News: Wegman’s Weimaraners go upscale at San Jose Museum of Modern Art with Eames' chair.

William Wegman went to the dogs long ago. After all, how could the artist, long known for his conceptual photographs of his Weimaraners, help it?
“They keep bumping into me,” says Wegman, 71, from New York City, about his current rambunctious sitters, Flo and her half brother Topper. “With a dog, that’s the way it was. They’re always looking at me, and I’m always looking back.”
This time around, in “Artists Including Me: William Wegman” at San Jose Museum of Art, the pooches can be found lounging on decidedly more high-class perches: Eames chairs. Or they’re posing in a faux Eadweard Muybridge freeze frame or mock Hans Hofmann abstraction — putting the, er, bowwow in the Bauhaus. Stoic, streamlined and ever enigmatic, they provide the visual language — and punch lines — for Wegman’s thoughts on high and low culture in this overview of photos, paintings, videos and drawings from the ’70s through the present.
The exhibition was assembled by the Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, where the artist received his master of fine arts degree in painting in 1967. Yet however long ago, the academy is never very far away for an artist coming up in the postmodern era. “I thought it was an interesting title,” Wegman says of the show, “because I’ve been doing a lot of work that had art references, something I was allergic to in the ’60s and ’70s, and it just so happened there’s this group of work that cuts across all the media I had been using.”
Those paintings of imaginary spaces incorporate art postcards he’d been gathering from museums like the Guggenheim. “Postcards are an endangered species these days,” he says. “Matisse, Picasso, anything like that seemed worth playing with. It isn’t a battleground anymore. It’s just common material.”

Ph. courtesy William Wegman

News: “Plywood, etc.” at the James Barron Gallery in Kent

James Barron invariably presents imaginative exhibitions and “Plywood, etc.” is no exception. The paintings, furniture and sculpture of ten artists working in plywood as well as other no-frills materials is on view at his gallery in Kent until November 8.

Plywood, fashioned from thin layers of wood glued together each layer rotated up to 90 degrees from the other, is a utilitarian material most often used for crates and construction. However, in the hands of artists and designers it can be transformed into works of art.

Plywood, of course, is often used for furniture. There is a chair and a table by Frank Lloyd Wright as well as a chair by Marcel Breuer in the exhibition. Most of all, however, plywood is synonymous with the designs of Charles and Ray Eames. The show features one of their chairs, a cabinet, a desk as well as an undulating screen they designed for Herman Miller. A pair of leg splints they made of molded plywood for soldiers carried from the battlefield in World War Two is one of the most interesting pieces in the show.

Made before the Eames had perfected the technique for molding plywood, the splint is the length of a man’s leg. In order to release the tension so the wood wouldn’t crack when they bent it into a curve, they left holes of several sizes, which allowed the bandages to be attached. The result is a piece of abstract sculpture. By the end of the war the Eames had made over 150,000 of these splints.

By Carla Lott

Read all at: http://themillbrookindependent.com/arts/%E2%80%9Cplywood-etc%E2%80%9D-james-barron-gallery-kent

A critical point of view on "The World Of Charles and Ray Eames" at Barbican Art Gallery

Article by Tabish Khan - Londonist.com
Read all at: http://londonist.com/2015/10/charles-and-ray-eames

It's safe to say that design and architecture wouldn't be what it is today without the work of couple Charles and Ray Eames. Their use of functional clean lines has influenced many modern buildings and a huge amount of contemporary furniture, including pretty much everything Ikea makes. But their design skills stretched much further with aeroplane stabilisers, magazine covers and a stretcher all part of their collective portfolio.

This exhibition aims to showcase the breadth of their work and provide an insight into their personal lives using photographs, videos, models, toys and chairs... lots of chairs. Fans of furniture design and the Eames's won't be disappointed by the vast amounts of items on display. But what about the rest of us who may not be familiar with the pair's work and legacy?

This is where the exhibition comes a cropper. While it bombards us with information and products, photos and videos to look at; there doesn't seem to be a narrative that's easy to follow. It's a sprawling show and it's difficult to know what to take away from it — this isn't helped by the fact there isn't a closing room or even a simple video that looks at how modern designers and architects are being influenced by the pioneering work of the duo.

The exhibition would have been better served with fewer items on display and more focal points throughout the show, a greater use of architectural models and finished products would have been much appreciated; alas we were only provided with notes, blueprints and photographs of a lot of their creations. There are a few examples of this including a living room of their furniture and a set of their toys, but these are the exceptions.

