Speakers headline museum’s Contemporary Architecture + Design (CAD) Series
The Mint Museum is announcing an exciting lineup of speakers for its 2015 CAD (Contemporary Architecture + Design) lecture series, now entering its fourth year.
The series, aimed at exploring innovative perspectives and insightful stories on architecture and design, brings four speaker events to the community this winter and spring: Wendell Castle, known as the Picasso of the studio furniture design movement; Mikyoung Kim, who is currently designing a work of art for the Charlotte Area Transit System’s (CATS) Blue Line Extension; avant-garde fashion design team threeASFOUR; and installation artist, painter, and nail designer Dzine (aka Carlos Rolon).
Except where noted, event admission is $12; $5 for Mint Museum members (with included admission to select special museum exhibitions); or free to teens and college students with student ID. The events occur at Mint Museum Uptown at Levine Center for the Arts, 500 South Tryon Street. Tickets and more details are available at mintmuseum.org/happenings.
Wendell Castle, Furniture Designer
Thursday, January 15, 6 – 8 p.m.
$5 Mint members, $12 non-members*
FREE to teens and college students with ID
Light reception provided
Wendell Castle helped establish the art furniture movement in the 1960s and remains one of its most creative and iconic designers. Castle has influenced generations of furniture makers. He is renowned for his innovative techniques creating sculptural, biomorphic furniture.
wendellcastle.com
* Includes pre-program admission to the Beyond Craft exhibition
Mikyoung Kim, Architect and Public Artist
NOTE: Due to inclement weather, this event was rescheduled to April 16 at 6 p.m.
FREE event, co-sponsored by Charlotte Area Transit System
Light reception provided
Mikyoung Kim is an internationally renowned landscape architect and artist whose work focuses on merging sculptural vision with the urban landscape. Mikyoung Kim Design is currently designing art to be integrated at the UNC Charlotte station of the new CATS Blue Line Extension, scheduled to open in 2017. She has received awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects and the American Institute of Architects. Her work is also featured in Architectural Record, the New York Times, and Dwell Magazine.
myk-d.com
threeASFOUR, Fashion Designers
Sunday, April 12, 3 – 5 p.m.
$5 Mint members, $12 non-members*
FREE to teens and college students with ID
Light reception with cash bar
threeASFOUR is an avant garde group of three designers: Gabi Asfour, Angela Donhauser, and Adi Gil. Major museums acquiring designs for their collections include the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Costume Institute, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Additionally, their works have been featured in the Cooper-Hewitt Museum and Musee de la Mode et du Costume Galliera in Paris.
threeasfour.com
* Includes pre-program admission to the exhibition Body Embellishment
Dzine (aka Carlos Rolon), Installation Artist and Painter
Wednesday, May 6, 6 – 8 p.m.
$5 Mint Members, $12 non-members*
FREE to teens and college students with ID
Light reception with cash bar
Carlos Rolon, known as Dzine, creates ornate works of art and installations that combine contemporary art strategies with the “Kustom Kulture” and exuberant visuality of his Puerto Rican upbringing in Chicago. Formally trained as a painter, Rolon is the author of “Nailed,” a photographic history of nail art from the ancient Egyptians to contemporary fashion. Rolon’s work has been exhibited in prominent venues as diverse as Miami’s Bass Museum of Art and the 2007 Venice Biennale.
dzinestudio.com
* Includes pre-program admission to the exhibition Body Embellishment
Gang, of Studio Gang Architects, kicks off new CAD (Contemporary Architecture + Design) series
MacArthur Fellow Jeanne Gang, recently named one of the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum’s 2013 National Design Award Winners, will visit the Mint this Thursday, September 12, to launch the new season of the museum’s CAD (Contemporary Architecture + Design) speaker series. Gang is founder and principal of Studio Gang Architects, a Chicago-based collective of architects, designers, and thinkers practicing internationally.
Gang uses the medium of architecture to respond to pressing contemporary issues and their impact on human experience. Each of her projects resonates with its specific site and culture while addressing larger global themes such as urbanization, climate, and sustainability.
Recently realized projects by the firm include “The Garden in the Machine,” a proposal reimagining the suburb of Cicero, Illinois, for The Museum of Modern Art’s Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream exhibition; Aqua Tower, an Emporis Skyscraper of the Year; and the Nature Boardwalk at Lincoln Park Zoo. Gang will receive her National Design Award for Architecture Design at a gala dinner on October 17.
