2011年9月29日 星期四

The Architect Jeanne Gang ( 芝加哥)

Currents | Q&A

The Architect Jeanne Gang on Winning a MacArthur Fellowship


In 2010, Jeanne Gang, of Studio Gang Architects, changed the skyline of her hometown, Chicago, with Aqua, an 82-story tower. Girded by irregular thin concrete balconies, the building seems to flutter with the winds that gust off nearby Lake Michigan.

Sally Ryan for The New York Times

Jeanne Gang

Steve Hall/Hedrich Blessing

Aqua (2010)

Steve Hall/Hedrich Blessing

The nature boardwalk at Lincoln Park Zoo (2010).

Steve Hall/Hedrich Blessing

Brick Weave House (2008).

Yet Aqua’s beautiful skin is not just for show: the balconies block the sun’s rays and slice through breezes, allowing residents to venture outdoors at heights unprecedented in Chicago.

The daughter of a Belvidere, Ill., engineer, Ms. Gang, 47, spent her childhood touring bridges. This may have inspired her habit of coaxing lyricism out of rigor in many of her designs.

They include a community center with striated walls layered from odd-lot donations of concrete, and an environmental center in a former industrial site that evokes a bird’s nest with materials of scavenged steel, slag and glass.

Last week she was named a MacArthur Foundation fellow, one of a handful of architects ever to receive that $500,000 honor.

She spoke to a reporter about it by telephone from her office in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago, where she works with a staff of 36, including her husband, Mark Schendel, the firm’s managing principal.

Congratulations on your prize. Forgive me for asking two questions that always go with the MacArthur announcements, but what went through your mind when you heard you had won, and how do you plan to spend the money?

When I first heard, it didn’t connect, and then I just started hyperventilating. I was thinking about all the things I’ve wanted to do and have been constantly struggling to fund. Our work has had a large experimental component.

Does this mean we’ll be seeing more marble curtains like the one you exhibited at the National Building Museum in 2003, which looked like a giant, flowing jigsaw puzzle?

We’ll be doing materials testing, for sure. And other kinds of research not supported by clients. Right now, I’m working on a book called “Reverse Effect,” which is about the Chicago River. The title comes from the fact that they reversed the flow of the river, but it also relates to unintended consequences like invasive species and flooding. The book is about infrastructure, but also about our city. What do we want our river to be?

Ideally, not always dyed green on St. Patrick’s Day. You’re best known for Aqua, a skyscraper that is not just gorgeous and practical but gorgeous because it’s practical. In one interview, you described getting the commission after chatting with the developer at an alumni function. “There’s some luck to it,” you said. “You end up sitting next to someone, eating rubber chicken.” Is this a strategy that you would recommend to other architects?

Go to all your alumni functions, yeah. Actually, that wasn’t a strategy. I think we were introduced by one of my former clients. Being there is important, being involved. Taking a position and being an activist. All those things put you into relationships with other people. It’s an ecology of meetings and issues and talents.

Your appreciation of diverse expertise would explain your recent fascination with mushrooms.

It’s really true. We’ve been having this mushroom thing in our office lately. They can take really bad chemicals out of soil. People we’re working with on a visitor center in Greenville, S.C., are using them to improve soils in different ways so we can get native plants to grow.

Two themes of your work are an infatuation with technology and a fondness for wildlife. I’m thinking of your tortoise-inspired bentwood pavilion near a pond at Lincoln Park Zoo. Also your Starlight Theater in Rockford, Ill., whose roof opens like a flower. Are these interests related or do they spring from different sources?

I’ve never been one to think about nature in a pastoral, picturesque way. I think of it as a potent force that can be harnessed. Wildlife is technology. We can completely treat wastewater using the right type of plants and design. As it becomes harder to get out of urban sprawl, suddenly you can have nature right in the middle of the city, which is exciting.

Chicago has changed enormously in the past 30 years. Architecturally, what are the best and worst things that have happened there since your childhood?

The one thing I really love about Chicago is it’s never afraid to change its identity. It was a gritty industrial city, and it became a super green city. New York is the same. Suddenly it’s full of bike paths. These are signs of resilience. The next frontier is improving the quality of life in cities.

Is there anything you miss about the old Chicago?

Nothing. It’s been growing up and filling in. I just wish I could put a belt around it and make it denser. We would be much better served with our infrastructure and walkability issues. Right now, I’m looking out my office window and seeing five lanes of moving traffic, plus two parking lanes. It doesn’t really need all that.

Chicago architects, especially those pushing sustainability, had a great advocate in former Mayor Richard M. Daley. Have you seen equal support from Rahm Emanuel’s administration?

He’s just getting started, but I speak for the architecture community in saying that everyone’s excited by the high caliber of intellectual strength there. He seems like someone who will be looking for good solutions.

What is your own home like?

I live in a relatively small apartment, because I’m never there. It’s in an early skyscraper downtown, close to the lakefront and bike paths. I’m enjoying that. For the one hour a day I get to recreate, I can go outside.

2011年9月28日 星期三

A must-have item for when disaster strikes


BY TOMOKO ADACHI STAFF WRITER

2011/09/29


photoShoji Tanaka, president of Cosmopower Co., displays Noah disaster evacuation shelters that are nearing completion. (Tomoko Adachi)photoShoji Tanaka, the president of Cosmopower Co., sits in a Noah evacuation shelter. (Tomoko Adachi)

HIRATSUKA, Kanagawa Prefecture -- A tiny local factory here is attracting national attention with a spherical-shaped personal evacuation shelter for use in natural disasters.

The device, called Noah, is made of glass fiber reinforced plastic.

