2013年8月30日 星期五

BBC的Design Icons 系列文章:Pompidou Centre: A radical with enduring appeal

BBC的Design Icons 系列文章都很值得參考:


 
Design Icons

Pompidou Centre: A radical with enduring appeal

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Competition time
In 1969, Richard Rogers, a young British architect, was persuaded to enter a competition to design the Pompidou Centre by his friends Renzo Piano and Ted Happold. (Photo: Corbis)
The Pompidou Centre was panned by the critics when it opened in 1977. But its colourful exuberance has ensured its lasting popular appeal, writes Jonathan Glancey.
“The funny thing looking back is that, to begin with, I hadn’t been at all keen on the project”, says Richard Rogers of the Parisian building that made him world famous. The Pompidou Centre – a still shocking, if much admired hi-tech cultural centre in the heart of Paris – was, at the time an international competition was held for its design in 1969, a symbol of everything the 36-year-old left-wing architect stood against.
What was known then as the Centre Beaubourg was to be a state monument, a centralised museum proposed by a new, right-wing French president, Georges Pompidou, the very man who, as prime minister under President de Gaulle, had put a end to the student demonstrations and riots of the previous year. Many in France believed these to be the opening shots in a new French Revolution that would bring down General de Gaulle, his government and the state itself, together with proposals for costly national monuments.
After much intellectual arm-wrestling, Rogers was persuaded by colleagues and associates – principally Ted Happold, a structural engineer, and Renzo Piano, a lively Genoese architect raised in a family of builders – to have a shot at the Parisian competition.
Even then, the team of young long-haired, tie-dyed architects and engineers nearly missed the last post with their package of drawings, one of 681 entries in the competition. A month later, Rogers’ phone rang. It was Piano. “Vecchio” he said, (Piano has always called Rogers, who is four years older, “old man”), “are you sitting down? We’ve won the Pompidou . . .”
It was hard to believe. The Piano and Rogers’ design looked like no other museum or cultural centre. With exposed and brightly coloured ductwork and escalators climbing, zigzag style in transparent tubes across its challenging façade, the building was planned as “a cross between the British Museum and Times Square.” It was as hip a design for a public building as could be imagined, a cultural centre for the iconoclastic new worlds of Pierre Boulez in music, Andy Warhol in art and Jean-Luc Godard on screen.
Are friends electric?
The first sight of the design team did little to sway establishment fears in France that they had been landed with the architectural equivalent of Electric Ladyland by the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
“Renzo says we were the ‘bad boys’ of architecture”, says Rogers. “When President Pompidou looked at the drawings, all he said was “Ça va faire crier” [This is going to make a noise]; but, we moved to Paris for five years, it got built on time and within budget, and it was a big success.”
President Pompidou had been remarkably gracious to these young radicals. As for popularity, the cultural centre that now bears his name entertained six million visitors in its first year – making it more popular than the Eiffel Tower.
Because it was so avant-garde a design, it was a challenge to build, especially so when the budget was cut in half. Rogers and Piano relied heavily on the ingenuity of Peter Rice, a brilliant young Irish structural engineer, who had only recently solved the problem of how to build the wild, sail-like roofs of the Sydney Opera House.
Beam me up
“Peter transformed the competition entry for Pompidou from a design that was in some ways too mechanistic into one that was humanistic”, says Rogers. “He softened the whole look of the building through the way he reconfigured the structure. There’s a lot of handcraft in the building, too, which might surprise a lot of people, and that’s one of Peter’s great contributions. The cast steel ‘gerberettes’ – or special beams – that allowed us to have a deep, free floor space by carrying the weight of the floors to the outside of the building brought light and grace to the final structure; they were fettled by hand.”
Rice was thrilled when he came across an old Parisian lady stroking the cast steel beams of the building – telling him how lovely the texture was. “Before working with Peter, we existed in a world of I-beams and the kind of conventional steelwork that would have made the walls of Pompidou look heavy; we were looking for transparency, the idea of a cultural centre that was truly open to everyone with nothing to hide from the public” he said
The Pompidou Centre opened in 1977. By and large, critics panned it. It was an “oil refinery” of a building, shocking, provocative and insensitive to the city streets around it. And, yet, it has become one of the key buildings of the second half of the 20thCentury, and hugely popular for its location, events and the enduring appeal of its extrovert and adaptable design, a colourful climbing-frame of a building extending an open invitation to all ages and generations.
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2013年8月15日 星期四

Some designs/ Hale Woodruff,







Brolly Umbrella Frees Thumbs for Texting
By GREGORY SCHMIDT


Addressing poor umbrella design, the Brolly has a handle with an ergonomic, four-finger grip that frees your thumb to text.











