New at Pentagram
New Work: ‘The Surreal House’
Angus Hyland was commissioned by Jane Alison, Senior Curator at the Barbican Art Gallery, to design the graphic identity for The Surreal House, the blockbuster exhibition on view at the Barbican through 12 September. The show examines the relationship between Surrealism and architecture and features work from artists like Salvador Dali, Marcel Duchamp, René Magritte, Man Ray and Joseph Cornell alongside contemporary figures like Rebecca Horn, Rachel Whiteread, Rem Koolhaas and Louise Bourgeois, mounted in an atmospheric, house-like series of rooms. Hyland was delighted to accept this commission as it allowed him to explore a longstanding interest in Surrealism.
Preview: Israel Museum
The renewed Bronfman Archaeological Wing of the Israel Museum designed by Daniel Weil and John Rushworth opens on 25 July following over five years of work. The Archaeological Wing originally opened in 1965 and has been redesigned and restored by Pentagram as part of the whole scale renewal of the entire museum campus.
New Work: ‘Project Mah Jongg’
For an ancient Chinese game legendarily invented by Confucius in the year 500 B.C., mah jongg enjoyed an extraordinary efflorescence in 20th century America, where it became a cultural phenomenon and fixture in Jewish-American communities. Abbott Miller has designed “Project Mah Jongg” a new exhibition at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York that explores the traditions, history and meanings of the game in Jewish-American culture. The show opened on May 4 and remains on view through January 2, 2011, and will then travel to multiple venues in the United States. Miller has also edited and designed a book called Mah Jongg: Crak, Bam, Dot!, published by 2wiceBooks, that serves as a companion to the exhibition.
Miller worked closely with museum curator Melissa J. Martens to create a visual narrative of mah jongg’s unusual hybridization of Jewish and Chinese cultures. The game became an enormously popular fad in the U.S. after sets were first imported in the 1920s. This coincided with a period of national immigration restrictions, and mah jongg’s foreign associations stirred both intrigue and stereotypes in the press. It gained a reputation as a “vice,” a gambling game and sign of rebellious flapper behavior. But in Jewish communities, it was perfect for women’s gatherings and fundraisers, where the rule cards were sold for charity. After World War II, the game became a staple of bungalow colonies in the Catskills and suburban Jewish homes, and it is still played by hundreds of thousands of people today.
With its iconic tiles, graphic symbols and colorful material culture, mah jongg holds special appeal for designers. “Mah jongg is a visual universe unto itself, one governed by dragons, directional winds, and cocktails,” says Miller. “It was—and still is—social media with a heavy dose of style and history.”
Abbott Miller’s ‘Project Mah-Jongg’ in The New York Times
Quick Link: Abbott Miller’s ‘Project Mah-Jongg’ in The New York Times
New Work: ‘Dress Codes’
The triennial of the International Center of Photography is the only major American survey of contemporary photography and video. The ICP triennial’s third edition, Dress Codes, recently on view at the Museum at ICP in New York, closed out a year of fashion-related programming at the museum and explored ideas of identity, production and consumption through the lens of fashion, style and image. The exhibition featured the work of 34 photographers including Cindy Sherman, Stan Douglas, Barbara Kruger, Lorna Simpson, Mikalene Thomas and Thorsten Brinkmann. Abbott Miller designed the show working with ICP curators Kristen Lubben, Christopher Phillips, Carol Squiers and ICP adjunct curator Vince Aletti.
New Work: ‘Lincoln Center: Celebrating 50 Years’
In the five decades since it broke ground in 1959, Lincoln Center has become a model for cultural centers in cities around the world, a home to 12 constituent organizations that host 5 million visitors annually and reach millions more through broadcasts, programs, productions and educational activities. To commemorate Lincoln Center’s amazing half century, Michael Gericke and his team at Pentagram have designed Lincoln Center: Celebrating 50 Years, a major exhibition that focuses on the evolution and influence of this remarkable institution. The show is on view at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts’ Oenslager Gallery on Lincoln Center’s new North Plaza.