In less than a month since Cosmopower Co. unveiled its first model, the company has received 500 orders.

The Hiratsuka-based outfit, with only 10 employees, specializes in research and development of eco-friendly products.

The basic model can accommodate four adults, who sit holding on to a bar for support. The sphere weighs 70 kilograms and is 1.2 meters in diameter. It is priced at 288,000 yen ($3,770).

Cosmopower plans to produce larger models, one 1.5 meters in diameter for six people and another 2.5 meters in diameter for 12 people.

The economy of size means the shelters can be stored in the garden or at home.

Fiberglass-reinforced plastic is a lightweight, extremely strong and robust material used in the manufacture of pleasure craft and motorcycle helmets, among other items.

The spherical shape makes it even stronger.

Like a "daruma" doll, which automatically rights itself, Noah requires ballast. This ensures that it will maintain its balance and stay afloat, even if carried away by tsunami.

The shelter has a small window and two air ducts on the top. It comes in one color--bright yellow--so that it will stand out in an emergency.

The shelter is a brainchild of Shoji Tanaka, the president of the company.

Tanaka, 66, came up with the idea of the shelter four years ago and posted his concept on the Internet. He wanted to produce a device that can withstand substantial battering caused by sudden torrential downpours, flooding, landslides and typhoons.

The company was inundated with inquiries after the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake. Tanaka produced a prototype in April and decided there was sufficient demand to produce the spheres in bulk.

It was subjected to rigorous testing to mimic the impact of falling masonry and being swept off steep ledges. One test involved dropping a 100-kilogram iron block on the device. In another, the sphere was dropped into water from a height of 10 meters.

The shelter withstood everything that was thrown at it.

The first model for mass production was completed on Sept. 5. It is now undergoing separate shock and strength tests by an outside organization.

At some point, the company plans to test the shelter with people inside.

"Everyone has been groping for ways to protect the lives of family members since the March 11 disaster," Tanaka said. "I hope the Noah shelters will serve as a contemporary version of Noah's Ark."

2011年9月26日 星期一

Apollo: an illustrated manual of the history of art throughout the ages

封面



此書為 胡適 1912 所用的教科書 (美術哲學科) 他在10月2日記說: 全書附圖六百幅....真可寶玩之書也....10月11日記:夜讀Apollo 十篇.....


此書後來有漢譯: 阿波羅美術史 可惜當時印刷水準極差 台灣60年代有翻印


Salomon Reinach (29 August 1858 – 4 November 1932) was a French archaeologist.

The brother of Joseph Reinach, he was born at St Germain-en-Laye and educated at the École normale supérieure before joining the French school at Athens in 1879. He made valuable archaeological discoveries at Myrina near Smyrna in 1880-82, at Cyme in 1881, at Thasos, Imbros and Lesbos (1882), at Carthage and Meninx (1883-84), at Odessa (1893) and elsewhere. He received honours from the chief learned societies of Europe.

In 1887 he obtained an appointment at the National Museum of Antiquities at Saint-Germain-en-Laye; in 1893 he became assistant keeper, and in 1902 keeper of the national museums. In 1903 he became joint editor of the Revue archéologique, and in the same year officer of the Legion of Honour. The lectures he delivered on art at the École du Louvre in 1902-3 were published by him under the title of Apollo. These were translated into most European languages, and became a standard handbook on the subject.

Reinach's first published work was a translation of Arthur Schopenhauer's Essay on Free Will (1877), which passed through many editions. This was followed by many works and articles in the learned reviews of which a list--up to 1903--is available in Bibliographie de S. R. (Angers, 1903). His Manuel de philologie classique (1880-1884) was crowned by the French association for the study of Greek; his Grammaire latine (1886) received a prize from the Society of Secondary Education; La Nécropole de Myrina (1887), written with E Pottier, and Antiquités nationales were crowned by the Academy of Inscriptions. He compiled an important Répertoire de la statuaire grecque et romaine (3 vols., 1897-98); also Répertoire de peintures du Moyen âge et de la Renaissance 1280-1580 (1905, etc.); Répertoire des vases peints grecs et étrusques (1900). In 1905 he began his Cultes, mythes et religions; and in 1909 he published a general sketch of the history of religions under the title of Orpheus. He also translated from the English HC Lea's History of the Inquisition.

Salomon Reinach died in 1932 and was buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre in the Montmartre Quarter of Paris.

2011年9月23日 星期五

What Leaders Look Like: A Continental Shift

Art Review

What Leaders Look Like: A Continental Shift

Librado Romero/The New York Times

The “Bangwa Queen” from the Grassfields region of Cameroon, originally in a 19th-century shrine, is a centerpiece of the Met's “Heroic Africans” exhibition. More Photos »

If you still think that African art is not your thing, there’s an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum that may change your mind. It’s called “Heroic Africans: Legendary Leaders, Iconic Sculptures,” and it’s as beautiful to look at as a show can possibly be.

Multimedia


Royal Museum for Central Africa, Belgium

A Chokwe mask from Congo proposes a reality-based ideal of unearthly female beauty. More Photos »

It’s a perception changer in other ways too, as it argues, through demonstration, against basic misunderstandings surrounding this art. African art has no history? No independent tradition of realism? No portraiture? All African sculpture looks basically alike, meaning “primitive”? African and Western art are fundamentally different in content and purpose? Wrong across the board.

Art from sub-Saharan Africa is some of the oldest known, dating back tens of thousands of years. In the exhibition the oldest pieces are naturalistic, portraitlike terra-cotta heads from southwestern Nigeria from the 12th century.

