Lighting Solutions

A Creative Camelot: The Bauhaus and Harvard University

This inspiring show celebrates the 100th anniversary of the founding of The Bauhaus.

Founded shortly after World War I in Germany, the Bauhaus was the most famous and influential avant-garde art and design school in the 20th Century. Its artists, architects, designers craftpersons and students generated a creative, all-encompassing conversation about the nature of architecture, art and design in the modern era. Over the course of its relatively short, 14-year history, Bauhaus was at first located at Weimar, then Dessau, and finally Berlin (closed by order of Nazi Party, 1932).

Above, left: The Gropius House, c. 1937-8. Photo: Mark Favermann

Silent Opera Over Venice: Richard Humann’s Augmented Reality at Venice Biennale

The connection between the potential of augmented reality (AR), and art is a simple one to make—sometimes it only takes a ‘T.’ Yet as Richard Humann settles back into his Brooklyn studio after his nine-hour return flight, he can’t help but smile knowing he’s onto something considerably more complex.

Left: Richard Humann, The Dogs of War (2017), Augmented Reality, variable dimensions

“I don’t remember leaving it this way,” Richard says, setting down his laptop bag, “It’s remarkable how much mess it takes to get artists to their exhibitions.” However, this mess brought more than Richard Humann to the sun soaked waterways of Venice, it likewise brought “Ascension”, the first AR installation to premier during the Venice Biennale, in conjunction with the European Cultural Center and the GAA Foundation.More

Two Cheers for the Revolution: Telling Difficult Stories at Philadelphia’s Museum of the American Revolution

This exterior view of MOAR is about as inviting as its stolid massing gets. The architecture conceals rather than reveals the building’s subject. All photos courtesy of the Museum of the American Revolution.

The United States was birthed in resistance, rebellion, and war. The story of the American Revolution, repeated, refined, and simplified over many generations, has become an iconic element of our national fable: our patriot “ancestors” resisted the tyranny of the greatest empire of its day, preserved American liberties, and established a novel kind of egalitarian republic. The catch-phrases of “the times that try men’s souls”–“life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” “all men are created equal,” and “the consent of the governed”–still resonate in our political and cultural discourse. And yet the story of the Revolution is complex and messy, full of sharp elbows and glaring contradictions, including the persistence of slavery, the dispossession of Native Americans, tensions within the states, among the states, and between state and federal governments, and a tendency to advantage our elites over our masses. If ever there was a difficult, challenging story to tell, it is the story of our Revolution and its impact on subsequent generations, right up to the contemporary moment. In a sense, the story of the American Revolution, which is also the story of our first civil war, has always been contested and fraught.More

‘Palm Beach Panache,’ Luxury from the Inside, Out

panache DSCN9513 Recently published, Palm Beach Panache, by inveterate design fashionista, Carolina (pronounced, Caro-lee-na) Fernandez, plunges headlong into a world few get to see. Behind the gates and curving drives leading up to those fine homes bordering the ubiquitous Florida inter-coastal waterways, there are treasures of design and good taste meant for only the most discerning eye. But, Fernandez has managed to pierce the coveted privacy veil, inviting her readers into those hallowed realms with dozens of beautiful photographs and her probing narrative style. Inspired by her own investment in Sunshine State property, as well as shaping attractive living environments for her own family, based in New England, the author ventured into the Palm Beach community to learn about and share her observations of the unique, ‘Palm Beach style.’ xxxxxMore

The Many Faces of Contemporary Sculptor, Shelly Fireman

www.artesmagazine.com — Miss Hospitality (2014), Bronze, 60 x 40 x 38”

Bronx-born Shelly Fireman is an artist, restaurateur, raconteur, occasional lecturer, and—as I like to tease him—a mini-god. Other than granting me two lengthy interviews, one at his Bedford Hills home, the other at his office in New York City, and a couple of eye-opening lunches in which I got to study the guy in action, he does not suffer fools gladly. Like all uber-successful people living in a cacophonous, 24/7 world, and even more so with the ever-exuberant Fireman, who is multi-talented in the extremis, he’d rather be doing than talking about it. xxxxxMore

