…

My Art Deco research shows that the fashion for a slender woman in artistic depiction evolved roughly in the waning decades of the 19th century. Those familiar with Art Nouveau will remember the elongated feminine models favored by Alphonse Mucha and Gustav Klimt. There is another culprit, however, who endowed the attenuated feminine figure with erotic force. Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898) created erotic sketches that displayed the human form in a new light. His pen and ink drawings, particularly his plates illustrating the tale of Salome, are rife with sexual angst.

Beardsley’s drawings for The Yellow Book (1894-1897) were masterful renderings of his contemporary society. The matron illustrated above has opulent curves that lose out against the growing movement toward Modernism. Anything angular, elongated, and suggestive of lithe speed fit the new Modernist aesthetic. And as Ann Hollander noted in her Seeing Through Clothes, this Modernist viewpoint was teaching people to see themselves as shapes, even those angular and geometric in nature.

Beardsley helped this trend by using differing body types in his erotic drawings in a satirical fashion, and having the very slim figures be the sexually charged objects of desire. One of the best biographies of his life, which can be found in the Art Division, has an apt title: Aubrey Beardsley: A Slave to Beauty.

One of the most eye-catching sights of the New York Fashion Week just passed was the proliferation of modish, almost byzantine, feathered hats. This visual reference is a deliberate case of everything old becoming new again.

Yet writing on the subject isn’t easy to find. Millinery was a major aspect of women’s costume until the mid-20th century. You can find pockets of this fashion in certain places – like the hats on the British ladies who attend Ascot races. The Library has a marvelous U.S. publication, complete with dyed feather patterns mounted on plates, from 1888, entitled The Practical Ostrich Feather Dyer. Also at SIBL, a Parisian study by Francis Beltzer, from 1923, treats the manufacturing collusion between hat-makers and featherwork. Take a visual tour through the Digital Gallery, also, using the terms feathers, hats, and ladies hats, to see how inspired these creations could be.

Hosiery and shoes are another two foundations for contemporary feminine dress, and this year’s runway models sport tinted hose and high heels that made a winning combination in the 1920s. A decade earlier, Paul Poiret introduced women to flesh-colored hosiery, considered daring in that time. Nowadays, black-tinted hose possesses the cachet of being more dressy and alluring. A book called Socks and Stockings offers a pictorial history of hosiery, with some fascinating asides. A number of Fashion Week’s best runway outfits were completed with the same kind of stockings and heels that can be found in the illustration below.

What revelations did New York Fashion Week make? The fashion industry laid hints in advance. The September 2007 issue of Vogue foresaw some trends: Caroline Herrera’s English country girl clothes, FutureFashion’s tribute to “green” wear, with outfits made from soy, hemp, and bamboo (even Donatella Versace made a contribution), and nods to sensible 20s through 60s retro looks. As usual, however, I try and fail to find a discernable pattern to the women’s wear presentations. What interests me most, however, is what will translate into realistic street wear: what designs will appear in the stores for our consumption. Judge for yourself, look at nytimes.com/fashionweek.

Over the next five months, I will be working on the storyline (case labels and object labels) for the Art Deco Design: Rhythm and Verve exhibition here at the 42nd Street Library's Wachenheim Gallery. The exhibition will run from September 8, 2008, through January 9, 2009. While the items on display are not numerous, 40 images from the Art Division's collection, one fine book binding from the Spencer Collection, and an original cartoon from Prints,they are highly expressive of the energy that permeates Art Deco as a decorative style. In pursuing the premise that Art Deco is a visually moving aspect of Modernism, I've begun to make connections with dress and other design of the period. Significant innovations in men's and women's clothing, undergarments, shoes and related adornment occured during the 1920s and 1930s.

Using images from the Library's collections, I'll start tracking some of the ideas and inspirations for fashion change that happened in those fast-moving decades. I think it will be eye-opening for many...
The design by Madeleine Vionnet below is typical. She was one of Art Deco's first patrons, along with other haute couture designers.

Speaking of eye-opening, I was searching AOL this weekend and discovered another piece of evidence that everything old is new again. If you look for the term Padded Butt Boxer Brief online, available also on eBAY, you'll find a male enhancement corsetry item that was originally used back in the 18th and 19th century by men who wanted to fill their skintight breeches better.

You’re probably familiar with the tree houses in children’s stories--Swiss Family Robinson, Tarzan, Winnie the Pooh, to name a few. But did you know that tree houses were immensely popular in Renaissance Italy?

