At browngrotta arts we promote artists from more than two dozen countries and 15 of the United States. California artists are our largest US artist group with 10 artists, but New York is a close second — including artists who lived and worked in New York like Ethel Stein, Blair Tate, Nancy Koenigsberg, Lenore Tawney, and John McQueen, artists originally from New York, like Karyl Sisson, and those, like Jin-Sook So, Grethe Sørensen, and Toshio Sekiji who were mightily impressed by time spent there.
Here, we share works from this talented and diverse group of artists, works that reflect the ways in which this dynamic place influenced their art.
Jin-Sook So, 49-50jss New York Skyline I + II,, steel mesh, electroplated silver, patinated, gold leaf, thread, 33″ x 39.5″ 2.25″, 2006. Photo by Tom Grotta
Visiting New York from abroad can be eye opening. Jin-Sook So who lives in Sweden and Korea, came to New York on an O visa, for individuals of extraordinary ability and achievement. She expressed New York’s impact in the luminous New York Skyline series. The works are made of steel mesh that has been electroplated in silver, patinated wirh gold leaf and hand stitched with steel thread.
Toshio Sekiji, 15ts NY Street Map Collage, lacquered New York street maps, 29″ x 40″, 1997 and 19ts NYT Collage, lacquered NYT, 31″ x 41″, 1997. Photos by Tom Grotta
Japanese artist Toshio Sekiji was known for creating collages of newspaper torn in strips and lacquered. A visit to New York led him to create NYT Collage made from strips of The New York Times and also inspired him to transform maps of New York streets into a wall work, new York Street Map Collage.
Grethe Sørensen, 18gs Movement, cotton, 89.5″ x 64″ x 1.875″, 2016, tapestry from the arist’s video of a protesting the death of Eric Garner in NYC. Photo by Tom Grotta
Grethe Sørensen of Denmark was on Broadway in New York City while on a visit when she saw people protesting about police brutality toward a black man, Eric Garner, who died while being arrested. A photo of the scene became the tapestry Movement. Sørensen described the process, “A camera’s light-sensitive lens, held open for several seconds, recorded the protest march on the street – a stream of people with banners, placards, and signs. Their motion creates stripes which almost resemble light brushstrokes. Trash bins, newspaper vending boxes, a couple of onlookers, and a photographer stand still in the picture – a little unclear and diffuse. Meanwhile, the road’s arrows, words, and lanes appear as sharp white markings on the black asphalt. The weaving expresses motion in diverse ways: a mental, emotional, political, as well as physical movement.”
Lenore Tawney,3t Shrouded River, linen, wood, 154″ x 22″, ca. 1966-67. Photo by Tom Grotta
Adopted sons and daughters of New York are not untouched. Moving to New York from Chicago, Lenore Tawney was immediately taken by the East River, which she could see from the window of her loft in Coenties Slip in Manhattan. According to the Lenore Tawney Foundation, [The river] “became a motif in the ambitious woven forms that flowed out of her loom and puddled on the floor, where she would finish them by hand with sailor’s knots. She ordered ‘a great deal of black and white linen thread’ and described this as a thrilling time when her work ‘poured out like a fountain or a river…. The river was right out my window, and I looked at it every day.’ Even a sketch in her journal, of the Staten Island Ferry’s wake, looking back to the Manhattan skyline, evokes the delicate threads of her weaving.”
John McQueen, 47jm Site Reading (framed work of previous homes), willow, waxed string, recycled plastic, 58.75″ x 51″ x 4″, 2018. Photo by Tom Grotta
John McQueen had lived in Florida, New Mexico, and Philadelphia before moving to western New York state which he described as “far from the hubbub.” New York willow that he harvested from his yard was his material of choice. And NewYork homes he lived in — including one he built and another that began as a converted auto-repair garage — appear in Site Reading, a wall work he made of willow, waxed string, and recycled plastic.
Ethel Stein, No to Indian Point, cotton damask, 27.75” x 29.5”, 1997. Photo by Tom Grotta
New York Natives were not immune to its charms.The late Ethel Stein was born and educated in art at a progressive school outside of New York. In No to Indian Point, Stein wove an emphatic statement against the continuing operation of Indian Point, a nuclear energy facility in Buchanan, New York, not far from Stein’s home. No to Indian Point is exceptional among Stein’s weavings in its forthright political stance.
Nancy Koenigsberg arrived in New York more than 50 years ago. In the late 70s, she and five other artists formed the Textile Study Group of New York, which now has members worldwide. The works she makes of wire in black and various colors are inspired by varied topics — weather and climate change, geometry, emotions. New York is among those topics, in works like Barbican Towers and Broadway Trio.
88ks Straw Skyline, Karyl Sisson, vintage paper drinking straws and polymer, 14.375″ x 32.5″ x 3″ (linear layout), 2013. Photo by Tom Grotta
88KS For even those who left New York like Karyl Sisson, born in Brooklyn but a resident of California since the 1970s, New York leaves traces. Straw Skyline, made in 2011 of vintage paper straws and polymer looks remarkably familiar to those of us on the East Coast. A testament to the power of the New York state of mind.
We’ve all stood in front of an artwork and felt something inexplicable — an almost romantic tug at the heart. Scientists now have evidence that this isn’t just poetic metaphor: your brain literally lights up in ways similar to what happens when you fall in love.
19t Untitled, Lenore Tawney, collage, 34” x 25” x 4.5”, 1985; 190L Love of Nature, Gyöngy Laky, 1996. Approximately 9″x9″x2.5.” Toothpicks, plastic cockroach. Signed on bottom on a toothpick. Photos by Tom Grotta.
Dopamine: The Brain’s “Love” Chemical Shell The British neurobiologist Semir Zeki at University College London coined the term neuroaesthetics to define the intersection of brain and art. An interdisciplinary field, it’s a cognitive neuroscience that investigates the biological and neural foundations of aesthetic experiences, specifically how the brain perceives, processes, and responds to beauty, art, and creative works. It bridges psychology, art, and neuroscience to understand why certain sensory experiences trigger pleasure, emotion, and deep engagement.