TOOLKIT
GRAPHIC:Inside the Keurig Vue V700, a Single-Serve Coffee Maker


Sometimes, one cup of coffee is just enough. First introduced in 1998, Keurig's machines run water through small packs to make one cup of coffee - or other beverages, including hot chocolate and tea.



*****


Rising Up  The canvas as one-act play, drawing visual inspiration from across the art historical spectrum: Hale Woodruff's

ART REVIEW

In Electric Moments, History Transfigured

By ROBERTA SMITH

"Rising Up," a show at 80WSE Gallery at N.Y.U., is devoted to six striking murals by Hale Woodruff, depicting moments in African-American history, as well as other works by the artist.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Hale Woodruff
Hale Aspacio Woodruff (August 26, 1900 - September 6, 1980) was an African-American artist known for his murals, paintings, and prints. One example of his work, the three-panel Amistad Mutiny murals (1938), can be found at Talladega College in Talladega County, Alabama. The murals, commissioned and painted during the Great Depression, are entitled: The Revolt, The Court Scene, and Back to Africa, portraying events related to the slave revolt on the Amistad. Located in Savery Library, they depict events on the ship, the U.S. Supreme Court trial, and the Mende people's return to Africa.
The library also has a portrayal of the ship as part of the lobby floor. Local tradition at the college prohibits walking "on" the ship, despite its central location. In addition, the library has other Woodruff murals depicting other events from African-American history, including student registration at the college after the American Civil War.
Born in Cairo, Illinois, he studied at the John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis and at Harvard University.



2013年8月4日 星期日

Allan Kaprow 1927-2006/Modern Art: A Very Short Introduction by David Cottington



《葉維廉文集 5卷》安徽教育出版社,頁095-109
g.農業廢料Agricultural Waste 1987 107-1.9沒日期先生 60歲的一次遊戲

Allan Kaprow (August 23, 1927 – April 5, 2006) was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. He helped to develop the "Environment" and "Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as their theory. His Happenings - some 200 of them - evolved over the years. Eventually Kaprow shifted his practice into what he called "Activities", intimately scaled pieces for one or several players, devoted to the study of normal human activity in a way congruent to ordinary life. Fluxus, Performance art, and Installation art was, in turn, influenced by his work.

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




Published works

Assemblage,Environments, and Happenings (1966) presented the work of like-minded artists through both photographs and critical essays, and is a standard text in the field of performance art. Kaprow's Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life (1993), a collection of pieces written over four decades, has made his theories about the practice of art in the present day available to a new generation of artists and critics. [9]

 *****

  關於觀念藝術如何排斥傳統的藝術標準,已經談得很多。其實,

這種對傳統的排斥,早在觀念藝術積極登場之前就已開始。新標準的時勢肇端於這樣的認知:如果藝術要維持其活力,它必須再一次地投入文化價值的舞台。而文化價值的改變——在過去乃藝術的主題之一——今天,按照艾倫‧卡布羅(Allan Kaprow)的說法,主要「透過政治的、軍事的、經濟的、技術的、教育的及廣告的壓力而達成的。

  無疑的,某些美學家會說價值的改變對藝術而言,並不是一種適切的,或甚至於歷史性的課題。但是我持不同的看法,它未必是最重要、或唯一的課題;無論如何,事實是很清楚的:所有好的及「持久的藝術與更廣泛的文化發展有密切的關連。通常,文化價值決定這種藝術的真正形式,其實,這兩者是不可分的。某些藝術的真正品質,特別就觀念藝術的架構而言,取決於它如何有效地改變我們的文化價值。具體地說,一件「好的觀念藝術作品成功地突破了既定的美學或文化規則。


 *****
 pp.64-65 一小段談 Allan Kaprow
 

bookshot

Modern Art: A Very Short Introduction

ISBN13: 9780192803641ISBN10: 0192803646 Paperback, 152 pages
Apr 2005,  In Stock

Retail Price to Students:

$11.95 (03)
152 pages; 29 halftones; 4-1/2 x 7;
This Very Short Introduction focuses on interrogating the idea of "modern" art by asking such questions as: What makes a work of art qualify as modern, or fail to? How has this selection been made? What is the relationship between modern and contemporary art? Is "postmodernist" art no longer modern, or just no longer modernist? In either case, why--and what does this claim mean, both for art and the idea of "the modern?"

