George Lindemann Journal - "Boxed In, With Room for Creativity" @nytimes by Ted Loos

For the first show he conceived as director of the Museum of Arts and Design, Glenn Adamson is thinking inside the box.

The box is a large yellow crate made by the Brooklyn packing and art transport company Boxart, built for a bulbous sculpture by Wendell Castle. The crate is part of “NYC Makers: The MAD Biennial,” opening on Tuesday. While Mr. Castle’s sculpture is tucked inside, it is not officially part of the show.

“I like this idea that a fine artist and a crate maker can all be seen on a level playing field,” Mr. Adamson said. “It’s a powerful idea, and a radical idea, for a museum.” Though biennials are not exactly news, Mr. Adamson’s exhibition features a fleet of objects and installations that may be getting through the door of a major cultural institution for the first time: bottles of whiskey, a jar of handmade candy and scratch-and-sniff wallpaper, for starters.

Mr. Adamson is attempting what he calls an ambitious “relaunch” of the museum’s mission, which has been focused on “making sure craft is an equal part of the art world,” he said. “Now we’re looking at what the skilled maker brings to the larger world around us.”

The new biennial format spotlights work by 100 citywide “makers” — the trendy term for creators of any kind — and it includes a cross-disciplinary group of people within New York City. Some are famous, like Laurie Anderson, Meredith Monk and Yoko Ono, while others have yet to gain renown, like the wallpaper company Flavor Paper. One of the sweaty-smelling papers in the show is supposed to evoke “the scent of creativity of 100 makers,” said Jake Yuzna, the biennial’s curator.

Lest anyone doubt the of-the-moment feel to the maker concept, President Obama proclaimed June 18 a National Day of Making.

There are objects in the show that would not be out of place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Whitney Museum of American Art, like two crumpled glass sculptures by Jeff Zimmerman. But the show, which Mr. Adamson said he conceived during his first week on the job last fall, is part of his effort to create a more accessible museum. He added: “A good rule for me is that an 8-year-old should be able to get quite a lot out of everything. It’s not that all the content has to be totally introductory, but there should be something for them to hang on to.”

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That approach makes some people in the art world nervous: Could a level playing field devalue the more traditional artworks on view?

“It’s a concern,” said Zesty Meyers, an owner of the design gallery R & Company, which lent the Zimmerman sculptures to the show. “But if it’s done right it could be the best show in the world.”

The biennial organizers are taking pains to create the feel of an open studio where artisans ply their trades in person. Mr. Adamson said it would have the air of a festival. In August, for example, Martinez Hand Rolled Cigars will demonstrate their rolling process; some of their cigars are on view for the duration of the exhibition.

In searching for previously unheralded creativity, the museum — which was founded in 1956 as the Museum of Contemporary Crafts and moved to 2 Columbus Circle in 2008 — has tapped in to a populist strain of the current cultural moment. Candidates were nominated by more than 300 New York City cultural leaders including the artist Dan Graham, the choreographer Bill T. Jones and the fashion designer Reed Krakoff. Then a 10-person jury led by the design entrepreneur Murray Moss, including Mr. Adamson and Mr. Yuzna, made the final selections.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has made frequent comments about the city’s richness beyond Manhattan, which is well in evidence in the museum’s biennial’s representation from Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island and especially the maker-hub of Brooklyn.

“It coincides with what the mayor has been talking about: New York City as a five-borough place,” Mr. Adamson said.

A subtheme of the show is the vital role of the artisan in what Mr. Adamson calls New York’s “creative economy,” and some outside groups have tried to quantify at least part of that impact.

Last month, the nonprofit group Center for an Urban Future released its analysis of figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Its report, “New York’s Design Economy,” looked at the topic in the broadest sense, from fashion to landscaping to industrial work.

“We want to highlight parts of the economy that have flown under the radar, and design is a great example of that,” said Jonathan Bowles, executive director of Center for an Urban Future.

The group reported that, according to the bureau, the number of professional designers in New York was 40,340 in 2013 and had bounced back significantly since the recession but had not reached the levels of 2008, when the number was 44,400.

