Toilets and urinals aren’t typical fodder for red-carpet conversation, but stall talk dominated on Monday evening as galagoers ascended the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in ensembles that ranged from clownish to sublime. Guests were buzzing about the recreated CBGB bathroom (pictured) that is among the first things visitors encounter in the museum’s “PUNK: Chaos to Couture” exhibition, which opens to the public tomorrow. The cave-like space, scrawled with circa-1975 graffiti, is adjacent to monitors playing a looped selection of films and footage–of Blondie, the Ramones, Patti Smith, and Television–selected by Nick Knight and edited by Ruth Hogben.
“We’ve had great [design] moments in punk, but I’ve very excited about the urinal–a urinal at the Met!” said André Leon Talley at Monday’s gala. “According to Patti Smith, punk began in a urinal downtown somewhere that I never went to, so I’m excited to see that.” The Vogue veteran was dressed in an elaborately embroidered cape–think Joseph’s technicolor dreamcoat meets MacKenzie-Childs–designed for him by Tom Ford. “I love this coat and I don’t consider it punk. I just consider it appropriate for this occasion,” said Talley with a chuckle. “I said to Anna [Wintour], I didn’t do punk. I skipped punk and went straight to couture.”
“I’m just so fascinated with what the approach to theme will be–is it about a punk attitude? Is it about the specific time period referred to as punk? I think there are a lot of mysteries to be unveiled. And we can use it as an excuse to spit inside the museum…just inside a cistern of some sort, any old Greek cisterns we might find.”
-The delightful Lena Dunham on her expectations for last night’s punk-themed Met Gala. She attended with Erdem Moralioglu, who designed her dress, complete with upper back-bearing “tattoo window.” The two had a transatlantic fitting via iPad. Added Dunham, “My dog ate a safety pin during the fitting, which is punk.”
The gleaming logo, spotlit on the exhibition’s title wall. At right, the cover of the exhibition catalogue, which includes prefaces by Richard Hell and John Lydon.
When it comes to punk, the graphics tend to get gritty–all ragey handwriting fonts and distressed stenciling–but while a hit of GO-RILLA or Kra Kra is sufficient to evoke a Sex Pistols state of mind or a Ramones-era DIY kerning moment, it doesn’t quite capture the sartorial chasm of “chaos to couture.” Enter Peter Saville, who created the exhibition logo for the “PUNK” exhibition organized by the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He used lettering by Paul Barnes to evoke the “coup d’état in youth culture” that was punk. “There has been very little liaison with the Met and the photograph on your site is the first time we have seen the logo actually in use,” Saville tells us. “The logo employs an irreverent use of 18th-century typefaces (by Fournier) in keeping with Nick Knight‘s briefing for the design of the show, which was Versailles on the eve of the French Revolution.”
Paola Antonelli, charmer of Stephen Colbert and the most curious of octopuses, will be honored this evening in New York by the MEDIUM Group. The art and commerce go-between is presenting Antonelli, senior curator of architecture and design and director of research and development at the Museum of Modern Art, with an award in recognition of her curatorial achievements and contribution to contemporary culture. Hosting the “Cocktails and Curators” bash, a kind of Frieze kickoff, are Hannah Bronfman, Amani Olu, and Larry Ossei-Mensah. We’re not sure what the award consists of, but might be suggest forgoing a traditional trophy in favor of a carbon-fiber “robo-fly”? “Hello, world’s smallest flying robot!” Antonelli tweeted recently of the insect-scale innovation, the subject of a newly published Science paper. “Where have you been all my life?”
Three muses of Ann Demeulemeester, crowned in ‘dos by Guido Palau. (Photo: UnBeige)
Elaborately studded leather jackets, leopard print pants, and neon pink fright wigs were on display this morning at the Metropolitan Museum of Art–and that was just among those who had gathered in the Sculpture Court for a press conference, where museum director Thomas Campbell, Moda Operandi’s Lauren Santo Domingo, Givenchy creative director Riccardo Tisci, and curator Andrew Bolton spoke briefly about the Costume Institute’s “PUNK: Chaos to Couture” exhibition, which opens to the public on Thursday.
