LACMA Adds a Niemeyer "Rio Chaise"
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| Oscar Niemeyer and Anna Maria Niemeyer, Rio Chaise, 1978. LACMA. Photo: Ulysses de Santi |
More modern seating: On LACMA's Unframed blog, curator Ilona Katzew surveys recent acquisitions of Latin American chairs. Included is this suave Rio Chaise designed by Oscar Niemeyer and Anna Maria Niemeyer.
Comments
"The fashion world’s ultimate gentleman, Oscar de la Renta was born in 1932 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic."
To accommodate the cultures of the world, the re-built LACMA being smaller instead of larger and having plenty of windows instead of areas better suited for exhibits (walls to hang objects on and objects protected from sunlight) is another reminder of "what the hell are they thinking?!"
Is the wood steam-bent ebony? Lacquered plywood?
Is that bleached rattan?
Any road, absolutely NADA on the museum's web site.
My question is, "What are LACMA's curators doing all day?"
I bet there is an army of champing-at-the-bit slave labor among LA-based graduate students in IT and art history who would love to generate a full, on-line catalog of the museum's holdings.
In this day and age [2022 CE], there is absolutely no excuse why LACMA doesn't have a full on-line accounting of its treasures.
LACMA, aren't you ashamed!??
PS- I finally got my answers when I found a "Rio Chaise" available for sale on the commercial market. It shouldn't be that hard!
Silly of me to have inputted search terms Niemeyer and "Rio Chaise".
I just needed the proper code word...like "Bananas".
The LACMA web site would have only recognized this object if I inputted "Marquesa Bench". Would anybody plausibly call this a bench? Unless you are thinking see-saw. I don't know.
Interesting that, like Donald Judd, for example, the Niemeyers used a fabricator for their designs, rather than making them themselves, as Les Lalanne did.
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Separately, but critically important: "NO IMAGE AVAILABLE." The worst three words in museology!!
Even if I'd somehow landed on the correct page, without an available photo, I would have never known that I was looking at the [LACMA's absolute minimum] data for the "Rio Chaise." Ugh.
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Could someone PLEASE explain why so many of museums' holdings have a bar against educational photographs on their web sites?
And I'm asking as a lawyer!
I think that furniture is no less worthy of collecting than other types of objects in a museum of the visual arts are. The better question is why is LACMA adding to a collection when their physical structure and operating budget are being ripped apart by a freeway overpass?
Lady Rosamund: "What Do You Think Makes The English The Way We Are?"
Dowager Countess of Grantham: "I Don't Know. Opinions Differ. Some Say Our History. But I Blame The Weather."