Before the modern era, ancient African chronicles were passed on by word of mouth, from storyteller to storyteller, and many sculptures, early and late, embody centuries-old accounts of real people and real lives. They compress them into a visual shorthand the way oral tradition compresses generations-long narratives.

Even a quick stroll through this exhibition’s eight sections, each devoted to a different West or Central African art tradition, confirms African art’s variety, in a stylistic spectrum stretching from detail-perfect representation to near-abstraction. And as to African art’s pertinence to Western concerns, suffice it to say that almost all the sculpture in this exhibition is asking a question that is foremost on the mind of many Americans in the early stages of the presidential campaign: what are the qualities we want and need in our political leaders?

To ease our way into all of this, the show begins with a comparative look at political power portraits from Africa and the West: a 17th-century brass head depicting a ruler of the kingdom of Benin, in what is now Nigeria, and a carved marble bust of the Roman emperor Octavian, who called himself Augustus, from around A.D. 5.

Augustus’ portrait is of a familiarly naturalistic type; we know his name because it was written down and is found on many identical portraits. The naturalism of the Benin head is highly stylized, and the name of the ruler unknown, lost with the spoken histories erased by colonialism.

Despite their differences, though, neither “portrait” is more or less realistic than the other. Augustus is depicted as a Greek Apollo with a Roman haircut. The Benin king, wide-eyed and plump, almost bursting with good health, conforms to an African ideal of regal well-being. Both portraits commemorate real people who lived and died, but are, before all else, abstract emblems of ethical standards to be emulated and political power to be revered.

And since political power was usually accompanied by wealth throughout Africa, as everywhere else, the ruling elite drew on top-rank talent and technology when commissioning art. This is evident in the Benin royal portraits and in the terra-cotta heads produced in the Yoruba capital, Ife, also in Nigeria, between the 12th and 15th centuries.

With their soft, grave naturalism, these heads have an automatic appeal to the Western eye, and the seven examples in the show are simply out of this world. All have similar sensuous features: full lips, almond eyes and all-over patterns of vertical striations, read by some experts as cosmetic scarring, by others as representing shadows cast by beaded veils attached to royal crowns.

Despite the similarities, each face is subtly particularized, suggesting that they were all inspired by living models, though exactly who they may have been and how these portraits — if they are portraits — were meant to function remain mysteries.

But one thing is sure: many of them predate colonial contact. This means that realism in art, which the West tends to view as its distinctive accomplishment, developed independently in Africa, though there, with so many other rich options available, it was only sporadically esteemed.

Terra-cotta sculpture also flourished among the Akan people of Ghana and Ivory Coast in the 17th and 18th centuries, but sometimes in semiabstract form. In memorial shrine effigies of honored individuals made in the Kwahu region of Ghana, for example, the head, balanced atop a long neck that is also a body, is as flat as a plate and tilted upward so that small, pinched facial features look to the sky.

2011年9月18日 星期日

Quotation.引號:倫敦最新創意特輯

Quotation.引號:倫敦最新創意特輯

Quotation.引號:倫敦最新創意特輯 Quotation

世界名畫之旅

世界名畫之旅--第1-5冊--文庫出版社 1992
此套書應該是翻譯自日本的作品

Charles Correa

Charles Correa


Author: Charles Correa, with an essay by Kenneth Frampton

Date: 1997-10-18

Pages: 271

Publisher: Thames & Hudson

0

Description


Charles Correa


Charles Correa
Charles Correa, Kenneth Frampton | Thames & Hudson | 1997-10-18 | 271 pages | English |

The architectural and urban planning solutions of Charles Correa, the brilliant Indian architect, effectively combine traditional spiritual and symbolic themes with the environmental and cultural demands of a modernized society. They have gained him a global following. His projects have been as wide-ranging as they are impressive: low-rise, low-cost, high-density housing, entire townships and extensions to major cities, but also many individual buildings, such as the Gandhi Museum. In addition to the architect's own presentation of his ideas, Kenneth Frampton provides an overall assessment of his achievement, and this model study of an increasingly influential figure is completed by a detailed chronology and bibliography.

2011年9月15日 星期四

Artist-designed rooms draw the curious to Yokohama

Artist-designed rooms draw the curious to Yokohama

BY LOUIS TEMPLADO STAFF WRITER

2011/09/16


photoProprietor Kose Iwamoto on the balcony of his art-themed Hostel Zen in Yokohama (Louis Templado)photoAn inner corridor turned into a musical chime (Louis Templado)photoLab coats and mounted insects in the stairwell (Louis Templado)photoInside one of the art rooms at the hostel (Louis Templado)

For about the price of admission to all the exhibits at the current Yokohama Triennale 2011 international exhibition of contemporary art, you could also spend the night in it.

Although not part of the Triennale per se, at least one local hostel has jumped into the scene, inviting artists to remake rooms in live-in installations.

"The people around here are getting old, and we have to try something new," says Kose Iwamoto, who runs Hostel Zen, located in the Kotobukicho neighborhood of central Yokohama.

The hostel unveiled its art at the beginning of August, timed with the opening of the Yokohoma Triennale, which is held every three years at locales around the city and continues until Nov. 6.

The city is making a name for itself with contemporary art -- as a tool for urban redevelopment. Its Koganei district, once a warren of prostitutes in window displays, for example, has been refashioned into cafes and galleries over the past decade.

Among the artists whose works are at Hostel Zen are Yusuke Asai, Tei Erikusa, Asae Soya and Junji Shiotsu. Interesting as their creations are on their own (as is the idea of staring up at them as you lie in your futon), there's no ignoring their quirky contrast with the Kotobukicho neighborhood.