It's a heartfelt love letter to Charles and Ray Eames, but without the context and legacy, we often felt like a third wheel wandering this sizeable show looking for a guideline to latch on to. We left the exhibition feeling impressed by the work of the Eames's but unfulfilled. Considering the ticket price and the scale of this exhibition we were expecting a lot more.

Ph. courtesy: Tristan Fewings/ Getty Images

Opinion: "Eames has become a vaguely suggestive word applied to alchemise junk shop remnants".

As London's Barbican Gallery launches a major retrospective on Charles and Ray, Sam Jacob wonders whether it matters that the Eames name has taken on a life of its own.

*   *   *

Right now there are 11,085 results for Eames on eBay. Take your pick. Maybe you fancy a "Large Retro chair in faux lizard skin heals eames". Or a "Brass Gladiator Chariot Sculpture Mid Century Eames". Or a "Globe Hidden Ashtray Space Age Mid Century Modern Eames Era1960s". How about a "PIN UP & DESIGN SOEUR AURELLE Kinky Nun Stephan Saint Emett / Eames SCULPTURE", a "vintage 3 EAMES ERA MID CENTURY NATURE BOY CAVEMAN REAL RABBIT FUR" or a "Leopard Dining Chair Retro Luxury Sexy Ghost Posh Panton DSW Dressing Eames".
Kinky Nuns, Cavemen, Aztecs, Denmark, Brutalism, Regency, and Sputnik are all prefixes and suffixes to a huge homespun market of Eamsiness that falls under the banner of Mid Century – itself a vague term that lumps together a disparate array of design of a certain vintage under a saleable moniker.
Eames is no longer just a surname, no longer simply the signature of the design couple and the denominator of a specific body of work. It's become a hazy, vaguely suggestive word: an adjective rather than a noun.
Eames – outside of the world of design scholarship and commercial licenses – has become a word applied to alchemise junk shop remnants. A word whose prefix-polish transforms the value of the object to which it has been attached, a kind of culturally magic Brasso intended to bring out particular qualities in an object, even if those qualities aren't there in the first place.
It's a word that – in this space of internet bring-and-buy at least – has escaped all sense of its original origin. As if it had wafted out of the studio through an open window out into the world, its meaning atomising and spreading like a toxic cloud till some homeopathic remnant of its original particulates have contaminated the entire landscape. "Eames" is a gas cloud, a powerful atmosphere that has the power to Eamsify anything it touches.
These eBay phrases are also absurd, like surrealist word games or the kind of spam-language generated by algorithms to evade filters. Phrases that, against our expectations where words have some relationship to meaning, are a garbled babble that could never mean anything at all.
Of course this all happens outside of the policed official legacy of the real, original Eames. Outside of the worlds that cling on to values of authenticity, attribution, and legitimacy.

by Sam Jacob

courtesy dezeen.com 

read all at: www.dezeen.com/2015/10/20/opinion-sam-jacob-charles-ray-eames-junk-shop-ebay-value-barbican-exhibition/

The latest news, reviews and comment on Charles and Ray Eames by "The Guardian"

For the exhibition at the London Barbican Museum, "The Guardian" is publishing numerous articles: here we list a selection:

Monday 19 October 2015

By Olivier Wainwringht

>>> Party with the Eameses! Inside the modernist masters' riotous home
Charlie Chaplin and Billy Wilder used to party with Charles and Ray Eames at their house in Los Angeles – and play guinea pigs to their latest chair designs. Step inside the Eames House, a divine shrine unchanged since their deaths.

Read at: www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2015/oct/19/charles-and-ray-eames-barbican-modernist-masters

Sunday 18 October 2015

By Rowan Moore
>>> The World of Charles and Ray Eames review – prodigious and abundant talent
Their vision of America was too good to be true, but no one delivered style and genius like design’s perfect couple.

Read at: www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/oct/18/world-charles-ray-eames-review-barbican-rowan-moore

Sunday 18 October 2015
By Tamsin Blanchard
>>> Open house with Charles and Ray
The home Charles and Ray Eames built in Los Angeles is still the ultimate dream house.
Read at: www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/oct/18/charles-and-ray-eames-dream-house

Saturday 17 October 2015
By The Guardian
>>> The "World of Charles and Ray Eames" in pictures
A look at the Barbican’s new exhibition examining the fascinating and influential work of Charles and Ray.

Read at: www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/gallery/2015/oct/17/the-world-of-charles-and-ray-eames-in-pictures

How "Playboy" Magazine Helped Make Eames and Mies Famous.

News of the day: Playboy - its circulation and credibility in terminal decline - will no longer publish nudes. 

