As modernist design becomes canonized, spurred by the recent enthusiasm for midcentury furniture, it’s easy to forget that an aesthetic we now take for granted was, in fact, a product of radical experimentation guided by political and philosophical thinking as much as by artistic vision.
An appropriately spare new exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York called How Should We Live? puts that thinking on display, with original pieces by Charles and Ray Eames, as well as ones by figures known more for their architecture, like Le Corbusier.
More info at: www.moma.org
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Experimental Lounge Chair, Charles and Ray Eames, 1944
Prototype for "La Chaise", Charles and Ray Eames, 1948
Before Charles and Ray Eames sculpted plywood into undulating furniture, they refined their techniques on medical devices. During World War II, the United States Navy engaged the American design duo in creating a new leg splint. The result was an object both beautiful and practical, with its biomorphic curves that delicately protected a wounded leg.
"The Body Extended: Sculpture and Prosthetics" at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, England, includes one of the Eames leg splints in its exploration of prosthetics and modern art. Nearby is Louise Bourgeois’s 1985 “Henriette” bronze disembodied leg sculpture, a tribute to her sister’s disability, as well Martin Boyce’s “Phantom and Fall” that uses pieces of an Eames leg splint in an Alexander Calder-like mobile. It responds to the brutality and playfulness of the 1930s and 40s, as well as the uncomfortable dissociation of form from function in our appreciation of postwar design.
Read all at hyperallergic.com (thanks for sharing)
Installation view of ‘The Body Extended: Sculpture and Prosthetics’ (courtesy Henry Moore Institute)
Biennales—from Venice to Chicago—have become ubiquitous events for the art and architecture worlds. And now with the inaugural London Design Biennale (LDB) at Somerset House, the rest of the design spectrum, from graphic and industrial design to furniture and virtual reality, have their own global platform.
This month’s LDB brought in installations, prototypes, and designs from 37 countries and featured 30+ talks with over 100 leading designers, design critics, and practitioners to explore the theme of ‘Utopia by Design.’ These (often whimsical) installations used design to reconcile each country’s past, present, and future, exploring issues as diverse as smart cities, the environment, global migration and the refugee crisis, postcolonial legacies, and food systems.
Below are a few of the highlights from the event, which ends today. And read our review of the Biennale here.
The London Design Biennale also marks the first time India has put forward an installation in a major international design event. India Design Forum Founder Rajshree Pathy made sure that their presence at the event would be as dramatic as the country itself.
The design of 'Chakraview’ employs the chakra system—a philosophical journey that begins with desire and consumption, moves to emotion, then speech, and finally to enlightenment—as a metaphor for India’s cultural, spiritual, social, and economic progress since independence. Six colorful silk tapestries hang above a mirrored floor, bathing attendees in the color and chaos of the space. A separate, blue, womb-like audiovisual room connects attendees to the seventh, most spiritual, chakra.
The installation also references imagery from the Eames’ 1958 India Report, produced after the three months Charles and Ray Eames spent touring the country, looking at the potential and importance of design in postcolonial India. The exhibit asserts that design is not just about developing aesthetic solutions, but indeed solutions to social problems facing India today.
Vintage Home, by Judith Miller, Firefly Books, 288 pages, $50.
Vintage furniture offers the best of both worlds. It brings a sense of the past and a degree of craftsmanship so often absent in today’s furnishings. A well-placed piece can become the focal point in a room and create a sense of style that you can decorate around. Vintage items can be found in a wide variety of places and it pays to know what to look for so you can spot those treasures.
Judith Miller provides a guide to 20th century designs and their origins so you can tell the difference between an Eileen Gray-designed glass and chrome table and something created by the Charles and Ray Eames Aluminum group. Filled with colour photos and detailed background information on the designers and the importance of their creations, this is a valuable resource book for anyone wanting to bring vintage style into their home.
See more at: fireflybooks.com
Kinfolk Issue Twenty-One: Within the pages of the fall edition of Kinfolk, the home becomes more than the sum of its walls and floors, chairs and wallpaper—more than a collection of objects. We delve deeply into the very nature of home, exploring what’s hidden, unseen, mysterious and sensual asking, “What have we forgotten, or overlooked, in the rituals of our daily lives?” In turn, the home and everything it contains are not merely ends in themselves, but the complex elements of each person’s evolving and deeply personal narrative—the foundations of a well-lived life.
