Bouroullecs’ Subversive Style

Design

Bringing an Industrial Vision to the Home

Paris Exhibit Shows Bouroullecs’ Subversive Style

Bouroullec Tahon

Clouds screen, designed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec in 2009 for Kvadrat.

By ALICE RAWSTHORN

Published: April 28, 2013

PARIS — Hanging in the sumptuous Grande Nef, or Great Nave, of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris are nearly 1,500 spindly strips of black plastic slotted together to form a gigantic screen. Each one resembles a short strand of seaweed, which is why its designers, the brothers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, named it Algue, the French word for seaweed.

Enlarge This Image

Studio Bouroullec

Ronan, left, and Erwan Bouroullec with their Vegetal chair for Vitra.

Enlarge This Image

Studio Bouroullec

A view of the ‘‘Momentané’’  retrospective on the Bouroullec brothers in Paris.

Unprepossessing though an Algue looks on its own, when several pieces are combined they create a gently surreal visual effect, which is doubtless why Vitra, their Swiss manufacturer, has sold nearly 8 million pieces of that algaesque plastic in the past nine years. Not bad at €63, or $125, for a pack of 25. It seems apt that a giant ensemble of Algues is among the first things you see when walking into “Momentané,” the retrospective of 15 years of the Bouroullecs’ work, which opened Friday at Musée des Arts Décos and runs through Sept. 1. Not only is it one of their best-selling products, Algue embodies the defining qualities of the brothers’ designs. Formally elegant, technically ingenious, disciplined, yet flexible, it has the air of something that belongs to the present, and could only be the result of the latest technology and design thinking.

Like many bastions of the decorative arts, the Paris museum has traditionally seemed ambivalent about technocratic objects like Algue, and has rarely addressed industrial design on this scale. Yet it chose the subjects of this exhibition wisely because Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, 41 and 37 respectively, are the most important French industrial designers of their generation, and among the most influential worldwide. Even if you haven’t slotted a couple of Algues together, or used any of their other products, there may well be traces of the brothers’ work in the contents of your home and workplace.

Several exhibitions have been devoted to the Bouroullecs in recent years, notably at the Art Institute of Chicago and Centre Pompidou Metz in eastern France, but “Momentané” is their most ambitious show so far. The Musée des Arts Décos gave them carte blanche to present their work as they wished.

It is tempting to interpret their response as a subtle commentary on the historic frostiness between the decorative arts and industrial design. Having been given temporary custodianship of the Grande Nef, the brothers chose to disguise its ornate interior behind a translucent white tented structure and the ceramic floor tiles they developed for Mutina in Italy. They then divided the space with giant screens constructed from Algues and Clouds, the interlocking felt tiles they designed for the Danish textile company Kvadrat.

Gently, yet deftly, the Bouroullecs have transformed the western wing of what was once France’s royal palace into a neutral, modern setting. There is even a quietly provocative subtext to the exhibition’s title. “Momentané” translates into English as “momentary,” which alludes to the speed and frenzy of contemporary life, rather than the monumentality traditionally prized by historic museums like this one.

Not that there is a hint of aggression: that isn’t their style. Before the Bouroullecs, French design was dominated by the Post-Modernist prankster Philippe Starck, whose work is as showy and boisterous as theirs is restrained. Yet their designs are more subversive than his. Rather than devising new versions of existing objects, they question what sort of things we need at a time when digital technology has wrought dramatic changes in the way we live and work, and then develop them.

Brought up in Brittany, both brothers went to college in Paris, where Ronan studied design and Erwan art. Ronan opened a design studio after graduating, and Erwan joined him, initially just to help out. After a brief period of working independently, they have since signed everything jointly, and only ever release a project if they both agree to do so.

Even when Ronan was working alone, he produced objects that could be customized by their owners as their needs changed, typically by adding different components to, say, a series of vases or a kitchen unit. He and his brother have since applied a similar principle to a dazzling range of other products.

Recognizing that workplaces now need to accommodate constantly changing casts of employees, interns and visitors, executing diverse tasks, they have designed desk systems for Vitra inspired by the multiple activities carried out on the kitchen table in their grandparents’ farmhouse, where a child might be doing homework at the same time as other people ate supper, and someone else did the farm accounts.

Their products for the home are equally versatile. Rooms can be divided into different spaces by constructing screens of Algues or Clouds, and then dismantling them. While anyone living and working in the same place can create an enclosed area for a bed, without sacrificing sorely needed floor space, in the elevated Lit Clos sleeping cabin.

“Momentané” shows how the brothers began by developing such objects on an experimental basis, and have since deployed the technology and engineering resources of manufacturers like Vitra and Kvadrat to make them more sophisticated. The show is organized thematically with monumental projects, like Algue and Clouds, clustered in the Grande Nef, while their work for offices, schools and other public spaces is in another gallery, and their designs for the home in a third.

The brothers offer glimpses of their thinking and way of working by displaying the rough sketches from which they develop their ideas, and photographs tracing their work over the years. Seeing Erwan groaning over a glitch in a project, the mammoth machines that shape their products, and Ronan’s daughter Mette toddling around their home brings the Bouroullecs’ designs to life by reminding us of how challenging it is to create something that seems so calm and refined, and how pleasing it can be to live with.

How to Build a Spoon By JOE NOCERA

Op-Ed Columnist

How to Build a Spoon

By JOE NOCERA

Published: April 26, 2013 79 Comments

I have seen the future, and it is in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Enlarge This Image

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Joe Nocera

I’ve seen young entrepreneurs creating companies that actually make things — not some digital app (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) — but actual products you can hold in your hand. I have seen prototypes being churned out on 3-D printers. I have seen the Navy Yard’s 300-acre complex of buildings — whose disrepair was once a symbol of manufacturing’s decline — become a symbol of manufacturing’s revival.

Sorry to sound so highfalutin, but it is easy to get carried away after you’ve been to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It offers something you don’t often feel these days when you contemplate the future of the American economy, with its loss of middle-class jobs and the widening of the income gap.

It allows you to feel hopeful again.

I went there this week because I had gotten interested in Spuni, a little start-up that was operating out of a development called New Lab — essentially shared space in one of the Navy Yard’s buildings for entrepreneurs and artists. (To be more precise, David Belt, New Lab’s developer, is using temporary space in the Navy Yard to house his tenants, while he refurbishes some 85,000 square feet in the old naval machine shop.)

Spuni is a product dreamed up in the Boston kitchen of Isabel and Trevor Hardy. The 30-something parents of two small children, they got to mulling the mess that William, their first child, made as he was transitioning from a bottle to a spoon.

“We both have design backgrounds,” said Isabel, “and we were trained to solve problems by using simple design solutions.” The problem, the Hardys concluded, was that spoons are poorly designed for small children. As they bite into the spoon, the food in the back half has nowhere to go but the floor. One day, as they were kicking around this idea with their friend Marcel Botha, a serial entrepreneur who shares a South African heritage with Trevor, they came up with the idea of a flatter-shaped, more ergonomical spoon that would allow a baby to suck the food off it.

Trevor and Isabel have full-time jobs. Once upon a time, their little idea would have remained just that — an idea. But Marcel, who had considerable small-manufacturing experience, was convinced that they could create a company to make the Spuni, as they quickly named it. First sketched in the spring of 2011, the Spuni saw its first prototype within two months. Using a 3-D printer, they went through a half-dozen prototype iterations until they felt they had the Spuni and its packaging exactly right.

