Another world: the Van Cleef & Arpels traveling exhibit

I am awed by the Van Cleef & Arpels traveling exhibition. But alas, I can only look at photos.

My colleague Zhengyuan saw this exhibit twice. Once while it was on view in NY at the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt (where it was called Set in Style) and then again when it moved to MOCA Shanghai (where its name was changed to Timeless Beauty). (When it was on view in Tokyo it had yet another name, Spirit of Beauty.)

Zhengyuan shared photos of the MOCA Shanghai exhibit:

She described the exhibit, “they didn't move the entire exhibit set to Shanghai, but there were some new displays, like the octopus-like structure. The space is very dark ... and the sparkling bubble glass displays make it look like an underwater world!” She thought both versions were fantastic.

The designers, Patrick Jouin, explain: “for this exhibition we wanted the visitors to lose all sense of time, to open a door onto an imaginary world. The nature theme, which is a major source of inspiration for Van Cleef & Arpels, has also influenced the scenography. The pieces in the exhibition are presented in gigantic glass drops. In order to create a sensual and mysterious installation, we have used various types of illusions.”

The photos below are from the Cooper-Hewitt exhibit, taken by Matt Flynn, © Smithsonian Institution:

While both exhibit versions used the bubble glass cases, the Cooper-Hewitt’s version seemed more traditional than MOCA Shanghai’s. Less octopus-structure and more tables and wall vitrines. I’m curious what challenges the designers had to address as they designed an exhibit for travel to four different countries (Japan, the US, Shanghai, and France). In all its iterations, it is a gorgeous exhibition.

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Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 21 June 2012.

The News 02.17.11

A compilation of design-related web finds.

The realities of renovating the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, CT after it was hit by a tornado | The winner of the PaleoArt Prize in 3D art for “achievement in ... depicting or sculpting paleontological subjects and fossils” | China asks the Penn Museum to return all artifacts from its Silk Road exhibition | The New York Times, on scalies | Winners of this year’s MoMA PS1 Young Architects program asked local businesses and nonprofits what materials they needed, then designed the courtyard space to incorporate those materials, with the intention of donating them at the end of the summer | An exhibit of tattooed arms in Paris | And another, of dismembered dandies, in Sweden | South African printmaking at Boston University’s 808 Gallery | Edward Gorey at the Boston Athenæum | Tangible Things at Harvard | The Charles Hayden Planetarium in Boston reopens after a $9 million yearlong reconstruction | The Museum of Arts and Design’s new Center for Olfactory Art | The reopening of the American Museum of the Moving Image; inaugural events continue.

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Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed or replaced with archived URLs, courtesy of archive.org. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 17 February 2011.

The News 03.23.10

A compilation of design-related web finds.

The exhibition China Design Now at the Portland Art Museum transformed the city and demonstrated the four Cs of relevant museum experiences: Content, Conversation, Curation, and Continuation | I’m spending some quality time in the New York Times Museums Special Section | D-Shape printer uses sand and magnesium-based glue to print 3D rock sculptures ... potentially entire buildings ... potentially on the moon | The Curno Public Library in Italy is a “monolith of concrete pigmented with iron oxides, completely decorated with a bas-relief engraved with the letters of the alphabet.” Beautiful | Frank Gehry uses plywood in some funky ways for the Signature Theater Company in NY | Photos from Shanghai as it prepares for the 2010 World Expo — amazing creativity.

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Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken link has been replaced with archived URL, courtesy of archive.org. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 23 March 2010.