Category: SOFA

25 at 25 at SOFA NY Countdown: Chris Drury

March 28, 2012 0 Comment

Crossing and Recrossing the Rivers of Iceland by Chris Drury, photo by Tom Grotta

Chris Drury’s Crossing and Re-crossing the Rivers of Iceland will be exhibited by browngrotta arts at SOFA NY 2012. The handwritten text on the peat-impregnated paper lists and repeats all the rivers crossed on a six- day walk from Porsmork to Landmanalauga in Iceland. The pattern is from a satellite image of a storm that hit us on the fourth day. The story behind Crossing and Re-crossing the Rivers of Iceland Drury and a friend with a heart condition, went on a six-day walk in central Iceland. On the fourth day they were hit by a storm and waited out the night in a hut. The following day, the storm was still raging but they used a four-hour lull to try and catch their plane.  They started for the next hut at 3:00 p.m., crossing a cold river and climbing 2000 feet to a snow-covered plateau. On the top the storm returned and they were enveloped in a whiteout.

7cd Crossing and Recrossing the Rivers of Iceland, photo by TomGrotta

Drury’s friend announced that he wasn’t going to make it to the hut. He was, in fact, having a heart attack. Drury didn’t know it, but his heart was shutting down. He gave him some water, which he used to swallow pills given him by his doctor for just such an emergency. The pills saved his life and he was able to make it to the hut. This experience is reflected in Crossing and Re-crossing the Rivers of Iceland. The blood flows in the heart in a double vortex pattern called a Cardiac Twist; the storm that Drury and his friend were caught in had that same pattern. Drury is an environmental artist who has created site-specific works from South Africa to Ireland to Wyoming. In recent years he has studied systems in the body and on the planet, with particular reference to systems of blood flow in the heart, including combining measurements of the “Earth’s heartbeat,” echograms of Antarctica, with the heartbeat, echocardiogram, of a pilot who flies there in his work, Double Echo. Drury’s work has been included in several books, including Chris Drury: Found Moments in Time and Space (Harry N. Abrams, Inc.).

25 at 25 at SOFA NY Countdown: Lia Cook

March 27, 2012 0 Comment

Neural Networks Detail by Lia Cook, photo by Tom Grotta

At SOFA NY 2012, browngrotta arts‘ display will include Neural Networks by Lia Cook. Cook works in a variety of media, combining weaving with painting, photography, video and digital technology. Cook’s current practice explores the sensuality of the woven image and the emotional connections to memories of touch and cloth. Working in collaboration with neuroscientists at the University of Pittsburg School of Medicine,

23lc Neural Networks, Lia Cook, woven cotton and rayon, 83″ x 51″ x 1.5″, 2011, photo by Tom Grotta

Cook has investigated the nature of the emotional response to woven faces by mapping in the brain these responses and using the laboratory experience both with process and tools to stimulate her work in reaction to these investigations. Her solo exhibition, Bridge 11: Lia Cook, which includes large-scale woven images of human faces and introduces several works based on her recent art-neuroscience collaboration, is at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft through May 13th. Cook is one of 11 artists whose work is highlighted in the current exhibition, Sourcing the Museum, at the Textile Museum in Washington, DC through August 19th and one of 14 artists featured in Sleight of Hand at the Denver Art Museum through May 13th.

25 at 25 at SOFA NY Countdown: Marian Bijlenga

March 26, 2012 0 Comment

DIAMOND DOTS 5-V detail by Marian Bijlenga, photo by Tom Grotta

At SOFA NY 2012 this year,  browngrotta arts will exhibit work from the Diamond Dots series by Marian Bijlenga of the Netherlands. Bijlenga studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, has taught workshops at Kawashima Textile School, Kyoto,  the Aalto University School of Art and Design Helsinki, Finland and will teach at the Haystack School of Crafts in Maine this summer. Her work is found in the permanent collections of the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the Textile Museum, Tilburg, the Netherlands and the LongHouse Reserve in New York.