New York is still the country’s undisputed design hub, and more to the point of the museum’s show, Brooklyn and Queens were found to be leading the growth. The number of design firms in Brooklyn doubled between 2003 and 2012, from 265 to 532.

“A show like this sheds light on the suppliers — specialized people who normally don’t fit into an existing category, but they’re artisans making things,” said Rosemary Scanlon, dean of the Schack Institute of Real Estate at New York University. Ms. Scanlon produced three extensive reports on the economic impact of the arts: in 1983 and 1993, as an economist for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and in 2007, as a consultant for the Alliance for the Arts.

In organizing the biennial, which will tackle a new city in two years, Mr. Adamson also has an eye on the museum marketplace and positioning the museum as a distinct brand. He mentioned the more famous biennial across town at the Whitney as a point of reference.

“The kind of spiky, theoretical programming is being done so well at other spaces that I think we can become a point of entry for people,” Mr. Adamson said. “Look where we are: the corner of Central Park. I would like people to experience MAD as a fantastic adjunct to a day in the park.”

Some of the makers who are usually behind the scenes are surprised and delighted to find themselves in the spotlight.

“When I got the first call from Jake I thought it was, well, not exactly a scam, but I was a little skeptical,” said Daniel Hanford, the director of Boxart, which works frequently with the Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art.

“I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and most of the time no one gets to see our work,” Mr. Hanford said. “It feels great.”

George Lindemann Journal "Enduring the Elements" @wsj by Richard Cork

Exploring mortal drama with religious overtones. St. Paul's Cathedral

London

Nothing can prepare visitors to St. Paul's Cathedral, in the heart of the city, for the impact of Bill Viola's visionary video installation "Martyrs (Earth, Air, Fire, Water)." After walking through the spectacular elaboration of Christopher Wren's architecture, I find the work positioned at the far end of the long South Quire Aisle. The carbon-steel stand containing four plasma screens is purged and minimal; designed by Norman Foster at his most austere, it contrasts very severely with the profuse ornamentation enlivening the High Altar nearby. The presentation of "Martyrs" is not allowed to interfere with the visceral power of the images themselves, focusing relentlessly on the plight of four figures who undergo extreme torment.

When Mr. Viola first made his reputation, in the 1980s, as a pioneering video artist from New York, his work seemed more secular than sacred. In the poignant "Nantes Triptych" (1992), three screens record the birth of a baby, a man surrounded by water and an old woman's death in a hospital. The baby was Mr. Viola's second child and the dying woman was his mother. So his fascination with extreme mortal drama was already clear, but his exploration of religious images became overt as he grew older. The overseers of St. Paul's were very impressed by his 2003 exhibition at the National Gallery in London, where he disclosed an intense interest in traditional Christian art. Small wonder, then, that "Martyrs" was commissioned for the cathedral, where Mr. Viola's figures immediately look at home in a building dedicated to suffering and redemption.

No seats are provided, so I stand and watch as three men and one woman, one on each screen, endure their unimaginable agony. This time, unlike in the "Nantes Triptych," the figures are all performers. Above them, an enormous Wren window admits daylight to the cathedral. But absolute darkness surrounds the martyrs as they strive to withstand their alarming pain. My encounter with "Martyrs" is profound enough to make me feel that I have never before experienced the strange, heightened intensity provided by Mr. Viola here.

At the beginning, the man on the far left is virtually invisible. Almost covered by a stifling heap of earth, he seems to be buried alive. Only after moving in very close to the screen do I realize that his head is still protruding, although he clamps both hands protectively against his skull. Next to him, a fair-haired woman dangles from thick ropes tied round her wrists. Her clothed body is seen full-length, and ropes entwine her ankles as well. There she hangs, twisting in the wind and contrasting with a seated elderly man on the next screen. He appears to be asleep, yet small flames have already started descending from above and settling ominously on the floor near his bare feet. Meanwhile, on the far-right screen, a bearded young man lies motionless on the ground. Although his naked torso looks healthy and well-built, he might be close to death already. Soon enough, the rope tied round his ankles begins pulling him up into the air.

