Displaying items by tag: designer

The V&A has announced details for the only major retrospective in Europe of the work of the visionary fashion designer Lee Alexander McQueen. One of the most innovative designers of his generation, McQueen was celebrated for his extraordinary creative talent. He combined a profound grasp of tailoring and eclectic range of influences with a relentless pursuit to challenge the boundaries of art and fashion, blending the latest technology with traditional craftsmanship.

Originated by the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, "Savage Beauty" will be edited and expanded for the V&A’s large exhibition galleries. It will feature 30 additional garments, including some rare early pieces, lent by private individuals and collectors such as Katy England and Annabelle Neilson as well as pieces from the Isabella Blow Collection and the House of Givenchy.

Museums that house objects have a particularly difficult task. These objects were created with the intention that they would be handled, and part of the fascination with them lies in human activity that they indicate. However, for the safety of the objects, they are most often placed behind glass cases and out of reach of the average museum visitor. This can make them little more than pictures of themselves and creates a distance between viewer and object that is difficult to overcome. As a result, many museums have been looking to technology to help them reconnect their collections and their visitors.

Enter Dutch designer Maaike Roozenburg and her 3D printing knowledge. Roozenburg creates replicas of precious objects and then adds a layer of augmented reality information.

On August 18, 2013 the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, VT will open its new Center for Art and Education. Historically a seasonal museum, the Shelburne will stay open year-round after the Center’s inauguration for the first time in the institution’s 66-year history.

The Center for Art and Education, which was designed by the Boston-based architecture firm, Ann Beha Architects, boasts 18,000-square-feet and will allow the Shelburne Museum to expand their exhibition offerings as well as implement new programming. The Center is part of the $14 million capital campaign “The Campaign for Shelburne Museum.” The campaign includes an endowment to maintain the center as well as the installation of a fiber-optic communications network throughout the Shelburne’s site, which spans 45 acres.

Founded by pioneering American folk art collector Electra Havemeyer Webb (1888-1960) in 1947, the Shelburne Museum holds one of the most remarkable and diverse collections of art and Americana. The museum’s 150,000 holdings include Impressionist paintings, folk art, quilts, textiles, decorative arts, furniture, American paintings, and various artifacts dating from the 17^th to 20^th century, which are exhibited in 39 different buildings. Webb collected various 18^th and 19^th century structures including houses, barns, a lighthouse, a jail, and a steamboat to house her collection; 25 of the buildings are historic.

Upon her death on January 7, 2013 at the age of 91, Ada Louise Huxtable (1921-2013), a pioneering architecture critic, writer and historian, left her entire estate and her archives to the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. The bequest also included an apartment in New York City, a house in Marblehead, MA, and the archives of Huxtable’s husband, industrial designer, Garth Huxtable (1911-1989).  Huxtable served as the architecture critic for the New York Times from 1963 to 1982 (she was the first full-time architecture critic at an American newspaper) and as a writer for the Wall Street Journal.

The Huxtable Archives, which include notes, correspondence, research files, manuscripts, drawings, and photography, will become part of the Getty’s Special Collections holdings. Huxtable, a proponent of historic preservation, will have her own groundbreaking work conserved for the benefit of the public and the field of architecture thanks to her partnership with the Getty.

The Museum of Modern Art is busy organizing the largest exhibition on the groundbreaking architect Le Corbusier ever to be held in New York. Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes is set to open on June 9 and run through September 23, 2013.

Born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, Le Corbusier defined modern architecture during his career, which spanned five decades. Le Corbusier was not just an architect, but also an urban planner, a painter, a writer, a designer, and a theorist. Le Corbusier’s best-known buildings include the Palace for the League of Nations in Geneva, Villa Savoye in Poissy, France, the Swiss Building in Paris, and the Secretariat at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

An Atlas of Modern Landscapes will be curated by the modern architecture scholar, Jean-Louis Cohen, and will cover Le Corbusier’s long and varied career. The exhibition will explore Le Corbusier’s contributions to architecture, interior design, and city planning. Works on view will include writings, photographs, sketches, watercolors, and models of some of Le Corbusier’s most renowned works.

