Andrea Wyner for The New York Times

Sway lights by CKR for Established & Sons.

By JULIE LASKY

Published: April 25, 2012

SOME of the most thought-provoking ideas at the International Furniture Fair in Milan, which ended on Sunday, issued not from the thousands of exhibition booths and off-site venues or even from the lips of the designers, pundits and producers who bring this stalwart city to life every April. They were written on the walls.

Andrea Wyner for The New York Times

The Dutch designer Frederick Roijé with his Dish of Desire bird feeder.

“Thanks Starck,” read one such message, scrawled in the neighborhood of Ventura Lambrate, where for the third consecutive year emerging designers have shown work and staged Oedipal battles with the masters. The words accompanied a drawing of Philippe Starck’s Juicy Salif lemon squeezer from 1990, an aluminum teardrop on spidery legs with a knob intended for mauling citrus — but the artist had substituted a toilet paper roll for the lemon.

Such an irreverent treatment of a classic object suggests that Mr. Starck may have lost his mojo in today’s design world, but he shows no sign of receding from the scene. On the contrary, his notoriously paradoxical nature defined this year’s fair, which was marked by the contradictory pursuits of social consciousness and unrestrained luxury.

Mr. Starck may be best known for a whimsical $100 sculpture that does nothing more than extract juice. But he also is — or claims to be — as idealistic as any young designer.

He alternately caters to lovers of luxury and slaps them on the wrist. This year, he collaborated with Lenny Kravitz on upholstered versions of his Mademoiselle chair for the high-end Italian company Kartell, but he also touted his Broom chair for the American company Emeco, made of 90 percent recycled post-industrial factory waste and 10 percent glass. “With this new chair, I start to feel happy,” he said in a promotional film for the product, “because it is made of nothing.”

A decade ago, socially conscious design was a sideshow at the fair, but now it’s in the center ring. A number of companies boasted of earth-friendly materials and showed off efficient packing methods that reduced their carbon footprints. The Swedish company Offecct went so far as to display Luca Nichetto’s Robo chair from 2010 along with its box to show how compactly it can be taken apart and shipped.

Food was a popular medium for commentary. In Lambrate, Rui Pereira and Ryosuke Fukusada baked tiny cakes shaped like chairs, lamps and vases to protest the hyperabundance of new furniture and the inability of consumers to “digest” it. And in the Tortona district, Marleen Jansen presented her Seesaw Table, which requires two diners to sit down to meals and depart from the table at precisely the same time — or else risk sending one of the pair flying.

“It’s a courtesy table,” Ms. Jansen said. “I want to manipulate behavior, and it’s rude to leave the table while eating.”

On the frontiers of experimentation, the “Open Design Archipelago” exhibition organized by Domus magazine and Audi demonstrated methods for harnessing the desert sun to melt sand and produce glass objects; for manufacturing inexpensive chairs with a robotic arm (no human hands needed); and for training crows to pick up bottle caps littering the landscape.

And yet, while there were plenty of designers trying to redirect human habits and prepare for a world with scarce resources, many conventional products seemed to have gotten bigger and softer, assuming a standard of padded comfort one might even call American.

Furniture came with names like Soft Box, the Swiss designer Alfred Häberli’s cushy sofa for Moroso. And the body-cradling Bunny armchair by Iskos-Berlin, for the Danish company Normann Copenhagen, was all but infantilizing.

But nothing conveyed the sensuality of textiles (or their facsimile) this year so much as the flowing tablecloth carved into the wood of Ferruccio Laviani’s Twaya table for Emmemobili. A representative of the Italian company Emmemobili noted that, by the end of the fair, the number of hands rubbing the table’s surface had left “the left side smoother than the right.”...

 

By KAREN WILKIN

London

Art, even the most original, tends to be about other art—except for the work of "outsider" artists, although some of them turn out to be less innocent than presumed. It's hardly news that adventurous early 20th-century innovators looked to Pablo Picasso for direction and confirmation. (Picasso, of course, looked to Paul Cézanne.) American museum-goers are well aware of the importance of the Spanish master to artists on this side of the Atlantic, thanks to shows such as the Whitney's 2006-07 "Picasso and American Art," which traced his impact on modernists from Max Weber and Stuart Davis to Jackson Pollock and Jasper Johns. More recently, surveys of David Smith and Arshile Gorky have revealed how firmly their distinctive, individual languages were rooted in Picasso's example. And more.