“Punk’s legacy has had an enduring and pervasive influence on high fashion and on the broader culture, often to surprisingly beautiful effect,” said British-born Campbell, who when first hearing of Bolton’s idea for the exhibition flashed back to images of his youth and the King’s Road scene that is celebrated in one of seven second-floor galleries. Bolton explained that he did not set out to examine the history of punk but rather to focus on the impact of punk on haute couture and ready-to-wear.
“No other subcultural movement has had a greater or more enduring influence on the way we dress today,” said Bolton, as a black-clad photographer with long, pointy green fingernails snapped away, “and I wanted the exhibition to underscore punk’s continuing relevance.” Sneak a peek at the exhibition in the installation images below as you ready your webby knitwear and skull-printed accessories for this evening’s gala. continued…
The Museum of Modern Art made headlines when it began adding video games to its collection (the first 14 are on view in the “Applied Design” exhibition), and now the Museum of Fine Arts Boston is getting in the game. The MFA has partnered with comic book creator Stan Sakai, video game company HappyGiant, and Dark Horse Comics for a unique collaboration that equips a samurai rabbit living at the turn of 17th-century Japan with armor from “Samurai! Armor from the Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Collection,” an exhibition on view through August 4 at the museum. The battle-ready bunny is Miyamoto Usagi, star of the Usagi Yojimbo (“Rabbit Bodyguard”) comic book series and the new Usagi Yojimbo: Way of the Ronin video game (a new comics collection is due out in July), and thanks to the MFA, he confronts a bonus level of the video game outfitted in a special suit of armor, helmet, and mask inspired by one in the “Samurai!” show. Players can unlock the special MFA level with a passcode posted at the museum. Download the game for free here.
Here are the latest images of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners’ extension to the British Museum in London, set to complete early next year.
Currently under construction in the north-west corner of the British Museum‘s Bloomsbury quadrangle, the World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre will provide new galleries, storage facilites and conservation studios within a nine-storey structure conceived as a cluster of pavilions.
Referencing both the nineteenth and twentieth century architecture of the museum, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners designed a steel-framed building clad with a mixture of stone and glass. The height of the roof will align with the eaves of the existing building, while three of the storeys are to be buried underground.
The Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery will occupy the ground floor of the new building and will be accessed via the north side of the Norman Foster-designed Great Court. The column-free rectangular gallery will feature a large door to allow access for larger exhibits, as well as a series of floor-to-ceiling windows that can be easily screened to protect light-sensitive objects. The space could also be subdivided to house smaller exhibitions.
Other floors of the building will be dedicated to conservation of the museum’s collection. The uppermost floor will contain top-lit studios for working with smaller artefacts, such as metal, glass or ceramic objects, while additional laboratories and offices will surround a two-storey atrium in the lower levels of the building and will be used for examining larger objects.
The three basement floors will function as a storage and lending hub for over 200,000 items. Each floor will contain a study room, plus a 16-metre truck lift will allow items to be transported in and out of the building.
“The World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre represents a vitally important combination of a purpose-built exhibition gallery and a celebration of the amazing behind-the-scenes activities,” said architect Graham Stirk. “These facilities will be contained in a bespoke twenty-first century building that provides the next stage of the museum’s evolution.”
The World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre will complete in March 2014 and the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery is scheduled to open with an exhibition dedicated to the Vikings.
British Museum celebrates progress on the World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre development
With less than a year to go until the first exhibition opens in the new exhibitions gallery, the British Museum today reveals the extent of progress on the construction of its new capital project, the World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre (WCEC). Designed by Rogers, Stirk, Harbour + Partners (RSHP) and constructed by Mace, the new Centre will cement the British Museum’s reputation as a world leader in the exhibition, conservation, examination and analysis of cultural objects from across the globe. The WCEC will enable the Museum to build on current successes, to store, conserve, study and display the collection for the future.