27jm Love Birds, Judy Mulford, gourds, waxed linen, beads, polymer, paint, journal, working drawing and looping, 14″ x 12″ x 12″, 2011; 72jss The Love Into the Red Dream (Jogakbo), Jin-Sook So, steel mesh, painted, electroplated silver and gold leaf, paint and steel thread, 47.5″ x 52.125″ x 1″, 2024. Photos by Tom Grotta
One of the most striking findings in neuroaesthetics comes from Zeki’s brain imaging studies that showed that when people look at artworks they find beautiful, the same reward centers of the brain become active as when they experience romantic love. In both cases, there’s a rush of dopamine, the neurotransmitter tied to pleasure and desire.
This means that staring at a Botticelli masterpiece or the unicorn tapestries or a breathtaking abstract isn’t just emotionally moving—it’s biochemically rewarding in a way that overlaps with the experience of being in love.
The Reward System and Emotional Engagement When we fall for someone, multiple systems in the brain fire in concert: reward pathways, emotion centers, and memory circuits. Research suggests that engaging with art activates many of these same networks. Dopamine release, increased blood flow in pleasure-related areas, and even physiological reactions like relaxed breathing or a racing heart are all part of the picture.
206L Heartwood, Gyöngy Laky, ash branches, acrylic paint, screws, 48″ x 48″ x 3″, 2025 31cj Heart, Christine Joy, red oisier and dogwood, 20″ x 28″ x 20″, 2000. Photos by Tom Grotta
This isn’t just about liking something—it’s about deep emotional resonance. The brain’s reward system doesn’t discriminate between stimuli coming from a beloved person or a powerful work of art. That’s why great art can make us feel “high” or euphoric, much like early love does.
Another key aspect of neuroaesthetics is the investigation of how specific elements of art, such as symmetry, color, and composition, influence aesthetic judgments. For example, studies have found that symmetrical patterns are often perceived as more attractive, likely due to the brain’s preference for order and predictability. Similarly, color and contrast have been shown to significantly impact aesthetic preferences and emotional responses.
Emotion, Empathy, and the Social Brain But neuroscience doesn’t stop at pleasure. Recent studies show that art activates regions associated with empathy and social cognition, the same areas involved when we form emotional bonds with others. Art draws us into imagined worlds, invites us to feel with its subjects, and resonates with our own personal memories and emotions.
15cb Pathways of Desire, Caroline Bartlett, block printed, manipulated, stitched, heat-set polyester, cotton thread, 55″ x 25.5″, 2009; 116dv Eyes Turned Toward the Heart, Deborah Valoma, coiled, stitched, paper, india ink, waxed linen, wax, charcoal, 12” x 24” x 24”, 2001. Photos by Tom Grotta
This might explain why a painting depicting a glance or a gesture can evoke feelings of connection, longing, or even heartbreak—mirroring the emotional investment we experience in real relationships.
Mirror Neurons: Feeling What We See One fascinating mechanism behind this effect is the role of mirror neurons. These neurons fire not only when we perform an action, but when we observe an action. That means when we watch a figure in a painting weeping or embracing, parts of our brain simulate the experience—almost as if we were there ourselves.
Ruskya Certza , Norma Minkowitz, fiber, fabric, paint, wire, resin, 21.5″ x 15 x 6.5″ , 2002 photo Cathy Vanaria
This neural mirroring deepens our emotional engagement and helps explain why art can evoke love-like responses: it’s not just cognitive—our bodies participate, too.
The Aesthetic and the Romantic: A Shared Neural Landscape Love is complex—more than chemistry, it’s a neurobiological symphony involving reward, memory, emotion, and social cognition. What’s remarkable is how closely this symphony mirrors the neural response to intense aesthetic experience.
Art connects. It rewards. It moves us. And if the next time poetry makes your chest tighten or a sculpture catches your breath, you feel that all-too-familiar flutter—you’re not imagining it. Your brain might just be engaging in its own kind of romance.
Entrance to Woven Histories, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Photo by Tom Grotta.
During our recent trip to Washington, DC we visited Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction, through July 28, 2024 at the National Gallery. We are not going to pout about the fact that it has taken a few decades for contemporary fiber art to make it into the hallowed halls of the National Gallery. We are just going to revel in this expansive textile coming out party — an exhibition that challenges, however belatedly, the hierarchies that often separate textiles from fine arts.
Installation view: Work by Ruth Asawa, Kay Sekimachi and Martin Puryear. Photo by Tom Grotta.
The 150 objects in Woven Histories highlight a diverse range of transnational and intergenerational artists who have shaped the field including: Ruth Asawa, Anni Albers, Lenore Tawney,Kay Sekimachi, Sheila Hicks, Rosemarie Trockel, and Diedrick Brackens. There are also painters and sculptors like Agnes Martin and Eva Hesse whose work also played a role in modern abstraction.
Ed Rossbach, Constructed Color Wall Hanging, 1965. Photo by Tom Grotta.
Curated by Lynne Cooke, the exhibition offers “a fresh and authoritative look at textiles — particularly weaving — as a major force in the evolution of abstraction.” Basketry is given prominence. Cook notes in the book that accompanies the exhibition, Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction, that basketry was a moribund artform in the mid-60s, when Ed Rossbach began his “[s]triving for expressive content, signification and meaning” within basketry’s time-tested techniques. The exhibition highlights others creating basket referents, including John McQueen, Dorothy, Gill Barnes, Martin Puryear, and Yvonne Koolmatrie.
Shan Goshorn Baskets. Photo by Tom Grotta.
There are more than 50 artists whose work is included. The timeline is expansive — beginning with work created during World War I by Sophie Taeuber-Arp of the Zurich Dada circle, and continuing through to 21st century efforts to create community and celebrate the politics of identity by such artists as Ann Hamilton, Liz Collins, and Jeffrey Gibson. The exhibition will travel next to the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, from November 8, 2024–March 2, 2025 and then the Museum of Modern Art, New York, April 20–September 13, 2025.
Agnes Martin, Untitled, oil on canvas, 1960. Photo by Tom Grotta.
The artist will create an onsite installation on October 29 – 30th
Weaving at Black Mountain College: Anni Albers,Trude Guermonprez, and Their Students through January 6, 2023 Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center Asheville, NC https://www.blackmountaincollege.org/weaving/
Weaving at Black Mountain College Installation. photo by BMCM+AC staff featuring The Weaver, painted on the weaving studio door by Faith Murray Britton in 1942.
Weaving at Black Mountain College: Anni Albers,Trude Guermonprez, and Their Students will be the first exhibition devoted to textile practices at Black Mountain College (BMC). Celebrating 90 years since the college’s founding, the exhibition will reveal how weaving was a more significant part of BMC’s legendary art and design curriculum than previously assumed.
