Now open at the Science Museum in London, Oramics to Electronica: Revealing Histories of Electronic Music focuses on the work of Daphne Oram, who helped establish the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and invented the Orgaznomics Machine. Her invention was central to the development of British electronic music.
Electronic music is everywhere, from the television that we watch to the music we listen to in clubs and even the ringtones on our mobile phones. But who created these electronic sounds? And how did electronic music develop?
The Oramics Machine is a revolutionary music synthesiser that was created in the 1960s by Daphne Oram. Daphne had a strong passion for both sound and electronics and the vision to combine the two.
It is too fragile to restore to working order, but you can use our new interactive to recreate the sounds that it made.
In October 2011 more exhibits will be added to this core display that will be co-created by people who are working with electronic music today as well as a group of Daphne’s contemporaries.
They will tell the intriguing story of how electronic sound has advanced, changed and was democratised from the 1950s through to the modern era, and they will look at how people envisioned new sounds and pushed the boundaries of what was possible. They will explore how over the years musicians have invented, altered and improved (often cheap) equipment to be able to produce these dreamt-up electronic sounds. And finally they will show how the production of electronic music has moved from purpose-built laboratories to a music studio the size of a laptop.
The exhibition runs through December 1, 2011 and is the first of several shows that will explore the origins of electronic music fully.
On view at the DIA through January 1, 2012, “Royal Marionettes” pulls from the institutions Paul McPharlin Puppetry Collection and celebrates the tradition of marionette theater.
Currently installed at the MET, Reconfiguring an African Icon brings together in dynamic fashion two segments of the museum’s full collection – modern and Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. The exhibition brings together contemporary masks and works that prove an engagement with African masks as inspiration in the contemporary art scene. In conjunction with Reconfiguring an African Icon, Now at the MET has produced a fascinating feature on the behind-the-scenes of the exhibition. Read it here.
View works from the exhibit, which runs to August 21, 2011, after the jump.
The latest exhibition at the Cincinnati Art Museum is right up my streets and celebrates the Amazing American Circus Poster. 80 posters are included, each a vibrant example of golden age of American circus culture (1878 to 1939).
Cincinnati-based Strobridge Lithographing Company, which created all the posters in this exhibition, and became the leading printer for the major circuses of this time. The posters designed and printed by Strobridge were unrivaled for their quality, and contain a detailed portrait of the American circus in its “Golden Age,” when it flourished as a vital institution for cultural entertainment in this country.
The above video, produced by Antiques and the Arts Weekly, shares some of the best posters from the show. Amazing American Circus Poster runs to July 10, 2011.
“His & Hers explores the relationship between gender and fashion over the past 250 years. Clothing can act as an immediate signifier of gender – however, while making distinctions between “masculine” and “feminine” styles of clothing may seem natural, gendering is not a biological phenomenon. While much of the show discusses the changing ideas of “appropriate” attire for each gender, it also includes examples of so-called unisex and androgynous fashion. More than 100 garments, accessories, and textiles from the Museum’s permanent collection are featured chronologically, from a seemingly “feminine” 18th-century man’s velvet suit, to a woman’s “power suit” from the 1980s. Other works include innovative designers such as Giorgio Armani, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Gianni Versace, and Vivienne Westwood. The exhibition is curated by Colleen Hill and Jennifer Farley.”
The exhibition is on view at the Fashion Institute of Technology through May 10, 2011. Additionally, the terrific online component may be visited here.
Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing: How the Apollo Theater Shaped American Entertainment traces the evolution of the Apollo—from its origins as a segregated burlesque hall to its starring role at the epicenter of African American entertainment and American popular culture. Nearly all forms of entertainment—comedy, dance, swing, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll, soul, hip hop, and more—were welcomed on the Apollo stage. Serving as a place where African American performers could start and advance their careers, the Apollo helped to launch the careers of some of the best-known names in entertainment—dancers Charles “Cholly” Atkins, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson; band leaders Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington; comedians Redd Foxx and Jackie “Moms” Mabley; and musicians ranging from Louis Armstrong, James Brown, and Lionel Hampton to Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin, and the Jackson Five.
Above is a detail of Apollo Theater Exterior, 2008 Photo courtesy of the Apollo Theater Foundation, Inc. Photo by Shahar Azran.
View the full photograph and the cover of the exhibitions companion book after the jump. Also, Louis Armstrong’s trumpet.
Taschen has reproduced all 363 color plates from Braun and Hogenberg’s survey of town maps, city views, and plans of Europe, Africa, Asia and Central America. Additionally, selected extracts from the original text are included with in-depth commentary provided by Stephan Fussel. The book was first published in Cologne from 1572-1617.
The Nordiska museet in Stockholm has on view, through May 11, 2011, on of the most delightful exhibitions of menswear (perhaps) ever assembled.
The installation asks -
What is a dandy? What does he look like? Some say a dandy is a particular person. Others say a dandy is a way of life. The key to finding a dandy lies in the details. Here we look at the dandy from every possible angle, so join us on our dandy journey!
Most importantly the material exhibited is beautifully staged, with full design credit to Form Us By Love. Exquisite stuff. This, and the Drawing Fashion exhibition in London both push garment and fashion based exhibitions to new levels of display.
Opening on January 24, 2011, Tangible Things draws together 200 objects pulled from backrooms, basements, and z-closets of Harvard’s varied museums.
Tangible Things highlights and questions the modern Western intellectual categories that distinguish art from artifact, specimen from tool, and the historical from the anthropological in Harvard’s unparalleled museum and archival collections. The exhibition features nearly two hundred intriguing objects from across the University. Images are available upon request. Visitors begin in an orienting exhibition located in the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments. There they are introduced to established ways of organizing tangible things and are challenged to classify a seemingly random assortment of objects according to these scholarly conventions. Where in the University do items like John Singer Sargent’s palette, the dress and beads of a Camp Fire Girl, a crystal ball, or a stuffed Bengal tiger belong? How about a century-old tortilla or the University’s President’s Chair? Where should they belong? Why? Armed with these questions visitors are invited to take part in a University-wide scavenger hunt to discover the many guest objects carefully inserted into the exhibitions of seven of Harvard’s public museums. As visitors fan out to discover these wandering items they will begin to realize that the meanings of things and the categories of knowledge and knowing based on those things are not as static or as natural as they may appear.
The intellectual underpinnings of the exhibition provides the basis for an innovative new course at the university, “Tangible Things: Harvard Collections in World History.” Thankfully, the exhibit also allows those of us not enrolled in the hallowed halls an opportunity to poke around some long hidden gems.
Tangible Things will be on view through May 29, 2011 at multiple locations on Harvard University campus.
A full listing of locations is available after the jump.
The site makes available the first 700 objects from a database that already numbers more than 3,000 ivories. A detailed entry has been written for each piece and the vast majority are illustrated by high resolution color images, with multiple views. The project was launched in 2008 by the Courtauld Institute and covers ivory sculptures made in Western Europe ca. 1200-ca. 1530.
