The Museum of Arts & Design will present Inspired by China: Contemporary Furnituremakers Explore Chinese Traditions, which brings together 27 masterpieces of historic Chinese furniture—some from as early as the 16th century—with 27 pieces of contemporary studio furniture created specifically for the exhibition. Each of the 22 artists––from the United States, Canada, Japan and China—is recognized for innovations and quality of design.
“The interaction between the past and present and the cross-fertilization of cultures is of great interest to contemporary art and design,” says Holly Hotchner, director of the Museum of Arts & Design. “An international group of artists have made exceptional works, inspired by centuries of Chinese design.
The exhibition grew out of a three-day workshop at the Peabody Essex Museum in June 2005, when the 22 artists were invited to view and discuss more than 40 pieces representing China's rich and varied furniture traditions. The artists then produced new works that are fascinating for their range of creative response and materials, including stainless steel, electrical wire, ceramic and twigs. Inspired by China was organized by the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, Massachusetts, The exhibition opened therein October 2006 and ran through March 4, 2007. Nancy Berliner, PEM curator of Chinese Art, and Edward S. Cooke, Jr., Charles F. Montgomery professor of American decorative arts at Yale University, are co-curators.
A striking chair by the Chinese artist Shao Fan has added to the exhibition. His works combine the aesthetics of the Ming Dynasty with modern forms and materials. He playfully creates a new visual language of past and present, typifying China's struggle to ascertain its new contemporary identity. Shao Fan is considered the foremost “crossover artist” in mainland China, blurring the boundaries between the fine and the applied arts, which aligns him closely with the mission of the Museum of Arts & Design.
Chinese Furniture Influences the West
The aesthetics of Chinese decorative art have been an important source for new directions in European and American furniture. These include the geometric detailing of the Chippendale style of the mid-18th century; the use of oriental figures and Chinese architectural forms in the Aesthetic style of the late 19th century; and the unadorned profile of modernist design in the 1930s and 1940s. In the early 1950s, the noted American designer and writer T.H. Robsjohns-Gibbings extolled the beauty of Chinese furniture––its “self-contained” quality and “tranquil earthbound grace”––and compared it to ancient Greek forms.
The reopening of China to the West in the early 1970s spurred a growing interest in historic Chinese furniture. Despite this renewed awareness, the Western perspective on Chinese furniture has been fairly limited, focusing primarily on the elegant simplicity and legendary workmanship of the Ming styles, and on the elaborately ornamented surfaces of the Qing. Artists in the United States draw from many traditions, but few have had prior opportunities to explore the complexity of Chinese forms, materials and techniques.
For this exhibition, the curators selected Chinese works that represented distinct styles of vernacular furniture, more elaborate Ming furniture, and a range of types and materials. Inspired by China, drawn from private collections and the museum’s own holdings, offers a rich portrait of China’s furniture traditions.
Five Decades of Studio Furniture
Studio furniture, a vibrant field in North America since the 1950s, also enjoyed a surge in popularity. Freed from the demands of mass-market furniture production, studio artists produce on-of-a-kind pieces that often require hundreds of hours to create. Not surprisingly, their creations are increasingly prized by collectors and museums. The artists draw from multiple traditions, yet few have had prior opportunities to explore the complexity of Chinese forms, materials and techniques.
In China, artists trained in sculpture, design and traditional furnituremaking are now also creating one-of-a-kind pieces of contemporary furniture. The Chinese artists selected for this exhibition work outside of traditional apprenticeships, and share a common interest with their North American counterparts in connecting concept, materials and technique. They also share an interest in working with historic materials. The exhibition curators considered it important to bring them together––to offer an opportunity for creative and professional interaction.
Selecting the Artists
The curators chose a well-known group of artists and furnituremakers, opting for mature artists who have long produced consistently strong works. In considering materials, they looked to Clifton Monteith’s sophisticated use of willow and lacquer, Bonnie Bishoff’s and Mark Syron’s original development of polymer clay veneers, and Richard Prisco’s postindustrial use of wood and steel as a way of offering rich commentary on Chinese materials. To shed light on the exquisitely refined art of hidden joinery found in historical pieces, they invited furnituremakers such as Michael Puryear, whose simplicity in design belies an underlying complexity.
Another group the curators wanted to engage were artists who develop objects with cultural meaning. They believed that John Dunnigan’s deep knowledge of furniture history and the changing meanings of objects would offer instructive insights, and that Shao Fan’s interest in deconstructing furniture would express a reverence for the ancient traditions of China. Shi Jianmin explores traditional forms in new materials, namely stainless steel.
For the American participants, Inspired by China was an opportunity to experience firsthand the precise workmanship of Chinese furniture, prized and revered among artists, and to study a wide diversity of furniture from China. Conversely, the Chinese furnituremakers traveled half-way around the globe to reencounter their own culture’s history as represented in the Peabody Essex Museum’s collections, and to experience the perspectives, ideas, techniques and works of their American counterparts, whom they had never met. Joining these studio furnituremakers were two traditional Chinese furnituremakers from rural Anhui Province.
The artists’ workshop and the resulting Inspired by China exhibition are an important step in a new cross-cultural exchange between America and China. “We trust that this endeavor is only the first of a sustained period of interaction, one that will not homogenize the furniture of the world but highlight regional traditions and inspire new design possibilities,” according to Nancy Berliner and Ned Cooke, co-curators of Inspired by China: Contemporary Furnituremakers Explore Chinese Traditions.
The exhibition will run through October 28, 2007.-- www.madmuseum.org
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