To raise capital, they relied on crowd-sourcing, generating almost $38,000 by preselling Spunis on the Web site Indiegogo. Marcel, meanwhile, cut a deal with a small German manufacturer he had used before. When we spoke on Friday, he was just returning from Germany, where he had supervised the first quality tests. Within weeks, some 8,000 Spunis will be available for purchase. Marcel expects to be manufacturing 600,000 Spunis within a year’s time. If all goes according to plan, Spuni will be churning out around one million spoons a year by 2015.

The role of the Navy Yard is as an incubator of companies like Spuni. Andrew Kimball, who runs the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation, a nonprofit with a 99-year lease from the city, told me that between public and private investment, around $1 billion has been raised to make the Navy Yard a destination for small entrepreneurs and other members of the creative class. According to a recent study by the Pratt Center for Community Development, the companies in the Navy Yard have been responsible for $2 billion in direct economic output and another $2 billion in indirect economic benefits. Kimball says there is a waiting list of 150 companies trying to get space in one of the Navy Yard’s buildings. “It’s cool to make things again,” he said.

Still, for all this glorious activity, the Navy Yard companies employ only 6,400 people. That’s up from 3,600 in 2001, but it is a far cry from the 70,000 men who once built ships during the Navy Yard’s muscular manufacturing heyday. That, of course, is the downside of the manufacturing revival in the U.S. — it simply doesn’t create the number of jobs that the old-style assembly lines used to. When I asked the Spuni founders how many employees they would need in the U.S. if they got to 600,000 in annual production, the number stunned me: 10. In Germany, the factory, at peak production, would probably not need more than 20 employees.

Marcel told me that his goal is to create a small manufacturing center in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He would like to employ 100 or more people and produce a variety of products, not just Spunis. This is the model of modern American manufacturing.

Welcome to the future.

Female Pioneers of the Bauhaus

藝術

不該被遺忘的「包豪斯女性」

ALICE RAWSTHORN 報道 2013年04月27日

Bauhaus Archive, Berlin

1926-1927年格特魯德·阿恩特在包豪斯學校期間的自拍照。

柏林——格特魯德·阿恩特(Gertrud Arndt)當時一定非常樂觀。1923年她來到包豪斯(Bauhaus)藝術設計學校時，是一個才華橫溢、生氣勃勃的20歲的年輕人，她獲得了獎學金。她在一個建築事務所當了幾年學徒之後，就下定決心要學建築。
可惜她沒有機會去學。包豪斯當時處於動蕩之中，因為它的創始總監，建築師沃爾特·格洛皮烏斯(Walter Gropius)，和其中最有威望的一位老師約翰內斯·伊頓(Johannes Itten)長期不和。後者想把學校變成自己的工具，用來實現他准宗教式的藝術設計手法。阿恩特被告知沒有建築學的課程可供她學習，她被分到了紡織講習 班。

按圖放大

Scheper Estate, Berlin

洛烏·舍佩爾-伯肯坎普在離開包豪斯學校後在舞台設計、插畫和色彩理論方面成就了一番事業。

按圖放大

Bauhaus Archive, Berlin

格特魯德·阿恩特1930-1931年的《面具肖像 No. 34》。

不只她一個人受到了這樣的待遇。其他大部分女生也被迫學習“適合女性”的專業，比如紡織或者制陶工藝。柏林的包豪斯檔案館為了對這些女生在校期間被 邊緣化表示歉意，舉辦了“包豪斯女性”(Female Bauhaus)系列展覽，以表彰她們的作品，最近的一次展覽是關於阿恩特的。
阿恩特的展覽中不僅有她的紡織習作，還有她的攝影作品，她在包豪斯學院就讀期間開始練習攝影，以後從未間斷。她的展覽持續到4月22日。她是系列展 中的第三位，前兩位分別是紡織設計師貝妮塔·科赫-歐特(Benita Koch-Otte)，以及洛烏·舍佩爾-伯肯坎普(Lou Scheper-Berkenkamp)，她在離開學校之後在舞台設計、插畫和色彩理論方面成就了一番事業。包豪斯檔案館計劃將來繼續推出這個系列的更多 展覽。
“包豪斯女性”展覽的前三位都有出眾的才華、毅力和智謀，但她們每一個都感到自己在職業道路上遇到的障礙比男同行們要多——不管是在包豪斯學校，還是在之後的職業生涯中。她們這種感覺不是沒有根據的。大家一直以為這所學校很先進，可是它為什麼如此重男輕女呢？
包豪斯學校1919年成立，1933年解散。它不總是對女性不公。只是在開頭的幾年，女生會被分到特定的專業，儘管格羅皮烏斯在學校的宣言中聲稱，該校歡迎“任何有良好聲譽的人，不限年齡和性別”。
“包豪斯有先進的理想，但是男性管理者們代表着當時社會的普遍態度，”凱瑟琳·因斯(Catherine Ince)說。她是最近在倫敦巴比肯藝術中心舉辦的展覽“包豪斯以藝術為生命”的聯合策展人。“離實現普遍公正還有太遙遠的距離。”
這種情況後來得以改善。1923年，格羅皮烏斯把伊頓趕走了，代之以激進的匈牙利藝術家兼設計師拉茲洛·莫霍伊-納吉(Laszlo Moholy-Nagy)。莫霍伊不僅確保女生得到更大的自由，還鼓勵其中一位女生，瑪麗安·布蘭德(Marianne Brandt)，加入金屬講習班。在20世紀30年代，她成了德國最重要的工業設計師之一。

Experiment in Totality by Sibyl Moholy-Nagy拉茲洛·莫霍利-納吉

 Experiment in Totality by Sibyl Moholy-Nagy拉茲洛·莫霍利...
 http://hcbooks.blogspot.tw/2010/06/experiment-in-totality-by-sibyl-moholy.html


但是阿恩特、科赫-歐特和舍佩爾-伯肯坎普就沒那麼幸運了，她們在校的時候，莫霍伊還沒來。科赫-歐特是三人中唯一一個堅持最初專業的人，她最終在 紡織設計和藝術教育兩個領域都成了有影響力的人物。相反，舍佩爾-伯肯坎普在與一個同學結婚之後就退學了，幾年之後，她丈夫回校當老師，她就在包豪斯劇院 幫忙。同樣地，阿恩特在1927年完成學業之後也放棄了紡織學，但是她在30年代初又與包豪斯有了一種非正式的聯繫——她丈夫接受了在該校教書的職位，他 們也是在該校就讀時相識的。
即便如此，這三位女士最後的工作領域在男性主導的設計體系中被認為不像建築或工業設計那麼重要，部分原因是這些領域被看作是由女性獨佔的領域。關於 這些領域的書籍和展覽比其他學科要少。甚至連包豪斯最成功的紡織學畢業生，包括安妮·阿伯斯(Anni Albers)、岡塔·斯特爾茲利(Gunta Stölzl)和科赫-歐特，在該校的歷史中也不如那些“更重要的”學科的男校友們那麼顯要。
包豪斯對性別的偏見不是她們遇到的唯一的職業問題。就像因斯女士指出的那樣，學校在初期對女性的矛盾心態反映了那個時代的偏見。她們三個每個人都像 其他職業女性一樣，面臨同樣的挑戰——在家庭責任和事業之間周旋。她們遇到的問題還嚴重，因為她們有可能被在類似領域工作的丈夫蓋過風頭。
可以說，她們以及她們的丈夫們因為在二戰期間留在歐洲，而不是像格羅皮烏斯以及其他著名的包豪斯畢業生那樣去美國避難，從而在事業上遇到了挫折。他們留在歐洲不僅脫離了格洛皮烏斯的圈子——這個圈子一直主導着對包豪斯歷史的講述——而且還得應付20世紀中期歐洲殘酷的政治環境。
情況最糟的是科赫-歐特和她的丈夫，納粹禁止她的丈夫在德國任教，他逃到了布拉格。不幸的是，他因一次意外事故離世，留下她獨自一人回到德國重新開 始生活。阿恩特和舍佩爾-伯肯坎普都沒有像科赫-歐特或者布蘭德（她最後留在了東德）那樣遭受那麼多磨難，但是她們和她們的家人經受了在納粹德國生活的心 理創傷和艱辛。
“包豪斯女性”系列展以一種感人的方式承認了她們的成就以及她們在求學過程中以及之後的職業生涯中遇到的困難。它也反映出新一代的設計歷史學家和策展人對女性設計師（不管是否畢業於包豪斯）的作品表現出日益濃厚的興趣，比如因斯女士。
這些人於3月28日和29日在紐約的“國際性別設計網絡”(International Gender Design Network)大會的開幕式上相聚，討論一個同樣有爭議的話題：對包豪斯學校早期造成負面影響的性別歧視，在如今的設計界還保持着多大程度的破壞力。

