Frank Lloyd Wright at the Gugg
http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/museums/wright-again/714/
There’s a lot happening on Museum Mile these days. Among many highlights, the Met just opened their new American Wing, with a cascade of period rooms and galleries of decorative and functional objects orbiting around the huge Charles Engelhard Court, an atrium showcasing sculpture and stained glass. And up the street, the Guggenheim is celebrating its 50th anniversary with an overview of work by its dad, Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959).
At first glance, the two seemed only tangentially related, tied by opening date and only the broadest of tags. The Met’s new American atrium holds some familiar sculpture and stained glass, but the sparse installation also served as a reminder of how Euro-centric the museum’s holdings are. The many cases of household items—pewter, porcelain, silver—are now sandwiched in a relatively glamourous mezzanine between the court and Central Park.
A tour (starting with the spiffy new glass elevator—Morgan Library, take that!) through the largely revamped period rooms shows just how young this country still is, or how little the past century’s industrial design has emanated from the US. (Or how little is has been valued by collectors and curators, in any case.) The earliest room, from the 1680s, feels cave-like, and the furniture is tiny in scale, especially compared to the giant maw of the fireplace. The 20 rooms ascend chronologically as you descend, culminating in Frank Lloyd Wright’s room.