Description

Public interest in modern art continues to grow, as witnessed by the spectacular success of the Tate Modern in London and the Bilbao Guggenheim. Modern Art: A Very Short Introduction engages general readers, offering them not only information and ideas about modern art, but also explaining its contemporary relevance and history. The book focuses on interrogating the idea of "modern" art by asking such questions as: What makes a work of art qualify as modern, or fail to? How has this selection been made? What is the relationship between modern and contemporary art? Is "postmodernist" art no longer modern, or just no longer modernist? In either case, why--and what does this claim mean, both for art and the idea of "the modern?"

Cottingham examines many key aspects of this subject, including the issue of controversy in modern art, from Manet's Dejeuner sur L'Herbe (1863) to Picasso's Les Demoiselles, and Tracey Emin's Bed (1999). He also looks at the role of the dealer from the main Cubist art dealer Kahnweiler, to Charles Saatchi.

About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam

Features

  • This book grapples clearly and provocatively with the complex idea of modern art
  • The author, David Cottington, writes clear and accessible, free of jargon but not of challenging ideas and arguments
  • The book covers all main artists and movements, as well as the new developments in modern art
  • Examines key aspects of modern art using examples such as Manet's Dejeuner sur L'Herbe (1863) to Picasso's Les Demoiselles, and Tracey Emin's Bed (1999)
  • Looks at the role of the art dealer, from the main Cubist dealer, Kahnweiler to Charles Saatchi

About the Author(s)

David Cottington is Professor of History of Art at Falmouth College of Art and the author of Cubism.





2013年8月1日 星期四

The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Art, Edited by Harold OsborneThe British Society of Aesthetics

The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Art, Edited by Harold Osborne, OUP, 1981, 656 pages我有的; 1988, 800 pages, ...

About the Editor:
Harold Osborne, who died in 1987, was a leading authority on modern art history. He edited many books on aesthetics and art, including The Oxford Companion to Art and The Oxford Companion to the Decorative Arts.


 1988年版封面
 

The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Art provides readers at every level with a wealth of material and information on the art of our time. No other reference book or guide to twentieth-century art covers so wide a range of subjects, or supplies so much detail, as this one-volume assemblage, based on previously scattered information from inaccessible histories, monographs, and widely dispersed exhibition catalogs.
Complementing The Oxford Companion to Art, this new Companion treats in far greater depth the artists, ideas, movements and trends of painting, sculpture, and the graphic arts of this century up to the mid 1970s. While it contains mainly entries on individual artists, the contributors also include articles on movements and schools, styles and new technical terms, ranging from Dada and Surrealism to Body Art and Computer Art. It offers separate accounts of art in the United States, Britain, and in the major European countries, as well as articles by leading authorities on the art and artists of Africa, Australia, Canada, Latin America, Mexico, South Africa, and the USSR. The contributors concentrate particularly on the aims and aesthetic theories of individual artists and groups.
Including 300 carefully-chosen illustrations--nearly half in color--and a selective bibliography, The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Art will guide students of art and general readers intelligently through the exuberant jungle of contemporary art.

 ***** 因為要找 Harold Osborne的資料 碰到The British Society of Aesthetics 的會史. Harold Osborne是在82歲生日後過世的1987


HAROLD OSBORNE (1905–1987)

Click image below to view at full size.
extract-image

學會
  A Memoir, by T.J. Diffey


The British Society of Aesthetics was formed in 1960 to promote discussion and research into the theory of art and criticism and the principles of appreciation. This objective of course expresses a particular moment in the history of aesthetics. The Society was founded by a group of people including Sir Herbert Read, Dr (later Professor} Ruth Saw and Harold Osborne. The Society is incorporated in law as a registered charity. Harold Osborne’ s knowledge and advice were indispensable to setting it up on a sound legal footing. Louis Arnaud Reid, Professor of the Philosophy of Education in the University of London was also active in the affairs of the Society from the beginning. Reid had written Meaning in the Arts, published in 1931 when, in Harold Osborne’ s words, “ writing on aesthetics by serious philosophers was still at a very low ebb in English-speaking countries” .

The first meeting of the executive committee of the Society was held in July 1960. Osborne, who was a long-standing friend of Sir Herbert Read’ s, was the founder editor, and thus the first of the three editors to date, of the Society’ s quarterly journal, The British Journal of Aesthetics. The first issue of this appeared in November 1960. The Journal has gone from strength to strength and maintains the pre-eminent position in the field first established by Harold Osborne. It has been published on behalf of the Society by a succession of Britain’ s leading publishers, first Routledge & Kegan Paul, then Thames & Hudson and since 1975, Oxford University Press. Terry Diffey succeeded Harold Osborne as editor in November 1977 and Peter Lamarque became editor in January 1995.