Set between Yokohama's magnetic Chinatown and Yokohama Stadium, Kotobukicho is Japan's version of the Bowery, a village-like amalgamation of so-called "doya" flophouses (which here are actually apartment buildings), bars, betting parlors and, in the middle of it all, a kindergarten. Children's laughter and the moans and groans of aging day laborers fill the streets.

"Every building you can see here is basically a flophouse," says Iwamoto, whose family has been local landlords for three generations. There are close to 200 such buildings in the neighborhood, all with rooms three-and-a-half tatami mats in size, occupied by former day laborers who are now receiving public assistance from the city.

Hostel Zen is actually the top two floors of one of the apartment blocks. It opened three years ago as one of a handful of hostels catering to foreign tourists on a tight budget (rooms are 3,000 yen, or $39). Just around the corner is another hostel, Porto, similarly featuring art.

"Backpackers from nearby countries got to be a normal sight around here," says Iwamoto. "But after the big earthquake they've completely stopped coming."

Instead the hostel is drawing Japanese families who want to take their time in Chinatown, sports fans from far away and music groupies. The neighborhood fills with Japanese Rasta heads whenever there's a reggae festival at the stadium.

The installations at Hostel Zen, no surprise, also draw artists. Among them is conceptual photographer Yousuke Takeda, some of whose works are hanging in the place. Although he lives in Tokyo, Takeda is a frequent guest at the hostel, often leading fellow artists there.

"It looks rough at first, there's a warmth and openness here that I can't find anymore in Tokyo," says the photographer. Likewise the rooms at the lodge may be cramped, but they offer their own brand of contact.

"Going to a gallery or museum is one way to see art," he adds, "but you get a different sense of appreciation when you spend the night with it."

2011年9月14日 星期三

彫刻家 流 政之 Masayuki Nagare

  1. 流政之 Masayuki Nagare Official Websit

    www.nagaremasayuki.com/ - 頁庫存檔
    彫刻家 流 政之ウェブサイト. 日本語サイト; 英語サイト.
  2. 彫刻家 流政之 オフィシャルウェブサイト

    www.nagaremasayuki.com/flash/index.html - 頁庫存檔
    CONTENTS. Cpyrithg(c)2008-2009 NAGARE STUDIO. All rights reserved ...
  3. 流政之 - Wikipedia

    ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/流政之 - 頁庫存檔
    流政之. 出典: フリー百科事典『ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』. 移動: 案内, 検索. 流 政之(ながれ まさゆき、1923年2月14日 - )は、世界的に活躍する彫刻家、作庭家。 ...

2011年9月13日 星期二

Still Unearthing Discoveries in de Kooning’s Brush Strokes

Still Unearthing Discoveries in de Kooning’s Brush Strokes

Librado Romero/The New York Times

John Elderfield, the Museum of Modern Art's chief curator emeritus of painting and sculpture, has immersed himself in the work of Willem de Kooning.


The first thing visitors will see at the entrance to the Museum of Modern Art’s sprawling Willem de Kooning retrospective, which opens on Sunday, is a wall of photographs that chronicle six stages in the creation of the legendary painting “Woman I” (1950-52). John Elderfield, MoMA’s chief curator emeritus of painting and sculpture, said he chose these images as a starting point because they illustrate “that de Kooning was an artist about process.”


The latest on the arts, coverage of live events, critical reviews, multimedia extravaganzas and much more. Join the discussion.


Librado Romero/The New York Times

De Kooning "was always changing," said John Elderfield, right, at the installation of his show on the artist at MoMA. The painting is "Woman III" (1952-53), part of the $4 billion worth in art that, experts say, the museum has assembled for the exhibition.

For the last six years Mr. Elderfield has immersed himself in the work of de Kooning, who helped define the shape of postwar American art. The artist, who died in 1997, was especially known for his large and luscious canvases of riotous brush strokes and curving forms, and for his preoccupation with the female figure, a subject he returned to in different guises throughout his career.

Mr. Elderfield has a big story to tell. The exhibition includes some 200 works made over nearly seven decades — paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures — and occupies the museum’s entire 17,000-square-foot sixth floor, a first for an exhibition since MoMA reopened after its expansion in 2004.

It is also the first comprehensive look at de Kooning’s work in nearly 30 years (The Whitney Museum of American Art held the last thorough retrospective in 1983.)

“This is an artist people want to know of,” Mr. Elderfield said, adding that he believed de Kooning would be “rediscovered by a new generation.”

Because the price of postwar art has escalated so drastically over the last few years, with major works by de Kooning fetching astronomical prices, the show, which consists primarily of loans, is costing MoMA greatly. While the museum will not give an exact figure, experts familiar with the retrospective say it includes more than $4 billion worth of art: an enormously costly group of works to transport and insure, making it perhaps the most expensive exhibition in the institution’s history.

Delving into the career of a master like de Kooning would seem unlikely to yield discoveries, given that his story has been told so many times, including in a biography that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2005: his arrival in New York from his native Netherlands as a stowaway in 1926; his hard-drinking life in cold-water lofts; his first one-man show at 44; and his eventual fame as the artist who epitomized the improvisational bravura of Abstract Expressionism. (De Kooning’s waning years are well known too: in the 1980s he was given a diagnosis of dementia, and in 1989 he was declared incompetent by his lawyer and his daughter, Lisa.)

But Mr. Elderfield approached his subject as if on an art historical treasure hunt. As he started working on the exhibition, one clue led to another and another, until he was able to piece together new insights from technical studies, photographs, popular postwar films and even magazine clips about movie stars of the day.