*   *   *

If you’re the type who reads Playboy for the articles — and of course you are — then this may not come as news to you: The rag, which Hugh Hefner founded back in 1953, not only had a hand in shaping the heterosexuality of the American male; it taught him how he could leverage architecture and design to bag a babe.

That’s the thesis of Architecture in Playboy, 1953–1979, an exhibition at the NAiM/Bureau Europa, in the Netherlands, that explores how the magazine depicted the major design players of the time. And it’s actually not too much of a stretch. Almost from its very start, Playboy made a point of featuring architect’s big shots, from Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe to Buckminster Fuller and John Lautner. And who can forget the famous (and downright respectable) spread featuring the midcentury design greats George Nelson, Edward Wormley, Eero Saarinen, Harry Bertoia, Charles Eames, and Jens Risom with their respective chairs? (See image below.)

The message here: Architecture and design are major forces influencing the world, and if you’re not familiar with the heavy hitters, perhaps you’re not a Playboy. Which isn’t to say that the magazine always upheld good taste—plenty of Playboy Pads in the '60s and '70s feature mega beds, replete with such essentials as a vibrator system, hi-fi stereo, humidor, and cocktail bar. But it did hold a mirror—even if that mirror was mounted onto the ceiling—to the design trends of the day, from midcentury modernism to inflatable architecture (headline: "The Bubble House: A Rising Market").

"Everything that happened in architectural discourse is presented in the magazine but it’s sexualized," Beatriz Colomina, the exhibition’s curator, told The Architectural Review in January 2011. "They started featuring Mies and Frank Lloyd Wright, and then in the '60s and '70s they started Playboy Pads, a series that reshot existing buildings—such as the House of the Century by Ant Farm and the apartment of Charles Moore; at the time he was the Dean of the School of Architecture at Yale, which could not be more stuffy, and to have his home presented as a Playpad is perverse as he was gay."

So should one divorce Playboy’s design coverage from its context? That would be like separating the bachelor pad from its objective—the conquest. Still, the show makes a case for Playboy being about more than objectifying women, though it certainly does do that. "It also embraced liberation, too," Colomina insists. "It’s more complicated than you’d think." Those design articles also include the few photos that are OK to ogle.

Architecture in Playboy is on view through February 9. Take a peek into the research of the exhibition here.

Via FastCoDesign
Read all at: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1671824/how-playboy-magazine-helped-make-eames-and-mies-famous

Catherine Ince, "The World of Charles and Ray Eames", Thames and Hudson, 2015

Published to accompany the major international exhibition at the Barbican, London, this definitive monograph explores the era-defining work of the Eames Office, an active ‘laboratory’ for over four decades, where the Eameses and their collaborators produced a vast array of pioneering and influential projects – from architecture, furniture and product design to film, photography, multi-media installations and exhibitions, as well as new models for arts education.

Drawing on new sources and unpublished material, and with newly commissioned texts by leading design experts, The World of Charles and Ray Eames brings together contemporaneous reviews and magazine articles, writings by Charles and Ray Eames themselves, personal correspondence and a thorough reference section to offer the most comprehensive overview of the designers in many years.

Catherine Ince is Curator at Barbican Art Gallery, where she recently curated ‘Bauhaus: Art as Life’, the largest survey of the renowned school to be staged in Britain in over forty years. Other projects include the international touring exhibitions ‘Pop Art Design’ and ‘The Fashion World of Jean-Paul Gaultier’.

Available at Amazon: www.amazon.co.uk/The-World-Charles-Ray-Eames/dp/0500518300  

Catherine Ince curator of "The World of Charles and Ray Eames" at Barbican (London) next week.

"Where do you begin with an archive that comprises over a million artefacts? This was the question I asked myself repeatedly when I started research on the work of Charles and Ray Eames and the Eames Office for a new exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery. The papers of Charles and Ray Eames were transferred to the Library of Congress in 1988, with further bequests made in the past decade. The material includes some 300,000 slides; 30,000 contact sheets and prints and their corresponding 220,000 film negatives; sketches, drawings, plans and printed material related to the couple's many and various projects; film and sound recordings; administrative documents, office records, press articles, personal and professional correspondence as well as all manner of intriguing items, from decorative gift wrapping and notes scribbled on the back of Benson & Hedges cigarette papers to a handmade bee stored in a heart-shaped box. The Eames family archive also contains an extraordinary array of personal and professional documents, artworks and objects. In the early stages of planning for the exhibition Eames Demetrios, the Eameses' youngest grandson, asked me if I was aware of what I was getting into, if I was prepared to “dive into the ocean”. The Design History Society travel grant has allowed me to do just that.