Picasso &

Modern British Art

Tate Britain

Through July 15

www.tate.org.uk

Succession Picasso / DACS 2011/Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

'Still Life With Mandolin' (1924) by Pablo Picasso

But if Picasso's significance to American modernism is well documented, his influence on English-speaking painters and sculptors elsewhere has been a less familiar story—that is, until "Picasso & Modern British Art," at Tate Britain. Surprisingly, the exhibition, which, the wall texts announce, was designed to examine "Picasso's evolving critical reputation" in the U.K., as well as "British artists' responses to his work," is the first to explore "Pablo Picasso's lifelong connections with Britain." ("Britain's connections with Picasso" might be more accurate, since, despite his well-known friendships with British critics such as Douglas Cooper and John Richardson, the artist was in London only in 1919, designing sets and costumes for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.)

Dick Shack began buying contemporary art in the middle of the 20th Century, when a Jasper Johns could be had for $100, his spending limit at the time.

He and his wife, Ruth, then built a world-class collection that includes works by Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, the Cuban artist José Bedia and the South African artist William Kentridge.

Early on, they agreed their only birthday and holiday gifts to each other would be works of art.

The Shack’s Brickell Avenue penthouse became “a well-known stop on the Art Basel VIP circuit,’’ said fellow collector Dennis Scholl, vice president/arts for the Knight Foundation and, like Dick Shack, a founding board member of North Miami’s Museum of Contemporary Arts.

The Shacks frequently opened their collection up to visitors, and gave away many pieces to museums. Dick Shack accumulated and donated large photo collections and helped establish ArtCenter/South Florida on Lincoln Road.

Still, there was plenty of art surrounding Shack when he died at home on Monday. His wife of 58 years, a former Miami-Dade Commissioner and longtime community activist, said her husband suffered heart problems and succumbed to a massive stroke, his second in recent years.

Born Richard A. Shack on May 15, 1926 in Brooklyn to Eastern European immigrants, the retired entertainment agent was 85.

His roster of stars included Tony Bennett, Harry Belafonte, Liberace, George Burns, Johnny Cash, composer Burt Bacharach, actor Robert Shaw ( Jaws), poet Rod McKuen, singer Anita Bryant and her one-time au pair, Kathie Lee Johnson — later Kathie Lee Gifford.

“Dick Shack was the consummate collector of contemporary art,’’ said Scholl. “In 1981, he invited me to his home [then in Miami Shores] to see his and Ruth’s collection. When I walked into the bedroom, I saw three works of art by Gene Davis mounted on the ceiling over their bed...He showed me that there were no limits to collecting and that building an art collection was an artistic experience in its own right.’’

So dedicated were the Shacks to their collection that they once bought an entire apartment to house a single sculpture. By then, they were living on the 28th floor of a Brickell high-rise, having consolidated every apartment on that floor into one 5,000-square-foot flat.

Shack, who held a bachelor’s degree in advertising from the University of North Carolina, was a U.S. Navy veteran of both World War II and the Korean War. He and Ruth moved to South Florida in the late 1950s from New York, where Dick had worked for the DumontTelevision Network and the powerhouse entertainment agencies GMC and MCA.

In Miami, “he was in charge of conventions and special events for Agency for the Performing Arts,’’ his wife said. “It was Richard’s invention to book [entertainers] at conventions instead of nightclubs.’’

He also produced “magnificent Broadway shows’’ for corporate clients like Xerox and Buick.

“The star was the Buick,’’ she said. “The audience would stand and cheer.’’

Ruth Shack, an early South Florida feminist and human-rights leader, said her husband helped desegregate Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale hotels by refusing to book top-flight black entertainers anywhere that wouldn’t accept them as guests.

 

Money isn't everything.

Or wait — is it? Given the transformation of the quaint old art world into today’s immense and mighty art industry, that maxim holds about as much water as a Conceptual Art sieve.