The Mint Museum’s Contemporary Architecture + Design series, which first launched in January 2012, explores innovative perspectives and insightful stories on architecture + design. Cash bar at 6:30 p.m. and talks begin at 7 p.m. at Mint Museum Uptown at Levine Center for the Arts, 500 South Tryon Street in Charlotte. The CAD talks are free to students with valid ID, $5 for museum members and $15 for non-members. Register online at mintmuseum.org/happenings or call 704.337.2107 to register by phone.
Future speakers in the series are:
OCTOBER 24, 2013 | STEPHEN CASSELL & ADAM YARINSKY – ARO
Stephen Cassell and Adam Yarinsky are principals of Architecture Research Office (ARO), a New York-based firm practicing modern architecture and visionary urbanism, and known for their recent work exploring the effect of rising sea levels on the financial district of lower Manhattan. The firm has completed projects for Princeton University, Prada, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. ARO was the winner of the 2011 Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Architecture. Current work by the firm includes Zimple House at Tulane University’s Newcomb Lawn College and a restoration of American sculptor Donald Judd’s Home and Studio.
JANUARY 30, 2014 | BEN FRY – FATHOM
Ben Fry is principal of Fathom, an acclaimed Boston-based design consultancy that helps clients understand and express complex data visually through information graphics, interactive tools, software for installations, the web, and mobile devices.
MARCH 6, 2014 | KULAPAT YANTRASAST – why.how ARCHITECTURE
Kulapat Yantrasast, a native of Thailand, is the co-founder and principal of why.how Architecture, which he founded with fellow architect Yo-ichiro Hakomori. why.how completed the Grand Rapids Art Museum, the first new art museum in the world to receive the LEED certification for environmental design.
Keynote speech and day-long conference are open to the public
The public is invited to join a roster of chefs, writers, historians, and international designers – led by internationally renowned architect Michael Graves – who are visiting the museum later this month for a conference devoted to the innovative Mint-organized F.O.O.D. (Food, Objects, Objectives, Design) exhibition. Graves will be speaking on April 25 as part of the Mint’s Contemporary Architecture + Design (CAD) Series at Mint Museum Uptown, which will serve as the F.O.O.D. Conference’s keynote address, and the day-long conference follows on April 26.
Michael Graves and his firms have received more than 200 awards for design excellence since he founded his practice in 1964, including the 1999 National Medal of Arts from President Bill Clinton. Michael Graves & Associates provides planning, architecture and interior design services, and Michael Graves Design Group specializes in product design, graphics and branding. As one of the most well-recognized contemporary architects in the country, Graves is widely credited with the ‘democratization of design’ through his partnership and accessible product line with Target.
“Good design not only addresses practical problems, it humanizes the products we use daily. Fittingly, the Mint’s CAD Series (Contemporary Architecture + Design) concludes its season and opens the F.O.O.D. Conference with a lecture by Michael Graves, the visionary architect and designer. More than anyone else, Graves has changed the field by championing good design as essential to everyday life, and by creating objects that are accessible, intuitive, functional and beautiful,” said Cheryl Palmer, the Mint’s director of Learning & Engagement.
Graves’ lecture begins at 7 p.m. and the lecture is $5 for museum members, $15 for non-members, and free for students with valid ID. A light reception precedes the program at 6 p.m. Registration is required at mintmuseum.org/happenings.
The F.O.O.D. Conference promises a day of learning and creativity with presentations from industry leading writers, historians, chefs, and designers to complement the museum’s current exhibition devoted to objects designed to prepare, cook, and present food. The conference sessions mirror the four sections of the F.O.O.D. exhibition: Kitchen, Pantry, Table and Garden.
Presenters include Jessica Harris, author of 11 cookbooks and contributor to magazines such as Gourmet and Saveur; James Beard Award-winning author, bread expert and Johnson & Wales chef Peter Reinhart; Darra Goldstein, food historian and founding editor of Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, named the 2012 Publication of the Year by the James Beard Foundation; Asheville-based architect Ken Gaylord, and Matteo Bologna, founding partner and principal of Mucca Design in New York.
Designers Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin of the FormaFantasma Studio, who created the work “Autarchy” for the Mint’s F.O.O.D. exhibition, will also be presenting. Based on a prototype from 2011, this version of Autarchy was created especially for the Mint, and is made of agriculture waste, spices such as turmeric and paprika, and Geechie Boy corn meal. The two Italian designers are based in The Netherlands and their work seeks to bridge the relationship between craft, industry, object, and user. This is the studio’s first showing in an American museum. In 2011 the studio was nominated as one of the 20 most promising young design studios by Alice Rawsthorn, the design critic of The New York Times and Paola Antonelli, the senior design curator of The Museum of Modern Art.