BMC’s weaving program was started in 1934 by Anni Albers and lasted until the College closed in 1956. About 10% of all Black Mountain College students took at least one class in weaving. Despite Albers’s elevated reputation, the persistent treatment of textile practices as women’s work or handicraft has often led to the discipline being ignored or underrepresented in previous scholarship and exhibitions about the College; this exhibition brings that work into the spotlight at last. The exhibition will also feature work by selected contemporary artists whose work connects to the legacies of the BMC weavers: Kay Sekimachi, Jen Bervin, Porfirio Gutiérrez, Susie Taylor, and Bana Haffar. They’ve produced a catalog for the exhibition, too, that will be available October 31st.
Installation shot, Folding Silences exhibition. Photo by Jorge Brantmayer.
Through November 9th, the exhibition Plegando Silencios by international artist Carolina Yrarrázaval can be visited at gallery D21. The exhibition consists of a series of 12 tapestries that the artist has worked on in recent years experimenting with materials of plant origin, mainly with coconut fiber, which is intervened to obtain suggestive reliefs, textures, and transparencies that demand a new look at the artist’s work. The creative act of dyeing, folding, and incorporating raw material is transformed into the initial structure of a textile work that s, the gallery says, “seduces and incites the search for new sensations.”
Woven Histories sheds light on a robust, if over-looked, strand in art history’s modernist narratives by tracing how, when, and why abstract art intersected with woven textiles (and such pre-loom technologies as basketry, knotting, and netting) over the past century. Included are 150 works by an international and transhistorical roster of artists that includes Ed Rossbach, Katherine Westphal, Anni Albers, Dorothy Gill Barnes, Kay Sekimachi, Lenore Tawney, and Sheila Hicks. The exhibition reveals how shifting relations among abstract art, fashion, design, and craft shaped recurrent aesthetic, cultural, and socio-political forces, as they, in turn, were impacted by modernist art forms. It is accompanied by a book of essays and images, that can be purchased at browngrotta.com.
Portrait of Lenore Tawney and Toshiko Takaezu at browngrotta arts’ exhibition Lenore Tawney: celebrating five decades of work, 2000. Photo by Tom Grotta
Takaezu & Tawney: An Artist is a Poet debuts 12 new acquisitions to the Crystal Bridges collection that tell the story of a remarkable friendship between Toshiko Takaezu and Lenore Tawney. Curated by Windgate Curator of Craft Jen Padgett, the exhibition highlights how these two women shaped craft history in the US by expanding and redefining the possibilities of their preferred mediums: Takaezu in ceramics, Tawney in weaving. Takaezu and Tawney had a close relationship for decades, from 1957 until Tawney’s death in 2007. From 1977 to 1981, Tawney lived at Takaezu’s Quakertown, New Jersey, home and the two shared studio space.
Louise Gray 2011. For her iconic collection ‘Up Your Look’, photo by Michael McGurk
If you are a fan of tartan (as we are), the V&A’s exhibition is for you. Tartan offers a thrilling view of over 300 mesmerizing objects showcasing tartan’s timeless appeal and rebellious spirit across fashion, architecture, art and design. See tartan worn by Bonnie Prince Charlie, a Scottish soldier’s unwashed kilt from the trenches of WWI, and the Bay City Rollers trousers handmade by a lifelong fan.
Christine Joy and Sara Mast explorethe mystery of nature through the transformation of materials, texture, and form.
The large, twisted willow forms by Christine Joy are the result of a rhythmic process beginning with the hunt and harvest of willow in autumn — followed by sorting, bunding, and storing. Joy began rug braiding in the 1970s. Over time, Joy moved on from rug braiding, leading her to a period of experimentation, and ultimately to reclaiming and reorienting her love of gathering and process with willow, grounding her to the earth. Sara Mast, a descendant of miners from Cornwall, England, resides on the site of Storrs, Montana, an early Anaconda Company mining town. Today, she incorporates PEM (plasma enhanced melter) glass into her work. PEM is a byproduct of plasma gasification, an advanced waste management technology that turns any kind of trash into inert, non-toxic glass and clean fuels. Mast writes, “PEM glass is not just another art material, but represents a profound paradigm shift in using technology to heal our environmental dilemma by keeping waste out of landfills and greenhouse gases out of the air. My use of PEM glass is one way I am able to reclaim a healthy relationship with the earth.”
2) International Linen Biennial in Portneuf (BILP) Heritage sites throughout Deschambault-Grondines Quebec, Canada June 18 – October 1, 2023 https://biennaledulin.com/
Dialogue, detail, Blair Tate, from the 10th Linen Biennial in Quebec. Photo courtesy of Blair Tate
Anneke Klein (the Netherlands) Blair Tate (United States of America) Stéphanie Jacques (Belgium), Carole Frève (Québec) will all participate in the upcoming biennial of Linen — the 10th in Portneuf. The biennial will feature two exhibitons; the work of 20 professional artist; 20 emerging artists; multiple mediation activities and a day of converences.
Jim and Veralee Bassler at the opening of Couples at the Craft in America Gallery in LA.
Couples in Craft highlights artist couples that specifically work in fiber and ceramics, either collaboratively or independently. While very different in their physical qualities—malleable and rigid, vegetable and mineral—both media require methodical construction processes that can take years to master. Many of these artist couples met during their formative educational years and thus share a lifelong dedication to each other and to their respective craft. These partners support and inspire each others’ extensive pursuit of mastering materials and continued exploration of their potential. Their intuitive knowledge of process allows for layers of meaning to become integrated into the works as they are made.
Among the artists included in this exhibition are Veralee Bassler and Jim Bassler. Veralee Bassler graduated from the UCLA Art Department with a concentration in ceramics. She shared her passion for creativity, teaching, and ceramics with the students of the Los Angeles School District for 25 years. Jim Bassler graduated from UCLA with an MA in Art in 1968 and later served there as professor and department chair between 1975–2000. Jim, recipient of the American Craft Council 2022 Gold Medal, is a renown weaver whose work adapts ancient Peruvian techniques and explores a range of materials and concepts. Veralee and Jim live and work in Palm Springs, CA.