With the traditional roles of curator and dealer eroding, hands are wringing about the growing part that money plays in both the economic and cultural currency of art. Consider the following synchronicity: a show of the visionary midcentury artist Forrest Bess is included in the latest Whitney Biennial; at the same time, another show of the artist’s work is up at Christie’s in Midtown.

But Amy Cappellazzo, who put together the Christie’s show of the late Mr. Bess’s work, does not see a conflict in investing things with more than one kind of value. As the chairwoman of postwar and contemporary development at Christie’s, Ms. Cappellazzo started off in the art world as a curator, but found herself drawn to ways of merging her curatorial sensitivity with her entrepreneurial drive.

And more than 10 years after joining Christie’s, she has even come up with something akin to a religion about it, however irreligious it may sound.

“I believe in the power of objects,” she said, stating the credo of what may someday come to be down as Cappellazzism. “I am a pretty earthly creature myself, and I don’t have a lot of spiritual yearnings or distractions.”

Appropriately for someone so grounded in the material world, Ms. Cappellazzo has on her desk a hunk of terra firma itself: an attractive fist-size formation of quartz crystal. It is, as she will frankly admit, nothing special.

The crystal was given to her as a casual gift by an acquaintance; it has no sentimental value. She holds no beliefs that it channels new-age energy from the universe to her chakras. Clear quartz is a very common crystal, and her specimen has no marked trait to make it special: it’s not huge, or strikingly shaped, or colored, or perfectly clear. It does not have any facet that imbues quartz with value.

“It’s pretty modest,” she said. “In a way, it is a dumb rock. But that is sweet. I kind of like that. So the thing is, it is totally phenomenological. Like, it is something if I think so: this dumb rock could actually be imbued with tremendous power if I wanted it to be.”

Not that it doesn’t have its assets.

“It’s a good nervous fetish toy,” she said. “Sometimes I hold it when I am on the phone doing a deal or I have to really think about something long and hard. You kind of rub it. You wear it down a bit. It is also a little sharp, so it stings back at you, puts you in your place. And it never disappoints in terms of the way it looks. It is weighty and has presence, and it never gets dusty or fingerprinty. It requires nothing from me.”

So, mundane or not, the crystal is literally a touchstone for Ms. Cappellazzo’s brand of materialism: the belief that, simply put, only matter matters. Still, she went so far as to liken it to a rosary or mezuza, insofar as she is drawn to things that represent bigger ideas.

“I am just interested in the artifacts of a religion or culture, the remains of it, rather than it itself,” she said. “What are the visuals they left behind? That’s  usually more my question. You know, is there any good food associated with it?”

“It’s funny,” she added. “I am a hard-core materialist more than a spiritualist, if you are putting me on the continuum. But if this is what I picked to talk about, I am clearly not that materialistic because it is not very interesting or special.”

In the end, something is worth only what you invest in it, whether the currency is one the world agrees on or a personal one that is valueless to others. Money isn’t everything. Meaning is.

 

At the Aventura Mall in the Louis Vuitton store, Hernan Bas has created a sculptural installation specifically for the luxury brand’s location. Using canvas covered in Vuitton’s iconic monogram symbols, Bas made up bundles — hobo sacks, really, or bindles — and attached them to birch branches, to come up with A Traveler. He’s playing with two extreme ends of travel accessories — a Vuitton suitcase and a bag on a stick.

It’s one of the numerous places across the globe that the Miami-bred artist will be shown this year, signaling the meteoric rise of the 34-year-old, former New World School of the Arts student.

Over the next six months alone, Bas, best known for his beautifully brushed, dreamy, melancholy paintings, will blanket three continents with his work. Until April 21, the major New York gallery Lehmann Maupin is exhibiting a solo show of his newest paintings, called “Occult Contemporary.” Also through April, the Kunstverein museum in Hannover, Germany, is giving the artist a survey of works spanning the last five years. Then he will pop up in a solo show in Seoul, South Korea at the PKM Gallery, which has on its roster such giants in contemporary art as Olafur Eliasson and Bruce Nauman. Bas will return to Europe, to Galerie Perrotin in Paris, and wind up back in Miami for a new show at the Fredric Snitzer Gallery.