“He’s someone whose art is hard to get your hands around,” said Mr. Elderfield, standing in the middle of the exhibition’s galleries on a recent morning as the last few paintings were being hung. “He was always changing. When his colleagues — Pollock, Newman and Rothko — found a signature style, they stuck with it. When de Kooning found his signature style, he would abandon it and struggle to discover the next one.”

Some periods of his work are better known than others. For example, many de Kooning canvases from the 1940s — quasi-abstract paintings that are darker than much of what he’d done before and have an almost grotesque quality — have rarely been exhibited.

The paradox is that those paintings represent the era when, Mr. Elderfield said, “de Kooning becomes de Kooning.” Among the works from that decade are a group of canvases called “Secretary,” “The Secretary’s Day” and “Stenographer,” which reflect “that postwar era when women entered the workforce,” as Mr. Elderfield put it.

Curious about the artist’s inspiration for these compositions — paintings and drawings dominated by shapes that look strangely like Casper the Friendly Ghost (who had his film premiere in 1945, Mr. Elderfield learned), combined with odd, amoebic figures; abstracted body parts; and grinning faces — Mr. Elderfield said he “turned to the wonders of Google.” That’s where he discovered several lessons in secretarial efficiency put out by Coronet Instructional Films, which featured calendar pads similar to those in many of de Kooning’s paintings.

Google was also where Mr. Elderfield found books from that era devoted to teaching stenography; many of de Kooning’s black-and-white canvases from that decade, he came to believe, were inspired by the hooks and curves of the symbols found in shorthand.

Lauren Mahony, the show’s curatorial assistant, made discoveries too. To get a feeling for what New York looked like in the 1940s and ’50s, she began scouring old Life magazines, and happened on an article titled “Movie Bad Girls” that included a picture of the Italian actress Silvana Mangano, who starred as a rice field worker in the 1949 movie “Bitter Rice.”

“De Kooning had said he was influenced by ‘Bitter Rice’ when he painted ‘Excavation,’ ” Ms. Mahony said of his seminal painting from 1950, which is on loan from the Art Institute of Chicago. “But he could never have seen the film, because it was only released in the United States after he’d finished ‘Excavation.’ ”

Curiously, the same issue of Life has an article about the excavation of New York City subway stations, suggesting to Ms. Mahony and Mr. Elderfield that de Kooning had been influenced by that particular issue of the magazine, rather than directly by the movie.

Perhaps Mr. Elderfield’s biggest revelation concerns de Kooning’s third series of “Women” paintings, this one from the ’50s. During the show’s planning, David White, Robert Rauschenberg’s official curator, told him of albums filled with photographs that Rauschenberg had taken of de Kooning’s Manhattan studio. Together these images made clear that “Woman I,” “Woman II” and “Woman III” were not completed in that order, as had long been believed.

Other photographs tell different stories. In the 1980s, when de Kooning was living and working on the East End of Long Island, his assistants would take photographs of the studio and the works in progress almost daily. By this time he was suffering from dementia.

“People later talked about how de Kooning was not in control of what he was doing, but it was clear from these photographs that he was,” Mr. Elderfield said. “The kind of continuous revision that happened to these pictures has very much de Kooning’s signature to it.”

These late, often haunting canvases — sparer than the sensual and colorfully theatrical work he created when he was at the height of his powers — have often been debated, because it is hard to know how much he painted himself and how much was done by studio assistants.

“When you think of artists today like Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, who have armies of assistants virtually creating their work, does it really matter?” Mr. Elderfield said. “I don’t think it does. In de Kooning’s case, we know his hand is in all his work.”

2011年9月11日 星期日

Modern artists on art


Modern artists on art : Robert L. Herbert (Editor) 現代藝術家論藝術

現代藝術家論藝術 雨芸 譯 台北: 龍田 1979 選12人 (初版 1964 增訂版 2000 增為16人)

現代藝術家論藝術【前往電子版】 出版日:1993??


Modern artists on art - Google Books

可讀8-9成原文

台北市の新美術館???

巨大な亀の甲羅のよう、妙に斬新な新美術館のデザイン構想




20110829_taipei01.jpg


台湾の台北市に建設予定の新美術館のための基本構想コンペが行われているのですが、なんか度肝を抜く斬新なデザインの案が出てきました。

ポルトガルのデザイン会社OODAのこの新美術館の設計案、まるで巨大な亀の甲羅、もしくは巨大なソウルジェム(いや、ちょっと違うかな...)が転がっているように見えます。

外壁は鋼鉄とガラスとソーラーパネルで覆われているそうです。

この妙に斬新でかっこいいデザイン、いつか本当にお目見えする日が来るのでしょうか。
是非訪れてみたい! 

その他の写真は以下のギャラリーよりどうぞ。

杏廬先生 (董橋) 沉香鉤沉

沉香鉤沉

■董橋

杏廬先生宴客,座上一位老先生身邊的少艾清麗文靜素雅,終席淺淺微笑不說一句話,只顧細心侍候老先生用膳。老先生鬚眉銀白,目光爍亮,一管鷹鼻一枝筆似的英挺,純正國語一個字一個字慢慢迸出一句句動聽的話,隨便說說經歷說說掌故抄下來都是上好的筆記聽說他出身舊京書香世家,抗戰前後是遊走京滬的買辦,家藏一室青銅器,還有一批絕世宣爐,五十年代整批轉讓給一位富商。座上一位外國通訊社駐港特派員問老先生珍品易主的感想,老先生沉默了一下徐徐迸出八個字:「身外之物,過眼煙雲!」