Mr. Viola wastes no time in putting all the martyrs through hell. The duration of his entire video is only seven minutes, and all the way through I find my gaze darting from one screen to the next in an attempt to discover what exactly is happening to each of these doomed figures. It is a highly dramatic spectacle, especially when the man on the far left is uncovered. The earth rushes upward, like smoke rising from an inferno or even an inverted waterfall ascending to the sky. The man emerges from his hunched humiliation, gradually becoming upright. His stance is very different from the position of the hapless woman, who is now tossed brutally from side to side by furious air.

Yet the most alarming development of all affects the elderly man in the chair. The flames flare upward with terrifying force, threatening to burn him. He wakes up, placing hands on knees while raising his head and staring out directly at us. As for the athletic young man on the right, he dangles upside-down and stretches out his arms at either side. For a moment, I am reminded of the Crucifixion. But Mr. Viola rightly ensures that "Martyrs" cannot be pinned down to a single religion. Water starts pouring down from the top, drenching the young man and making his dark hair hang in long, dripping tresses.

In the final phase of this mesmeric work, turmoil gives way to stillness. Yet there is no loss of intensity. If anything, the figures become even more compelling as they arrive at stasis. The man on the far left stands erect, head up and eyes closed as if lost in prayer. By a miracle, none of the earth that once smothered his body can now be seen on his flesh or clothes. He has been purged, and the woman's gyrations have likewise ceased. She has even managed to free her hands from the thick ropes, but her feet are still bound together and so her fingers cling to the ropes for support. Suspended in space, but not inverted, she throws her head backward as if searching for the light-source above.

Her deathly pallor is echoed by that of the man in the chair. Although the flames have subsided and his entire body is unaccountably intact, he looks blanched enough to be dead. The theme of extinction is pursued at the far right, where the inverted young man is pulled up until he disappears at the top, leaving only a thin, melancholy trickle of water in his place. An overall sense of tragedy dominates the work, but at least the young man might have ascended to another realm. Even the man on the far left, who is still standing, tilts his head back and shuts his eyes, while a strong white light shines down and almost makes his face dissolve in the brightness. At this point, all four screens grow dark and the work terminates.

After a few seconds, though, it starts again and the martyrdom is re-enacted on a continuous loop, replayed over and over. Wandering away from Mr. Viola's elegiac installation, I walk behind the High Altar and, in the Jesus Chapel, discover a large open book with names carefully written inside. The chapel especially commemorates U.S. soldiers who died in World War II, and their names lend a poignant historical dimension to Mr. Viola's work. But his overall intentions cannot be limited to the idea of a military memorial. "Martyrs" may invite us to witness what Mr. Viola describes as "the human capacity to bear pain, hardship, and even death," yet its deepest power resides in his ability to convey the fundamental mystery of sacrifice.

Mr Cork's latest book, "The Healing Presence of Art," was published by Yale in 2012.

George Lindemann Journal "Christie's 'Bumpy' Sale Anchored by $23.8 Million Schwitters" @wsj by Kelly Crow

Christie's in London sold a 1920 jewel-toned painting by German artist Kurt Schwitters created from debris he found scattered around Berlin—including cardboard strips and street-poster fragments—for $23.8 million Tuesday.

One successful sale was a Kurt Schwitters collage for $23.8 million. UPPA/Zuma Press

The price for "Yes—What?—Picture" reset Schwitters's auction record, but it also represented one of the few successes in an otherwise disappointing Christie's $146 million sale in which a third of the house's 60 offerings went unsold.

The sale also fell short of the house's $164 million low bar.

Christie's sale was pockmarked by plenty of artworks that fell flat and went unsold, creating an eerie saleroom atmosphere that has been rare since the recession.

Schwitters's abstract performed well in part because it is so rare: His collage relief paintings, which he made during the turbulent, impoverished years following World War I, helped establish his international reputation—and yet only three works from this period remain in private hands. This version was also three-feet high, large for an artist better known for painting on placemat-size canvases. After a dogged, three-way bidding war, a telephone bidder won it for more than double its high estimate.

A couple other pieces sold well, but with strings attached. Before the auction, Christie's had enlisted outside investors to pledge to bid on a pair of paintings by Henri Matisse and Joan Miró—unless other collectors during the sale offered even more.

Christie's risk-offsetting strategy paid off for the house because these paintings garnered no other bids in the moment and so were claimed by their guarantors for $11.6 million and $7.7 million, respectively.