These are significant shows at trend-setting locations. Most artists could only dream of just one of these exhibits in one year.

Bas is viewing it all with a large dose of humility. “The exhibition at the Kunstverein Hannover — from what I’ve been told — has been received rather well by the local community, It has been a while since the Kunstverein has mounted a classic, traditional painting show and the public has seemingly embraced it.”

So what is it about this hometown talent that has caught so many eyes, leading to his work to catch on fire? From people near and far, the simple answer is this: Bas is a painter’s painter, whose technique, color palette, skill and story lines jump from the frame immediately and attract the viewer.

But to love it, people first had to see it.

The director of the powerhouse London gallery Victoria Miro, Glenn Scott Wright, ran into work from Bas back in 2002, when the Rubell family of the Rubells showed off examples of their latest acquisitions to him.

“I went out to dinner with Don, Mera and Jason Rubell, who brought a whole selection of works on paper they had just acquired and spread them out on the table in a Japanese restaurant,” he recalls. “I remember worrying we might get some soy sauce on them. I loved the work and called Hernan.”

Wright says Bas was hard to pursue, but he persisted, and that would result in a huge breakthrough for Bas — a solo show at Victoria Miro in 2005. “The response in London and throughout Europe has been wholly enthusiastic from the very first moment we showed him,” Wright says.

That special collecting relationship with the Rubells would pay off again a few years later, with Bas’ museum show, “Hernan Bas: Works from the Rubell Family Collection,” at the Brooklyn Museum in 2009. In between those two, Bas had already become a Miami favorite through his shows at Snitzer, the local gallerist who has known him and his work since his New World days. “The bottom line is, he is a masterful painter,” Snitzer says. Last December, Snitzer included a huge canvas from Bas at his booth at Art Basel Miami Beach (Snitzer has been one of the few local galleries in the fair throughout the years), prominently displayed on the outer wall, which became a Basel talking point.

By ELAINE SCIOLINO

Published: April 13, 2012

PARIS — R. Crumb, the American cartoonist, is said to be a timid, reclusive soul who doesn’t like visitors, photographers, reporters or even fans.

 But here he was on Thursday, dressed in a smart black sport coat and trousers, posing for photographers and holding forth with journalists about fame, fortune, art, politics, music and death.

The occasion was the impending opening, on Friday, of “Crumb, From the Underground to Genesis,” an exhibition covering nearly five decades of his work, at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and his first comprehensive museum retrospective.

Mr. Crumb, 68, called himself “confused,” “impressed,” “flattered” and “bewildered” to have moved over from the gritty comic-book world into a fine-art museum in Paris.

“Seeing this on the walls is very strange,” Mr. Crumb said at a news conference. “The sheer quantity. It’s like going to the dump and seeing the sheer quantity.”

The exhibition, on view through Aug. 19, brings together more than 700 original drawings and more than 200 underground magazines, many from Mr. Crumb’s private collection. It opens with greeting cards that he created for the American Greetings Corporation in Cleveland and illustrations made in Harlem and Bulgaria in the early 1960s. There are the psychedelic Zap Comix; his graphic renderings of sex, obscenity and drug use; and intimate photos, including one of Mr. Crumb sitting in a wicker chair in his living room and strumming a banjo.

His memorable cartoon characters are here, including Fritz the Cat, Mr. Natural, Devil Girl, Flakey Foont and Angelfood McSpade. The exhibition ends with his illustrations for Genesis, the opening book of the Bible.

There is also “Marriage License,” a work commissioned — and rejected — by The New Yorker in 2009 that shows a couple, whose genders are ambiguous, as they are about to get married. “They had it for a few months,” he said, adding: “Finally I got it back in the mail one day with no explanation. I never did find out why they didn’t want to use it.” (He called the treatment “insulting” and said he could never work for The New Yorker again.)

Early in the news conference, Mr. Crumb took the lead in questioning, turning to Fabrice Hergott, the museum’s director, to ask how the show came about: “Was there an argument? Was there resistance?”

“It was not so easy,” Mr. Hergott confessed. “The team of curators was not so sure that you were an artist for this museum, that you belonged to the classical world of art.”