The exhibition was developed in collaboration with curator Thomas Mellins and includes an extensive collection of some 400 historic and contemporary objects including photographs, ephemera, costumes, set pieces and props. The show includes special areas for the viewing of films about the building of the center and video recordings of performances.
Pentagram has designed identities for several of Lincoln Center’s resident organizations, including The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, New York Philharmonic and Jazz at Lincoln Center, and is currently designing environmental graphics for the renovated David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center, formerly known as the Harmony Atrium.
Continue reading "New Work: ‘Lincoln Center: Celebrating 50 Years’"
Geoffrey Beene Trapeze in WWD
Quick Link: Geoffrey Beene Trapeze in WWD
New Work: ‘Geoffrey Beene: Trapeze’
In his 40-year career, the pioneering fashion designer Geoffrey Beene developed a stunning body of work that combined structural and formal innovation with a uniquely American sense of play. Designed by Abbott Miller, Geoffrey Beene: Trapeze is a new exhibition at the Phoenix Museum of Art that presents the designer’s groundbreaking work in a display of over 30 garments from the private collection of Patsy Tarr, who was one of his most avid collectors and champions. Tarr is also Miller’s longtime collaborator on the performing arts journal 2wice, which she publishes. Completing the circle, Miller himself worked closely with Beene over the course of a twelve-year friendship.
Their collaborations included a major retrospective, a monograph of his work and a tribute published by 2wice after his death. For several years Miller also designed publications, graphics and environments for Mr. Beene’s seasonal presentations, which were part exhibition and part theater. The Phoenix exhibition remains on view through March 7, 2010.
A look at Trapeze after the jump.
New Work: ‘Last Folio’
Daniel Weil has designed an exhibition entitled Last Folio, which runs from 10 – 27 November 2009 in the Lower Library at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.
Last Folio is a set of portraits taken since March 2006 of decaying books, pictures of wisdom turning to dust. Photographer Yuri Dojc found these poignant symbols by chance in an abandoned Cheder in Bardejov in the east of Slovakia, where time has stood still since the day in 1943 when all those attending the school were taken away to concentration camps. The schoolbooks are still there: essay notebooks with corrections, school reports, and remarkably enough, a book once owned by Yuri’s grandfather, Jakub. The books still tell a story, despite every page disintegrating as it is touched. But the story is of neglect and destruction, and Dojc treats each book as a survivor, every one captured as a portrait.
The challenge for Weil was to design an exhibition specific to this most appropriate of venues, a library. This part of the project highlights the contrast of destinies between these books and those housed in the College Library. He has created a series of virtual spaces which replicate bookcases in which each image is housed. The structure of these “ghost” cases is deliberately modest and vulnerable, contrasting with the venerable setting. Each has a translucent mesh behind it allowing the viewer to see through the image to the robust and grand cases behind, thus heightening the contrast. At the far end of the library is a massive image of the abandoned synagogue in Kosice.
This exhibition is one element of an extensive project on the extinguishing of Jewish life in Slovakia. A documentary film has been made by Yuri Dojc and filmmaker Katya Krausova. It follows the journey of the photographer through Slovakia and aims to preserve Holocaust memory through filmed survivor testimonies and photographic documentation of places and fragments including the schoolbooks.
Preview: ‘Dress Codes’ at ICP
Abbott Miller has designed the installation and graphics for Dress Codes: The Third ICP Triennial of Photography and Video, opening today at the Museum of the International Center of Photography in New York. The triennial is the only major US survey devoted to contemporary photography and video. Dress Codes closes out a year of fashion focused programming at the museum and explores ideas of identity, production and consumption through the lens of fashion, style and image, from uniforms to haute couture, to dress as a celebration of personal identity or as a religious or political statement. The exhibition features the work of 34 artists including Stan Douglas, Barbara Kruger, Martha Rosler, Cindy Sherman, Lorna Simpson, Zhou Tao and Thorsten Brinkmann. Miller worked on the show with ICP curators Kristen Lubben, Christopher Phillips, Carol Squiers and ICP adjunct curator Vince Aletti. Dress Codes is on view through January 17, 2010. More about the exhibition’s design coming soon.
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