春節無事,翻檢樟木箱子裏幾疊舊筆記本,竟得杏廬先生手抄的幾頁雜錄,有的記銅爐,有的記沉香,有的記漆器,還有三頁記景泰藍,都是當年在他家裏見過的文房清玩。記沉香那段引《日下舊聞考》中〈安息香〉一條,說劉鶴所製月麟、聚仙、沈速三品最佳,說劉鶴還製龍桂香,製芙蓉香,製暖閣香,杏廬家藏黑香餅據說也是劉製,裝在錫盒裏。隱約記得杏廬說那位老先生祖上也製線香,跟劉鶴一脈是親戚。

杏廬十分敬重老先生,說他學問廣博,見過世面,做人做事很有分寸,是個仗義的朋友。那時候杏廬家裏珍藏一件沉香木雕臂擱,原形木料加工浮雕一枝杏花,剔透玲瓏,深棕色的木紋包漿極老,潤亮可愛:「寒齋用杏,老先生一九五五年勻給我的,」杏廬說。 「難得的鷓鴣斑,更難得的明代雕工,清素中盡見雅韻,老先生說是五四運動那年他父親從太監家裏買到的!」聽說老先生舊藏還有一枝沉香雕的髮簪更精妙,鉛筆那麼長,花紋細如微雕,老早​​成了杜篆香烏亮髮髻上的夢影,杏廬先生說他心中想要也說不出口了。這樣精巧的沉香木雕我沒見過。杏廬那件沉香臂擱我也從來見不到第二件。

七十年代陪南洋莊大哥在倫敦古玩店裏看到的那幾件明清沉香木雕算是奇遇,酒杯、齋戒牌、佛像、香插、筆筒、臂擱,莊大哥買了酒杯、齋牌和筆筒,如今回想,那麼小巧,該是釵筒不是筆筒。那件臂擱更比不上杏廬家裏那件杏花矜貴,難怪莊大哥看不上。沉香杯倒是佳品,好幾年後我找到的是一對,也雕山水農舍,明末清初的案頭清供,不久英國友人戴立克在倫敦又找到一件,也不錯,可惜貴多了。同輩前輩裏真懂沉香的不多,朱家溍王世襄二位不算,揚之水潛心做過研究寫過書,是學院派專家。杏廬先生懂得多,玩的也多,光是伽南手串都珍藏十幾串,都藏在錫盒裏。接下來該數莊大哥了,他在南洋那幢洋房叫「伽南小築」,聽說是他祖父請梁啟超題的匾。杏廬下世十幾年了我才遇見一串伽南手串,跟杏廬一件舊藏很像,也裝在錫盒裏,長年擺在我的書桌上,讀書寫稿累了打開聞一聞,果然清香提神,杏廬教的。他說他懂得些沉香都靠老先生指點。

幸虧找出樟木箱子裏這些舊筆記舊紙條,不然我也記不起幾十年前的天香國色了。杏廬席上初會之後,我還再見老先生兩次,一次在希爾頓吃下午茶,申先生請客;一次是我陪杏廬先生去看瓷瓶在翟先生的古玩店相遇。老先生精神很好。

四十幾年了,我無意間邂逅一件沉香木雕墨床,只七厘米高,十厘米寬,因材施工,雕磨精細,右邊一剪梅,枝上雕三朵花蕾,一朵大、兩朵小,穿牆還躲著一朵,該是清代巧匠作品,三分杏廬那件杏花臂擱的風格,暗暗的香氣也像,稀罕的案頭雅玩,清幽可喜。記得杏廬常說沉香文玩雕琢不宜繁密,越是留住木紋木形越可貴,比如麗人蛾眉淡掃,難掩嫵媚,那才叫姿,才叫色。多年前南洋一位老同學給我帶來一大塊沉香木,如山如巖,不雕不琢,蒼雄秀深得不得了,案頭供養,更見靈氣,真是白居易說的百仞一拳,千里一瞬,坐而得之。那是緣。



董橋 福建晉江人,1942年生。原名董存爵。台灣成功大學外文系畢業,曾在英國倫敦大學亞非學院研究多年。歷任《今日世界》叢書部編輯、英國國家廣播公司製作人及時事評論、《明報月刊》總編輯、《讀者文摘》總編輯等職,現任《蘋果日報》社長。
董氏文筆雄深雅健,兼有英國散文之淵博雋永與明清小品之情趣靈動,為當代中文書寫另闢蹊徑,深獲海峽兩岸三地讀者傾心喜愛。歷年在台灣出版的文集包括《另外一種心情》(遠景)、《這一代的事》、《跟中國的夢賽跑》(均為圓神)、《辯證法的黃昏》(當代)等以及翻譯書籍多種。另外在香港、北京、杭州、廣州、天津、成都、上海及瀋陽出版文集十多種。


杏廬先生

我在淺水灣俞家拜識這位前輩:銀髮稀疏整齊,天庭寬濶飽滿,細緻的玳瑁眼鏡染深了炯炯的眼神,一口四川官話迴盪著戰時陪都重慶的遺韻。俞老伯說他是世界上最快樂的寓公,居室起名杏廬,只要記住了他笑起來的酒窩像兩枚杏仁就記得住「杏廬先生」了。前輩說那其實是成都老家外公的齋名,清道人題的匾,他一九五二年在香港請張大千另寫一幅紀念先人。他是宋元古畫專家,我和申石初先生在俞家看過他珍藏的趙孟頫和徐文幼,申先生說趙體書法從小看到老,練到老,沒想到趙松雪的畫竟也這樣妍麗。


