Kintsugi

Per "Inside Smithsonian Research" Newsletter (Winter 2009):

Nothing could be further removed from America’s grab ’n go coffee clutter than the centuries-old ceramic tea bowls now on view in a quiet corner of the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art in the exhibit “Golden Seams: The Japanese Art of Mending Ceramics.” Dating back 300 years or more, these simple vessels have endured from a time when tea, not coffee, was king, and drinking it was regarded as a meditative and spiritual ritual.

Tea-ceremony aesthetics focused on the beauty in imperfection (wabi-sabi). “Even in tea bowls that were not repaired, people came to look for the slight idiosyncrasies, even flaws, in the glaze that made one bowl more interesting than another. The context of tea drinking created a moment of awareness of transiency, of the way in which all objects, like all human beings, exist in a fleeting way and are decaying.”

Exactly when golden kintsugi repairs began is unknown. An incident involving an heirloom owned by the shogun (commander) Ashikaga Yoshimasa(1434-1490), however, may have encouraged development of the technique.

Within a century, repairs using lacquer combined with powdered gold or silver became common in Japan. “Sometimes owners even commissioned lavish maki-e, or ‘sprinkled picture’ decoration to replace large fragments,” Cort says. In this practice, artisans replaced a missing fragment of a broken bowl by crafting a new piece with built-up layers of lacquer. Powdered silver and gold were then carefully sprinkled upon the sticky patch in a pictorial design, such as cherry blossoms.

By the 17th century, some tea-ceremony practitioners were even being accused of breaking their tea bowls on purpose, in the hope that kintsugi mends might increase their aesthetic and commercial value.

“Golden Seams: The Japanese Art of Mending Ceramics” is on view in the Freer Gallery of Art through May 10.

A Man of Style - Yves St. Laurent

Per JENNY BARCHFIELD, Associated Press Writer:
PARIS – From the Picassos that graced his walls to historic artifacts and hundreds of sculptures, the artwork that inspired late fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent went on display Saturday (February 21, 2009), three days before it is auctioned.

The exhibition is free and open to the public through Monday afternoon — hours before the start of sale, which will be held in six sessions over three days because of the sheer size of the collection. Hundreds of private collectors and museums from around the world are expected to bid on the lots.

Billed as "the sale of the century," the auction of the 733-piece collection will disperse in three days a collection that took Saint Laurent and his lifelong partner Pierre Berge half a century to amass.

Highlights include Piet Mondrian's 1922 painting "Composition in Blue, Red, Yellow and Black," whose squares of saturated colors inspired Saint Laurent's legendary 1965 shift dress; a wooden sculpture by Romania's Constantin Brancusi that is expected to sell for euro15 million-euro30 million ($19 million-$37 million); and a pair of bronze animal heads that disappeared from a Beijing palace in 1860 and that China now wants removed from the auction and returned.

Other lots include sculptures from ancient Egypt and Rome and 17th century Italy, medieval ivory crucifixes and silver German beer steins that covered every available surface of Saint Laurent's homes, as well as his Art Deco furniture and even his bed.

The sale, organized by Christie's auction house, is expected to gross $250 million-$380 million. A large portion of the proceeds is to go to a foundation to support AIDS research.

More pictures here. You can view the Christie's catalog here.

"Green" Graffiti

This is amazing and beautiful!