17mb DIAMOND DOTS 5-V, Marian Bijlenga, horsehair, fabric, viscose, machine embroidered, 28″ x 28″, 2011, photo by Tom Grotta

“I am fascinated by dots, lines and contours, by their rhythmical movements but also by the empty space they confine,” the artist explains. “Instead of drawing on paper, I draw in space using textile as a material. By leaving some space between the structure and the wall the object is freed from its background and interacts with the white wall. It becomes what I call a ‘”spatial drawing.'”

25 at 25 at SOFA NY Countdown: Dorothy Gill Barnes

March 25, 2012 0 Comment

HAYSTACK RIVER BASKET detail, photo ©2011 Tom Grotta, courtesy of browngrotta arts

 

At SOFA NY 2012, browngrotta arts will exhibit Dorothy Gill Barnes‘ Haystack River Basket. The sculpture is created of “river teeth,” teeth-shaped knots from old growth trees that are sculpted by the elements that Barnes discovered on the ground around the spruce trees in Maine while teaching at Haystack Mountain School of Craft.

HAYSTACK RIVER BASKET by Dorothy Gill Barnes, photo ©Tom Grotta, courtesy of browngrotta arts

The basket is made of  younger river teeth, though some can be 200 years older than the remainder of the tree and up to 12 to 15 inches long. Barnes’ work was recently the subject of an exhibition, Collection Focus, at the Racine Art Museum.  Her work is also in the permanent collections of the Museum of Arts & Design, the Erie Art Museum, Arizona State University Art Museum, Nelson Fine Arts Center, Tempe and the Arkansas Decorative Arts Museum.

Haystack River Basket

early river teeth, 14.5” x 21” x 16”, 2011

Art News: Korean Art Gains Exposure

March 9, 2012 0 Comment

The Korean Art Show opened this week at 82 Mercer Street in New York and runs through March 11th. Interest in Korean Art is on the rise. The Museum of Arts and Design and Korean Art Show opened the Korean Eye: Energy and Matter from last November through February. It was accompanied by a 300-page catalog. Last year’s Cheong-ju International Craft Biennale featured artworks by 189 international artists. The Korean Design & Craft Foundation began exhibiting at SOFA expositions in 2010. In recognition of this escalation of interest we offer this online view of work by three accomplished artists from Korea who explore traditional and innovative techniques in their work.  Chang Yeonsoon was Artist of the Year at the National Museum of Art in Seoul in 2008. The artworks of her Matrix series illustrate the Asian perspective of the human mind and body as unified, rather than separate. To transform her abstract ideas into three-dimensional structures requires an elaborate 12-step process that includes starching, ironing, cutting and sewing sparsely woven abaca fiber after dyeing it with indigo. Jin-Sook So has spent much of her career in Sweden and her work reflects her time in two cultures.  So creates abstract and rhythmical works by applying various techniques to wire mesh, organza and paper. Her works, like Untitled Steel Mesh in the permanent collection of the Museum of Arts and Design, combine Western influences and Korean sensibilities.  Young-Ok Shin transfoms traditional Korean aesthetics into contemporary works of art.  In Ways of Wisdom, for example, which is part of the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the artist repurposed an entire volume of a 19th-century printed version of the The Analects of Confucius to create five scrolls, woven with ramie and cotton threads, standing, rather laying flat in the traditional manner, each presenting the five elements of the East Asian cosmology: Water (black); Fire (red); Earth (yellow); Wood (blue) and Metal (white).

Spinning Straw Into Gold: ACC Gold Medalists and Fellows at SOFA Chicago and Online

October 30, 2011 0 Comment

5R CEDAR EXPORT BUNDLE. Ed Rossbach, plaited cedar bark from Washington state with heat transfer drawing, waxed linen, rayon and rags, 5.5″ x 11″ x 9″, 1993, ©Tom Grotta, 2011