Mr. Crumb did not seem distressed. After all, he admitted, he is not a museumgoer. “I went to the Louvre once,” he said. “I don’t really like museums. You get too close to the art, and the guard is going to yell at you.”

From a seat in the first row, an American woman in a black mini-dress with flaming orange tights and lipstick to match, a ring in her left nostril and long, curly hair streaked ruby red cheered him on and filled gaps in the conversation. It was his wife, Aline Crumb, also a comics illustrator and Mr. Crumb’s sometime collaborator, as well as a yoga instructor.

“I’m impressed,” she said of his work’s being shown in a big museum. “You’ve moved up in my esteem.”

The Crumbs have lived in Sauve, a village of fewer than 2,000 people in the south of France, for 21 years. Asked why they moved to this country, Mr. Crumb blamed his wife. “She wanted to live in France, and one morning I woke up and I was living in France,” he said. “But it’s a nice country to live in. I’m not complaining. Even if I don’t speak French, never learned it, now I have French grandchildren.”

The Crumbs have always been open about their open marriage, in which they have allowed each other to pursue other intimate relationships. Asked how it has worked out, he replied, “It’s the only reason we’ve stayed together all these years.”

Ms. Crumb said: “It’s a mess, though! It’s just too time-consuming. One husband is a lot of work. And having another one is even more work.”

Mr. Crumb observed, “And also you have children and all that, oh boy.”

Ms. Crumb said: “You have grandchildren and chicken pox, and you’re off with that other person, and you feel guilty. It might or might not be worth it.”

Mr. Crumb acknowledged that age, along with fame, had changed his approach to his art. “I don’t draw as much as I used to,” he said. “I’m too self-conscious now.” Perhaps, he added, “that’s just the process of getting older.”

Mr. Crumb was asked about fear of death. “Death? Afraid of death?” he said. “When you get older, you dry up. You die. That’s it.” He added: “I’ve lived my life. I’ve lived it out. I’ve left my mark. I’ve had great sex. I got a great record collection —— ”

Ms. Crumb finished the thought. “You’re shown in a museum,” she said.

 

By MONIKA BIEGLER EYERS

WHILE MOST OF MIAMI'S architectural gems can be viewed along South Beach's fabled avenues, many of its secret treasures of midcentury design are stored within two nondescript strip malls in the city's less flashy Northeast corridor—an area gaining popularity thanks to nearby MiMo's (Miami Modern) recent designation as a historic district.

The two shopping Meccas—Antiques Plaza and 20th Century Row—are ripe for "pickers" and savvy dealers of Miami Modern furnishings from the 1940s, '50s and '60s that flood the area. Both close to MiMo, Antiques Plaza is a series of pell-mell boutiques within a faux-Mediterranean compound, while 20th Century Row is a deceptively humdrum looking strip of shops surrounding the Museum of Contemporary Art.

A Sampling of Miami Finds

View Interactive

Milo Baughman Barrel Back Armchair, 1970s

Click above to view the interactive.

Don't judge them by their facades. With many of the dealers on both strips listed on that sentinel of authenticity—1stdibs.com—the shops here are the real deal. "They're the first stop for antiques, directly from the source, before they find their way into the way more expensive shops of New York, Los Angeles, even London," said Jonathan Adler, the home furnishings designer and a devotee of the district.

With a wealth of estate sales in the area and lower commercial rents on their side, these dealers can afford to sell their finds for less than their big-city counterparts.

Take a pair of Milo Baughman glass-and-chrome étagères: At press time, the set was selling for $5,700 in Miami, as compared to $8,650 in New York. Similarly, a pair of T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings chests were selling for $9,800 at Joseph Anfuso on 20th Century Row, and $12,000 in Los Angeles. A New York dealer had them priced at $15,900.

Variety is another big draw. Said designer Kelly Wearstler, "The selection has been curated from so many different eyes, it's a fresh change from the pieces you see in New York or L.A."

With countless retailers hawking "re-editions" these days, why not hunt down an original instead at a vacation-friendly port of call?