In its early years the Society was London based. Harold Osborne was a civil servant working in London when the Society was founded. The Society too had strong links with London University, particularly Birkbeck College. Ruth Saw, and another stalwart pillar of the Society from its earliest years, Ruby Meager, held posts in London University. Monthly evening lecture meetings addressed by guest speakers and followed by discussion were held during the autumn and spring terms. Visiting speakers included practising artists speaking of their work, philosophers, critics, art historians and educationalists. Speakers included Adrian Stokes, Alan Rawsthorne, William Empson, Kathleen Raine, Stuart Hampshire, John Bayley, Roman Ingarden and Yehudi Menuhin. For many years the meetings took place in the Holborn Central Public Library.
Though in effect London-based at the beginning, the Society was of course always a national society. Its membership was always national not to say international and from the earliest years it generally held an annual conference, bringing in speakers from the whole country and from abroad, e. g. Mikel Dufrenne. Moreover, one could generally count on meeting scholars from overseas who were in Britain at the time of the conferences, particularly our colleagues from the American Society for Aesthetics. However, it was the custom not to hold national conference every fourth year when the International Congresses of Aesthetics took place. But in 1980 the Society changed this policy in favour of holding annual conferences.

The first conference was held in London in September 1963 and they continued in various venues in London until the mid1990s when the conferences moved from London to St Edmund Hall, Oxford. Conferences were organised at Hanover Lodge, Regent’ s Park from 1967 to 1971 by Professor Eva Schaper of the University of Glasgow. Eva Schaper was a leading member of the Society from the beginning. She was not the first conference organiser for the Society but she did organise some conferences before 1967 at other venues in London. 1972 was an International Congress year. When national conferences were resumed in 1973 they were organised by Terry Diffey in halls of residence belonging to London University. Ben Martin Hoogwerf took over from Terry Diffey and in 1981 Richard Woodfield took on the job. Other members of the Society to organise the conferences include Philip Meeson and most recently Nick McAdoo has acted as conference organiser.

Harold Osborne and his associates, but particularly Osborne, had a strong international outlook. The Society always participated in the four-yearly international congresses of aesthetics. Indeed the story is often told that the Society was formed in the first place so that Sir Herbert Read, who became the first president of the Society, could attend the international congress of aesthetics in Athens. Allegedly you needed to be a member of a national delegation in order to attend. Whether this is true or not (I think there may be something in it) Harold Osborne and many other members of the society were, and many still are, far more widely involved in the international scene than just with the congresses. Read was accompanied to Athens in September 1960 by a good sized contingent which included Ruth Saw, Louis Arnaud Reid, Frank Sibley and Eva Schaper. The Society has engaged in many bilateral meetings with Societies from other European countries, it has friendly relations with the American Society for Aesthetics, and it has been active in contributing over the years to international newsletters and committees for aesthetics.

Early members of the Society included Benjamin Britten, Kenneth Clark, the BBC, John Gielgud, Ernst Gombrich, Ronald Hepburn, John MacMurray, Henry Moore, Victor Pasmore, Nikolaus Pevsner, Basil Spence and Richard Wollheim.
Professor Ruth Saw succeeded Sir Herbert Read as President of the Society, when Read died in 1968. Ruth Saw resigned the presidency in 1981 because increasing lack of mobility made it difficult for her to get to meetings. Harold Osborne then became President.

After Harold Osborne died shortly after his eighty-second birthday at his home in Switzerland in March 1987, Eva Schaper became President. After her untimely death at the age of 67 in June 1992 Richard Wollheim assumed the office until his death in 2003 with Richard Woodfield and Graham McFee respectively as vice-presidents. Malcolm Budd became president in 2003 and continues to uphold the office until the present day. Matthew Kieran has been vice-president and chair since 2003 and will be retiring from the post in Sept. 2008.

For much of its history the main activities of the Society have been concerned with publishing the British Journal of Aesthetics, the annual conference and promoting the kind of conferences mentioned above. Peter Lamarque recently retired from editing the journal and the editorship has passed over to John Hyman and Elisabeth Schellekens.

The Society has also ranged more widely in its activities than this might suggest, not only in the variety of its overseas contacts already mentioned, but in its concern to foster the study of aesthetics in Britain. For example, it is about to embark on sponsoring a PhD studentship in aesthetics and financially supports, though necessarily on a modest scale, other societies and individuals engaged in projects in aesthetics who apply to it.



T. J. Diffey, 22 October, 2003
Amended 1st August, 2008