本文最初發表於2013年3月22日。
翻譯：王艷

Female Pioneers of the Bauhaus

By ALICE RAWSTHORN April 27, 2013

BERLIN — She must have felt so optimistic. When Gertrud Arndt arrived at the Bauhaus school of art and design in 1923, she was a gifted, spirited 20-year-old who had won a scholarship to pay for her studies. Having spent several years working as an apprentice to a firm of architects, she had set her heart on studying architecture.
No chance. The Bauhaus was in tumult because of the long-running battle between its founding director, the architect Walter Gropius, and one of its most charismatic teachers, Johannes Itten, who wanted to use the school as a vehicle for his quasi-spiritual approach to art and design. Arndt was told that there was no architecture course for her to join and was dispatched to the weaving workshop.

Not that she was alone. Most of the other female students had been forced to study the supposedly “feminine” subjects of weaving or ceramics too. The Bauhaus Archive in Berlin is now trying to make amends to the women like them, who felt marginalized at the school, by celebrating their work in the “Female Bauhaus” series of exhibitions, the latest of which is devoted to Arndt.
As well as her student work in textiles, Arndt’s exhibition, through April 22, includes the photographic experiments she began at the Bauhaus and continued for the rest of her life. She is the third female Bauhaüsler to be featured in the series that started with a fellow textile designer Benita Koch-Otte and Lou Scheper-Berkenkamp, who forged a career in theater design, illustration and color theory after leaving the school. The Bauhaus Archive plans to continue the series with more shows in the future.
All three of the first “Female Bauhaus” subjects were unusually talented, determined and resourceful, yet each would have been justified in feeling that she faced greater professional obstacles than her male contemporaries both at the Bauhaus and afterward. Why did a supposedly progressive school turn out to be so misogynistic?
The Bauhaus, which ran from 1919 to 1933, was not always unfair to women. It was only in the early years that female students were relegated to particular courses, despite Gropius’s claim in the school’s manifesto that it welcomed “any person of good repute, without regard to age or sex.”
“The Bauhaus had progressive aspirations, but the men in charge represented the prevailing societal attitudes of the time,” said Catherine Ince, co-curator of the recent “Bauhaus Art as Life” exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery in London. “It was simply a step too far to bring about equality across the board.”
The situation improved after Gropius succeeded in ousting Itten in 1923 and replaced him with the radical Hungarian artist and designer Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Having ensured that female students were given greater freedom, Moholy encouraged one of them, Marianne Brandt, to join the metal workshop. She was to become one of Germany’s foremost industrial designers during the 1930s.
But Arndt, Koch-Otte and Scheper-Berkenkamp were unfortunate in having joined the school before Moholy’s arrival. Koch-Otte was the only one of the three to persevere with her original course of study, eventually becoming an influential figure in both textile design and art education. Whereas Scheper-Berkenkamp dropped out after marrying a fellow student only to help out at the Bauhaus Theater when he returned to the school as a teacher several years later. Similarly, Arndt abandoned weaving after completing her course in 1927 but forged informal links with the Bauhaus at the turn of the 1930s when her husband, who she had also met as a student, accepted a teaching post there.
Even so, all three women ended up working in areas that the male-dominated design establishment did not deem to be as important as, say, architecture or industrial design, partly because they were seen as female preserves. Fewer books and exhibitions have since been devoted to them than to other disciplines. And even the most successful Bauhaus textile graduates, including Anni Albers, Gunta Stölzl and Koch-Otte, have featured less prominently in histories of the school than their male counterparts, who studied “weightier” subjects, have done.
Not that gender stereotyping by the Bauhaus was the only professional problem they faced. As Ms. Ince pointed out, the school’s initial ambivalence toward women reflected the prejudices of the time. Each of the trio faced the same challenges as other working women in juggling domestic responsibilities with their careers. For them, those problems were aggravated by the risk of being overshadowed by their husbands, who worked in similar fields.
Arguably, they and their spouses also suffered professionally from staying in Europe during World War II, rather than seeking refuge in the United States like Gropius and other prominent Bauhaüslers. Remaining in Europe not only isolated them from Gropius’s circle, which has since dominated historic accounts of the Bauhaus, but left them to deal with the brutal consequences of the continent’s mid-20th century politics.
Worst off were Koch-Otte and her husband, who were banned from teaching in Germany by the Nazis and fled to Prague. Tragically, he died in an accident there, leaving her to return to Germany to rebuild her life. Neither Arndt nor Scheper-Berkenkamp suffered as severely as Koch-Otte, or Brandt, who ended up on the East German side of the Iron Curtain, but they and their families faced the trauma and hardship of life in Nazi Germany.
The “Female Bauhaus” series is a touching way of acknowledging their achievements and the difficulties they faced during and after their studies. It also reflects the growing interest in the work of female designers, both inside and outside the Bauhaus, by a new generation of design historians and curators, like Ms. Ince.
A group of them is to meet at the inaugural International Gender Design Network conference in New York March 28 and 29 to discuss an equally thorny issue: the degree to which the sexism that blighted the early years of the Bauhaus persists in design today.

圓明園十二生肖的經驗

2009年當佳士得(Christie’s)拍賣鬧劇我很注意. 因為1994我曾與公司同事王定坤先生
代其寒舍的老哥寄放在新加坡的某一獸首
(手提回旅館)取回台灣  那不曉得是真品還是複製品. 如果真的.那我們提過億元的東西在新加坡濕熱的街頭

2013年04月27日 15:09 PM
兩件青銅獸首的歸家路
英國《金融時報》 舍赫拉查德•達內什庫 巴黎報道

 

