EXHIBITIONS: (Part 3 of 3) : The Southwest: where nature and art intersect

 If you're heading to the Pacific Northwest or west coast in general
 this summer, you'll find plenty of Modernist art and design to sink 
your teeth into in cities like 

Phoenix, Portland and Los Angeles.

At the Phoenix Art Museum this summer:

Longer Ways to Go: Photographs of the American Road

Roger Minick, Airstream at Monument Valley, Arizona, 1979

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again;

we had longer ways to go.

But no matter, the road is life.”

                                      — Jack Kerouac,  On the Road

Ansel Adams, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941

Jim Stone, Watson Lake, Yukon, 1975 

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From July 31, 2017 – Jan. 7, 2018 , LACMA, (the Los Angeles County Museum)
will be presenting a cheerful exhibition entitled Chagall: Fantasies for the Stage. The show spotlights Marc Chagall's designwork for the theater, a less well-known but important part of his revered artistic legacy.

Highlighting four theatrical productions created over a quarter century (Aleko, The Firebird, Daphnis and Chloe, and The Magic Flute), the show comprises 145 objects, including 41 colorful costumes; nearly 100 preliminary sketches; rare 1942 film footage of the original performance of Aleko; musical accompaniments for each section; and a selection of paintings depicting musicians and 
theatrical scenes.

Above: Chagall costumes for The Magic Flute

According to a curatorial note:

"Artists have long been inspired to expand their practices by engaging in 
compelling collaborations with the ballet, theater, and opera, and Chagall was 
at the forefront of such interdisciplinary efforts among modern artists 
in creating inventive visual environments for the stage."

 Below: Chagall ceiling at the Paris National Opera House

"Working with theatrical companies and opera houses in Russia,

Mexico, New York, and Paris, Chagall created fantastical and cutting-edge

designs. He collaborated on sets for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes as early as 1911, and his deep and far-reaching engagement with music and dance continued throughout his long career." 

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at The Portland Museum, through Sept.3, 2017

Quest for Beauty: The Architecture, Landscapes, and 

Collections of John Yeon

John Yeon's Aubrey Watzek House, Portland, Oregon, 1937
The house drew an international spotlight to regional 
Modernism in the Pacific Northwest.

John Yeon was a prominent architect living and working in the Pacific Northwest. He "had equal vision and influence as a planner, conservationist, historic preservationist, urban activist, and, perhaps most of all, connoisseur of elegance and craft." (from curator's note) Yeon designed distinctive buildings, created fantastical gardens, and fought to preserve some of the Northwest’s most treasured vistas—the Columbia River Gorge, the Oregon Coast, 

and Olympic National Park.

 Yeon’s inventive plywood houses of the late ‘30s and the 1950 Shaw House  anticipated the stylistic eclecticism of Postmodernism. This exhibition features original models and drawings, along with images by a trio of the midcentury’s greatest architectural photographers: Ezra Stoller, Maynard Parker, and Roger Sturtevant. Newly developed models and axonometric drawings "invite a greater understanding of Yeon’s careful siting of buildings and his cutting edge construction and sustainable design techniques." 

Yeon's Shaw House was featured as the cover image for

House Beautiful in April 1953.

Featured in the show is a high-definition time-lapse video depicting 

the changing seasons at The Shire, the 78- acre preserve 

in the Columbia Gorge that Yeon saved from development.

(see below)

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And don't forget: Denver's newly reconstructed Kirkland Museum of Fine and Decorative Arts will, at long last, reopen in early 2018 after its 8-block move !

 A cozy modernist living room at the Kirkland Museum in Denver
See my posting about the Kirkland's dramatic move (in one piece) here.  

~oOo~