This year at SOFA Chicago (November 4-6) the American Craft Council (ACC) will recognize 28 artists who have been awarded an ACC Gold Medal between 1994 and 2010 in a display at the Navy Pier, curated by Michael Monroe. The ACC awards recognize those who have demonstrated outstanding artistic achievement and leadership in the field for 25 years or more.  Since 1981, the ACC has selected just under four dozen artists working in Fiber to receive a Gold Medal for consummate craftsmanship and/or join its College of Fellows.  We’ve mounted an online exhibition of 21 these artists on our website, browngrotta.com, under Awards. Many of these artists are featured in the catalogs published by browngrotta arts and in the videos and other publications we offer. http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/catalogs.php Works by Fellows and Medalists  Adela Akers, Dorothy Gill Barnes , Lia Cook, Helena Hernmarck, Gyöngy Laky, John McQueen and Norma Minkowitz are featured in our current exhibition,  Stimulus: art and its inception. Enjoy the show.

 

Sneak Peek: Catalog No. 37, Advocates for Art: Polish and Czech Fiber Artists from the Anne and Jacques Baruch Collection Catalog, Essay by Christa C. Mayer Thurman

October 31, 2010 0 Comment
catalog cover

Advocates for Art: Polish and Czech Fiber Artists from the Anne and Jacques Baruch Collection

The 37th catalog produced by browngrotta arts, Advocates for Art: Polish and Czech Fiber Artists from the Anne and Jacques Baruch Collection, will be available beginning November 10, 2010.

PALISADES (Detail), Anna Urbanowicz-Krowacka, wool and sisal, 55″ x 70″, 1992

Prominent art dealers Anne and Jacques Baruch first opened the Jacques Baruch Gallery in Chicago in 1967. The Baruch’s gallery focused on contemporary art and artists from Central and Eastern Europe, which Jacques once described as “the finest work of tomorrow…not what is known…the new blood.” Many of the works presented at the gallery were by artists who began their careers under Communist occupation. The gallery’s early years coincided with worsening political conditions behind the Iron Curtain. On August 20, 1968, the Baruchs left Prague just five hours before Soviet tanks rolled into the city and brutally ended a brief period of democratic reforms.

LUNE DE MIEL I (Detail), Magdalena Abakanowicz, sisal and linen, 55″x 78″ x 8″, 1986

Making trips behind the Iron Curtain during these years was a complex and, at times, dangerous, way of making a living. Despite these difficulties, the couple managed to find a significant entourage of artists to exhibit, among them a group of innovative textile artists, who had gathered acclaim at the Lausanne Biennials of International Tapestry and other European exhibitions, but who were not well known in the US. “We were captivated by their energy, experiments and bold compositions,” Anne would write of the Polish fiber artists she and Jacques met in 1970. “Though there were…shortages of studios, materials and most necessities for daily life, all their problems did not hamper their work. Rather, it stimulated their creativity, and their use of sisal, rope, metal, horsehair and fleece as well as the traditional wool, flax and silk, revealed new artistic thought with results which were dynamic, highly personal and original.”

LEATHER SKETCH (Detail), Jolanta Owidzka, high warp linen, sisal, leather 27″ x 45″ x 4″; 70 x 110cm, 1977

These artists included Magdalena Abakanowicz of Poland (whose tapestry Lune de Miel 2 is installed at Chicago’s McCormick Place and whose sculpture installation Agora,  a group of 106 iron cast figures, is in Chicago’s Grant Park), Jolanta Banaszkiewicz (Poland), Zofia Butrymowicz (Poland), Hanna Czajkowska (Poland), Jan Hladik (Czechoslovakia), Luba Krejci (Czechoslovakia), Lilla Kulka (Poland), Maria Laszkiewicz (Poland), Jolanta Owidzka (Poland), Agnieszka Ruszczynska-Szafranska (Poland), Wojciech Sadley (Poland), Anna Sledziewska (Poland), Anna Urbanowicz-Krowacka (Poland) and Krystyna Wojtyna-Drouet (Poland). It is work by this group of historically significant artists that is featured in this catalog.

