A New Domestic Landscape at Cranbrook Art Museum

12 May '17 - 14 January '18

A New Domestic Landscape examines the role of designed objects that define and animate our interior environments. The exhibition features contemporary furniture and furnishings by recent alumni and Artists-in-Residence of Cranbrook Academy of Art that challenge conventions of use, explore new materials and techniques, and blur the boundaries between art, craft, and design.

Long a hotbed of experimental design, Cranbrook has played an important role in envisioning artifacts for living—from the handcrafted production of the Arts and Crafts period and the birth of mid-century modernism in America to the art furniture movement of the 1980s. Today, this progressive approach continues with artists, architects, and designers who expand these legacies of handcrafted production, custom fabrication, and experiments in form, materials, and processes in their own unique ways.

The exhibition takes its title from the landmark 1972 exhibition, Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, curated by Emilio Ambasz for the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Just as Ambasz had argued for a heterogeneous approach to design that challenged its modern orthodoxy of “form follows function,” contemporary producers continue many of its avant-garde experiments, but with a renewed sense of material experimentation and a continued contestation of an object’s symbolic meaning, ritual use, and functional constraints.

The exhibition features work from:

Vivian Beer (Metalsmithing ’04)
Aaron Blendowski (3D Design ’06)
Nina Cho (3D Design ’15)
Jack Craig (3D Design ’12)
Mark Dineen (3D Design ’13)
Brian DuBois (3D Design ’11)
Sharan Elran (Ceramics ’12)
Evan Fay (3D Design ’16)
Kristina Gerig Hunter (3D Design ’11)
Ross Hansen (3D Design ’11)
Ania Jaworska (Architecture ’09)
Doug Johnston (Architecture ’07)
Seth Keller (3D Design ’11)
Scott Klinker (3D Design ’96, and current 3D Design Artist-in-Residence)
Mark Moskovitz (3D Design ’05)
Jonathan Muecke (3D Design ’10)
Michael Neville (3D Design ’14)
Jay Sae Jung Oh (3D Design ’11)
Begüm Cana Özgür (3D Design ’13)
Anders Ruhwald (Current Ceramics Artist-In-Residence)
Christopher Schanck (3D Design ’11)
Reed Wilson (3D Design ’11) & Lilian Crum (2D Design ’12)
Zero Craft Corp. with Ebitenyefa Baralaye (Ceramics ’16)

Cranbrook Art Museum
39221 Woodward Avenue
P.O. Box 801
Bloomfield Hills, MI 48303-0801

https://cranbrookartmuseum.org

JaySaeJungOh-chair.jpeg

Evan Fay Lawless Bench,2016. Steel, brass, foam, scuba knit. Photo by Charlie Schunck.

Nina Cho Coulee Side Table, 2016. Marble. Photo courtesy the artist.

Ross Hansen, Speckled Shelf, 2014. Epoxy clay, pigment, wood. Photo courtesy of Volume Gallery

Jonathan Muecke, Stabilizer (STAB), 2013. Carbon fiber. Photo courtesy the artist.