Good Day Nights

"Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change. The sun might shine or the clouds might lower, but nothing could appear to me as it had done the day before."

-- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Renoir's true colors could rescue him from the haters

14 JUNE 2016       JAPAN TIMES       C.B. LIDDELL

TOKYO, JAPAN -- It's been a few years since the last big Pierre-Auguste Renoir exhibition in town.  The last one, if I remember correctly, was "Renoir:  Tradition & Innovation" at the National Art Center Tokyo (NACT).  That brought over the French impressionist's "Dance at Bougival" (1883), an excellent painting, but padded out the rest of the show largely with inferior works, leaving a generally negative impression -- no pun intended.

This time the show is again at NACT, but there seems to have been two famous works to emblazon on posters and leaflets in order to draw the crowds, there seems to be a surfeit.  Among these are "Dance at e Moulin de la Galette" (1876), touted by the museum as one of the "crown jewels of impressionism"; and "The Bathers" (1918-19), one of the best examples of Renoir's "fuller figure" nudes from his later period.  In addition to this, the lesser works seem to be of a generally higher quality. 

From all this, there is a real sense of the organizers upping their game and attempting to give this famous and much-loved painter his due. 

A large part of this is down to the two museums involved, revealed in the exhibition's title: "Renoir: Masterpieces from the Musee d'Orsay and the Musee de l'Orangerie."  These are two of the top museums for impressionist art in Paris that clearly have the resources to do any of the great impressionists justice.  But why have they decided to get so fully behind this show? 

One reason could be because the Renoir "brand" has come under attack in recent years.  While other well-known impressionists, such as Claude Monet, are still widely respected, there is something of an anti-Renoir movement afoot in the world.  Last year there was even a demonstration -- partly serious, partly tongue-in-cheek -- at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, protesting the museum's Renoirs under the slogans "Art Terrorism" and "Renoir sucks at painting." The latter phrase is also the name of an Instagram account dedicated to the artist's shortcomings. 

An article in The Atlantic magazine covering this controversy pointed to some of the reasons why Renoir was being singled out:  "Then and now, critics complain that Renoir was promiscuous with color. That he paid no heed to line and composition.  His works were never formal explorations of light and shadow, like Monet's, or social critiques of the turn-of-the-century era, like Manet's." 

... This exhibition seems to be an attempt to counter some of the unfair anti-Renoirism and defend the Renoir brand in one of its strongest markets.  If this is the intention, the show is a great success, with several interesting sections that are designed to present Renoir as a more serious artist than the rather saccharine image that many have of him. 

One of the criticisms of Renoir that has gained some traction is that he was rather too comfortable in his painting style. To counter this, the sections on his early art and landscape paintings emphasize the struggle he faced as he tackled his subject and developed his unique style. 

An early work -- "Boy with a Cat" (1858) -- is much more carefully painted than his later works, and as a consequence is reminiscent of the crisp, somber style of Edouard Manet. 

His earlier landscapes suggest that he was not only vying with his painting companion, Claude Monet, but also the fast-changing light of the French countryside, It was in response to these conditions that Renoir evolved his famous fast feathery brushstrokes, which sometimes veered toward the glib and trite but were also capable of great sensitivity. 

The exhibition has an impressive selection of works by other artists, both for purposes of comparison and in an attempt to recreate the milieu in which Renoir operated.  These include several Van Goghs, which show that artist also pushing toward his own style.  This reminds us that, easy as Renoir's style may sometimes appear, it too had to evolve and grow with the man. Read More

Interactive crystal sculptures feature in Swarovski Designers of the Future Award commissions
14 JUNE 2016       DEZEEN       RIMA SABINA AOUF

MIAMI, FLORIDA -- ... Now in its ninth year, the Designers of the Future Award gives up-and-coming designers the opportunity to create innovative new works.

This year's laureates are Anjali Srinivasan, Studio Brynjar & Veronika and Yuri Suzuki, whose wins were announced at Maison et Objet in Paris earlier this year. 

They were tasked with interpreting the theme of "betterment", combining Swarovski crystals and new technologies. 

Srinivasan created an undulating wave of interactive tiles, Suzuki produced a musical instrument that makes sound by tapping crystals, and Studio Brynjar & Veronika designed crystal blinds that cast rainbows when hit by the sun. 

Srinivasan's work, titled Unda, involved developing a special, touch-sensitive crystal tile together with Swarovski. 

Described as "an architectural surface for crystal drawing", Unda responds to human tough by lighting up the area of contact.  The light slowly fades when contact stops, creating the effect of a trail of illumination that appears to follow the movement of a person's hand. 

"Crystal is a highly engaging material because it is a solid object that creates visual effects that you cannot tough," said Srinivasan. 

Measuring six meters in length, Unda encompasses 1,500 of the interactive touch crystals at the crest of the wave, as well as 3,000 Swarovski crystals and 5,000 glass pieces blown in Srinivasan's glass, representing the transition from glass into crystal. 

"I'm hoping that people have two levels of interaction," said Srinivasan. "The first is looking at the different textures and noticing the transition through it." 

"The second is that I want people to have a vision of what it is to make something better by touching something -- you animate something because you bless it with your presence." 

Suzuki's sculpture for the commission, titled Sharevari, is also interactive.  It is a mechanical crystallophone, which means it produces sound through the vibration of crystals. 

It consists of 16 brass podiums arranged in a semi-circle. Each holds a crystal of a different size, ranging from 95 to 250 millimeters in diameter, which determines the note that is produced when the crystal is struck by brass hammers. 

As well as playing Suzuki's own programmed compositions, Sharevari can be "conducted" by audience members by way of a network of sensors.

 

Suzuki is known for his interactive sound works, which have previously included White Noise Machines that transform and distort people's voices and robots that turn coloured scribbles into music. 

The third Swarovski Designers of the Future Award commissions are three pieces collectively titled Currents by Studio Brynjar & Veronika. These play with the interaction between crystals and light. 

Thirty specially created prismic slats form a fully functioning blind that produces rainbow patterns when struck by light. 

The studio also created decorative crystal sticks that cast coloured shadows, and an arrangement of liquid-seeming crystal tiles made using a 3D scan of water. 

All of the designers visited Swarovski's historical base in Wattens, Austria, and were given access to the crystal manufacturer's archives, design teams and technology development programs. Read More