CO-BOG ZLACZYL (WHAT GOD HAS JOINED), Lilla Kulkaa wool, silk 55″ X 48″, 1987

Christa C. Mayer Thurman has written an introductory essay about Jacques and Anne Baruch for the catalog. Thurman, who was the Chair and Curator of the Department of Textiles at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1967 through 2009, has also written brief essays about several of the 14 artists whose works are featured in the catalog. Thurman is the author and co-author of numerous books about textiles, including, Raiment for the Lord’s Service (1975); Claire Zeisler: a Retrospective (1979); Lissy Funk: A Retrospective (1989); and Textiles: The Art Institute of Chicago (1992). For European Tapestries in the Art Institute of Chicago (2008), Thurman was the general editor, contributed to the resulting volume as an author and oversaw the collection’s conservation. Thurman and her late husband, Lawrence S. Thurman were friends of the Baruchs for many years. During Thurman’s tenure at the Art Institute several textiles from behind the Iron Curtain entered the collection either as gifts, bequests or as purchases.

PODROZ (Journey) from the Kolodia series Agnieszka Ruszczynska-Szafranska linen, sisal, wool 60″ x 56″, 1986

The 76-page color catalog can be ordered from browngrotta arts beginning http://browngrotta.com/Pages/c35.php November 10, 2010.

Exhibit News

October 25, 2010 0 Comment

This November, the Art Institute of Chicago, browngrotta arts and the Sculpture, Objects and Functional Art (SOFA) exposition will offer a host of events celebrating international art textiles and fiber sculpture, including four exhibitions, a panel discussion and three artist talks.

Crystalline-Structures by Ethel Stein

Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Contemporary Fiber Art: A Selection from the Permanent Collection
The Art Institute of Chicago, Galleries 55, 57-59
through February 2011

The exhibition will explore how fiber art has developed as a contemporary art form and will feature 61 works by 52 artists including Peter Collingwood, Lissy Funk, Ethel Stein and Jolanta Owidzka as well as artists with strong local ties such as Claire Zeisler and Lenore Tawney,  who studied sculptor Alexander Archipenko in Chicago.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010
June Wayne’s Narrative Tapestries: Tidal Waves, DNA, and the Cosmos Art Institute of Chicago, Gallery 50
through February 2011

A pioneer in the revival of lithography during the early 1960s and a relentless explorer of the possibilities of paint, June Wayne has been a major figure in the Los Angeles art scene for decades. This exhibit will bring together 11 dynamic tapestries created between 1971 and 1974 based on Wayne’s innovative graphic designs Magisterial in their conception and extraordinary in their refined beauty and execution, these works showcase not only Wayne’s unique vision but the rich possibilities of uniting contemporary ideas and a centuries-old medium.

 

PODROZ (Journey) from the Kolodia series Agnieszka Ruszczynska-Szafranska

Thursday, November 4, 2010 Special exhibit: for Art: Polish and Czech Fiber Artists from the Anne and Jacques Baruch
Navy Pier, SOFA Chicago
Booth S 114
Opening Night Preview 7-9
through November 7, 2010

This special exhibit features 21 works by more than a dozen of the Eastern European textile artists introduced in Chicago in the 1970s by legendary dealers Anne and Jacques Baruch. The couple traveled regularly to Central and Eastern Europe to bring art back from behind the Iron Curtain. Their goal was to broaden exposure to art that Jacques Baruch once described as “the finest work of tomorrow…the new blood,” including work by  Magdalena AbakanowiczZofia Butrymowicz. The exhibition is cosponsored by the Baruch Foundation, browngrotta arts of Wilton, Connecticut and The Art Fair Company, sponsors of SOFA Chicago. SOFA opens at 11 on Friday the 5th and Saturday the 6th and at 12 on Sunday, November 7th.  It closes on the 7th at 6.p.m. For more information visit:http://www.sofaexpo.com

Thursday, November 4, 2010
Navy Pier, SOFA Chicago, Booth 120
browngrotta arts
Opening Night Preview 7-9
through November 7, 2010

browngrotta arts, which has focused on promoting fiber art for more than 22 years, will present a varied display of contemporary art textiles from Japan, Europe the US and the UK at SOFA Chicago. SOFA opens at 11 on Friday the 5th and Saturday the 6th and at 12 on Sunday, November 7th.  It closes on the 7th at 6.p.m. For more information visit:

http://browngrotta.com/index.php

Friday, November 5, 2010
Fiber Art: Unraveling Some Threads
Navy Pier, SOFA Chicago, Room 327
10:30 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Illustrated, individual presentations by fiber artist Margaret Cusack, Cindy Hickock, Kiyomi Iwata, and Donna Rosenthal.

