15 Jun 2010, Posted by admin in Artsanity, 0 Comments

The Art of Craftsmanship Revisited: New York

The Art of Craftsmanship Revisited: New York exhibition is based on a beautiful concept. Groups of students from Parsons, the New School for Design have been teamed with New York artisans sponsored by the luxury brand LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton. The resulting collaborations are intended to celebrate the work of these skilled craftspeople, and to ensure that their unique knowledge is understood and carried forth by the next generation. Enhancing this gorgeous premise, the exhibition is being shown in the idyllic historic houses of Nolan Park on Governor’s Island.

This show is a wonderful forum to explore bite size samples of really fine craftsmanship–here are some highlights:

Les Métalliers Champenois (LMC Corp.)

Les Métalliers Champenois fits perfectly with the philosophy of the exhibition. The makers of fine ornamental metalwork, Les Métalliers Champenois make museum-quality pieces with modern machinery and old-age hand tools. As their video presentation explains “an artisan is a craftsman who has a full knowledge of his craft…[then a] craftsman may touch the border of artestry”. Look out for their Statue of Liberty lips.

Atelier de France

The purpose of Atelier de France is somewhat obscure–it is to promote knowledge of the hidden techniques of traditional upholstery from the 15th century to the first half of the 20th century. To do this Atelier de France create picture libraries documenting the inner workings of fine examples of furniture. They also sell organic and fully recyclable upholstered furniture, and the chair they presented (below) was an exercise in precision.

Lothar Osterburg

A true revelation for me was work of the photogravurist Lothar Osterburg. Photogravue is an early form of photography–a copper plate is etched after being coated with light-sensitive gelatin that has been exposed to create an image. Osterburg creates beautiful photogravues of an incredibly intricate miniature castle, and he has taken this project one step further to create a stop-motion animation of the process of making the model castle. Impressively, the technical wizardry is surpassed by the emotion in the piece.

The Art of Craftsmanship Revisited: New York is now showing every weekend at Governor’s Island until June 27th. Visit ArtofCraftmanship.com for more information.

–Mary Wallis