四十年前的事了。那天,杏廬先生說趙孟
是宋室王孫,二十多歲投降元朝,當了翰林學士,封了魏國公,黃公望、倪瓚、王蒙全是他的門生,畫風竟然攀附巨然遺法,倪瓚甚至瞧不起趙孟的外甥王蒙擺脫​​舅舅法規不夠澈底,題畫揶揄他說「非王蒙輩所能夢見」! 「講一句公道話,」杏廬先生說,「趙孟學的是董源《龍宿郊民圖》一派之精細畫技,求的是神韻,那些晚輩怎麼叛逆也推不倒松雪道人館閣領袖的地位!」聽了前輩一番議論,申先生彷彿走進一座陌生的桃花源,領著我到港大圖書館硬啃一堆宋元畫派的材料,短短兩個週末算是看清了一點景緻。

六十年代香港古舊純樸,生活清淡,淵博溫煦的能人又多,問學聞道的機緣處處都是,我和申先生在俞家靜聽老一輩人聊天真像鑽進筆記雜著裡窺探前人的言笑,有趣極了。俞老伯平日不愛出門,杏廬先生倒喜歡約朋友到中環逛街喝茶。那天去雪廠街集古齋走過都爹利街口,他指著巷子裡一幢舊樓說那是李祖永的舊宅子,姚克從上海出來在這裡住過。有個傍晚,姚先生外出回來坐在房間裡休息,忽然看到房門對面的盥洗室有個長髮美女穿著睡袍對著鏡子梳妝。姚先生心想她也許是李祖永弟弟李祖發的女朋友,剛一猶疑,美女悠然不見了。他好奇走去問隔壁房間的李祖發,李祖發說家裡從來沒有女人來過:「過去我哥哥有個朋友的如夫人倒是住在這裡的,前幾年病死了,身影跟你說的一樣妖嬈!」姚先生一聽心中浮起《聊齋》裡的許多故事,匆匆整理行裝搬走了。

杏廬先生會刻圖章,喜練字,懂古玉,口袋里長年藏著小玉件隨時拿在手上盤,說是盤玉可以修心。有一天,我跟徐訏先生在七重天喝下午茶,杏廬先生剛巧帶著夫人進來歇腳,我請他們坐過來。 「徐先生,」他深深鞠躬說,「一部《風蕭蕭》我都翻爛了,真是幸會!」我們聊到天黑​​才走。過了大半年,杏廬先生忽然來電話說他們要去美國跟兒孫過日子了。俞家的餞別宴上,他拉我到染滿晚霞的露台悄悄說:「太子行翟先生有一件竹刻班婕妤臂擱,真好,價錢合理,你趕緊要了吧!」那是一九七一年的深秋。

臂擱是清代竹人王勳刻的,寫〈怨歌行〉的西漢女文學家手持團扇亭亭而立,題「漢班婕妤,扶風人,敦禮嫻雅,曾作團扇吟傳於詩什間,奇女也。己亥冬月,竹名王勳刊」。她是班況的女兒,班彪的姑姑,成帝年間選入宮中為婕妤,受趙飛燕譖誣退處東宮,作賦自傷,成帝駕崩她充奉陵園,黯然而終。 「老先生替你殺了價錢了,」翟先生笑說,「是你的了!」申石初喜歡臂擱竹色殷紅,喜歡波磔刀口下美女那張臉微微隆起的肌膚之感。他替我找出班婕妤傳世的三篇歌賦,可惜我們都查不到王勳的生平:「不入《竹人錄》的明清刻竹高手顯然不少,」他說。 「簡直是元代畫家裡的隱士派了!」

「隱士派」是陳定山先生說的。陳先生斷定宋代的畫即便脫離了院體標榜文人氣息,畫家終歸不是出身畫院就是頭戴紗帽的士大夫;到了元代,畫人墨客忽然蒙受國破之痛,立志隱居不仕,拒絕異族之交,有的遁跡空門,有的浪跡市井,蕭蕭然凝聚成了中華民族一幅動人的國魂!陳先生說趙孟
畢竟是獻媚求榮的前朝王孫,入了元代不幸當上「妥協派」了。一天,杏廬先生在希爾頓的鷹巢請吃午飯,申先生跟他談起陳定山這套觀點,他微微皺了皺眉頭說:「松雪道人之藝術抱負斷非陳定山輩所能夢見!」他想的是畫的工力;陳定山要的是畫的意趣。窗外飄著濛濛的煙雨,像宋詞,像元曲。

2011年9月10日 星期六

Apple's new campus will be a retrograde cocoon

手作り感が生み出す磁場 「所沢ビエンナーレ美術展2011 引込線」 

手作り感が生み出す磁場 「所沢ビエンナーレ美術展2011 引込線」 

写真:前野智彦「無人/島」(2011年)拡大前野智彦「無人/島」(2011年)

写真:利部志穂の作品(2011年)拡大利部志穂の作品(2011年)

 会場も主催者の枠組みも変わってしまった。といっても、横浜トリエンナーレのことではなく、プレ展も含めて3回目となる所沢ビエンナーレのことだ。

 戸谷成雄、遠藤利克ら埼玉県所沢市近辺に暮らす美術家たちが手作りで始めた隔年展の主催に、何と今回は文化庁が参加。出品者らが運営費を負担しなくても 済んだそうだが、「国家プロジェクト」の趣とはほど遠い。自主的な運営は相変わらずで、実力派から若手まで約30人が出品している。

 それよりも本当の変化は会場が旧車両工場から変わったことだ。新会場は二つで、西武・航空公園駅から15分ほど歩くと、第1会場の同市生涯学習推進センターにたどり着く。

 2本の白旗を風車のように回すタムラサトルや中山正樹の大作は体育館の空間を生かし、プールサイドでは遠藤の焼けた木による箱形の枠組みが震災を連想させもする。だが残念ながら、「引込線」の由来にもなった、旧会場の鉄骨むき出しの大空間ほどの魅力はない。