"The travel grant has been invaluable, enabling me to undertake a initial scoping visit to the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. in order to understand collection content as well as to discuss the pragmatic issues involved in preparing material for loan. I viewed a representative range of materials from all aspects of the collection, which is divided across four library divisions: prints and photographs, manuscripts, motion pictures and broadcasting, and music. This survey and analysis was guided by the insight of the Library staff responsible for acquiring and archiving the collection. In addition to providing a comprehensive overview of the collection's organisation, they selected and presented material likely to be of interest for exhibition, particularly from the part of the collection more recently presented to the Library by the Eames family. This newer material adds extensively to the records of the early years of the Office and also includes many files related to the personal friendships and professional relationships Charles and Ray Eames maintained with many leading creative figures of the period. Professor Pat Kirkham is an advisor to the exhibition and much of her current research is focused on analysing aspects of this new material.

"This early-stage scoping visit introduced me to the extent, diversity and arrangement of the collection. Until this point, the contents of the Library of Congress Eames Archive - which is often discussed in terms of its scale - seemed to me gargantuan to the point of abstraction. Now informed by my first-hand understanding of the collection I was able to work much more effectively at a distance and in close consultation with Library archivists when analysing the Library's cataloguing resources. The collection cannot be absorbed entirely in the time I have to research and prepare the exhibition, so subsequent research visits demanded focus and careful planning. The Design History Society travel grant was awarded at a crucial stage in the development of the exhibition and has undoubtedly transformed the productiveness of my recent research visits to the Library of Congress. Exhibition preparation continues apace and The World of Charles and Ray Eames opens at the Barbican Art Gallery next week.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a new publication and extensive programme of events.

Via: Design History Society

at: www.designhistorysociety.org/blog/view/catherine-ince-travel-report-the-world-of-charles-and-ray-eames

Ph. © Eames Office LLC

Scottish sculptor Martin Boyce warps 20th century Modernist icons, household ideals.

Martin Boyce’s exhibition, “When Now is Night" (at Rhode Island School of Design, Providence RI, from October 2, 2015 to January 31, 2016) is a sobering reflection on the dark side of utopian 20th century Modernism, marking the first solo show in the United States by the contemporary Scottish sculptor.
Boyce’s exhibit was realized in conjunction with Dominic Molon, curator of contemporary art at the museum, who first met Boyce at a studio visit in 2001. The show opened Oct. 2 at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum.
Molon said he was impressed by Boyce and his work, paving the way for development of the show to begin in 2013. Boyce had “developed this international reputation as an artist” by then, Molon said.
The exhibit draws significantly from the art and architecture of the 20th century, Molon said. Boyce “emerged alongside other artists that came out of the 1990s looking at two things: modern architecture and design, and how it’s a conduit for amazing things” as well as the numerous “complications that came with this modernist movement.”
One of the central themes of the exhibition is domestic life as it was imagined by prominent figures of the Modernist movement, especially designers Charles and Ray Eames. Boyce’s pieces take well-known forms from the early 20th century and distort them to uncover the darker aspects of Modernism. “We create structures that are there to help us function, but can turn against us,” Molon said.
Most of the pieces in “When Now is Night” feature disfigured products of early Modernism, such as the Eames Storage Unit, a functional cabinet that reflects the movement’s streamlined and optimistic driving force, Molon said. Boyce shows shattered splints, painted splints carved into masks and boarded-over storage units that reflect the sometimes grim outlooks of Modernist designs.
“When Now is Night” opens with a room covered in dark, crisscrossed wallpaper adapted from the office box-filled title sequence of Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest.” In the largest space of the exhibition, a giant, fluorescent spider web hangs from the ceiling. It is the primary source of light in the room, but its form is clearly menacing. The ominous web is probably the most overt symbolism in the gallery, though most of the time Boyce uses subtler means to express his ideas.
One room is littered with identical, abstract paper leaves that might have come from a Modernist’s vision of the future. The leaves serve the same purpose as Boyce’s masks, which “act as a portal between the real, inhabited space of the gallery and the imaginary interiors and landscapes that have been removed from them,” according to a museum description of one piece.
Exhibit-goers noted that Boyce’s work was unique in the way that his sculpture represented his message.

