What if someone sculpted the objects in your office in nickel, turning everything into a mirror? What would the scene say about you, your work, and your world? Nicolas Baier’s “Vanitas,” inspired by the artist’s own office, poses these questions and more.

The installation is like a fun house hall of mirrors eerily devoid of human reflections. Baier houses the sculpture in one-way glass and covers the objects—a computer, a tangle of chords, an Eames Aluminum Group Chair—in mirrors. You can look at the installation and the objects within as you would an exhibit in a zoo, but you cannot see your own reflection.

The mirrors in Baier’s office may not reflect, but they do cast light on a compelling truth. Whether you are an artist, an architect, a designer, or an engineer, your office tells a story about who you are and the way you work.

While for many of us—myself included—the thought of a smudge, much less a deliberate brush stroke, on one of our precious pieces of furniture makes us cringe. But not the Eameses, who treasured Saul’s chair, and displayed it proudly.

Surely they would be delighted to see that artists today continue to find inspiration in their work and use their designs as a canvas for expressing their own artistic visions.

Check out Operation Design for pictures from Eames Inspiration, a charity event Herman Miller co-sponsered last year.

I recently was asked, “Is there art in your life?”

It’s an interesting question. Although I try to manage a life-work balance that includes celebrating art, too often the balance shifts to the work side of the scale. I realize that this needs to change, and I’m not the only one who feels this way.

On June 17, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced to New Yorkers the opportunity to participate in “Play Me, I’m Yours,” a public art project hosted by non-profit Sing for Hope. From June 21 to July 5, 60 pianos will be placed in parks and public spaces around New York City and its surrounding boroughs. The event is described by the organization as “a festival of music open to all New Yorkers.”

No excuses for those who say they don’t have time for art. Anyone can sit down at a piano and play a tune or attend a free performance by a celebrity artist.

Even better, the pianos are decorated and cared for by “piano buddies” from local schools, hospitals, and community organizations. Afterwards, the pianos will be donated to their buddy organizations. It’s all part of Sing for Hope’s vision for uniting artists and communities by bringing live art to urban centers and renewing the civic spirit.

Photo via: David Gonzalez/The New York Times

I won’t be able to visit New York this week to tickle the ivories, but I just found out that “Play Me, I’m Yours” will be part of the second annual ArtPrize event near my home in Grand Rapids, Michigan. ArtPrize runs from September 22 to October 10, so stay tuned for a future blog post about my experience at the keyboard.

This story has inspired me to look for opportunities to celebrate art. How about you? Is there art in your life?

Center image: Manuel Jiménez pictured with one of his sons. Photo via: Wikipedia

Woodcarving is an important part of Oaxacan culture, existing since the Mixteca-Zapoteca civilizations. According to El Carocol Zapoteca, “Oaxaca’s indigenous and peasant communities reinitiated woodcarving in an open manner to create masks for festivals, dances, and carnivals, figures for popular consumption and toys.”

Manuel Jiménez got his start by carving wooden images for masks from copal wood, which he established as the preferred material of Oaxacan carvers. Originally painted with aniline and natural dyes, today they are painted with acrylic paint so they don’t lose their color.

A master woodcarver recognized as the founder of folk art woodcarving in Oaxaca, Jiménez transformed a local craft into a highly-collectible art form. Often called “the godfather of all Oaxacan woodcarving,” Jiménez practiced his art for over three decades.

Most of the figures at the GreenHouse are fashioned by Jiménez and his sons from copal wood, but we’ve added pieces from other artists as well.

Their bright, whimsical colors blend together reality and imagination, bringing inspiration to the workplace.

By Marcia Davis

The Midwest may be “Ground Zero” for the economic downturn, where recession is depression writ especially cruel. However, a silver lining remains in the region’s art institutions. These struggle valiantly to thrive despite gloom and doom. Granted some ongoing activity began in better times. However, this doesn’t lessen the inspirational uplift provided for a section of the country much in need of it.

Where to find that silver lining:

The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs
Now at the Milwaukee Art Museum, this major retrospective runs through August. Rohlfs was an early Arts and Crafts pioneer. He strongly influenced Stickley, Greene and Greene, and Wright. The Milwaukee also boasts a new wing designed by celebrated architect Santiago Calatrava.

