calendario eventi  :: 

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21/9/2009

Two events

The Newark Museum, Newark

100 Masterpieces of Art Pottery, 1880-1930

NEWARK MUSEUM EXHIBITS ITS PIONEERING POTTERY COLLECTION TO COMMEMORATE CENTENNIAL; FIRST TIME IN 15 YEARS

100 Masterpieces of Art Pottery, 1880 – 1930 Opens September 23 NEWARK, NJ – The Newark Museum art pottery collection began with an exhibition in 1910, just one year after the institution was founded by John Cotton Dana, and since has grown to be one of the country’s premier holdings. Exhibited as a collection only twice in the past 25 years, in 1984 and 1994, the Museum honors its Centennial with a remarkable exhibition, 100 Masterpieces of Art Pottery, 1880-1930, opening September 23 and running through January 10, 2010.

The Newark Museum’s art pottery collection began with Dana’s pioneering recognition of ceramics as an art form 100 years ago and continued with acquisitions of modern ceramics throughout the 20th century. According to Director Mary Sue Sweeney Price, "Newark was one of the first museums, if not the first, to see ceramics as art in the way painting and sculpture were seen by other museums."

According to Ulysses Grant Dietz, Senior Curator and Curator of Decorative Arts, "John Cotton Dana also envisioned art pottery as a way to involve ordinary people with art; a way to draw them into his fledgling museum and into his library. He was very interested in the potential mass market that could be reached by art pottery in a way they could not be reached by paintings."

"Informing and involving ordinary people in the wonders of the world of art continues to this day – 100 years later – to be his legacy and the central theme of the Newark Museum’s mission," Dietz said.

Funding for 100 Masterpieces of Art Pottery is made possible by the generous support of Barbara and Bill Weldon. The Newark Museum's Centennial Celebration is sponsored by Prudential.

"One hundred years ago, pots were art," said Dietz. "The vase was the ideal art object because, while still ‘functional,’ it could be set aside and admired purely for its beauty and the skill with which it was created. Artistic pots were also more accessible to the general public than paintings and sculpture, and thus were the perfect kind of art for the newly-founded Newark Museum in 1909," he explained.

100 Masterpieces will track the notion of ceramics as art from the Gilded Age of the 1880s to its evolution into studio pottery by the outset of the Great Depression. The Newark Museum’s collection of modern ceramics was begun in 1910 with an exhibition entitled simply Modern American Pottery. The centennial project will feature more than 100 pieces of pottery and porcelain, including American and Native American as well as European and Asian ceramics. The exhibition will be entirely drawn from the Museum’s own collection, with the exception of two loans from the American Decorative Arts 1900 Foundation, according to Dietz.

The "birth" of art pottery was part of the larger arts and crafts movement born in England in the 1860s. In the United States art pottery was hugely influenced by the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, and the ensuing American embrace of such diverse aesthetic notions as Japanism and the Colonial Revival. William DeMorgan (1839-1917) in London and John Bennett in New York City were among the best known figures to explore pottery as art in the 1870s and 1880s, with painterly designs that romantically evoked the Middle Ages and the exotic East. Maria Longworth Nichols, a society lady from Cincinnati, brought art pottery into the American mainstream in the wake of the national Centennial, imbuing her Rookwood Pottery’s output with romanticized Japanism combined with French slip-decorating techniques.

As the nineteenth century came to a close, art pottery split into two distinct camps—the china painters and art potters. Decorated porcelains continued to play a major role in the world of artistic ceramics during the later Gilded Age, continuing a factory-based tradition with roots in the eighteenth century. Royal Worcester in England and Trenton’s Ceramic Art Company were key players in this camp. Art potteries, conceived as small- scale cooperative business ventures with a distinct division of labor, capitalized on arts and crafts ideals of handcraft and design. Ceramic decorating, which was a genteel hobby for well-to-do women, was at the same time a viable career path for both men and women in this period.

"Within the realm of art pottery, a further three-way subdivision produced artwares that were either focused on minimalist forms with remarkable, beautiful glazes; or on the sculptural aspects of pottery as a three-dimensional form; or on the notion of the vessel as a canvas to be filled by an artist, emphasizing painterly effects," Dietz said. These approaches would continue to inform the art pottery world even as it moved from the Art Nouveau to Modernism in the 1920s and began to evolve into the studio pottery movement of the post-Depression years.