4) At Own Pace: Włodzimierz Cygan 7th Riga International Textile and Fibre Art Triennial Mentzendorff’s House Grēcinieku iela 18, Riga, Latvia through July 27, 2023
From the series Between the Lines. Detail, Włodzimierz Cygan, Linen, optic fiber, weaving, artist’s own technique. 2021. Courtesy of the artist.
The 7th Riga International Textile and Fibre Art Triennial, QUO VADIS? unites 79 artists from 30 countries who were selected by an international jury from 237 submissions. Responding to the motto of the triennial, QUO VADIS? (Where Are We Going?), the authors, through their works, partake in conversations about the evolution of art and this particular field today as well as global geopolitical and social problems, engaging in self-reflection through the perspective of their time and art form.
The Triennial features an exciting solo exhibition by the internationally acclaimed Polish guest-artist Włodzimierz Cygan at the Mentzendorff’s House in Riga and one featuring Latvian artist Baiba Osite.
5) Ferne Jacobs: A Personal World Claremont Lewis Museum of Art Claremont, California through September 24, 2023
Origins, Ferne Jacobs, 2017-2018, Craft in America, Metro Madizon
Ferne Jacobs: A Personal World at the Claremont Lewis Museum of Art presents the work of Ferne Jacobs, a pioneer in fiber arts who creates unique three-dimensional sculptural forms using ancient basket-making techniques. Ferne Jacobs: A Personal World features a broad selection of her sculptures as well as books of her psychological drawings and collage diaries.
6) Jane Balsgaard Galleriet Hornbæk Hornbæk, Denmark Summer 2023
Scandinavian Design and the United States, 1890–1980 is the first exhibition to explore the extensive design exchanges between the United States and Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Iceland during the 20th century. It includes works by Helena Hernmarck who moved from Sweden to the US, and Lenore Tawney, who studied with noted Finnish weaver Martta Taipale at Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina.
8) Indigo Denver Botanic Garden York Street Location Denver, Colorado July 2 – November 5, 2023
Synapse, Polly Barton, to appear in Indigo, at the Denver Botanical Gardens. Photo by Tom Grotta
Rich and alluring, the striking blue color known as indigo has inspired weavers, dyers, designers, and sculptors across the globe. This exhibition, which contemporary artists from the United States, Nigeria, Japan and South Korea Includes several works loaned by browngrotta arts from artists Polly Barton, Eduardo Portillo and Mariá Dávila, Chiyoko Tanaka, Hiroyuki Shindo, and Yeonsoon Chang.
9) Shaped by the Loom: Weaving Worlds in the American Southwest Bard Graduate Center Gallery New York, New York through July 9, 2023
Shaped by the Loom: Weaving Worlds in the American Southwest invites you to explore the world of Navajo weaving. This dynamic gallery and online experience presents never-before-seen textiles created by Diné artists. These historic blankets, garments, and rugs from the American Museum of Natural History are situated alongside contemporary works by Diné weavers and visual artists, such as Barbara Teller Ornelas and Lynda Teller Pete.
10) Expressing Cloths: Oceanian Modeling and Shigeki Fukumoto/Shigeko Fukumoto Aomori Contemporary Art Center Aomori, Japan through June 14, 2023
This exhibition features Fukumoto, who has pursued an expression that can only be achieved through “dyeing” through his insight into the theory of craftsmanship in Oceania and Japan, and handcrafted fabrics that have been handed down since before textiles, such as tapa (bark cloth) and knitted fabrics from Melanesia in the South Pacific. In recent years Shioko Fukumoto has developed works using old natural fabrics that were made and used in rural life and labor. Three works. By group, we will think about the expression that can only be achieved with cloth, and the possibilities of cloth as a medium of expression. Both Fukomotos have visited Papua, New Guinea on more than one occasion.
Sandra Grotta at her 80th birthday party. Jewelry by David Watkins, Gerd Rothmann and Eva Eisler. Photo by Tom Grotta
browngrotta arts is devasted by the loss of Sandra Grotta, our extraordinary collector and patron and mother and grandmother. Sandy and her husband Lou have been pivotal in the growth of browngrotta arts through their advice and unerring support. Sandy graduated from the University of Michigan and the New York School of Interior Design. For four decades, she provided interior design assistance to dozens of clients — many through more than one home and office. She encouraged them to live with craft art, as she and Lou had done, placing works by Toshiko Takezu, Mariette Rousseau-Vermette, Helena Hernmarck, Gyöngy Laky, Markku Kosonen, Mary Merkel-Hess and many other artists in her clients’ homes. Among her greatest design talents was persuading people to de-accession pieces they had inherited, but never loved, to make way for art and furnishings that provided them joy. Sandy was a uniquely confident collector and she shared that conviction with her clients.
Her own collecting journey began in the late 1950s, when she and Lou first stepped into the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York City after a visit to the Museum of Modern Art. “The Museum’s exhibitions, many of whose objects were for sale in its store, caused a case of love at first sight. It quickly became a founding source of many craft purchases to follow,” Sandy told Patricia Malarcher in 1982 (“Crafts,” The New York Times, Patricia Malarcher, October 24, 1982). It was a walnut table ”with heart” on view at MoCC that would irrevocably alter the collectors’ approach. The table was by Joyce and Edgar Anderson, also from New Jersey. The Grottas sought the artists out and commissioned the first of many works commissioned and acquired throughout the artists’ lifetimes, including a roll-top desk, maple server and a sofa-and-table unit that now live in browngrotta arts’ gallery space. She followed the advice she would give to others: “When we saw the Andersons’ woodwork,” Sandy remembered, “we knew everything else had to go,” Sandy told Glenn Adamson. From the success of that first commission, the Grottas’ art exploration path was set. The Andersons introduced the Grottas to their friends, ceramists Toshiko Takaezu and William Wyman. “The Andersons were our bridge to other major makers in what we believe to have been the golden age of contemporary craft,” Sandy said, “and the impetus to my becoming our decorator.”