Friday, November 5, 2010
Panel Discussion: Advocates for Art: Polish and Czech Fiber Artists from the Anne and Jacques Baruch
Navy Pier, SOFA Chicago, Room 324

2 p.m.
The panel will feature Christa C. Mayer Thurman, Emerita, the Art Institute of Chicago, chair and curator of the Department of Textiles (1967 – 2009), who founded the Textile Society of the Art Institute of Chicago and initiated the 20th Century textile collection at the Art Institute, collector Fern Grauer, now President of The Textile Society of the Art Institute and Barbara Kalwajtys, former Assistant to Anne Baruch. It will be moderated by Rhonda Brown, co-curator of browngrotta arts.

Christa Thurman and Anne Baruch

Friday, November 5, 2010
Catalog Signing: Advocates for Art: Polish and Czech Fiber Artists from the Anne and Jacques Baruch
Navy Pier, SOFA Chicago
Booth S 114
3:30 – 4:30.pm.

Christa C. Mayer Thurman, Emerita, the Art Institute of Chicago, chair and curator of the Department of Textiles (1967 – 2009), founded The Textile Society of the Art Institute of Chicago and initiated the 20th Century textile collection there. Mr. Thurman for which she wrote the introductory essay.

Circle Boat by Jane Balsgaard

Saturday, November 6, 2010
“Addicted to Nature”
Jane Balsgaard
Artist’s Talk
and Book Signing
Navy Pier
SOFA Chicago
Booth 120
2 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Danish Artist Jane Balsgaard, will speak at browngrotta arts booth about her airy boat sculptures of twigs and handmade plant paper and sign copies of the book, STAR SHIP AND SKY SEA an exhibition by Inge Lise Westman and JANE Balsgaard.

SHEATHE by Jennifer Falck Linseen

SHEATHE by Jennifer Falck Linseen

Saturday, November 6, 2010
“Fire & Emotion”  
Jennifer Falck Linssen
Artist’s Talk
Navy Pier, SOFA Chicago, Booth 120
From 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Colorado artist Jennifer Falck Linssen
will talk about her Fire & Emotion series of katagami-style hand-carved paper “stencils,” which reflects the form and shape of human emotions and interactions.

Technorati Tags:

Art, Art Installation, Artist Lectures, Contemporary Tapestry, Helena Hernmarck, Museums, Tapestry, SOFA CHicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Jacques and and Baruch, Eastern European Textile, Jane Balsgaard, Jennifer Falck Linssen, Lenore Tawney, Ethel Stein

 

Who Said What: Gregory Cerio

July 24, 2010 0 Comment

 

In the summer 2010 issue of Modern, Editor Gregory Cerio, makes an interesting observation about work at SOFA (the Sculpture, Objects and Functional Art exposition) and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s Design Triennial. In Surprised by Sincerity, Cerio admits that he was skeptical of both (despite some fine pieces at the first SOFA he attended, “a voice in the back of my mind kept whispering words like ‘macrame’ and ‘patchouli oil’ “), but writes that his “travels through the leafy glades of the high-end design market have forced a reassessment.” At “fashionable fairs” and “tony galleries” he  has seen works “done with a smirk, or of design by irony.” Cerio says that he has to come to realize that at SOFA and the Cooper-Hewitt, by contrast,”they are presenting work made with honesty and conviction.” To read the entire editorial, get a copy of Modern at http://www.idealmodern.com/2009/11/modern-magazine-is-available-at-below.html.modern-magazine-logo.jpg