整整四年來，中國民族主義者為兩尊在清朝年間從中國掠走、現居法國的青銅像奔走呼號，尋求它們的回歸。

成龍(Jackie Chan)的最新電影《十二生肖》(Chinese Zodiac/CZ12)講述的就是尋找流失銅像的故事。在這部片子里，這位巨星為了銅像在西方博物館中一路奔襲打鬥，而邪惡的拍賣者則在給一些類似的珍寶落錘定價。
因此，當佳士得(Christie’s)拍賣行的擁有者弗朗索瓦-亨利•皮諾(Francois-Henri Pinault)周五宣稱，他將把兩尊銅像歸還中國的時候，他在改善中法關系方面的作用，已經不亞於弗朗索瓦•奧朗德(François Hollande)總統同時間對中國的訪問。
億萬富翁皮諾歸還這些稀有青銅獸首的決定，被中國國家文物局稱贊為“對中國人民的友好表示”。皮諾還是奢侈品集團PPR的首席執行官。
皮諾是隨同法國總統奧朗德訪華的商業代表團的一名成員。奧朗德訪問期間，中國與空客(Airbus)簽訂了價值40億美元的寬體噴氣式客機訂單。
這次歸還的青銅鼠首和青銅兔首，是1860年鴉片戰爭(Opium Wars)期間，英法軍隊火燒圓明園(Summer Palace)時搶走的十二生肖青銅像中的兩件。
它們曾是伊夫•聖•羅蘭(Yves Saint Laurent)奢華的藝術收藏品的一部分。在這位時尚設計師去世後，他的同性戀伴侶和商業合作夥伴皮埃爾•貝爾熱(Pierre Bergé)於2009年通過佳士得拍賣了這兩尊銅像。
當時中國評論家猛烈抨擊了法國當局，指責他們不尊重中國。在此一年前，時任法國總統尼古拉•薩科齊(Nicolas Sarkozy)曾會見達賴喇嘛(Dalai Lama)，法國抗議者還擾亂了北京奧運火炬在巴黎的傳遞活動。
盡管中國政府表示了抗議，但拍賣依然進行。出價最高的競買人是一位中國民族主義者，但此後他拒絕支付2800萬歐元的總價，並聲稱這些文物是中國合法遺產的一部分。
這在中國引發了一場外交風暴，佳士得在中國也備受批評。中國同時是PPR增長最快的奢侈品市場。PPR旗下的奢侈品包括古馳(Gucci)手袋、聖羅蘭(Saint Laurent)時裝以及彪馬(Puma)運動裝。
皮諾隨後從貝爾熱手中購得這些青銅獸首，但沒有披露價格。周五，在表示將歸還獸首的聲明中，皮諾對“中國新任領導層的高瞻遠矚”表達了稱贊。十二生肖青銅像曾經是圓明園內一個奢華噴水池的組成部分。
“皮諾家族付出了巨大努力以歸還這兩件中國國寶，我們強烈認為，它們應該回到它們的祖國，”皮諾表示，“皮諾家族的業務遍佈全球，在中國也有著龐大的業務。皮諾家族控股Kering集團(Kering Group)。”
PPR將於今年6月正式更名為Kering。去年，該集團收購了中國一家小珠寶商麒麟珠寶(Qeelin)。皮諾表示，他正在中國尋找其他收購機會。
法國是全球最大奢侈品生產國，它只對很少的幾個國保持貿易順差，中國就是其中之一。奢侈品業的增長正越來越依賴於中國。
圓明園被毀是中國重大歷史事件之一，中國人將其銘記為百年國恥。當時中國長達千年的帝制搖搖欲墜，西方強國開始入侵中國。
皮諾家族的捐贈突顯出過去5年中法關系獲得的巨大改善。但英國官員擔心，皮諾的決定可能會促使中國政府加大對其他歐洲國家——尤其是英國——的壓力，要求它們歸還西方博物館以及私人收藏中的大量珍貴中國藝術品。
去年11月，兩件中國古代文物在英國撤拍，就是因為之前中國方面表示這兩件文物也是被掠走的，引發了中國公眾的憤怒情緒。
英國《金融時報》吉密歐(Jamil Anderlini)、歐陽德(Simon Rabinovitch)北京、德爾菲娜•施特勞斯(Delphine Strauss)倫敦補充報道
譯者/何黎

Vending machine for hungry dogs arrives on Clapham Common

Tuesday 23 Apr 2013 12:34 pm

（英國‧倫敦25日訊）世界第一部狗狗用“自助售賣機＂在倫敦一個公園面世，這部售賣機不需要投幣，卻要狗狗完成兩個任務，才會掉下狗糧試用裝。
自助售賣機由狗糧生產商BakersComplete設計和製造，外型是一間小狗屋。如果狗狗想大快朵頤，先要拉動小屋旁邊的骨頭，一個網球就會由屋頂射出，狗狗要把網球叼回放進收集箱中，售賣機才會掉下狗糧。

售賣機的設計鼓勵狗狗多做運動，因此頗受狗主們歡迎。
協助設計售賣機的動物專家內維爾表示，狗狗和主人到公園散步從此變得不一樣了。

Hungry canines in south London were given an unexpected treat when the world’s first vending machine for dogs pitched up on Clapham Common this week.
While their owners can just pull out some loose change in exchange a sugary treat, these dogs were made to work hard for their rewards.

World’s first vending machine for dogs arrives in Clapham Common (Picture: Bakers)

The animals are challenged to pull a bone attached to a lever, which causes a tennis ball to fire from the roof of the machine.
They then have to sprint after the ball and return it to the prototype before picking up their treat.
Every element of the machine was created with a dog’s needs in mind, encouraging fun engagement and exercise.

The vending machine was a hit (Picture: Bakers)

Hounds are enticed to approach the machine, the brainchild of dog food brand Bakers, by the noises it creates such as a cat’s meow.
Peter Neville, an animal expert who works with Bakers Complete, said trips to the park ‘may never be the same again’.

A dog chases after the ball (Picture: Bakers)

‘Imagine stumbling across a doggy vending machine that adds challenge and excitement to your run in the park,’ he said.
‘All it takes is a little focus, and dogs can earn a tasty Bakers Complete reward simply by engaging in a stimulating mix of mind and body.’

The canines get their reward (Picture: Bakers)

Thai great national artists, 1949-96

 我在舊書店買到一本印刷精美的書Thai great national artists, 1949-96 (泰文-英文)

 19位

 繪畫7人/雕塑 5人/ 版畫 5人/ 應用藝術1人/ 裝飾藝術 1人

 

 

1. National Artist of Thailand - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Artist_of_Thailand

   The National Artist is a title given annually by the Office of the National Culture Commission of Thailand, recognizing notable Thai artists in literature, fine arts, ...

   List of Thailand National Artists - See also - References - External links

2. Category:National Artists of Thailand - Wikipedia, the free ...

   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:National_Artists_of_Thailand

   Pages in category "National Artists of Thailand". The following 17 pages are in this category, out of 17 total. This list may not reflect recent changes (learn more).

3. National Artist of Thailand | Facebook

   www.facebook.com/pages/National-Artist...Thailand/102549403133311

   National Artist of Thailand. 23 likes · 0 talking about this.

 

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

National Artist
Awarded for	Exceptional contribution to the arts of Thailand
Country	Thailand
Presented by	Office of the National Culture Commission
First awarded	1985
Official website	http://art.culture.go.th/artist_en/

The National Artist (Thai: ศิลปินแห่งชาติ, RTGS: Sinlapin Haeng Chat, IPA: [sǐn láʔ pin hɛ̀ːŋ tɕʰâːt]) is a title given annually by the Office of the National Culture Commission of Thailand, recognizing notable Thai artists in literature, fine arts, visual arts, applied arts (architecture, design) and performing arts (Thai dance, international dance, puppetry, shadow play, Thai music, international music, drama and film).
Since 1985, the honors have been presented on February 24, "National Artist Day" in Thailand. The date was chosen because it is the birth date of Buddha Loetla Nabhalai, or King Rama II, who was an artist himself. In 1986, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, an accomplished musician, photographer and painter, was named "Supreme Artist."
National Artists receive a monthly salary of 12,000 baht as well as health benefits, 15,000 baht towards funeral expenses and 120,000 baht for a memorial biography.^[1][2]

Cloisonné decorated jar景泰藍瓷壇 (Croydon)