Sandra Grotta in her Maplewood, NJ living room surrounded by works by Mariette Rousseau-Vermette, Peter Vouklos, William Wyman, Toshiko Takaezu, Rudy Autio, Joyce and Edgar Anderson and Charle Loloma. Photo by Tom Grotta
When Objects USA: the Johnson Wax Collection, opened in New York in 1972 at MoCC, by then renamed the American Craft Museum, the Grottas began discovering work further afield. ”Objects USA was my Bible,” Sandy told Malarcher describing how she would search out artists, ceramists, woodworkers and jewelers. A trip to Ariel, Washington, led the Grottas to commission an eight-foot-tall Kwakiutl totem pole for the front hall by Chief Don Lelooska. Sandy ordered a bracelet by Charles Loloma from a picture in a magazine. ”I always got a little nervous when the packages came, but I’ve never been disappointed,” Sandy told Malarcher. ”Craftsmen are a special breed.” Toshiko Takaezu, as an example, would require interested collectors like the Grottas to come by her studio in Princeton, NJ, a few times first to “interview” before she’d permit them to acquire special works. It took 15 years and several studio visits each year for the Grottas to convince the artist to part with the “moon pot” that anchors their formidable Takaezu collection. Jewelers Wendy Ramshaw and David Watkins in the UK also became dear friends as Sandy developed a world-class jewelry collection. At one point, in a relationship that included weekly transatlantic calls, Sandy told Wendy she needed “everyday earrings.” Wendy responded with earrings for every day – seven pairs in fact. “For me, the surprise was that they found me,” says John McQueen. “I lived in Western New York state far from the hubbub of the art world.” McQueen says that he discovered they the Grotta’s were completely open to any new aesthetic experience. “from that moment, we established a strong connection, that has led to a rapport that has continued through the years – a close personal and professional relationship.”
Norma Minkowitz’s portrait of Sandy Grotta sourounded by artwork’s by Alexander Lichtveld, Bodil Manz, Lenore Tawney, Ann Hollandale, Kay Sekimachi, Ed Rossbach, Toshiko Takaezu, Laurie Hall. Photo by Tom Grotta
Their accumulation of objects has grown to include more that 300 works of art and pieces of jewelry by dozens of artists, and with their Richard Meier home, has been the subject of two books. The most recent, The Grotta Home by Richard Meier: A Marriage of Architecture and Craft, was photographed and designed by Tom Grotta of bga. They don’t consider themselves collectors in the traditional sense, content to exhibit art on just walls and surfaces. Sandy and Lou’s efforts were aimed at creating a home. They filled every aspect of their lives with handcrafted objects from silver- and tableware to teapots to clothing to studio jewelry and commissioned pillows, throws and canes, a direction she also recommended for her interior design clients. The result, writes Glenn Adamson in The Grotta Home,”is a home that is at once totally livable and deeply aesthetic.” Among the additional artists whose work the Grottas acquired for their home were wood worker Thomas Hucker, textile and fiber artists Sheila Hicks, Lenore Tawney and Norma Minkowitz, ceramists Peter Voulkos, Ken Ferguson and William Wyman and jewelers Gijs Bakker, Giampaolo Babetto, Axel Russmeyer and Eva Eisler. They have traveled to Japan, the UK, Czechoslovakia, Germany and across the US to view art and architecture and meet with artists.
Perhaps their most ambitious commission was the Grotta House, by Richard Meier. Designed to house and highlight craft and completed in 1989, it is a source of constant delight for the couple, with its shifting light, showcased views of woodlands and wildlife and engaging spaces for object installation. The Grottas were far more collaborative clients than is typical for Meier. “From our very first discussions,” Meier has written,”it was clear that their vast collection of craft objects and Sandy’s extensive experience as an interior designer would be an important in the design of the house.“ The sensitivity with which the collection was integrated into Meier’s design produced “an enduring harmony between an ever-changing set of objects and they space they occupy.” The unique synergy between objects and architecture is evident decades later, even as the collection has evolved. Despite his “distinct — and ornament-free — visual language, Meier created a building that lets decorative objects take a leading role on the architectural stage,” notes Osman Can Yerebakan in Introspective magazine (“Tour a Richard Meier–Designed House That Celebrates American Craft,” Osman Can Yerebakan, Introspective, February 23, 2020). The house project had an unexpected benefit — a professional partnership between Sandy and Grotta House project manager, David Ling, that would result in memorable art exhibition and living spaces designed for the homes and offices of many of Sandy’s design clients.
Sandy and Lou became patrons of the American Craft Museum in 1970s. As a member of the Associates committee she organized several annual fundraisers for the Museum, including Art for the Table, E.A.T. at McDonald’s and Art to Wear, sometimes with her close friend, Jack Lenor Larsen, another assured acquirer, as co-chair. At the openings, she would sport an artist-made piece of jewelry or clothing, sometimes both, and often it was an item that arrived or was finished literally hours before the event. “I wear all my jewelry,” she told Metalsmith Magazine in 1991 (Donald Freundlich and Judith Miller, “The State of Metalsmithing and Jewelry,” Metalsmith Magazine, Fall 1991) “I love to go to a party where everyone is wearing pearls and show up in a wild necklace …. I have a house brooch by Künzli – a big red house that you wear on your shoulder. I can go to a party in a wild paper necklace and feel as good about it as someone else does in diamonds.” Sandy served on the Board of the by-then-renamed Museum of Arts and Design, stepping down in 2019.
Sandra Grotta Portrait in Florida Apartment in front of sculptures by Dawn MacNutt and a tapestry by Jun Tomita
From its inception, Sandy served as a trusted advisor, cheerleader and cherished client to browngrotta arts. She introduced us to artists, to her design clients and Museum colleagues. Questions of aesthetic judgment — are there too many works in this display? too much color? does this work feel unfinished? imitative? decorative? — were presented to her for review. (She was unerring on etiquette disputes, too.) The debt we owe her is enormous; the void she leaves is large indeed. We can only say thank you, we love you and your gifts will live on.
Our 2020 “Art in the Barn” exhibition series is not until next Spring but there are plenty of exciting exhibitions featuring some of our favorite browngrotta arts’ artists to check out this Winter season. Below is a round up of 10 must-see shows in the US:
John McQueen, Untitled #192, 1989, burdock burrs and applewood Ed Rossbach, Croissants, ca. 1987, cartons, block print, and staples CREDIT The Henry Luce Foundation and the Windgate Charitable Foundation generously support the reinstallation of the Renwick’s permanent collection.