100 Masterpieces of Art Pottery, 1880-1930 is accompanied by a full-color catalogue funded by The Helen R. Buck Foundation.

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New Work: Newark in 3D
A Centennial Film Commission by Marylou Tibaldo-Bongiorno and Jerome Bongiorno

Inspired in 1920 by Walt Whitman's collection of poetry, "Leaves of Grass," two artists, Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand, created a six-minute expressive film entitled Manhatta – a work many have described as America's first avant-garde film.

Almost a century later, two Newark-based, award-winning filmmakers, Marylou Tibaldo-Bongiorno and Jerome Bongiorno, have created a modern 3D interpretation of the film in homage to both Manhatta and their home city, Newark. The newly released six-minute, black & white film, New Work: Newark in 3D, A Centennial Film Commission by Marylou Tibaldo-Bongiorno and Jerome Bongiorno, premieres at the Newark Museum on September 23, 2009 and runs through January 10, 2010.

Set against the backdrop of one of the oldest metropolises in the nation, the Bongiornos' film captures the vibrancy of present-day Newark, encompassing a cinematic arc from sunrise to sunset that emulates Strand and Sheeler's historic imagery -- from the city's bustling business districts, port and transit hubs to its parks, grand public monuments, places of worship and impressive iron bridges. In response to the Museum's centennial, the filmmakers captured the treasured landmarks that have graced Newark's urban landscape for almost a century.

Paying close attention to composition of light and dark imagery and movement, the Bongiornos' use of camera angles and high vantage points of the cityscape were created with moving footage shot with three-dimensional technology using two side-by-side Sony high-definition XDCAM EX camcorders and two MinoHDTM camcorders for select shots.

New Work: Newark in 3D, is presented on a continuous loop and projected on a floor-to-ceiling screen in the Museum's South Gallery. To complement the film, Manhatta will be shown on a video monitor in an introductory gallery instead of its usual site in the twentieth-century American art galleries. Take away 3D glasses will be provided to exhibition visitors. Featured in the audio portion of New Work is the poetry of Jon Curley and music recorded by Newark-based artists including the Newark Boys Chorus School, Cobblestone Records, and the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart Choir.

According to Newark Museum Director Mary Sue Sweeney Price, New Work has been acquired for the Newark Museum's American Art collection, in part, with contributions from the Friends of American Art, a museum support group.

The public is invited to a free conversation entitled A Panel Discussion with Filmmakers Marylou Tibaldo-Bongiorno, Jerome Bongiorno and their Community Partners on October 22 at 7 pm that will be moderated by Curator Beth Venn. A reception prior to the lecture program is scheduled at 6 pm. Pre-registration is required by calling 973-596-6550.

New Work is the third in a series of four artist commissions in honor of the Newark Museum's Centennial. The commissions are designed to allow artists to create original work that references the Museum's history and diverse collections. New Work not only responds to the film Manhatta film that regularly plays in the Museum's American art galleries, it focuses attention on parts of the city's landscape—its monuments, buildings, and transit hubs—many of which, like the Museum itself, have existed for more than a century.

The year-long Newark Museum Centennial Celebration, including the four artists' commissions, is made possible through the generous support of Prudential. Centennial activities continue through spring, 2010.

Image: Newark Port, from New Work, 2009. Image courtesy of and © Bongiorno Productions Inc.

Contact:
Allison McCartney, Public Relations Manager, Newark Museum Phone: (973) 596-6638, e-mail: amccartney@newarkmuseum.org
Jerry Enis, Consultant, Herbert George Associates, LLC Phone: 732-446-5400, e-mail: jerry@herbertgeorge.com

The public is invited to attend a Centennial Conversation – A Panel Discussion with Filmmakers Marylou Tibaldo-Bongiorno, Jerome Bongiorno and Their Community Partners
October 22 at 7 pm. Free. Advance Registration Required.

Newark Museum
49 Washington Street Newark, NJ 07102
The Museum is open all year round: Wednesdays through Fridays, from Noon - 5 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., October 1 – June 30; and Saturdays and Sundays, from Noon – 5 p.m., July 1 – September 30.
Suggested Museum admission: Adults, $10.00; Children, Seniors and Students with valid I.D., $6.00.

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