Exhibition Dates: Opening December 21, 2007
Exhibition Location: Lila Acheson Wallace Wing, Design and Architecture Gallery
Order and disorder, reason and emotion, restraint and excess — opposing impulses such as these have influenced design since the beginning of civilization. Classic/Fantastic: Selections from the Modern Design Collection, opening December 21 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, juxtaposes these divergent approaches, presenting an Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy of design philosophies in the modern era. Of the approximately 75 works in a wide range of media — including furniture, metalwork, ceramics, glass, textiles, and drawings — half will be devoted to designs rooted in the centuries-old vocabulary of classicism, updated yet still linked to the rules and traditions of the past, and the other half to romantic and surreal subjects of fantasy, drawn from the realm of pure imagination. A number of works from the Metropolitan Museum's collection will be exhibited for the first time, including tables by Costa Achillopoulo and John Dickinson, a Dutch Rozenburg ceramic covered vase (ca. 1900-14), a Danish lamp by Sigfrid Wagner (1905), a Dale Chihuly Venetian series glass vase (1989), and flatware designed by the American Marion Weeber (1965-70).
A range of works in Classic/Fantastic will reflect the antique language of classicism that has inspired designers throughout the modern era, from a pair of bronze and marble candelabra from 1916 by the American sculptor Paul Manship to a foam chair molded in the shape of an Ionic column capital from 1971 by the Italian team Studio 65. A selection of graceful Scandinavian designs from the 1920s — including Orrefors glass, Georg Jensen silver, and Royal Copenhagen porcelain — will be shown alongside boldly elegant examples of American glass by Steuben. Postmodern works by the Americans Michael Graves (G.Q. Manstyle Award cup, 1982), Robert Stern (Century candlestick, 1983), and Morison Cousins (a footed glass bowl made by Venini, 1997); the Italians Enzo Mari (Bambu vases, 1969), Lella and Massimo Vignelli (a set of Metafora #2 marble building blocks, 1979), and Achille Castiglione (a Taccia lamp, 1962); and the Austrian Hans Hollein (a gold watch designed for Cleto Munari, 1985-86) will demonstrate that the classical vocabulary resonated just as strongly at the end of the 20th century as at the beginning.
Juxtaposed will be a selection of works that ignore the classical vocabulary, replacing its rigid rules with flights of fancy. A strikingly eclectic Italian desk by Carlo Bugatti, ca. 1902, draws inspiration from both Art Nouveau and Moorish design, while a group of furniture, including a hand-shaped English table by Costa Achillopoulo from 1934, an Italian "Architettura" drop-front desk by Piero Fornasetti and Gio Ponti from 1952, and an American "draped" table of galvanized tin by John Dickinson from 1972, display disquietingly surreal qualities. A further group of lyrically expressive late 20th-century works — by Philippe Starck (Juicy Salif lemon squeezer, 1990; L'Étrangeté vase, ca. 1988), Shiro Kuramata (Flower Vase #3, 1989), and Alessi (a 1993 adaptation of Christopher Dresser's Christy thermoplastic resin sugar bowls of 1864) will bring this section up to the end of the 20th century.
Classic/Fantastic is organized by Jared Goss, Associate Curator, in the Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art.
The exhibition will also be featured on the Museum's website, www.metmuseum.org.
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March 6, 2008
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