Washington, D.C. Connections: Contemporary Craft at the Renwick Gallery On view – indefinitely Connections is the Renwick Gallery’s dynamic ongoing permanent collection presentation, featuring more than 80objects celebrating craft as a discipline and an approach to living differently in the modern world. The exhibition explores the underlying current of craft as a balancing, humanistic force in the face of an evermore efficiency-driven, virtual world. The installation highlights the evolution of the craft field as it transitions into a new phase at the hands of contemporary artists, showcasing the activist values, optimism, and uninhibited approach of today’s young artists, which in some way echoes the communal spirit and ideology of the pioneers of the American Studio Craft Movement in their heyday. Includes artist Lia Cook, Toshiko Takaezu, Ed Rossbach, John McQueen, Peter Voulkos. Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Boston, Massachusetts Women Take the Floor On view through May 3, 2020 An exhibition of more than 200 works that challenge the dominant history of 20th-century American art by focusing on the overlooked and underrepresented work and stories of women artists – advocating for diversity, inclusion, and gender equity in museums, the art world, and beyond. Includes Lenore Tawney, Sheila Hicks, Olga Amaral, Kay Sekimachi, Toshiko Takaezu. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Avenue of the Arts 465 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115 Phone: (617) 267-9300 mfa.org
From Off the Wall: Katherine Westphal A Fantasy Meeting of Santa Claus with Big Julie and Tyrone at McDonalds, 1978. Resist-dyed cotton. San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles, San Jose, CA.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Off the Wall: American Art to Wear On view through May 17, 2020 Delight in the astonishing inventiveness and techniques of a generation of mixed-media artists who pioneered a new art form designed around the body. Coming of age during the dramatic cultural shifts of the 1960s and 70s, the artists in this distinctively American movement explored non-traditional materials and methods to create adventurous, deeply imaginative works. Includes Norma Minkowitz and Katherine Westphal Philadelphia Museum of Art 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA 19130 Phone: (215) 763-8100 https://philamuseum.org
Ethel Stein,White Pinwheel, 1990
cotton, satin damask weave; woven on a loom with a drawloom attachment fabricated by the artist
87.6 x 83.8 x 2.2 cm (34 1/2 x 33 x 7/8 in.)
Chicago, Illinois Weaving beyond the Bauhaus On view through Feb 17, 2020 Presented on the centenary of this foundational organization, Weaving beyond the Bauhaus traces the diffusion of Bauhaus artists, or Bauhäusler, such as Anni Albers and Marli Ehrman, and their reciprocal relationships with fellow artists and students across America. Through their ties to arts education institutions, including Black Mountain College, the Institute of Design, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and Yale University, these artists shared their knowledge and experiences with contemporary and successive generations of artists, including Sheila Hicks, Else Regensteiner, Ethel Stein, Lenore Tawney, and Claire Zeisler, shaping the landscape of American art in the process. Art Institute Chicago 111 South Michigan Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60603-6404 (312) 443-3600 https://www.artic.edu
In Poetry and Silence: The Work and Studio of Lenore Tawney Installation view at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 2019 Courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center
Sheboygan, Wisconsin Lenore Tawney: Mirror of the Universe On view through March 7, 2020 This series of four exhibitions explores Lenore Tawney’s (1907–2007) life and impact, offering a personal and historical view into her entire body of work. Read more about the Tawney exhibits in our earlier blog here: https://arttextstyle.com/2019/12/18/lenore-tawney-gets-her-due/ John Michael Kohler Arts Center (JMKAC) 608 New York Avenue, Sheboygan, WI 53081 Phone: 920.458.6144 jmkac.org
Toshiko Takaezu portrait, 1998 by Tom Grotta, courtesy of browngrotta arts
Racine, Wisconsin It’s Like Poetry: Building a Toshiko Takaezu Archive at RAM On view through July 26, 2020 RAM’s archive now numbers over 30 works, including Toshiko Takaezu’s (1922-2011) most expansive grouping, the installation comprised of 14 “human-sized” forms, the Star Series. Significantly, the museum’s holdings span the range of Takaezu’s working career—with a double-spouted pot from the 1950s being the earliest and the Star Series (1999-2000) being the latest. Open Storage: RAM Showcases Ceramic, Fiber, and Regional Archives On view through August 30, 2020 Arranged as a series of artist solo showcases, Open Storage also highlights the earliest kinds of work given to RAM—textiles and works on paper. While ceramic works and art jewelry currently number as the two largest types of contemporary craft represented, examples of textiles, prints, drawings, and works on paper were among the very first gifts of artwork to the museum in the 1940s. This exhibition features the work of 12 artists—Sandra Byers, Gibson Byrd, John N. Colt, Theodore Czebotar, Lillian Elliott, Joseph Friebert, Ed Rossbach, Kay Sekimachi, Jean Stamsta, Merle Temkin, Murray Weiss, and Beatrice Wood—through multiple examples of their work. Racine Art Museum 441 Main Street, Racine, WI 53403 Phone: (262) 638-8300 https://www.ramart.org
Installation view of Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950–2019 (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, November 22, 2019–January 2021). Alan Shields, J + K, 1972. Photograph by Ryan Urcia
New York, New York Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950–2019 On view through January 2021 The exhibition foregrounds how visual artists have explored the materials, methods, and strategies of craft over the past seven decades. This exhibition provides new perspectives on subjects that have been central to artists, including abstraction, popular culture, feminist and queer aesthetics, and recent explorations of identity and relationships to place. Together, the works demonstrate that craft-informed techniques of making carry their own kind of knowledge, one that is crucial to a more complete understanding of the history and potential of art. Drawn primarily from the Whitney’s collection, the exhibition will include over eighty works by more than sixty artists, including Ruth Asawa, Eva Hesse, Mike Kelley, Liza Lou, Ree Morton, Howardena Pindell, Robert Rauschenberg, Elaine Reichek, and Lenore Tawney, as well as featuring new acquisitions by Shan Goshorn, Kahlil Robert Irving, Simone Leigh, Jordan Nassar, and Erin Jane Nelson. More on this exhibition in our previous post: https://arttextstyle.com/dispatches-making-knowing-craft-in-art-1950-2019-at-the-whitney/ Whitney Museum of American Art 99 Gansevoort Street New York, NY 10014 Phone: (212) 570-3600 https://whitney.org
Installation view of Taking a Thread for a Walk, The Museum of Modern Art, New York 2019 The Museum of Modern Art. Photo: Denis Doorly
New York, New York Taking a Thread for a Walk On view through April 19, 2020 True to its title, this exhibition takes a thread for a walk among ancient textile traditions, early-20th-century design reform movements, and industrial materials and production methods. Featuring adventurous combinations of natural and synthetic fibers and spatially dynamic pieces that mark the emergence of more a sculptural approach to textile art beginning in the 1960s, this show highlights the fluid expressivity of the medium. More about this exhibition in our earlier blog: Dispatches: Textiles Take Center Stage at the New MoMA, New York, NY Museum of Modern Art, New York 11 West 53 Street, New York, NY 10019 Phone: (212) 708-9400 https://www.moma.org
Through the Curtain and Up from the Sea (1985) at MOCA in LA
Los Angeles, California With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art 1972–1985 On view through May 3, 2020 Featuring approximately fifty artists from across the United States, the exhibition examines the Pattern and Decoration movement’s defiant embrace of forms traditionally coded as feminine, domestic, ornamental, or craft-based and thought to be categorically inferior to fine art. This is the first full-scale scholarly survey of this groundbreaking American art movement, encompassing works in painting, sculpture, collage, ceramics, installation art, and performance documentation. Includes artist Lia Cook. Museum of Contemporary Art Grand Avenue 250 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90012 Phone: (213) 626-6222 https://www.moca.org
Please check with each art institution for directions and hours.