Located in the north-west corner of the Museum’s Bloomsbury estate, the WCEC is one of the largest redevelopment projects in the Museum’s 260 year history. The Centre will provide a new public exhibitions gallery, state-of-the-art laboratories and studios, world class stores for the collection, as well as facilities to support an extensive UK and international loan programme. This will rationalise and greatly improve the Museum’s operations on-site, and modernise facilities ‘behind the scenes’. These will allow the Museum to extend support to our UK and International partners in terms of increasing capacity for staff training and joint projects.
The building consists of five pavilions (one of which is sunk into the ground) and the design is sensitive to the British Museum’s existing architecture, connecting to the historic building whilst maintaining its own identity. The exhibitions gallery is due to open in early March 2014 with a new exhibition devoted to the Vikings (supported by BP). It is anticipated the conservation studios, science laboratories, loans hub and stores will be fitted out and occupied by summer 2014.
The total cost of the project is £135 million. The Linbury Trust, established by John Sainsbury (Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover KG), and the Monument Trust, established by Simon Sainsbury have together committed £25 million towards the project, one of the largest gifts to the arts in the UK in recent decades, which will be used to fund the exhibition gallery. The Heritage Lottery Fund has committed £10 million towards the project. Other significant benefactors include the Wolfson Foundation, the Garfield Weston Foundation, the A.G. Leventis Foundation and the family of Constantine Leventis, the Clothworkers’ Foundation, the Fidelity U.K. Foundation, Sir Siegmund Warburg’s Voluntary Settlement, the Band Trust and others as well as continued support from the Department for Culture Media and Sport (worth £22.5 million over 4 years). A fundraising campaign from the British Museum Members is underway.
by Stephen Pulvirent There are a lot of new things going on at the New York Museum of Modern Art this May. A few new exhibitions, the 100th installation in the Projects series, an interactive studio café and even a new schedule all come into play. To keep you…
Wisconsin’s Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum is the only museum dedicated to the preservation, study, production, and printing of wood type. Admission is free, thanks in part to the all-volunteer staff, and the collection includes 1.5 million pieces of wood type and more than 1,000 styles and sizes of patterns. In addition to a 145-foot wall of wood type–the world’s largest–the museum even has its own Matthew Carter-designed typeface, Carter Latin Wide. “I’m not a printer, least of all a letterpress printer,” the famed typographer has said of first foray into wood type. “But I tried to think like one and imagine a typeface that allowed me to print something in a way that I could not otherwise do.”
The museum recently moved into a new home in Two Rivers, and the race is on to reopening day, planned for this summer. According to director Jim Moran, Hamilton desperately needs funding–and an army of volunteers–to physically move millions of pieces of type, plates, presses, tools, and raw materials. Enter letterpress-loving Neenah Paper, which has launched a “Help Save Hamilton” campaign that will donate to the museum all money raised from a series of limited-edition prints. First up is “Form & Function” (above), designed by Two Paperdolls. “I scanned the back of some wood type to achieve an authentic texture,” says Jennifer James of the Philadelphia-based studio, “and adorned the letterforms with ornaments you might find in an ‘old school’ letterpress shop.”
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
Toilets and urinals aren’t typical fodder for red-carpet conversation, but stall talk dominated on Monday evening as galagoers ascended the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in ensembles that ranged from clownish to sublime. Guests were buzzing about the recreated CBGB bathroom (pictured) that is among the first things visitors encounter in the museum’s “PUNK: Chaos to Couture” exhibition, which opens to the public tomorrow. The cave-like space, scrawled with circa-1975 graffiti, is adjacent to monitors playing a looped selection of films and footage–of Blondie, the Ramones, Patti Smith, and Television–selected by Nick Knight and edited by Ruth Hogben.
“I’m just so fascinated with what the approach to theme will be–is it about a punk attitude? Is it about the specific time period referred to as punk? I think there are a lot of mysteries to be unveiled. And we can use it as an excuse to spit inside the museum…just inside a cistern of some sort, any old Greek cisterns we might find.”
Paola Antonelli, 
The Museum of Modern Art made headlines when it 
Wisconsin’s 
