Wonder - Couverture rigide

Bell, Nicholas

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1907804838 ISBN 13 : 9781907804830

Editeur : D Giles Ltd, 2015

Synopsis

Wonder celebrates the reopening of the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery following a major renovation of its historic landmark building, the first purpose-built art museum in the United States. Nine major contemporary artists, including Maya Lin, Tara Donovan, Leo Villareal, Patrick Dougherty, and Janet Echelman, were invited to take over the Renwick's galleries, transforming the whole of the museum into an immersive cabinet of wonders. Mundane materials such as index cards, marbles, sticks, and thread are conjured into strange new worlds that demonstrate the qualities uniting these artists: a sensitivity to site and the ways we experience place, a passion for making and materiality, and a desire to provoke awe.

A wide-ranging essay by Nicholas R. Bell connects these artworks to wonder s role throughout Western culture, to the question of how museums have evolved as places to encounter wondrous things, and to the symbolic weight of the moment as this building is dedicated to art for the third instance in three centuries. It is of no small consequence, writes Bell, that we, as a public, commit to the perpetuation of spaces that harbor the potential for subjective and intensive encounters with art. That we maintain museums for this purpose reveals wonder to be fundamental in our quest to establish who we are, and to grasp the universe beyond.

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

Nicholas R. Bell is The Fleur and Charles Bresler Senior Curator of American Craft and Decorative Art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. He has been a curator at the museum since 2009. His research interests include American craft, decorative art in America from the 17th through the 21st centuries, folk and self-taught art, and theories of material culture. Bell is organizing the reopening exhibition following the Renwick Gallery s two-year renovation. Titled WONDER, the project turns over the whole of the museum to site-specific installations by nine major contemporary artists. Bell previously curated the highly praised Renwick Gallery's 40th anniversary exhibition, 40 under 40: Craft Futures (2012). Other recent exhibitions include Untitled: The Art of James Castle (2014), for which he was the author of the accompanying catalogue. He is also editor of the anthology Nation Building: Craft and Contemporary American Culture, based on the proceedings of the Renwick Gallery s 40th anniversary symposium. He has written for a variety of publications including Winterthur Portfolio and American Furniture. Bell earned a bachelor's degree from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia (2005), and a master's degree from the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture at the University of Delaware (2008).

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: D Giles Ltd
• Date d'édition: 2015
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1907804838
• ISBN 13: 9781907804830
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 220
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible