Software as a Readymade
and the Porzellan Manufaktur Nymphenburg’s Archives of Memory
Craft, knitting, pottery, zines, blogs, Indie rock, electronic scrapbooking, Flarf poetries can usefully be considered the present generation’s version of “handmade software,” remnants of the ostensibly dematerialised information systems that package our lives with banal pervasiveness: spread sheets, operating systems, caller ID, RSS feeds, disabled right clicking, packet sniffers, visual memory ID systems, metadata containers, controlled vocabularies, search parameters and algorithms. more »
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
The Commedia dell’Arte provided Bustelli, Benedict and Voltaire’s culture with popular entertainment supple enough to amuse both low and high brow, reminding us that the Commedia – known as a circus with a plot – meaningfully corresponds to the silliest of our own sitcoms, comic strips, and films. It does not go too far to say that Dottore, the fat and the learned, provided comic relief in an age of strife and doubt that Jerry Lewis would provide in a later era with his interpretation of The Nutty Professor. more »
Franz Anton Bustelli
RJ: Do you remember the moment you first saw a Bustelli figure?
AZ: I saw his Virgin Mary (1756) in a photograph, but didn’t know the scale – this was the moment! Afterwards I learned that it was only 20 cm (8 inches) high, and not at all a sculpture, though it looked as if it were from a church. It was this experience that opened the door to my fascination. more »
Darn That Dream:
The Ups and Downs of Commedia dell’Arte
Outside theatre walls, Pierrot and Harlequin became established icons in the advertising for such 1920s alcohol brands as Vincenzo, Dionis, Sauvion’s Brandy, and Otard’s Cognac, while even soft drinks from the period (Chocolat Poulain, Feltoe & Smith’s “delicious health-giving” lime juice cordial, and others) traded on the often winsome “glamour” of commedia iconography. Painters, sculptors, book illustrators, poster designers and, not least, fashion designers and creators of haute couture were drawn to Commedia archetypes; we find Commedia patterns, lines and figures inspiring the work of such fashion designers as Elsa Schiaparelli and Yves Saint Laurent, and, more recently, Christian Dior by John Galliano, Vivienne Westwood, Miu Miu, and Viktor & Rolf, to name but a few. more »
Masks
Masks are not an excuse for excess. No-one should say, whoops, I don’t know how that happened, I simply went to this fancy dress party and had a drink and woke up in the bed of this person I’ve never seen before. It’s not that simple. Masks are mirrors. more »
In the Manufactory
A waterwheel pounds away with a steady rhythm. It drives a huge belt system that spans the site and links drive wheels that even grace the façades of the workshops. A stream murmurs quietly. High up in the tall, stately trees, the leaves rustle in the wind. Here at the Porzellan Manufaktur Nymphenburg, not far from the Wittelsbach royal palace, everything seems in motion. And yet one thing has stood still – time. more »