Matisse's Nice-period "The Artist and His Nude Model" from 1921 was expected to sell for at least $11.9 million, and Miro's "Woman's Voice in the Night, Roissignol" from 1971 was estimated to sell for at least $6.8 million.

Works by Surrealist artists such as Max Ernst and Rene Magritte fared reasonably well. A red-and-black Ernst sold to an Asian telephone bidder for $616,975.

A $1.5 million sculpture of black curtains by Magritte sold to London-based art adviser Bart van Son, who said his collector client "has the perfect spot for it at home."

"You don't see much sculpture by Magritte, and it's a marvelous piece," Mr. Van Son added afterward.

Sculptures by Alberto Giacometti largely fell like dead weights at Christie's sale, though. Giacometti has had a mixed performance at auctions lately, and he didn't weather his market test well Tuesday. Of his eight examples up for bid, only four found takers—including a 1956 mustard-colored "Woman of Venice II," that sold for $15.4 million, over its $13.6 million low estimate.

Giacometti's gray portraits and his bronze sculpture of a spindly waving "The Hand" went unsold. The piece was expected to sell for at least $17 million.

Among the other unsold offerings was a Piet Mondrian that was expected to sell for at least $8.5 million—collectors said it had condition problems—and a Chaim Soutine was expected to sell for $2 million or more. The Chaim Soutine stalled at $950,000.

After the sale, Amsterdam collector Matthÿs Erdman said Christie's set estimates that appeared too high, particularly for some material that looked mediocre compared to Sotheby's BID -1.02% Sotheby's U.S.: NYSE ^$39.79 -0.41 -1.02% June 26, 2014 12:37 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 432,844 P/E Ratio 18.69 Market Cap $2.77 Billion Dividend Yield 1.00% Rev. per Employee $576,249 40.2540.0039.7539.5010a11a12p1p2p3p 06/24/14 Christie's 'Bumpy' Sale Anchor... 06/23/14 Dueling Bidders Push Up Trophy... 06/20/14 Checker Cabs Come to Brooklyn More quote details and news » BID in Your Value Your Change Short position offerings the night before.

"People go for trophies, and I think Christie's had trouble getting their prices right," Mr. Erdman said. "Even in this market, you can't get away with everything."

Christie's Chief Executive Steven Murphy said the house had a "bumpy night" and that his staff would look harder at their estimates moving forward. But Mr. Murphy said he didn't think the sale portended a downturn in the market overall.

"The masterpieces still flew," he said.

Next week, both houses are slated to conduct sales of contemporary art in London.

Write to Kelly Crow at kelly.crow@wsj.com

George Lindemann Journal by George Lindemann - "The Collections | The Top 10 Attractions at Design Miami/Basel" @tmagazine

The Collections | The Top 10 Attractions at Design Miami/Basel

Studio Swine’s “Hair Highway.”

The Design Miami/Basel fair — the annual European companion to Design Miami in Basel, Switzerland — has a single objective: facilitating the sale of expensive design objects to wealthy collectors. Yet much like its neighbor, Art Basel, the show can also serve as a resource for enthusiasts and curious window shoppers, who come to see and enjoy the works on view, or survey what’s happening in design now (lots of experimentation with everyday materials, apparently). Without the placards or checklists one would normally find in a gallery or museum, though, it would have been entirely possible for non-experts to meander in and out of the fair’s 50-something booths this year without knowing for sure what’s old and what’s new, or which pieces represent real breakthroughs in materials and process. There were many more novel contemporary works on view than ever before, balancing out the usual glut of 20th-century icons, but it wasn’t necessarily obvious unless you scoured the $30 show catalog.

For example, I nearly walked right past what turned out to be my favorite thing in the entire show, which ended Sunday: a series of furnishings and accessories made from resin-encased human hair by the little-known London designers Studio Swine, who created it during a five-month residency with Pearl Lam Galleries in China. The gallery’s assistant happened to point out the project to me after I grilled her about another new piece by the young duo, a cabinet made from aluminum foam. Similarly, it took some persistence to learn that a group of intricate gold-wire necklaces at Caroline Van Hoek were by a 23-year-old newcomer (Hermien Cassiers), and that almost all the works in Gallery Fumi’s booth were previously unseen experiments by emerging talents — including Studio Markunpoika’s trio of vases made by gluing together blocks of pencils and turning them on a lathe. Listed here are 10 new projects by up-and-coming designers that, based on six or seven hours spent digging around Design Miami/Basel and pestering people, we figured were worth a closer look.