Cosimo de Medici outfitted his tree house at Villa Castello with marble table and plumbing, but was bested by his son Francesco, whose tree house had, not only a marble table, but also marble benches and a fountain and two staircases. Although the Medici tree houses are no longer in existence, there is this tree house from the 17th century at Pitchford Hall in England, which bears the distinction of being the oldest tree house in the world.

The fascinating evolution of the tree house, is chronicled in Peter Nelson’s 1994, Tree Houses: The Art and Craft of Living Out on a Limb. Anthony Aikman takes a more scholarly look at life in the tree tops, in Treehouses. To whet your treehouse appetite, his chapter titles include, "Treehouse of Europe" as well as "Treehouse Adaptations" and "Fantasy Treehouses." Both books also explore the ins and outs of building your own tree house.

For a modern take on tree house design, Dwell Magazine did a story in 2006 called "High Life" illustrating the work of some very designed tree houses. The first photo is an image from Dwell of the Sustainability Tree House designed by Dustin Feider, a mini geodesic dome in the sky.

Alain Lesieutre, in his survey book, The Spirit and Splendour of Art Deco, makes a revealing quote: "Style is the most conspicuous of the mechanisms through which we hope to alter ourselves, to become what we should like to be." Although his subject is the decorative style Art Deco, he is canny enough to see the fundamental relationship of personal style. Later in his book, he notes how styles can be symbols of exclusivity, and how such styles inevitably wax and wane like fashions. Tim Gunn's A Guide to Quality, Taste & Style begins with a discussion of the criteria behind developing personal style. Much of this apparently comes down to "know yourself."

In the months ahead, I'll be looking at key aspects of decorative style versus personal style, and how they parallel fashions in design. I'll also be investigating a theory that is bubbling away inside me - that much of what we define as modern fashions are truly rooted in the exciting and turbulent decades of the 1920s and 1930s.

Predictions: 2008 is a Leap Year and an election year, which means that fashions will be cautious and unwilling to push extremes. However, the fashion and design industries will loosen their death grip on some of the last few years' more annoying trends. The 70s craze will die down, purses and totes will become a little more functional, and shoes with street wear durability will finally eclipse those maddening 3-inch+ heels. Eco-friendly clothing and products will grow in popularity. The shopping bag design explosion will continue. (Lord & Taylor: back to the drawing board.)

Resolutions: This blog promises to deliver certain goods in the new year. Entries will be shorter, tighter, and have more links to Library and outside resources. News and comment related to fashion and design history will be culled from newspapers, Newsweek, shelter magazines, good old Vogue, and new, exciting publications. I'll be tracking exhibitions at the "go to" places: the Costume Institute at the MMA, the Victoria & Albert, Cooper-Hewitt, and FIT, among others.

And, with my colleagues at the Popular Culture Association in mind, I'll be exploring those often unseen, yet persistent connections that make everything old seem new again.

After all, we are all HERE BY DESIGN.

And a last resolution that will be no trouble to keep: Henry Salamanca, a good man gone too soon, will never be forgotten by his many friends at NYPL.

This is a photo of the Map Division at the New York Public Library. One of the many beautiful spaces at the Library.  Not only is it a great source for map research, it is also an inspiration for any design enthusiast. Gold leaf ceiling, anyone?
And although New York Public is my daily source of inspiration, I found a wonderful online exhibition of great libraries all over the world from Curious Expeditions. One of my favorites is the Joanina Library University of Coimbra, Portugal. I’m a sucker for a library ladder.

 
This has to be one of my favorite mid-century modern chairs. Other than just being my favorite, it also has the distinction of being one of the early stacking chairs.
This is the Landi chair designed by Hans Coray in 1938. The design won a competition held by the Swiss Parks authority to be the official seating for the Swiss National Exhibition. Among the judges were the modernist giants, Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier.   The chair was so popular that it was used again at the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels and is still in production today (albeit with some design modifications). 
 Although the chair is in major museum collections, it’s a little difficult to find much information on it. One of the best sources is an amazing book on aluminum from the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum here in New York. It’s called Aluminum by Design: From Jewelry to Jets. You can also usually find information about specific pieces of furniture in more general books. One of my favorite design historians, Penny Sparke mentions the Landi chair in her book, Furniture: Twentieth-century Design. She writes about the fact that as post-war homes became increasingly smaller, the stacking feature of the Landi chairs would become a model for many other stacking chairs.
Some Like-minded Designs
Magis
Ronde Armchair
Supernatural