Last month, Artsy identified the most seven most influential art movements of the decade in The Art Movements of the 2010s (Dec 18, 2019) by Charlotte Jansen https://www.artsy.net/series/decade-art/artsy-editorial-art-movements-2010s. Two of those identified by Jansen — the reconsideration of women artists, which the Artsy called “an art history overhaul” and the art world’s embrace of craft — are two we at browngrotta arts have also watched with more than passing interest for the past 10 years.
Ethel Stein Master Weaver at the Chicago Art Institute 2015. Photo by Tom Grotta
The article points to the Guerrilla Girls survey in 2016, which found an unsurprising, yet overwhelming, bias towards Western male artists, which curators and galleries have since been working to address in exhibitions such as Women of Abstract Expressionism. We would add several exhibitions to that list, including Woman Take the Floor, currently at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Pathmakers: Women in Art, Craft and Design, Midcentury and Today at the Museum of Arts in Design in 2015, Ethel Stein’s one-person exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015 and Lenore Tawney’s current four-part retrospective at the John Michael Kohler Art Center in Wisconsin. The article also mentions overlooked women artists already in their 70s, 80s and 90s who have gained representation with blue-chip galleries, specifically, Rose Wylie joined David Zwirner 2017; Luchita Hurtado joined Hauser & Wirth in 2018; Howardena Pindell joined Victoria Miro in 2019. Carmen Herrera, now 104, started working with Lisson in 2009 and opened a retrospective at the Whitney in 2016. We would add Françoise Grossen who joined Blum & Poe in 2015.
The “return of craft” has brought greater attention to women artists, too. Jansen notes it has placed greater focus on forgotten legends such as Anni Albers, and living talents like Sheila Hicks. In November, Jansen points out, the Whitney mounted Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950–2019, on view through next January. Enthusiasm for ceramics has grown, too, she writes, as audiences continue to gravitate towards works by California Clay.
Even Thread Has a Speech by Lenore Tawney is in the Whitney Exhibition Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950–2019. Photo by Tom Grotta
Movement artists Ken Price, Peter Voulkos and Ron Nagle as well as the late Betty Woodman. We’d also point to interest in ceramist Toshiko Takaezu, whose work was included in both Pathmakers: Women in Art, Craft and Design, Midcentury and Today and Women Take the Floor.
Installation View of Toshiko Takaezu; Pathmakers: Women in Art, Craft and Design, Midcentury and Today and Women Take the Floor at the MFA Boston. Photo by Peter Russo
“Craft techniques are some of the oldest media in human history,” Jansen concludes, “but this decade has proved there is still boundless inspiration to be found in them.”
Simone Pheulpin at The Design Museum of London. Photo: Maison Parisienne
Last year, Artsy took a look at why old women had replaced young men as the “new darlings” of the art word. Its twofold explanation: as institutions attempt to revise the art-historical canon, passionate dealers and curators have seen years of promotion come to fruition and these artists have gained attention as blue-chip galleries search for new artists to represent among those initially overlooked.
Artsy points at Carmen Herrara, Carol Rama, Irma Blank, and Geta Brătescu and others to make its point. Mary Sabbatino, vice president at Galerie Lelong, is quoted as saying, “They’re fully formed artists, they’re mature artists, they’re serious artists. They’re not going to burn out as sometimes happens with younger artists…and normally the prices are far below the other artists of their generation, so you’re offering a value to someone.” Barbara Haskell, a curator at the Whitney Museum in New York, says museums everywhere are realizing that “there’s been a lopsided focus on the white male experience” in art history, and are working to correct that.”
Primitive Figures Bird and Insects, Luba Krejci, knotted linen, 40.5″ x 44.5″ x 2″, circa 1970s. Photo: Tom Grotta
Among the women artists working in fiber who belong on a list of those achieving belated recognition include Ruth Asawa, Sheila Hicks (mentioned in the Artsy article) Kay Sekimachi, Lenore Tawney, Ethel Stein, Simone Pheulpin, Sonia Delauney, Luba Krejci, Ritzi Jacobi and Helena Hernmarck. The international contemporary fiber movement was initiated by women who took reinvented tapestry, took it off the wall and drew global attention to an art form that had been synonymous with tradition to that point. Luba Krecji adapted needle and bobbin lace techniques to create, “nitak,” her own technique, which enabled her to “draw” with thread. In her use of line as “sculptural form,” Ruth Asawa,” provided a crucial link between the mobile modernism of Alexander Calder and the gossamer Minimalism of Fred Sandback, whose yarn pieces similarly render distinctions between interior and exterior moot,” wrote Andrea K. Scott last year in The New Yorker.
Damask 5, Ethel Stein, 1980-89. Photo by Tom Grotta
These artists continue their explorations though their seventies, eighties and nineties. An example, Kay Sekimachi, who created complex, elegant monofilament weavings in the 70s and 80s, bowls and towers of paper after that, and continues, at age 90, to create elegant weavings of lines and grids that are reminiscent of the paintings of Agnes Martin. After having received the Special Mention Loewe Craft Prize and exhibited at the Design Museum of London, this year, Simone Pheulpin continues to create innovative work in her 70s, work that is part of the 10th contemporary art season at Domaine de Chaumont sur Loire and part of the exhibition “Tissage Tressage” at the Fondation Villa Datris.
