Paula Douglas, also known as Gretchen Fetchen, was one of the early participants in the San Francisco Acid Test happenings organized by Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters in the mid-1960s. The events were designed as gatherings to promote consciousness expansion and creativity through the use of LSD, which was legal at the time.
Gretchen Fetchen’s Acid Test Dress (1965) and painted Orange Leather Boots reflects the Merry Pranksters’ rejection of norms of appearance through the embracing of exuberant Day-Glo colors. The garment also features a star, together with red, white and blue stripes — symbols of the Merry Pranksters.
Acid Test Dress and Boots Installation View. Photographed as Part of the Counter Couture Exhibit, Up Though August 20th, 2017 at the Museum of Arts and Design in NYC
In 1974, Billy Shire was working on a Studded Denim Jacket to advertise his studding business, and decided to enter it into the Levi’s Denim Art Contest. His entry, Welfare (1975), which won the competition, is embellished with eleven pounds of rivets, rhinestone rim sets and oversize upholstery tacks typically used on leather and furniture. Continue reading Eye On Design: Studded Levi’s Denim Jacket By Billy Shire→
If the idea of bearing witness to dozens of tiny, semi-clad porcelain figurines that appear to be on the cusp of indulging in a bacchanalian orgy floats your boat, have I a got an art exhibit for you. Chris Antemann’s Forbidden Fruit — up now at the Museum of Arts and Design — celebrates the collaboration between the Oregon-based artist and Meissen, the renowned manufacturer of fine Porcelain.
Detail from Above Photo
In 2011, Antemann was invited to participate in Meissen’s Art Studio Program, where she worked closely with Meissen’s master artisans to create unique pieces and a series of limited editions that strike a perfect balance between her distinctive style and Meissen’s identity. These pieces are arranged in Forbidden Fruit as a grand installation that reinvents and invigorates the great figurative tradition.
Inspired by eighteenth-century porcelain figurines and decorative art, Antemann’s delicate and intricately detailed sculptures are lavishly presented on a central banquet table alongside a selection of stand alone sculptures and a nine-light porcelain chandelier. Her centerpiece, Love Temple (2013), is inspired by Meissen’s great historical model of Johann Joachim Kändler’s monumental Love Temple (1750). Stripping the original design back to its basic forms, added her own figures, ornamentation, and flowers to her five-foot work, as well as a special finial with three musicians to herald the arrival of guests to the banquet of “forbidden fruit” below.
Using the Garden of Eden as her metaphor, Antemann has created a contemporary interpretation of the eighteenth-century banqueting craze by inserting her scantily clad male and female figures.
Posed in intimate and playful vignettes of seduction, Antemann’s figures convey narratives of domesticity, social etiquette, and taboos while making formal references to classic Baroque Meissen figurines. The ceramist invents a new narrative on contemporary morality in a setting that evokes the decadence of François Boucher and Jean-Antoine Watteau.
Chris Antemann’s Forbidden Fruit will be on Exhibit Through February 5, 2017 at the Museum of Arts and Design, Located at 2 Columbus circle (58th Street) in NYC.
If you happen to pay a visit to the Museum of Arts and Design, be sure to take the stairs to travel between floors, because it is in the stairwell that you will find the museum’s stunning goblet collection.
MAD’s collection of goblets reveals the diversity of approaches taken by artists and designers to create this common vessel. The goblets range from those inspired by historic Venetian masterworks to mass produced pieces, to non-functional works by artists who make reference to the basic form.
There are advantages and disadvantages to having the goblets right up against the glass window, in that the natural light and transparency create favorable display conditions, but it’s challenging to get photos that don’t have, say, a crosstown bus, or the facade of the CVS Drug Store across the street in the background. First World Problems.
Open 24 Hours!
The center goblet, above, appears to pay homage to Bee Keeping. Nice.
The orange, spiny goblet reminds me of some of the pieces in This Post.
I love that this one has a collection of tiny goblets inside the cup!
The Museum of Arts and Design is Located at 2 Columbus Circle in NYC.
Do you like Kenny Scharf? I sure do. I’ve seen his fun artwork everywhere in the city — from huge murals and sculptures to paintings and toys, cars and golf carts and even…mannequins! Scharf’sSwirley mannequin is part of the Ralph Pucci: The Art of The Mannequin exhibit, which is up through October 25th at the Museum of Arts and Design in Columbus Circle. Continue reading Yes, It Exists: Kenny Scharf Mannequin→