—Monika Biegler Eyers

 

The Designers You're Likely to Come Across

Gio Ponti (Italian, 1891-1979). The co-founder of Domus magazine is often hailed as the father of modern Italian design, conceiving homewares for Richard Ginori, Krups, Venini and Fontana Arte. Iconic pieces for Cassina include the Distex lounge chair and the Superleggera chair.

Jacques Adnet (French, 1900-84). The Art Deco pioneer was considered a paragon of French Modernism, perhaps best known for wrapping everything from bar carts to daybeds in stitched leather, including a line for Hermès in the 1950s.

Tommi Parzinger (German, 1903-81). The designer is hailed for his glamorous yet refined pieces, like lacquered cabinets embellished with ornamental hardware. Works from 1953 onward are stamped "Parzinger Originals" to distinguish them from imitators.

T. H. (Terrence Howard) Robsjohn-Gibbings (English, 1905-76). Renowned for his modern interpretations of historical design, the furniture-maker won the American Institute of Interior Design's coveted Elsie de Wolfe Award in 1962 following the production of his graceful Klismos chair.

Swan Back Sofa by Vladimir Kagan, 1950s, $12,000, Stripe

Paul McCobb (American, 1917-69). The designer's Planner Group series for Winchendon (1949-1964) swept through mainstream American homes, featuring a modernized version of the Windsor chair and a birch credenza with sliding grass-cloth doors.

Milo Baughman (American, 1923-2003). The California Modern movement stalwart was celebrated as a walnut-and-birch man in the '40s and '50s. With Thayer Coggin, he designed a now-classic steel-framed leather lounge chair in the '60s.

Vladimir Kagan (German, born 1927). Famous for his circa-1950 Serpentine sofa, the designer went more linear in the '60s. In 2002, at age 85, he received a Modernism Lifetime Achievement Award from the Brooklyn Museum of Art. His current work remains influential.

Paul Evans (American, 1931-87). Lauded for rough-hewn casegoods in welded metal and wood, from 1955-1964. His debut collection for Directional in the '60s sold out in one week. His later Cityscape series exudes a more streamlined aesthetic.

 

WHERE TO FIND THE DEALS

20th Century Row

The Row sprawl is located on N.E. 125th Street, between N.E. Seventh and N.E. Ninth avenues. Numbered addresses refer to shop locations along N.E. 125th Street.

Gustavo Olivieri Antiques. No. 750; gustavoolivieriantiques.com. Look for: Baughman, Evans, McCobb, Parzinger, Ponti, Robsjohn-Gibbings

Vermillion 20th Century Furnishings . No. 765; galleryvermillion.com . Look for: Baughman, Evans, Kagan, Ponti, Robsjohn-Gibbings

Stripe. No. 799; stripe.1stdibs.com. Look for: Baughman, Evans, Kagan, McCobb, Parzinger

Galleria d'Epoca. No. 800; galleriadepoca.com. Look for: Adnet, Baughman, Paul Evans, Kagan, McCobb, Gio Ponti

Joseph Anfuso 20th Century Design. No. 815; josephanfuso20thcenturydesign.1stdibs.com . Look for: Baughman, Kagan, Robsjohn-Gibbings

Gary Rubenstein. No. 859; garyrubinsteinantiques.com. Look for: Baughman, Evans, Kagan, McCobb, Parzinger, Ponti, Robsjohn-Gibbings

Marc Corbin. No. 875; 305-899-2509. Look for: Evans

Antiques Plaza

The Plaza is located at 8650 Biscayne Blvd. Numbered addresses here refer to shop locations within the strip mall.

M.A.D.E. by Robert Massello Antiques. No. 1; robertmasselloantiques.1stdibs.com. Look for: Evans, Parzinger

Modern Epic Antiques. No. 4; modernepicantiques.1stdibs.com. Look for: Baughman, Kagan, Robsjohn-Gibbings

Iconic Design. No. 6-7; 305-606-7757. Look for: Baughman, Evans, Ponti

Michel Contessa . No. 8; michelcontessa.com.Look for: Adnet, Robsjohn-Gibbings, Evans

The greatly expanded second iteration of this online compilation of self-selected art museums and artworks was unveiled last week. It makes available images of more than 32,000 works in 31 mediums and materials, from the collections of 151 museums and arts organizations worldwide, forming a broad, deep river of shared information, something like a lavishly illustrated art book fused with high-end open storage.