February 22, 2013 • 1:14 pm

London, a world city in 20 objects: Cloisonné decorated jar

Jessica Harrison-Hall, British Museum

Cloisonné decorated jar

Philanthropic Londoners are supporting the Evening Standard’s campaigns to encourage London primary school children to read more and to find young adults work through apprenticeship schemes. This culture of selfless giving is a vital part of London life. Visitors to the British Museum have benefited greatly from this generosity, which manifests itself in new buildings, refurbished galleries and acquisitions of new objects.
Jimmy Riesco (1877-1964) from Croydon was one such benefactor. He collected Chinese art and bequeathed his collection of Chinese ceramics to his home town, where it is now on display in the Riesco Gallery in the Museum of Croydon. This magnificent cloisonné jar, a testimony to the quality of Chinese craftsmanship, was once in his collection. It is decorated with powerful dragons with snake-like bodies and horns flying through the clouds.
Cloisonné is a method of decorating metal objects with a network of wire cells. Cloisonné wares are particularly time-consuming and labour-intensive to make. Craftsmen sketch a design onto a metal jar using a brush and black ink. Wires are cut out of sheet copper and fixed to the body of the jar, forming cells. The cells are filled with multicoloured opaque glass, which produces a brightly coloured surface. The jar is then fired in a kiln at about 600 degrees centigrade. After firing, the jar cools and the glass shrinks. Any gaps in the design are filled in and the jar is refired. This process is repeated up to four times. Finally the jar is polished and the metal wires gilded.
From two inscriptions around the rim of this jar, we know who commissioned it and where it was made. Zhu Zhanji (1399-1435), the Ming Emperor from 1426 to 1435, commissioned it and eunuchs in the Forbidden City Palace in Beijing supervised its manufacture. Ming Emperors ordered such brightly coloured objects to decorate the vast halls of their palaces. The magnificent dragons were symbolic of the emperor. As you can see from walking around Chinatown today, dragons continue to be a powerful symbol of good luck.
There is only one other jar like this one in the world. It is in Switzerland in the Reitburg Museum, on loan from a private collection. Originally the two jars would probably have been displayed together in the Forbidden City Palace. The British Museum plans to reunite the jars in an exhibition beginning in September 2014, which will show the splendour of early Ming courts and the extraordinary connections that Ming China established with the rest of the world.

This was first published in the London Evening Standard on 11 October 2012.
The Cloisonné decorated jar is on display in Room 33: Asia

Croydon 規模已近"市"級而不是小鎮

倫敦小鎮驚現稀世明代御用景泰藍

更新時間 2013年4月21日, 格林尼治標準時間22:23

世界上已知明宣德帝御用景泰藍瓷壇僅兩件。

英國倫敦南郊不起眼小鎮克羅伊頓（Croydon）的當地博物館中竟然被發現收藏有一件稀世的明朝宣德皇帝朱瞻基御用景泰藍瓷壇（Cloisonne jar）。

據大英博物館專家介紹說，這件由已故瓷器收藏家里斯科（Reginald F.A. Riesco）收藏的珍品早在1964年便依遺囑捐給克羅伊頓博物館。

收藏者里斯科1877年生人，因從事保險生意曾長期往返於歐洲和遠東之間。 據信，展覽在克羅伊頓博物館中的景泰藍瓶就是他在一次遠東之行時購得的。
這件稀世瑰寶和里斯科生前收集的大量中國瓷器後來就長期在克羅伊頓小鎮博物館的角落裏「積累塵埃」。
據大英博物館專家介紹說，宣德御用景泰藍瓷壇在世上現知僅存二個，克羅伊頓鎮博物館收藏的正是其中之一。
另一件由私人收藏的宣德御用景泰藍瓷壇目前在瑞士利特伯格博物館（Rietberg Museum）展出，明年九月也將被「請」到倫敦，讓一對舊日明宮「孿生」禦器終能久別重逢。
盛世瑰寶
兩件宣德景泰藍瓷壇均鑲繪有彩雲騰龍圖案，據信應為北京紫禁城內的一對宮廷裝飾品。
據悉，上述兩件明宮景泰藍瑰寶將成為明年九月大英博物館將舉辦的名為「明朝：宮廷與交往 1400-1450」的明朝瓷器大展的核心展品。

大明宣德皇帝朱瞻基坐像局部。

1400-1450大致涵括明朝建文、永樂、洪熙、宣德、正統直至景泰等數朝。
負責組織明朝瓷器大展的大英博物館中國和越南收藏品研究員傑西卡·哈里森·豪爾表示，當今世界越來越意識到了解中國的重要性，而了解明朝15世紀上半葉與東亞、南亞、東南亞、中東和非洲的關係與交流對於更好認識今日中國十分重要。
專家指出，明永樂至宣德朝期間可以說是經過明初動蕩後的盛世；當時的中國在政治、經濟、文化、軍事和對外交流各方面都富有成就，並曾在遠東和近東有著舉足輕重影響。
預定明年九月在大英博物館的明朝瓷器展覽除上述景泰藍精品外，還將有大量永樂和宣德年間的明瓷、雕漆和金銀飾精品。
宣德瓷壇
據大英博物館的網頁介紹說，中國明代的工匠採用拜占庭工匠的景泰藍製作技巧，並於15世紀早期改進了這項技術。
博物館人員從瓷壇頸部題字看出瓷壇是御用匠師們為宣德皇帝打造的。
明代景德鎮的工匠們製作的青花瓷，其形狀和裝飾與皇家工廠出品的瓷器一模一樣。宣德皇帝很可能下令在紫禁城內使用這種瓷壇。
景泰藍瓷器的製作耗時且費用高昂。工匠用金屬絲在青銅器皿上勾勒出矯健的龍和雲紋後，再用玻璃漿填充。用景泰藍工藝標記的六字標識是宣德瓷器的特徵。

Designers Versus Inventors

IBM Corporate Archives

The IBM 701 went on sale in 1952.

By ALICE RAWSTHORN

Published: April 21, 2013

LONDON — What’s the difference between design and invention? It’s one of the commonest questions that I am asked about design, and it is easy to see why, because the two words are so often confused.

Enlarge This Image

Reuters

Mikhail Kalashnikov.

Take the AK-47, the deadly Soviet assault rifle that transformed modern warfare and determined the outcome of many conflicts. It was not the first gun of its type, but was radically different from its predecessors. Sometimes it is described as having been designed, and sometimes as having been invented. Which is correct?

Or take something less gruesome, the Post-it Note. Unlike the AK-47, there was nothing quite like that scrap of sticky paper when it was introduced by the U.S. conglomerate 3M in 1980. Is it the product of design, invention or both?

The words “design” and “invention” are rooted in Latin ones, “designare” and “inventionem” respectively. Each word was introduced to the French language and then to English. Their earliest references in the Oxford English Dictionary originated in the first half of the 16th century, but then the confusion began.

The OED’s first definition of invention is dated 1509: “the action of coming upon or finding; discovery.” The word has had more or less the same meaning ever since, and has also retained its charm. Unlike “innovation,” invention has escaped being stereotyped by management theorists, and still conjures cheerful images of idealistic boffins and amateur inventors showing off their contraptions at Maker Faires.

Not so design, whose oldest reference in the OED is from 1548 as a verb meaning to “indicate, designate,” only for it to appear as a noun in 1588. Having continued to acquire new meanings over the centuries, not all of which were compatible with the old ones, design has ended up conveying everything from finely calibrated technical specifications, to a snazzy phone, a sinister plan and an entire profession.

Yet in all of its multifarious guises, design has one recurring role as an agent of change. Whatever else it does or doesn’t do, design helps us to translate changes in other fields — scientific, political or whatever — into things that may be useful or enjoyable, ideally both. The same can be said of invention except that, in its case, the outcome must be new. The end-result of the design process can be new too, but not necessarily, because design can be equally useful in modifying something that already exists, ideally by improving on the original.