 
Charles Rohlfs images courtesy of the Milwaukee Art Museum

Outside the Ordinary: Contemporary Art in Glass, Wood, and Ceramics
At the Cincinnati Art Museum through September. Featuring glass, wood, and ceramics from the collection of locals Nancy and David Wolf, this exhibit should place the museum on the international map as a focal point for functional art.

Photo credit: Jay Musler, Cityscape, 1981, The Nancy and David Wolf Collection, L24.2008:45

Cleveland Museum of Art
The new 140,000-square-foot East Wing opens this summer, part of a $200 million expansion program. A Gauguin blockbuster is set for October. The museum continues to welcome 500,000 visitors annually.

Grand Rapids Art Museum
The new GRAM was forced to cancel a large Saarinen retrospective scheduled this summer. (Too expensive to mount.) The museum, which opened last year as a case study in architectural sustainability, is countering with Father and Son: Eliel and Eero Saarinen. Smaller, more focused, the unique exhibit is still sure to be a crowd pleaser.

These are not simply “pass-throughs”. All are organized by the museums themselves. Most will include catalogs with online material for those who can’t make the show.

Two additional big-ticket items:

The Art Institute of Chicago’s recently-opened 264,000 square-foot Modern Wing  designed by Pritzker Prize–winning architect Renzo Piano.

The $45 million Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State in East Lansing. Design is by Zaha Hadid, another Pritzker winner. Groundbreaking has been pushed out from this year until next with opening on track for 2012.

All evidence that when conditions are harsh, art and design become an even more important force to encourage, stimulate, support and inspire, challenging the mundane, particularly, it seems, where the need is great.

By Bill Robinson

June is a beautiful time of year in the Windy City. With the Art Institute’s Modern Wing now open, it’s a perfect time to pay a visit. Designed by Pritzker Prize–winning architect Renzo Piano, the Modern Wing is the new home for the museum’s collection of 20th- and 21st-century art. It doesn’t just change the look of the Art Institute; the Modern Wing is also a model of design, technology, and green architecture, maximizing natural sources of energy and minimizing waste.

With 264,000 square feet, the Modern Wing adequately accommodates the Art Institute’s collections of modern European painting and sculpture, contemporary art, architecture and design, and photography, making it the second largest art museum in the United States.

Eco-friendly visitors will be pleased to know that an architectural sunshade—or “flying carpet”—saves electricity consumption while filtering daylight into the upper-level gallery spaces. And an interior lighting system automatically adjusts for changing levels of natural light throughout the day. Together, these features provide the perfect atmosphere for observing art in an energy-conscious environment. “It is not enough for the light to be perfect,” says Piano. “You also need calm, serenity, and even a voluptuous quality linked to contemplation of works of art.”

With its double-paned façade of transparent, glazed walls, the Modern Wing meets the appropriate temperature and humidity conditions needed for art and also exceeds the Chicago Energy Conservation Code requirements. Additionally, the Modern Wing utilizes state-of-the-art cooling and monitoring systems.

Outside, gardens and landscaping complement the Modern Wing’s architecture, adding over 20,000 square feet of green space to the museum campus. Several of the public spaces—such as the Nichols Bridgeway, an airy 625-foot pedestrian bridge also designed by Piano—are accessible from Chicago’s Millennium Park and free of charge.

Photo from: The Art Institute of Chicago

Piano is considered the foremost museum architect of our time. Known for his projects around the world, Piano is perhaps most famous for his work with Richard Rogers in the design of the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris. He is also widely regarded for the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. He received the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal Pritzker Prize in 2008.

This summer, check out the Modern Wing. And don’t miss the exhibitions featured in the Abbott Galleries on the first floor of the west pavilion.

Cy Twombly: The Natural World, Selected Works 2000–2007
May 16–September 13, 2009

Beyond Golden Clouds: Japanese Screens from the Art Institute of Chicago and the St. Louis Art Museum
June 27–September 27, 2009

A Case for Wine: From King Tut to Today
July 11–September 20, 2009

By Marcia Davis