But world-wonder status will not happen tomorrow. The project has plenty of limitations and some bugs to work out. Numerous important museums have remained aloof, for one thing, including the Louvre, the Prado, the Centre Pompidou, Stedelijk in Amsterdam, Topkapi Palace in Istanbul and every Swiss museum of note.

Others, having joined, participate grudgingly, whether protective of their own Web sites or unwilling to deal with copyright permissions that apply to art not yet in the public domain; this includes vast quantities of 20th-century Modernist material, which remains in very short supply here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/12/arts/design/google-art-projects-expanded-offerings.html?ref=arts

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Kraftwerk fans at MoMA on Tuesday night. The band's performances include 3-D imagery. More Photos »

By MELENA RYZIK

Published: April 11, 2012

Sell-out rock shows usually mean a lot of shouting, some sweating, maybe a few drunken pass-outs. Kraftwerk inspired none of that on Tuesday night. The first of its eight consecutive sold-out performances at the Museum of Modern Art had reverence and stylistic weight; even for a New York museum crowd there was a lot of black. Artfully swept hair, uncomfortable-looking shoes, architectural glasses: check, check and check. The high-design audience was rewarded with an equally aesthetically tuned concert, with the band, a foursome in graphic black-and-white unitards, playing neon-lighted synths. Behind them a video screen offered a parade of simple 3-D images, like stick figure robots and spinning numbers, a retro future in an MS-DOS font.

 

Multimedia

Slide Show

Kraftwerk at MoMA

The show, part of a retrospective for this pioneering German electronica group, was a coveted event, with fewer than 450 tickets available to the public for each night of the run. All eight sold out within an hour when they went on sale in February. (With a face value of $25, they were going for hundreds online afterward.)

On Tuesday several diehard Kraftwerk fans waited outside the museum in the vain hope of scoring an extra ticket. “I grew up listening to this in high school,” said Andy Horowitz, 49, a banker turned teacher from Long Island. “It’s got a real good sound. It’s melodic, pulsating, makes you want to move. It’s timeless.” Mr. Horowitz, who had also turned up at the museum a few days earlier to inquire about more spots, said he might return nightly but was holding out for Friday, when the band is scheduled to perform its seminal 1978 album, “The Man-Machine.” “The personal computer, space, technology — they hit it right on the head,” Mr. Horowitz said. Kraftwerk was expected to play a full album a night, with some bonus and new material mixed in.

 

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Kraftwerk, the German group whose members were early adapters to the world of the computer, at the Museum of Modern Art on Tuesday. More Photos »

By JON PARELES

Published: April 11, 2012

The Robots” — the first song Kraftwerk played on Tuesday to start its eight-night series of retrospective concerts at the Museum of Modern Art — is adroitly misleading. “We’re programmed to do/anything you want us to,” Ralf Hutter sang.

 

Multimedia

The album in focus on the opening night of the Kraftwerk retrospective at the Modern was “Autobahn,” from 1974, performed live with prominent graphics and along with additional material. More Photos »

In fact Kraftwerk has been far more predictive than obedient. It can rightfully claim to have done some cultural reprogramming of its own. Back in the 1970s Kraftwerk conceptualized itself as the Man-Machine and started writing songs about what technology might do to — and with — the modern mind. It can now claim a direct influence on all sorts of electronic and computer-driven music, while its lyrics clearly envisioned our computer-mediated daily lives.

Tuesday’s concert was the beginning of Retrospective 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, with Kraftwerk performing eight consecutive albums on eight nights for just 450 people per show. Only Mr. Hutter remains from Kraftwerk’s original lineup; the other current members are Henning Schmitz, Fritz Hilpert and Stefan Pfaffe. Onstage the quartet stood at keyboards — playing some of the music’s components live — in front of a very active video screen with images that sometimes sandwiched the musicians between the planes of eye-popping three-dimensional geometry and typography. (Concertgoers were handed 3D glasses on the way to the museum’s atrium.)...