UWM-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts students (left to right) Anna Emerson, Paul Manley, and Jessica Schubkegel installing the House of Cards spiral. Photo by Ray Chi.
In the early 1950s, designers Charles and Ray Eames painstakingly arranged penny cars, pencils, pills, and papers to photograph for their House of Cards construction set. They probably never imagined that decades later, thousands of children and adults in the Milwaukee region would meticulously decorate their own House of Cards, let alone that these cards would be installed together in a towering spiral at the Milwaukee Art Museum in conjunction with the exhibition Serious Play: Design in Midcentury America.
Jaime Hayon, designer, with Nason Moretti, producer, from left to right: Umi (Life), Saidah (Fortunate), Chausiki (Born at Night), Malawa (Blossoms), Sauda (Dark Beauty), Wambua (Rainy Season), and Abayomi (Brings Joy) from Afrikando, 2017. Milwaukee Art Museum, purchase with funds from the Jill and Jack Pelisek Endowment Fund, the Sanford J. Ettinger Memorial Fund, and by exchange, M2017.23.4-7. Photo by John R. Glembin.
Among the many eye-catching objects in the exhibition Jaime Hayon: Technicolor, the delicate etching, dangling earrings, and dazzling glass surfaces of Afrikando are particularly alluring. This set of seven glass vessels is on view for the first time in the exhibition of work by Spanish artist-designer Jaime Hayon. Designed by Hayon expressly for the Milwaukee Art Museum’s permanent Collection, Afrikando fuses the tradition of glassblowing with the designer’s delightfully fresh contemporary sensibility.
Hella Jongerius, (Dutch, b. 1963), produced by Royal Tichelaar Makkum (Makkum, Netherlands, founded 1572), Bowl, from the collection Repeat, 2002. Porcelain and cotton. Milwaukee Art Museum. Purchase, with funds from the Demmer Charitable Trust, M2015.12.
Installation view of Jaime Hayon: Technicolor, Milwaukee Art Museum, 2017. Photo by John R. Glembin.
On view now through March 25th in the Bradley Family Gallery, Jaime Hayon: Technicolor brightens up wintertime in Milwaukee with a colorful splash of fun and fantasy. The energetic exhibition features work from two decades of the Spanish artist-designer’s career, including textiles, ceramics, glass, drawings, and playground equipment. These works represent a wide range of approaches to making, thinking, and viewing, while also remaining unified by a refreshing sense of playful whimsy.
Jaime Hayon trained in his native Madrid and in Paris before directing the design department at Fabrica, the Benetton-funded design and communication academy in Italy, for nearly a decade. In 2003, he left Fabrica to focus on his own studio practice. Hayon Studio now has offices in Italy, Spain, and Japan and is acclaimed worldwide.
Picture this: You’re watching the wings open on the Museum’s Quadracci Pavilion and you realize you hear music… ever wonder who is behind its creation? I have! The answer is the talented Kris Martinez, Interactive Designer at the Museum. Below, straight from Kris, is everything you ever wanted to know about the music of the Museum.