“Designers are creative individuals who apply art and engineering to solve a problem. Regarding food, that problem might be making a spoon that holds just the right amount of liquid, that is comfortable to hold, and that looks really cool. It might be creating a kitchen that incorporates sustainable appliances, green machines, and ergonomic furniture. And it could even be coming up with a typeface, and innovative graphic designs, for restaurant advertisements, menus, or cookbooks. The Mint’s F.O.O.D. Conference brings together top international talent – chefs, culinary historians, designers, and architects – to discuss their perspectives on the meaning of table, pantry, kitchen, and garden in our lives today,” said Annie Carlano, the Mint’s director of craft + design.
The conference runs from 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m. and the cost for Mint or Center for Craft, Creativity and Design members is $60 with a box lunch and includes admission to Michael Graves’ CAD lecture. Cost for non-members is $85 with a box lunch, or $100 for lunch and admission to the Graves CAD lecture. Registration is required at mintmuseum.org/happenings. The conference is co-presented with The Center for Craft, Creativity and Design in Hendersonville, N.C., and funded by the Founders’ Circle. In-kind partners include Johnson & Wales University and The Mother Earth Group. Michael Graves’ lecture is generously supported by a grant from the Arts & Science Council.
The F.O.O.D. exhibition features approximately 300 modern and contemporary pieces, including unique and mass-produced works chosen from the Mint’s permanent collection, loans and new acquisitions. The exhibition is co-organized by the research center FoodCultura, Barcelona, and remains on view through July 7, 2013. F.O.O.D. (Food, Objects, Objectives, Design) is made possible through major support from PNC with additional support from Piedmont Natural Gas. Acquisition support was provided by the Design Committee of The Mint Museum.
Robert and Cortney Novogratz are the featured speakers in the Mint’s upcoming Contemporary Architecture + Design (CAD) series
Former Charlotteans Robert and Cortney Novogratz plan to visit Mint Museum Uptown in November for the latest installment of the Mint’s ongoing Contemporary Architecture + Design (CAD) series, which explores innovative perspectives and insightful stories on architecture + design, today and beyond. The husband-and-wife design team and authors, whose TV shows have included Bravo’s “9 by Design” and HGTV’s “Home by Novogratz,” juggle seven children and dozens of clients.
The public program is at 7 p.m. on November 15 and costs $5 for Mint members, $10 for non-members, and is free for students with valid ID. A light reception and book signing will follow their hour-long presentation. Copies of their newest book entitled “Home by Novogratz” (Artisan Books, $35, published October 9) will be available for purchase that evening. More information is available at www.mintmuseum.org/happenings.
“The Mint Museum could not be more honored to welcome Robert and Cortney back to Charlotte,” said Hillary Cooper, Director of Communications and Media Relations for the Mint, “Their funky, downtown-chic aesthetic, trademark brand of cool, and incomparable style is sure to enchant and inspire our entire community.”
Robert and Cortney Novogratz specialize in a seemingly effortless melding of vintage finds and modern touches known as “the Novogratz look.” In their new book, they break down their design process from start to finish, making it easy for anyone to breathe new life into a variety of spaces. The book provides an inside look at 20 of the design pair’s projects—including the homes of Ree Drummond (the “Pioneer Woman”), skateboarder Tony Hawk, and musician Suzanne Vega—complete with tips, tricks, and takeaway ideas and detailed budget breakdowns. From reviving a Brooklyn townhouse to creating a last-minute nursery, from building a family space in a suburban basement to overhauling a beachside surf shack, each completed job is presented step-by-step.
Parents of seven children (theirs has been called “the coolest family in the world” by The Times of London), Robert and Cortney have extensive, firsthand experience in creating solutions for active families, big and small. Whether it’s making space for triplets in a shared Manhattan bedroom or building the ultimate tree house for their own family, no challenge is too intimidating or idea too grand.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Robert and Cortney Novogratz and their seven children are known to millions worldwide through their unique design aesthetic and TV programs. Raised in Virginia and Georgia respectively, Robert and Cortney now make their home in New York City. Their children are Wolfgang (age 15), Bellamy and Tallulah (14), Breaker (11), Five and Holleder (7), and Major (3). Follow the family’s adventures at Twitter.com/TheNovogratz and Facebook.com/Novogratz. HGTV’s Home by Novogratz airs Saturdays at 7 p.m.
HOME BY NOVOGRATZ
By Robert and Cortney Novogratz with Elizabeth Novogratz
Foreword by Julia Roberts
Published by Artisan Books on October 9, 2012
Hardcover / $35.00 320 pages; More than 500 color photographs
ISBN: 978-1-57965-499-3
Robleto visits April 10 for a FREE talk; internationally-renowned book designer Boom speaks April 12 as part of CAD series.