 しかし、さらに徒歩15分ほどの旧市立第2学校給食センターの第2会場は、流れ作業用と思える機器の機能美、金属の官能美があり、出品者は、「工場萌(も)え」とも呼ばれる美意識に立ち向かわなければならない。

 機器の間に木枠を挿入して異化を目指すかのような篠崎英介に対し、前野智彦は組み立てパイプや拡大鏡を使い実験プラント風の立体を見せる=写真上。その“同化”路線がはまり、元の空間の再解釈にもつながる。

 中崎透は金属やプラスチックの道具などを積み、週刊誌から抜き出した複数の文章を張り付ける。「慣れてくると意外としっかりしてそうですね」なんて給食作りにもありそうで、場所を生かしつつ、文脈で意味合いの変わる言葉の性質を突く。

 そして、屋外タンクの傍らに置かれた利部(かがぶ)志穂の作品。金属のカゴなどを組み上げ、銀色の風船が漂う=同下。視線が抜ける開放感が、どこか詩的だ。

 実際の引き込み線はなくなってしまったが、「吸引力のある磁場を」という副題に込めた思いは、手作り感と、知的、美的な身体反応を思わせる表現が同居する第2会場で、きわどく実現している。(編集委員・大西若人)

 ▽18日まで。第1会場は同市並木6の4の1、第2会場は同市中富1862の1。7、12日休み。




2011年9月9日 星期五

Three sisters present three different visions of style


Three sisters present three different visions of style

BY MIKAKO ABE STAFF WRITER

2011/09/10


photoA three-sister show held in Kishiwada, Osaka Prefecture, in 2000 brought the family members together. (From left: Hiroko, Ayako, Junko and Michiko)photoA design by Junko presented in Paris in 1998 (Photo provided by Junko Koshino)photoA painting and dress by Hiroko exhibited in Paris in July (Photo by Hirokazu OhHiroko, Junko and Michiko Koshinoara)photoA design by Michiko featured in the 1998 Fall/Winter London Collection. (Photo provided by Michiko Koshino Japan)

It all started in an intensely competitive household in Kishiwada, Osaka Prefecture, in the 1950s.

Ayako Koshino's husband had died of illness at the front line during World War II and she was faced with the daunting task of trying to run a clothing store single-handed, while raising three daughters: Hiroko, Junko and Michiko.

Her policy, recalls Hiroko, was to get her daughters to "compete with one another to stir up a sense of rivalry."

"I think that is how our different styles emerged -- elegant for me, avant-garde for Junko and sporty for Michiko," she says.

grew up to become world-famous names in the fashion industry and will feature in a drama series about their mother's life (1913-2006) to be aired by Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) from October.

In real life, the sisters, now industry veterans, are still forging ahead. In July, 74-year-old Hiroko opened an exhibition in Paris of her paintings and the clothes they inspired.

"The show is more of an art-related activity than an effort to sell clothes. It also adds to the depth of design behind my ready-to-wear line," says the designer.

She says her designs have roots in traditional Japanese arts such as Kabuki, "bunraku," "nagauta" and samisen playing, which she saw as a child with her grandfather.

Hiroko initially wanted to become a painter, reacting against expectations that she would follow in her mother's footsteps. But design drawings by illustrator Junichi Nakamura opened her eyes to her mother's world. She says she realized that "dressmaking is not only about sewing, it can be expressed through pictures."

While studying at Bunka Fashion College in Tokyo, she turned her attention overseas after meeting Pierre Cardin and, in 1978, she made her debut in Rome. She went on to take part in the Paris Collection.

Her elegant style often blends Japanese influences with Western designs. For instance, one dress features a golden pine tree set on black, while another comes with a robe resembling an "uchikake" kimono coat.

Junko Koshino, 72, is known for her bold, structural designs and has often been characterized as an avant-garde designer. As a child, she favored after-school lessons in Western disciplines such as ballet, but was also a bit of a tomboy, with a penchant for pulling the floats during the local Danjiri Festival.

As a senior high school student, she was good at oil painting and wanted to get into an art university. In the end, though, she headed for the Bunka Fashion College, like her elder sister, and, while studying there, won the So-en Award, a well-known passport into a career in fashion.

She frequented jazz cafes in Tokyo's Shinjuku district and began designing costumes for rock bands involved in the "group sounds" scene. She opened a boutique called Colette in Tokyo's Aoyama. Her clientele included lyricist Kazumi Yasui and Misa Watanabe, founder of Watanabe Productions.

"To me, music and fashion are one," she once said. In 1978, she chose Chinese folk music to accompany her first Paris Collection show and has since developed strong ties with China, where she held a show in 1985. She also organized a show in Cuba, featuring local professional dancers.

The third sister, 68-year-old Michiko Koshino, is known for her sporty, casual style, and has been living in London since 1973. Her clothes were a fixture on London catwalks between 1980 and 2006.

She was an accomplished tennis player as a child and did not attend a fashion school. Instead, she studied sewing and design under her mother.

"Since I used to play in her workshop all the time, I didn't feel dressmaking was difficult at all," says Michiko.

To Michiko, her mother was "a person who concentrated on making women happy through clothes by turning out fresh and easy-to-wear items."

She decided to move to London because of its vibrant music scene and because she wanted to get away from her sisters' connections and secure her own territory. She regards her sisters as business mentors rather than rival designers.

She says: "I'm always thinking of doing something different from them."

Recently, she created a new line of resort wear and held a show on the Spanish island of Ibiza. She will launch a cosmetic brand in Japan in the fall.