Back to the AK-47. The official version of its birth is that it was developed in the late 1940s by Senior Sergeant Mikhail Kalashnikov, a Soviet tank soldier who was wounded in World War II and worked on the rifle while convalescing. Not only was the finished weapon named after him — the AK stands for Avtomat (or automatic) Kalashnikova — he was showered with honors, as a self-taught designer and working class hero who had given his country the defining weapon of the era. The truth is more mundane. The wounded sergeant was undoubtedly involved with the development of his namesake rifle, but so were lots of other people. Like many mass-manufactured products of political importance, the AK-47 was devised by committee.

As to whether it was designed or invented, I’d plump for the former. The AK-47’s designers did not dream up the assault rifle from scratch, but devised a superior version of it. That said, they could claim to have invented some of the components that made their model so lethal.

The same applies to computers. The first version of the type of stored memory computer we use today was developed by a team of scientists at the University of Manchester in England during the late 1940s. They can be described as having invented the computer, but it required the work of the designers at IBM in the United States to transform an inscrutable labyrinth of wires and dials into a marketable machine that fulfilled a useful function. The result, the IBM 701, went on sale in 1952.

Even so, the 701 and other early computers were enormous, prone to over-heating and could only be operated by trained technicians. To this day, Apple, Samsung and other computer makers are still wrestling with the design challenge of making them ever smaller, safer and easier to operate, often deploying scientific inventions to do so.

But when it comes to the Post-it Note, the distinction between design and invention is more ambiguous. The catalyst for its development was the invention of a new type of sticky, but not too sticky glue by a 3M scientist Spencer Silver in the 1960s. 3M could not work out what to do with the glue, until another of its scientists, Arthur Fry, suggested using it to stick notes temporarily on to other sheets of paper.

Strictly speaking, he could claim to have invented the Post-it, as it was the first product of its type, but Mr. Fry can also be praised for having taken an inspired design decision to put 3M’s glue to such good use. Whichever interpretation you favor, the Post-it’s evolution is an unusually constructive example of the blurring of design and invention.

The boundaries between the two will become blurrier in future as 3-D printing and other digital production technologies enable consumers to participate in the design process in order to personalize the end-result, thereby transforming their relationship with designers and manufacturers.

If we can determine the final shape, size and color of an object, it could be unique, making it fair to say that we designed it, albeit in collaboration with the designers who wrote the software and the specified the basic form that we adapted.

Can we also claim to have invented the object, given that nothing else will be quite like it? Or is this going too far? After all, we won’t really have created anything new, but simply modified or embellished an existing product. Should we introduce a new category of “reinvention” or “customization,” or would that create even more confusion?

Partner Without the Prize (Denise Scott Brown)

這種類似的獎賞之不公平情形 例子很多.

Partner Without the Prize

By ROBIN POGREBIN

Published: April 17, 2013

Twenty-two years after being passed by, the architect Denise Scott Brown, 81, said at an awards ceremony for women in architecture last month that it was time she share in the 1991 Pritzker Prize that was given to her design partner and husband, Robert Venturi, with whom she had worked side by side.

Enlarge This Image

View Pictures/UIG, via Getty Images

The Sainsbury Wing of London’s National Gallery, designed by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown.

Enlarge This Image

Ryan Collerd for The New York Times

Denise Scott Brown

Enlarge This Image

Sal DiMarco Jr. for The New York Times

Franklin Court in Philadelphia.

Enlarge This Image

Bryce Vickmark for The New York Times

Arielle Assouline-Lichten, foreground, and Caroline James started the Pritzker petition.

“They owe me not a Pritzker Prize but a Pritzker inclusion ceremony,” Ms. Scott Brown said. “Let’s salute the notion of joint creativity.”

Her remarks prompted two students at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design to start an online petition demanding that the panel that administers architecture’s highest prize revisit that decision.

The petition has now drawn 9,000 signatures, many of them from the world’s most famous architects, including six prior Pritzker winners. And it has reignited long-simmering tensions in the architectural world over whether women have been consistently denied the standing they deserve in a field whose most prestigious award was not given to a woman until 2004, when Zaha Hadid won.

“The progress of recognizing the place and the contribution of women in architecture has been incredibly slow,” said Barry Bergdoll, chief curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art. “It’s been thought to be boys’ stuff.”

The prize organization has long defended its exclusion of Ms. Scott Brown on the ground that back then it honored only individual architects, a practice that changed in 2001 with the selection of Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. They are among the architects who have signed the petition, along with fellow Pritzker winners Richard Meier, Ms. Hadid, Wang Shu and Rem Koolhaas, who called the exclusion of Ms. Scott Brown “an embarrassing injustice which it would be great to undo.”

Mr. Venturi, 87, also signed the petition, but Ms. Scott Brown said he was not well and unable to comment. When he won in 1991, she did not attend the award ceremony in protest.

The Pritzker winner is chosen annually by a panel of a half-dozen or so independent jurors. There was one woman on the panel in 1991 and there is one woman on the panel today, Martha Thorne, the Pritzker’s executive director.

“Jurors change over the years, so this presents us with an unusual situation,” Ms. Thorne said of the inclusion request. “The most that I can say at this point is that I will refer this important matter to the current jury at their next meeting.”

The ceremony for this year’s Pritzker winner, Toyo Ito, is to be May 29 at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. The $100,000 prize, financed by the family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain, has been awarded since 1979.

While about half of architecture students in the United States are women, only a quarter of employees of architecture firms across the country are female, according to 2011 data from the American Institute of Architects. The number is smaller — 17 percent — when counting principals or partners in architecture firms.

Design professionals cite many reasons, including the sense that architecture involves business and construction, which have both been traditionally considered the province of men. And still persistent is the mythology of the architect as a solo male genius — the Howard Roark in Ayn Rand’s “Fountainhead.”

“It’s embedded and the Pritzker Prizes embed it,” said Beverly Willis, an architect who founded the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, which supports women in architecture. “They’re totally outdated, they’re totally passé and if they continue trying to isolate the Howard Roark man, they’re totally irrelevant.”

Ms. Scott Brown is one of the rare female architects to have achieved prominence.

“Denise Scott Brown is sort of like architecture’s grandmother,” said Arielle Assouline-Lichten, a Harvard design student who started the petition with Caroline James. “Almost all architecture students have studied her in school. Everyone grew up with her as the female professional who’s always been around and never really gets the recognition.”

Ms. Scott Brown, who was born in Zambia, met Mr. Venturi in 1960 at the University of Pennsylvania, where they were on the faculty and began working together. They married in 1967. She joined his firm that same year.

“Some people said, ‘She married the boss and thought she could get ahead,’ “ Ms. Scott Brown said in a telephone interview from her home in Philadelphia. “But if anyone was the boss, I was. We really were colleagues and we taught together. It was a very, very wonderful collaboration for both of us.”

Since 1960, she and Mr. Venturi have teamed up on buildings like the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery in London and Franklin Court, a museum and memorial to Benjamin Franklin in Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. They have run a practice together — Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates in Philadelphia, now VSBA — written books together, taught classes together and jointly developed groundbreaking theories about architecture and planning.

“You can’t separate them,” Mr. Bergdoll said. “It’s one of those great partnerships.”

The couple is known in large part for upending Modernism by embracing the vernacular of neon signs and kitsch as legitimate design. Their work with a class of Yale architecture students in Las Vegas in 1968 — examining casinos, parking lots and fast-food restaurants — resulted in their 1972 book, “Learning From Las Vegas” (written with Steven Izenour), which became an influential design treatise and helped usher in the period known as postmodernism.

