MUSEUM OF CALIFORNIA DESIGN DIRECTOR BILL STERN
on the significance of PACIFIC STANDARD TIME:
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| In SAN DIEGO'S CRAFT REVOLUTION: Svetozar Radakovich in collaboration with Carl Ekstrom, Double Door, ca. 1967, polyurethane foam, fiberglass and wood with resin. Photograph: Lynn Fayman |
What They Can’t See From 9th Ave.: Livin’ on Pacific Standard Time
by Bill Stern, published on www.culturalweekly.com
Calling the Getty-sponsored Pacific Standard Time art and design initiative “overcompensation” and citing a source calling it “boosterish” (as the New York Times did recently) is a gasp of the shop-worn Gotham provinciality mocked so brilliantly by Saul Steinberg in his “View of the World from 9th Avenue.” It is a canard that I thought had breathed its last when the New York Times, my hometown paper, sent the astute Bernard Weinraub to Los Angeles to report on us two decades ago.
Since I came to Los Angeles more than a quarter of a century ago I have known Angelenos who were guilty of the flip side of boosterism: the equally provincial view that everything is better somewhere else: i.e., you have to go to New York for “real” art. (For New Yorkers it used to be Paris.) Mega-populous New York has, of course, long been justly celebrated for its art and its architecture (well, its skyscrapers anyway), a reputation facilitated by its role as the publishing and periodical capital of the country.
Los Angeles, however, matured into the economic and cultural capital of the United States west of the Hudson River so quickly and so recently that it is frequently misperceived as having no past, even by some of its own residents. Although the city has by now developed a healthy sense of itself, it took Pacific Standard Time to engender serious self-reflection of the city’s largely uncelebrated cultural heritage.
It was thanks to Pacific Standard Time that LACMA’s California Design 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way (for which I was the consulting curator) was able to research, document and exhibit the rich underpinnings of California’s Modernism in the 1930s and its post-World War II apotheosis facilitated by the region’s unprecedented population surge during the war years and the subsequent even greater demographic boom.
And PST enabled design historian Dave Hampton to create the extraordinary exhibition San Diego’s Craft Revolution: From Post-War Modern to California Design, a stunning celebration of creativity south of Los Angeles which, in spite of its awkward sub-title, is worth the trip to San Diego. Before I saw this beautifully designed show (twice) I knew a thing or two about craft in San Diego, then I found out that that was all I knew. Even about my long-time favorites Arline Fisch, Svetozar Radakovich and Barney Reid.
Fisch? Radakovich? Reid? “Overcompensation”? “Boosterish”?
Better to have said as I did, awe-struck, as I surveyed San Diego’s Craft Revolution: “Who knew?”
Bill Stern is director of the Museum of California Design.
Image: Svetozar Radakovich in collaboration with Carl Ekstrom, Double Door, ca. 1967, polyurethane foam, fiberglass and wood with resin. Photograph: Lynn Fayman.
Go to: www.culturalweekly.com
MUSEUM OF CALIFORNIA DESIGN
In Pacific Standard Time
MUSEUM OF CALIFORNIA DESIGN director Bill Stern
is consulting curator for the LACMA exhibition
CALIFORNIA DESIGN 1930-1965: LIVING IN A MODERN WAY
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| Sofa by A.Quincy Jones (1961), cocktail table by Milo Baughman (1950), and lamp by Zahara Schatz (1949) in the LACMA exhibition. Photograph: Michael Owen Baker, Daily News. |
Curators: Wendy Kaplan, Bobbye Tigerman
Consulting Curator: Bill Stern
Exhibition design: Hodgetts + Fung
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90036
ph 323.857.6000
www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/californiadesign
October 1, 2011 through March 25, 2012
COLLECTING EAMES:
THE JF CHEN COLLECTION
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| Photograph: Stefanie Keenan | Photograph: Stefanie Keenan |
MUSEUM OF CALIFORNIA DESIGN board of directors member JOEL CHEN presents
COLLECTING EAMES: THE JF CHEN COLLECTION at:
JFCHEN
941 North Highland Ave.
LOS ANGELES,CA 90038
ph 323.466.9700
Curator: Daniel Ostroff
Installation design: Bob Breen and Clare Graham
www.jfchen.com
Monday, October 3rd, 2011 through Saturday, Janurary 14th, 2012
Mon-Fri: 10am to 4pm
Sat:11am to 4pm
Sun: CLOSED
Splash page PAST EXHIBITIONS
A Marriage of Craft and Design:
The Work of Evelyn and Jerome Ackerman
Curated by Jo Lauria and Dale Carolyn Gluckman
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Jerome Ackerman, vase and decanter Jenev (Los Angeles),c. 1954, Stoneware vase 8 in. x 2.25 in., decanter 16 in. x 2 1/2 in. |
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Evelyn Ackerman, tapestry, Network Woven in Germany, c. 1970 Wool |
Through May 8, 2011
Craft and Folk Art Museum
5814 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90036
www.cafam.org
Kelly Reemtsen, paintings exhibition
Inspired by an Eames chair she bought at a thrift store artist Kelly Reemtsen painted "portraits" of classic modern chairs by Frank Gehry, Eero Saarinen, Verner Panton, Harry Bertoia, Pierre Paulin, Haywood Wakefield and Russell Wright as well as by Charles and Ray Eames.
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RAR, fiberglass-reinforced resin, metal and wood rocking chair designed by Charles and Ray Eames,1950. Manufactured by Zenith Plastics, Gardena, California, for Herman Miller Furniture Company, Zeeland, Michigan, Photo courtesy: Skidmore Contemporary Art |
Lounge Chair designed by Charles and Ray Eames: plywood, metal, leather, padding. Herman Miller Inc., 1956, Photo courtesy: Skidmore Contemporary Art |
Wiggle Chair (Easy Edges series), designed by Frank Gehry: Design Concepts/Jack Brogan (Los Angeles), 1972,corrugated paper, Photo courtesy: Skidmore Contemporary Art |