The opportunities to see great art are endless this summer! Heading to the West Coast for work? Take a detour and visit the newly opened Nordic Museum to check out Northern Exposure: Contemporary Nordic Arts Revealed in Seattle, Washington. Visiting friends or family in the Northeast? Make plans to spend the day in New Haven and see Text and Textile at The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library on Yale’s campus. Whether you are in the North, South, East or West there are a wide variety of strong exhibitions on display across the US this summer, here are a few of our favorites:
Grethe Wittrock’s Nordic Birds at the Nordic Museum in Seattle, Washington. Photo by Grethe Wittrock
Northern Exposure: Contemporary Nordic Arts Revealed at the Nordic Museum, Seattle, Washington
The newly opened Nordic Museum hopes to share and inspire people of all ages and backgrounds through Nordic art. The museum is the largest in the US to honor the legacy of immigrants from the five Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Northern Exposure studies “how the Nordic character continues to redefine itself within an evolving global context” by challenging “perceptions of form, gender, identity, nature, technology and the body,” explains the Museum. The exhibition features work by internationally acclaimed artists, including Grethe Wittrock, Olafur Eliasson, Bjarne Melgaard, Jesper Just, Kim Simonsson and Cajsa Von Zeipel. Made of Danish sailcloth, Wittrock’s Nordic Birds immediately attracts the eye upon entering the exhibition. Northern Exposure: Contemporary Nordic Arts Revealedwill be on display through September 16, 2018. For more information click HERE.
Traces: Wonder by Lia Cook at the Racine Art Museum, Gift of Karen Johnson Boyd. Photo by Jon Bolton
Honoring Karen Johnson Boyd: Collecting In-Depth at Home and at RAM, Racine Art Museum, Wisconsin
The Racine Art Museum’s new exhibit Honoring Karen Johnson Boyd: Collecting In-Depth at Home and at RAM showcases art advocate and collector Karen Johnson Boyd’s collection of ceramic, clay and fiber art. The exhibition, which is broken up into a series of four individually titled exhibitions, with varying opening and closing dates, highlight Boyd’s interests, accomplishments and lifelong commitment to art. Throughout her life, Boyd was drawn to a diverse array of artistic styles and subjects. Boyd, who collected fiber in an encyclopedic fashion, supported artists of varying ages with varying regional, national and international reputations. Boyd’s Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home provided her with many display options for her fiber collection. Though baskets encompassed the majority of Boyd’s fiber collection, she regularly altered her environment, adding and subtracting works as she added to her collection. The exhibitions feature work from Dorothy Gill Barnes, Lia Cook,Kiyomi Iwata, Ferne Jacobs, John McQueen, Ed Rossbach, Hideho Tanaka, Mary Merkel-Hess, Norma Minkowitz, Lenore Tawney and Katherine Westphal. Honoring Karen Johnson Boyd: Collecting In-Depth at Home and at RAMwill be on display at the Racine Art Museum through December 30th, with exhibited pieces changing over in mid-September. For more information on Honoring Karen Johnson Boyd: Collecting In-Depth at Home and at RAM visit the Racine Art Museum’s website HERE.
Text and Textile at The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Text and Textile at The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, New Haven, Connecticut
In New Haven, Connecticut, The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library recently openedText and Textile. The exhibition, which will be on display through August 12th, explores the relationship and intersection between text and textile in literature and politics.Text and Textile draws on Yale University’s phenomenal collection of literature tied to textiles, from Renaissance embroidered bindings to text from Anni Albers’ On Weaving. Additionally, the exhibition features: Gertrude Stein’s waistcoat; manuscript patterns and loom cards from French Jacquard mills; the first folio edition of William Shakespeare’s plays; the “Souper” paper dress by Andy Warhol; American samplers; Christa Wolf’s “Quilt Memories”; Zelda Fitzgerald’s paper dolls for her daughter; Edith Wharton’s manuscript drafts of “The House of Mirth”; an Incan quipu; poetry by Langston Hughes, Emily Dickinson, Susan Howe and Walt Whitman; and “The Kelmscott Chaucer” by William Morris. For more information on Text and Textile click HERE.
Kaki Shibu by Nancy Moore Bess. Lent by Browngrotta Arts
Rooted, Revived, Reinvented: Basketry In America at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. Houston, Texas
The traveling exhibition Rooted, Revived, Reinvented: Basketry In America is now on display at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft in Houston, Texas. The exhibition, which is set to travel around the United States through the end of 2019, chronicles the history of American basketry from its origins in Native American, immigrant and slave communities to its presence within the contemporary fine art world. Curated by Josephine Stealy and Kristin Schwain, the exhibition is divided into five sections: Cultural Origins, New Basketry, Living Traditions, Basket as Vessel and Beyond the Basket which aim to show you the evolution of basketry in America. Today, some contemporary artists seek to maintain and revive traditions practiced for centuries. However, other work to combine age-old techniques with nontraditional materials to generate cultural commentary. Rooted, Revived, Reinvented: Basketry In America features work by browngrotta arts’ artists Polly Adams Sutton, Mary Giles,Nancy Moore Bess, Christine Joy, Nancy Koenigsberg, Dorothy Gill Barnes, Ferne Jacobs, Gyöngy Laky,Kari Lønning,John McQueen, Norma Minkowitz, Leon Niehues, Ed Rossbach, Karyl Sisson and Kay Sekimachi.
Kay Sekimachi in Handheld at the Aldrich Museum. Photo by Tom Grotta
Handheld at the Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut
The Aldrich Museum’s new exhibition Handheld explores how contemporary artists’ and designers’ perceive the meaning of touch. Touch is one of the most intimate and sometimes unappreciated senses. Today, the feeling our hands are most familiar with are our that of our handheld devices and electronics. Touch is no longer solely used to hold objects such as pencils and tools, in fact, touch is increasingly taking the form of a swipe, where the sensation is ignored in favor to the flat visual landscapes of our own selection. “Handheld takes a multifarious approach—the hand as means of creation, a formal frame of reference” explains the Aldrich Museum. It serves the viewer as “a source of both delight and tension as they experience sensual objects in familiar domestic forms, scaled for touch, that can be looked upon but not felt.” The group exhibition, which features work by Kay Sekimachi will be on display until January 13, 2019. For more information on Handheld click HERE.