Ms. Scott Brown said she was moved by the recent outpouring of support. “There needs to be some kind of corrective action,” she said. “Let’s not say corrective — let’s say inclusive.”

Several design school deans have signed, including Mohsen Mostafavi at Harvard, Sarah Whiting at Rice and Jennifer Wolch at the University of California at Berkeley.

“The initiative on the part of the students is something that I really value,” Mr. Mostafavi said. “I hope they will be this proactive when it comes to their own futures.”

Robert A. M. Stern, the dean of Yale’s Architecture School, said he declined to sign the petition because he objected to its use of the word “demand,” but that he backed it in principle. “It would be wonderful for the Pritzker committee to review the situation and to offer her the prize,” Mr. Stern said. “The nature of the collaboration was so intense on every level.”

Architects say the Pritzker is unlikely to reverse its decision, in part because several members of the jury at that time are no longer living, including Ada Louise Huxtable, J. Carter Brown and Giovanni Agnelli.

The Web site ArchDaily on April 1 posited the counterargument that Mr. Venturi was awarded the Pritzker based on projects completed before Ms. Scott Brown joined the firm, like the Vanna Venturi House (1964). Yet the award citation directly acknowledged Ms. Scott Brown’s contributions.

“His understanding of the urban context of architecture, complemented by his talented partner, Denise Scott Brown, with whom he has collaborated on both more writings and built works, has resulted in changing the course of architecture in this century,” the citation said, “allowing architects and consumers the freedom to accept inconsistencies in form and pattern, to enjoy popular taste.”

For Ms. Scott Brown, the sting remains fresh. “When we married I suddenly was being told, “Look, let’s just keep this photograph of architects,’ ” she recalled. “I’d say, ‘I am an architect and they’d say, ‘Would you mind moving out of the picture, please?’ “

A version of this article appeared in print on April 18, 2013, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Partner Without the Prize.

art brut, outsider art , souzou

http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/souzou.aspx

Outsider Art from Japan

Artworks made by people suffering from mental illness are both surprising and captivating

そう‐ぞう【想像】

［名］(スル)実際には経験していない事柄などを推し量ること。また、現実には存在しない事柄を心の中に思い描くこと。「―をたくましくする」「―上の動物」「縄文人の生活を―する」「―したとおりの結果になる」

そう‐ぞう【創造】

［名］(スル) １ 新しいものを初めてつくり出すこと。「文化を―する」「―的な仕事」「―力」 ２ 神が宇宙・万物をつくること。「天地―」

brut

発音

brúːt

[形]〈ワインが〉辛口の. ⇒SEC¹

文化遊﹕倫敦看日本「門外漢」藝術

【明報專訊】日文有不少同音字：「創造」跟「想像」，日文發音都是「Souzou」，兩個詞語都指涉嶄新的意念誕生和 形成。倫敦專門展示與醫學有關的藝術館Wellcome Collection，便以「Souzou」來為其日本「門外漢藝術」（Outsider Art）展覽命名。

何謂「門外漢藝術」？這個詞語原來是英國藝術學者Roger Cardinal在1972年，根據法國藝術家Jean Dubuffet的art brut（即未經俗世「烹煮」的、「生」（raw）的藝術）理論而創的詞彙。Outsider Art一詞自此成為國際通用的詞語，一般用來形容沒有受藝術培訓，非為觀眾、純為創作而創作的作品，作者很多時都被視為處於社會邊緣。例如是次展覽的46 個參展藝術家，都被診斷為有認知、行為或發展異常，或是有精神病，並全為特殊庇護設施的學員或住客。
醫生蒐病人作品助診斷
在西方，「門外漢藝術」的發展，與精神醫學有密切關係：19世紀開始便有醫生蒐集病人的作品，以協助診斷；在日本，則跟1945年後的公共醫療和教 育改革有關，其中教育家系賀一雄為重要推手。他被視為日本的社會福利改革之父，1947年在滋賀縣創立近江學園，為日本首個收容戰爭孤兒和殘障兒童的設 施，教授學員農業、文學、藝術等學科，並着重職業訓練。1954年陶藝家八木一夫接掌學園的陶藝作坊，讓學生不必一定做碗盤，而可以隨心所欲創作沒有用途 的東西。是次展覽的參展學員，便有不少是來自近江學園或其他認同八木理念的設施。從他們的作品裏，讓人看到不擅辭令的作者，如何用象形文字、色彩等表達自 己，也能從中了解這些所謂「不正常」的腦袋裏，有多麼驚人的創造力。
Souzou: Outsider Art from Japan
地點：Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE
日期及時間：即日至6月30日
周二、三、五、六上午10:00至晚上6:00
周四至晚上10:00
周日上午11:00至晚上6:00
公眾假期中午12:00至晚上6:00
周一休息
門票：免費
網址：www.wellcomecollection.org
 http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/souzou.aspx
文：郭瑋瑋
圖：法新社

Our spring exhibition brings together more than 300 works for the first major display of Japanese Outsider Art in the UK. The 46 artists represented in the show are residents and day attendees at social welfare institutions across Japan. The wonderfully diverse collection comprises ceramics, textiles, paintings, sculpture and drawings.

'Souzou' has no direct translation in English but a dual meaning in Japanese: written one way, it means creation, and in another it means imagination. Both meanings allude to a force by which new ideas are born and take shape in the world.

The exhibition has been organised in association with Het Dolhuys, the Museum of Psychiatry in Haarlem (the Netherlands) and the Social Welfare Organisation Aiseikai (Tokyo). It reflects the growing acclaim for Outsider Art – often defined as works made by self-taught artists perceived to be at the margins of society – while questioning assumptions about the category itself.

Eschewing a purely biographical approach, the show will be object-led, with a startling array of works offering singular and affecting explorations of culture, memory and creativity. A series of documentary films featuring a selection of the exhibiting artists will play at the end of the exhibition.

• 

  Introduction

  Curator's essay.
• 

  Image galleries

  Explore works from the exhibition.
• 

  360 degree objects

  Explore some of the objects from 'Souzou' in depth and detail with our 360 degree zoomable images.
• 

  Events

  A series of events at Wellcome Collection to accompany 'Souzou'.
• 

  Learning resources

  Inside the creative mind: three-part school projects to give students an increased understanding of works in the exhibition.
• 

  Young people respond

  Projects with specific youth and community groups focussing on simple techniques and low-cost materials, inspired by the exhibition.

フランス人画家・ジャン・デュビュッフェがつくったフランス語「アール・ブリュット（Art Brut、「生（なま、き）の芸術」）」を、イギリス人著述家・ロジャー・カーディナルが「アウトサイダー・アート（英: outsider art）」と英語表現に訳し替えた。
特に、子どもや、正式な美術教育を受けずに発表する当てもないまま独自に作品を制作しつづけている者などの芸術も含む。なお、デュビュッフェの作品をアール・ブリュットに含める場合もある。
アウトサイダー・アートは絵画や彫刻だけでなく、服飾、映像、文学、音楽などとしても現れる。また、ある種のインスタレーションや建築、庭園など作品というより空間の形態を取ることもある（visionary environment、ヴィジョナリー・エンヴァイアランメント、幻視的空間）。
デュビュッフェが1949年に開催した「文化的芸術よりも、生（き）の芸術を」のパンフレットには、「アール・ブリュット（生の芸術）は、芸術的訓 練や芸術家として受け入れた知識に汚されていない、古典芸術や流行のパターンを借りるのでない、創造性の源泉からほとばしる真に自発的な表現」と書かれて いる。

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsider_art#Jean_Dubuffet_and_art_brut



The term outsider art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for art brut (French: [aʁ bʁyt], "raw art" or "rough art"), a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by those on the outsides of the established art scene such as insane-asylum inmates and children.^[1][2]
While Dubuffet's term is quite specific, the English term "outsider art" is often applied more broadly, to include certain self-taught or naïve art makers who were never institutionalized. Typically, those labeled as outsider artists have little or no contact with the mainstream art world or art institutions. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrates extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds.
Outsider art has emerged as a successful art marketing category (an annual Outsider Art Fair has taken place in New York since 1993). The term is sometimes misapplied as a catch-all marketing label for art created by people outside the mainstream "art world," regardless of their circumstances or the content of their work.