Mint Museum Uptown will host two speakers of national and international importance next week: Texas-based artist Dario Robleto and Amsterdam-based graphic designer Irma Boom.
Robleto will visit Tuesday, April 10 for a free event from 7-9 p.m. His seven-foot-tall, five-foot-wide wreath-shaped sculpture Defiant Gardens is the most recent gift to The Mint Museum’s permanent collection made possible through the generosity of the Mint Museum Auxiliary. The Mint Museum was home to Robleto’s first solo museum exhibition in 1999.
Robleto’s poetic work of art incorporates paper pulp made from American soldier’s letters, Victorian hair flowers braided by war widows, dried flowers from various battlefields, and even tiny carrier-pigeon message capsules, recycled and re-contextualized to evoke the power of memory and history in wartime. The 39-year-old artist plans to discuss Defiant Gardens, his distinctive way of working, and the inspiration and body of work that led to its creation.
“Dario Robleto is one of the most sought-after young American artists working today,” said Brad Thomas, curator of contemporary art at the Mint. “His conceptually-based, labor-intensive works convey an intimacy and elegance that reveals much about his own personal history and that of popular culture.”
Boom will visit on Thursday April 12 at 7 p.m. as part of the museum’s Contemporary Architecture + Design (CAD) series. The event costs $10 for non-members and $5 for members and includes a light reception (visit mintmuseum.org and click on “Calendar” to register). Boom, who specializes in book-making and incorporates the sense of touch into all of her books, won the 2007 Gold Medal at the Leipzig Book Fair for “The Most Beautiful Book in the World” for “Sheila Hicks: Weaving as Metaphor,” published by Yale University Press.
Boom is currently collaborating with Annie Carlano, the Mint’s director of craft + design, on a book about Hicks’ work Mega Footprint Near the Hutch, a monumental work recently installed in the atrium of Mint Museum Uptown thanks to a gift from Target Corp. Boom plans to share her work methods and perspective on contemporary book design. “Amsterdam is considered the center of contemporary design, and Irma Boom is considered the hottest book designer on the planet,” said Carlano.
Both events are being held at Mint Museum Uptown at Levine Center for the Arts, 500 South Tryon Street.
ArtFusion series expanded as part of its innovative slate of winter and spring programming
The Mint Museum is launching its first-ever Contemporary Architecture + Design (CAD) series with an event on January 5 at 7 p.m. that brings the architect who designed the new Mint Museum Uptown building and the artist who created the monumental five-story work on display in its atrium together to discuss “The Marriage of Art + Architecture.” The series continues throughout 2012 as part of a slate of innovative programming that will broaden the museum’s audience and reach deeper into the community than ever before.
“We believe it is important to launch a new architecture and design series to serve the museum’s mission of sharing innovative perspectives and engaging audiences in new ways. It further illustrates our commitment to leadership in the fields of design and architecture through our collection, research, exhibitions, and programming,” said Dr. Kathleen V. Jameson, President & CEO of the Mint. “It will be an ideal complement to our strong slate of other diverse programs including ArtFusion, family-friendly Sunday Fun Days, studio art classes, lectures, films, and more.”
Monthly CAD events will continue throughout the year and bring notable names in the architecture and design fields to Charlotte, including Rodolfo Machado, principal of Machado and Silvetti Associates, who designed Mint Museum Uptown; artist Sheila Hicks, subject of the museum’s current exhibition Sheila Hicks: Fifty Years; Craig Dykers, co-founder of Oslo- and New York-based architecture, landscape, and interior design firm Snøhetta; and Cortney and Robert Novogratz, who with their seven children are featured on Bravo’s show “9 By Design.” All of the events will be held at Mint Museum Uptown except Dykers’ visit on February 15, which will be held at UNC Charlotte’s Center City Building at 320 East Ninth Street. Events are $10 for non-members and $5 for members, and more information is available at mintmuseum.org.
Also joining the museum’s winter and spring slate is an expansion of the museum’s new ArtFusion series, a selection of FREE monthly events that include music, dance, fashion, interaction with local artists and more. The winter/spring events kick off January 31 from 6-9 p.m. at Mint Museum Randolph with a celebration of the museum’s 75-year tradition of collecting North Carolina pottery, a lecture, music, and more. “Whether it’s your first time to the Mint or your 50th, ArtFusion offers something new for everyone,” says Laura Everett, Adult Programs Coordinator for the Mint. “This spring’s experiences include a surrealist fashion show, dream interpretation, and much more. I hope that people will use this opportunity to explore Mint Museum Uptown, rediscover Mint Museum Randolph, and see what we’re up to – these programs are slightly offbeat but always engaging.”