Oliver LangStudio Swine’s curio cabinets.

Studio Swine at Pearl Lam
Building on a process they used to make eyeglasses a few years back, the London newcomers’ “Hair Highway” pieces are made from resin embedded with dip-dyed human hair, sourced from the world’s largest hair marketplace in Shandong Province. The designers created the series during a five-month residency with the gallery in Shanghai. The young Royal College of Art graduates also created these elaborate curio cabinets during their stay, which debuted during the show as well — they’re made from industrial foamed aluminum meant to evoke Chinese scholar’s rocks.

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Oliver LangJeremy Wintrebert at Gallery Fumi

Jeremy Wintrebert at Gallery Fumi
For its inaugural appearance at Design Miami/Basel, Gallery Fumi brought a selection of mostly new works by mostly young designers. I was advised to keep an eye on the Paris-based glass artist Jeremy Wintrebert, creator of these mouth-blown “Cloud” lamps, who will have both a solo show with Fumi and a commissioned installation at the Victoria and Albert museum during the London Design Festival.

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Oliver LangStudy O Portable at Gallery Fumi

Study O Portable at Gallery Fumi 
Another favorite at Fumi was this table by this London duo, who normally make sculptural jewelry and housewares but had scaled their Fuzz process — which involves building up layers of ceramic resin around a geometric void — up to furniture size for the first time.

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Oliver LangKueng Caputo at Salon 94

Salon 94
The New York art gallery was another newcomer to the fair; it cherry-picked a few dozen quasi-functional pieces from its roster of talents, including lights by Andy Coolquitt and a new marbled console and dining table by the hip Swiss design-art duo Kueng Caputo.

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Oliver LangValentin Loellmann at Galerie Gosserez

Valentin Loellmann at Galerie Gosserez
Galerie Gosserez devoted its entire booth to the work of the 31-year-old German designer, who seems to be coming into his own as of late: his gawky, lumpy furnishings have taken a more elegant, less contrived turn, like the new Fall-Winter cabinet, which pairs an organic black frame with sleek, Scandinavian-style oak panels.

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Oliver LangChristopher Schanck at Johnson Trading Gallery

Christopher Schanck at Johnson Trading Gallery
New York’s Johnson Trading Gallery focused on bringing the work of this Detroit talent, who hires local makers to produce his foam shelves and tables skinned in aluminum foil, to an international audience. Particularly novel was a piece that fused his foil process with an earlier experiment in chemically eroded wall mirrors.

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Oliver LangAnton Alvarez at Design at Large

Anton Alvarez at Design at Large
For his graduate thesis in 2012, Alvarez invented a technique to bind chunks of wood together with resin-soaked thread by passing them through a kind of spinning hoop. For Design Miami/Basel’s new Design At Large showcase, curated by Dennis Freedman, Alvarez unveiled the first batch of pieces he’s been making with a supersized version of the machine that he created this spring.

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Oliver LangTomás Alonso at Victor Hunt Gallery

Tomás Alonso at Victor Hunt Gallery
In the London designer’s latest series, tables and tabletop accessories made from various types of marble lock together comfortably thanks to simple grooves cut into their surfaces.

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Oliver LangBrynjar Siguroarson

Brynjar Siguroarson
For a solo show at Galerie Kreo earlier this year, Siguroarson created wooden furniture embellished with a rope-knotting technique he learned from a shark hunter while traveling in the tiny Icelandic town of Vopnafjordur, along with local materials like leather, fur, and fishing lures.

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Oliver LangBenjamin Graindorge at Ymer & Malta

Benjamin Graindorge at Ymer & Malta
The French gallery invited young designers to revisit marquetry for its presentation; Graindorge teamed up with the Parisian master craftsman Yves Josnan to create a table with a veneer comprising 2,000 pieces of 17 different types of wood.