Via Brown Daily Herald

read all at: www.browndailyherald.com/2015/10/09/risd-exhibit-explores-the-dark-side-of-modernism/

Tribute to Eameses at the Chicago Architecture Biennial

Last Friday evening, there was a performance of “Superpowers of Ten”, a theatrical presentation created by Andres Jaque and his “Office for Political Innovation”. The piece is a play / puppet show experience that springboards off “Powers of Ten”, a film by Charles and Ray Eames from 1977, which was itself based on a book by Kees Boeke. “Superpowers” does have a kind of a echo-chamber quality, but one that keeps moving, expanding beyond expected boundaries.
The original Eames film, produced for IBM, begins with a man and woman at a picnic on Chicago’s lakefront one sunny October day. It then moves out through levels of scale based on the factor of ten - zooming out into the cosmos before returning back to the picnic where it plunges through the man’s skin and proceeds into the human body down to atomic level. This tight, specific, and scientific methodology moves smoothly into metaphor. The film has been credited with making people feel they are citizens of the universe with an expanded sense of responsibility.
“Superpowers of Ten” takes this idea of varying frames of perception and explodes it. Presented in the Athletic Association’s “Tank” (feeling very much like a tank with its swimming-pool-tiled floor), the area surrounding our chairs was jammed with puppets and objects used in the performance, and the whole thing had a cozy, ad-hoc quality.
The performance itself was a groovy cosmic ride through the universe, spinning atoms, and other elements from the original film, and then somehow, (in a process akin to how the Eames’ led viewers under the skin of their picnicking man), proceeding along into the politics embedded in a host of topics including sausage-making, the color balance of Kodak film, and Miss America pageants.

Via chicagonow.com

Read all: www.chicagonow.com/neighborland/2015/10/highlights-from-opening-weekend-of-the-chicago-architecture-biennial/

At Amsterdam’s Art Chapel the exhibition design borrows from Eames’ House of Cards

Amsterdam is opening up its inner circle of design with a new, albeit brief, exhibition hosted at the city’s Kunst Kapel (Art Chapel). Conceived by design studio Bernotat & Co and the international design platform Connecting the Dots, ‘The Design Circle’ brings together works by ten design studios and labels including Lensvelt, Kranen/Gille, New Window and Anne-Marie Geurink.
The exhibition design borrows from Charles and Ray Eames’ House of Cards – a playhouse for children made of interlocking cards. To wit, the pieces are presented among large, rectangular panels of honeycomb cardboard, designed to be especially durable and reusable, and with the hopes of finding them a new lease of life once the exhibition has ended.
Jacob Borstlap of Bernotat & Co explains, ‘We didn’t want all the exhibited objects to be seen at a glance, but rather that when you walk through the space, there is always something to discover.’ A tour around the modernist, Lau Peters-designed venue reveals a well-rounded selection that paints a diverse picture of current Dutch design.

Via wallpaper.com
Read more at: www.wallpaper.com/design/the-design-circle-kneeling-at-the-altar-of-amsterdams-art-chapel#ymeJQu5Tb8cZXb0T.99

"Dots": the Eames' quote as a key to play a game.

"Eventually everything connects..."

What designer wouldn’t love a game that quotes Charles Eames? "Dots" is a new digital game about connecting, with Tetris-like play that challenges you to connect dots to make them disappear. The more you can connect at once, the higher your score. (available for iPhone and Android).

Via visualnews.com
read all at: http://www.visualnews.com/2015/10/01/6-apps-to-keep-any-designer-entertained-inspired/

Nendo Designs Slick New Perfume Packaging For Kenzo

The monolithic bottles evoke totem poles and Charles and Ray Eames stool.

It wouldn't be reaching to say Nendo has the Midas touch—the prolific Japan-based studio has the power to turn everyday items like front doors, bookshelves, carry-on suitcases, and much more into design gold.
Nendo recently unveiled a new unisex perfume bottle created in collaboration with Kenzo, the French fashion label. The packaging and bottle have a Memphis-y, Ettore Sottsass vibe—and you could say that the bottle also nods to a Charles and Ray Eames stool—meant to evoke an international culture of creativity.
"Where previous generations have felt differences of nationality, language, and religion more acutely, the younger generation of today have comparatively fewer cultural divides to cross, enjoying a greater shared sense of identity through the global spread of online media and applications," Nendo writes on its website.
Made from purple glass, the fragrance bottle's silhouette is derived from totem poles. "This flexible and upcoming generation, with their mobile and vibrant lifestyles, are like a new ‘tribe’ in modern life, and this new unisex fragrance has been developed to symbolize their interconnectedness," Nendo continues.
Totem comes in three scents denoted by color changes to the geometric logo: Orange hits floral notes, Yellow is citrus based, and Blue is fruity.

Via Fastcodesign.com

Read all at: www.fastcodesign.com/3051654/wanted/nendo-designs-slick-new-perfume-packaging-for-kenzo#5