Contents 1 Art of the insane 2 Jean Dubuffet and art brut 3 The cultural context of the outsider art category 4 Vocabulary 5 Notable outsider artists 6 See also 7 References 8 Further reading

Art of the insane

Main article: Creativity and mental illness

Interest in the art of insane asylum inmates had begun to grow in the 1920s. In 1921 Dr. Walter Morgenthaler published his book Ein Geisteskranker als Künstler (A Psychiatric Patient as Artist) on Adolf Wölfli, a psychotic mental patient in his care. Wölfli had spontaneously taken up drawing, and this activity seemed to calm him. His most outstanding work is an illustrated epic of 45 volumes in which he narrates his own imaginary life story. With 25,000 pages, 1,600 illustrations, and 1,500 collages, it is a monumental work. He also produced a large number of smaller works, some of which were sold or given as gifts. His work is on display at the Adolf Wölfli Foundation in the Museum of Fine Art, Bern. A defining moment was the publication of Bildnerei der Geisteskranken (Artistry of the mentally ill) in 1922, by Dr. Hans Prinzhorn. This was the first serious study of psychiatric works which was created after compiling thousands of examples from European Institutions. The book and the collection gained much attention from avant-garde artists of the time, including Franz Marc, Paul Klee, Max Ernst and Jean Dubuffet.^[3]
People with some artistic training and well-established artists are not immune from mental illness and may also be institutionalised. For example, William Kurelek, later awarded the Order of Canada for his artistic life work, as a young man was admitted to the Maudsley Psychiatric Hospital where he was treated for schizophrenia.^[4] In hospital he painted, producing "The Maze", a dark depiction of his tortured youth.^[5] He was transferred from the Maudsley to Netherne Hospital from November 1953 to January 1955, to work with Edward Adamson (1911–1996), a pioneer of art therapy, and creator of the Adamson Collection.

Jean Dubuffet and art brut

French artist Jean Dubuffet was particularly struck by Bildnerei der Geisteskranken and began his own collection of such art, which he called art brut or raw art. In 1948 he formed the Compagnie de l'Art Brut along with other artists, including André Breton. The collection he established became known as the Collection de l'art brut. It contains thousands of works and is now permanently housed in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Dubuffet characterized art brut as:

"Those works created from solitude and from pure and authentic creative impulses – where the worries of competition, acclaim and social promotion do not interfere – are, because of these very facts, more precious than the productions of professionals. After a certain familiarity with these flourishings of an exalted feverishness, lived so fully and so intensely by their authors, we cannot avoid the feeling that in relation to these works, cultural art in its entirety appears to be the game of a futile society, a fallacious parade." — Jean Dubuffet. Place à l'incivisme (Make way for Incivism). Art and Text no.27 (December 1987 – February 1988). p.36 Dubuffet's writing on art brut was the subject of a noted program at the Art Club of Chicago in the early 1950s.

Dubuffet argued that 'culture', that is mainstream culture, managed to assimilate every new development in art, and by doing so took away whatever power it might have had. The result was to asphyxiate genuine expression. Art brut was his solution to this problem – only art brut was immune to the influences of culture, immune to being absorbed and assimilated, because the artists themselves were not willing or able to be assimilated.
 more...

Skylighting Sculpture by ArchitectureWeek

與我有四十幾年交情的謝老師 (初中歷史老師)以前教我:天天要有美....

我知道他可能還有機會看到這些. 所以我要記得天天告訴他一些美好的東西.

http://www.nashersculpturecenter.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasher_Sculpture_Center

 我由這知道: 

Skylighting Sculpture

by ArchitectureWeek

When Texas entrepreneur Raymond Nasher asked for a "roofless museum" for his extensive sculpture collection, his architects and their consultants delivered a unique interpretation. The Nasher Sculpture Center, which opened in downtown Dallas in 2003, is a synthesis of nature and building: a sculpture garden and a building with a roof that's "open" to the light of the sky.

Because the new museum is intended exclusively for sculpture, the designers were not as limited in their treatment of illumination as they would have been for light-sensitive paintings. While Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano designed a series of five parallel stone-walled pavilions, engineers at Arup crafted a latitude-specific geometry for a cast-aluminum roof that, without any moving parts, admits daylight while shading the interior spaces from direct sun year-round. Landscape architect Peter Walker designed the two-acre (0.8-hectare) sculpture garden as an oasis amidst skyscrapers.

Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas, designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop.
Photo: Timothy Hursley

Inside one of the galleries, where direct sunlight never enters.
Photo: Timothy Hursley

The 54,000-square-foot (5000-square-meter) museum has two levels. The ground level houses three galleries, offices, a boardroom, and a shop. The lower level houses a single gallery for light sensitive works, "back-of-house" functions, and an auditorium. The garden terraces downward to the auditorium, creating an open air theater.

Geometry of a Shading Device

Arup director Alistair Guthrie says designing the roof for the Nasher Gallery was a challenge for the entire team. "The project has been years in planning and this canopy is unique in its form and unique to this site."

The shading design was programmed on a computer, starting with a horizontal square with corners pointing north, south, east, and west. The engineers established an initial form based on a sine curve, determined by the building's latitude and longitude, passing through the east and west corners.

This form would block direct sunlight coming from south of the east-west axis. However in the summer, early or late in the day, when the sun is to the north of that axis, direct sunlight would not be blocked by that simple shade.

The Arup engineers next assumed the same form of shading on the north side as on the south side and then, simulating the sun's path, cut away the material that did not provide any shading. The lower half of the shade was formed by inverting the top half; this shades the opposite triangle of the original square.

The result of this geometric exercise was a single shell-like element of the roof, which was then repeated over half a million times. The roof was cast in aluminum directly from the original computer programming data. "A design first," according to Guthrie.

Below the matrix of shells is a thin skin of curved glass panels with a low-iron composition for maximum transparency. The effect of this roof construction is that direct solar radiation never penetrates to the building's interior, while maximum exposure to the sky provides ample north light, eliminating hard shadows on the sculptures in the galleries.

The Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection encompasses more than 300 sculptures, including works by Calder, de Kooning, Giacometti, Picasso, and Rodin, as well as contemporary artists such as James Turrell, Tony Cragg, and Magdalena Abakanowicz.

Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas, designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop.
Photo: Timothy Hursley

Each pavilion is enclosed by low-iron glass facades and roof which permit unobstructed views from the street, through the building, and across the length of the garden.
Photo: Timothy Hursley

Half a million shell forms make up the Nasher roof designed by Arup.
Photographer: Michel Denancé

Arup's computer program simulated the sun's movement and subtracted any material from the shell form that did not provide shade.
Image: Arup

Sun screen detail.
Photographer: Michel Denancé

Back of sun screen.
Photographer: Michel Denancé

Building section, Nasher Sculpture Center.
Image: Renzo Piano Building Workshop

Roof construction detail, Nasher Sculpture Center.
Image: Renzo Piano Building Workshop