Boston’s ‘Pentalum’: Pushing the Boundaries of an Interactive Environment

Like some sort of unworldly mushrooms set on the Lawn on D next to Boston Convention & Exhibition Center in South Boston, the ‘Pentalum’ (exhibited on May 28 through 31) consisted of equal parts floating fantasy village, contemporary carnival ride, and pop-up environmental art installation. Though it has been seen by over 2 million visitors in 38 countries, the piece had never before been seen on the U.S. East Coast. The popularity is understandable: ‘Pentalum’ is a public art happening for every age. Based upon the physical integration of color and form, this walk-through experience is a very engaging and delightful serving of the light fantastic. It is just a lot of fun.

Above: An interior view of the ‘Pentalum’ on the Lawn on D in South Boston. Photo: Mark Favermann. xxxxxxMore

Harvard Art Museums Reborn: A New Architectural Frame for Art, Education, Conservation

Harvard Art Museums mark favermann artes fine arts magazine — A Renzo Piano-designed steel and glass ‘lantern’ and one-story addition sit atop the original 1925 Fogg Museum. Photo: Harvard Univerity

When a visitor enters the new Harvard Art Museums, there is a feeling of great institutional arrival, a sense of an art historical place and an overall atmosphere of beauty of light and materials envelops the space.

However, with that said, the newly renovated and expanded Harvard Art Museums tries to put too much great art and great educational resources into just a good, not great structure. xxxxxxMore

Contemporary Sculptor, Paul Myoda, ‘Glittering Machines’: Transcending Perception

Paul Myoda’s “Glittering Machines” (2008-2013) dance between illusion and fantasy, attempting to tie dreams to shadows with their ephemeral reflections and deep graphic penumbrae. Yet these sculptures are more than just a whimsical engagement with the intangible play of light and dark. They are a view into the development of future beings. xxxxxxxxMore

New Haven’s Yale University Art Gallery Re-Opens after Extensive Renovation

A recent tour of the newly expanded and renovated Yale University Art Gallery, in New Haven Connecticut, has visitors treading on a little-noticed engraved marker inlayed in the stone floor of the Ancient Arts gallery. Cool winter light slants into the space from nearby Chapel Street, illuminating the inscription: ‘Col. JOHN TRUMBULL, Patriot and Artist, Friend and Aid (sic) of WASHINGTON, lies beside his wife beneath this GALLERY OF ART. Lebanon 1756 – New York 1843.’ Look on the back side of any hard-to-find two-dollar bill and you can find a representation of Trumbull’s famous 1817 masterpiece, The Declaration of Independence. Large-scale versions of several pieces from his Revolutionary War series found their way into Bullfinch-designed niches in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C. a decade later, but the smaller studies were eventually donated by a dispirited Trumbull to Yale University, after discovering, late in his life, that the American public had little appetite for history paintings, especially for events and personalities so recently transpired.

Above: Reliquary Figure (Mbulu-Ngulu), Kota People, Africa (est. 19th c.). Gift of Charles Benenson `33. artes fine arts magazineMore

Norwegian Architects, Jensen & Skodvin Create Woodland Escape with Minimal Environmental Impact

ARTES: This is such an unusual structure, projecting so much of the natural beauty of its surroundings, that it attracted my attention at a recent Scandinavia House exhibition in New York. I just had to contact you. Tell me a bit about the inspiration for the Juvet Landscape Hotel.

J&S: The Juvet Landscape Hotel is located at Valldal, near the town of Åndalsnes in north-western Norway. Passing tourists are attracted by a spectacular waterfall, in a deep gorge near the road in Gudbrandsjuvet. The client, Knut Slinning, is a local resident. The idea emerged as an opportunity to exploit breathtaking scenery with minimal intervention, allowing locations which would otherwise be prohibited for reasons of conservation. fine arts magazineMore