The Tiffany Reading room located in Irvington, New York’s Town Hall opened this month after years of restoration. Designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany, the renowned artist, decorator, and glassmaker, the Tiffany Reading Room boasts lettering gilded in gold leaf, glass mosaics, and turtleback lanterns.

Louis Tiffany (1848-1933), the son of Tiffany & Co. founder, Charles Lewis Tiffany (1812-1902), was a long-time resident of both New York City and Irvington; an affluent suburb located just 20 miles north of midtown Manhattan. Charles Tiffany served as a trustee of Irvington’s Mental and Moral Improvement Society, which donated the land on which the Town Hall was built in 1892. The Society’s only stipulation was that the building should include a free reading room for the public’s enjoyment. In keeping with this request, Helen Gould, the daughter of railroad magnate Jay Gould, donated $10,000 to have the room designed by Louis Tiffany.

Once a majestic and beautifully decorated space, the Reading Room had fallen into disrepair by the late 1990s. Inspired by a letter from Tiffany’s great-grandson, Irvington residents formed the Tiffany Room Committee and embarked on a $280,000, eight-year-long restoration. The result of their efforts is a Reading Room that has been returned to its original grandeur, featuring restored mosaics and wall sconces and tables and chairs by Tiffany Studios.  

Fake Cultural Development Ltd., the design firm of dissident Chinese artist, Ai Wei Wei, will have its business license revoked by Chinese authorities. It is rumored that the district commercial affairs department will pull the license on the grounds that the company failed to re-register. The 55-year-old artist is a designer at the firm while his wife serves as the legal representative.

Ai Wei Wei has been under fire by the Chinese government since officials slammed him with a $2.4 million (15m yuan) tax evasion fine in 2011. His subsequent appeal was shut down in July and a Beijing court rejected his challenge to that decision last week. Ai claims that the firm was unable to properly renew their license because officials had confiscated the documents necessary to re-register during the tax evasion investigation.

Mr. Ai, China’s most famous contemporary artist, promises that the license fiasco will not affect his art. A critic of Communist Party rule, Ai Wei Wei caught the media’s attention when he was detained without explanation for nearly three months in 2011. Upon his release he was hit with the tax evasion claim and fine. Ai Wei Wei says an application has been submitted for a public hearing in regards to the revoked license.

A lawyer linked to Ai Weiwei went missing on Thursday night and a designer from the company handling the artist's affairs was taken by police six days ago, according to supporters.

Friends have not been able to reach Liu Xiaoyuan for almost 24 hours. The rights lawyer posted a message on a microblog at 8pm on Thursday saying he was being "followed by identified people". His phone is switched off.

Last week he said he would "of course" act for Ai if requested. He spent several hours at a police station on the day Ai disappeared, although his brief detention did not appear to relate to the artist. It occurred after he requested to visit a female activist and officers reportedly berated him for tweeting about another missing lawyer.

Separately, a letter issued online on Friday said plainclothes police seized designer Liu Zhenggang, 49, at his home in Beijing on 9 April and no one had been able to reach him since. Liu worked for FAKE, the design and architecture firm that handles Ai's affairs and belongs to the artist's wife.

Police did not respond to queries about the two men.

Ai's detention has sparked an international outcry, and his case is far from alone. The last two months have seen dozens of lawyers, dissidents and activists being criminally detained and arrested or simply going missing in one of the toughest crackdowns for years. It appears to have been sparked by anonymous calls on websites overseas for "jasmine revolution" protests inspired by the Middle East uprisings.

Ai was stopped at Beijing airport on 3 April and has been incommunicado ever since. Officials have said he is under investigation for economic crimes but police have still not informed his family that he is detained.