Victoria and Albert Museum

Below, see their latest e-newsletter:
The brand new V&A website launches in May
From: Victoria and Albert Museum
victoriaandalbertmuseum@vam.pmailuk.com To: etsag1998
Date: Thu, Apr 28, 2011 12:54 pm

Sent by: Victoria and Albert Museum
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Brand new website launches this month

A new kind of art and beauty

Yamamoto the visionary designer

Powerful South African images

Museums at Night: Figures & Fictions

New workshop series

Exclusive behind-the-scenes Yamamoto offer

SS11 at the V&A Shop

Gyles Brandreth on Oscar Wilde

Also on in London...
COLLECT - The International Art Fair

World photography





The new V&A website

Launch of the new V&A website
4 May 2011

May 2011 sees the launch of our brand new fully redesigned website. The V&A website is the UK’s leading online design resource with access to over one million objects and topics as broad as tattoos to couture. Three million people visit the Museum’s sites each year, but more than 25 million visit www.vam.ac.uk.

The new website boasts many technical innovations, new areas to explore, lots more from the V&A Channel, plus fantastic new community pages. This new feature will enable you to create your own profile and share your ideas and images with others.

Browse the new website from 4 May 2011



William Blake Richmond, Mrs Luke Ionides, 1879 © V&A Images

The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860 - 1900
Until 17 July 2011
Sponsored by Bank of America Merill Lynch

"Superb.... The Gob is smacked. Rarely have I left an exhibition feeling so fully confronted by its subject" (Sunday Times Culture)

"The rooms unfold like a succession of rich, airless dream" (Sunday Telegraph)

This is the first major exhibition to comprehensively explore Aestheticism, an extraordinary artistic movement which sought to escape the ugliness and materialism of the Victorian era by creating a new kind of art and beauty. It gathers together for the first time many of the greatest masterpieces of painting alongside sculpture, design, furniture, architecture, fashion and literature, and includes work by Edward Burne-Jones, James McNeill Whistler, Frederic Leighton, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, Aubrey Beardsley and Oscar Wilde.

Tickets £12, concessions available

With further support from Liberty





Yohji Yamamoto Dream Shop © Ronald Stoops
Yohji Yamamoto
Until 10 July 2011

"By refusing to be prescriptive the show successfully reflects something of the designer's own ability to break from the expected" (Metro)

This exhibition presents one of the most influential and enigmatic fashion designers of the last forty years, Yohji Yamamoto. Yamamoto is a visionary designer who has made a vital contribution to fashion, challenging traditional norms of clothing with his avant-garde style. This is his first major solo show in the UK and is an installation-based retrospective showcasing over 80 women’s and menswear garments, which are most representative of his work.

Tickets £7, concessions available

Imaging partner Canon (UK) Ltd






Zwelethu Mthethwa, Untitled (From The Brave Ones series), 2010, Image courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography
Until 17 July 2011
Sponsored by Standard Bank

***** "Absorbing, entertaining and long overdue exhibition" (Evening Standard)

"There are many outstanding images in this show" (The Times)

Figures & Fictions features works by some of the most exciting and inventive photographers living and working in South Africa today. The 17 artists range from established practitioners such as David Goldblatt, Santu Mofokeng, Pieter Hugo and Zwelethu Mthethwa, to a new generation including Zanele Muholi and Hassan and Husain Essop.

The exhibition presents the vibrant and sophisticated photographic culture that has emerged in post-apartheid South Africa. The works on display respond to the country’s powerful rethinking of issues of identity across race, gender, class and politics.

Tickets £6, concessions available






Nontsikelelo Veleko, Sibu IV, 2003/2006. Courtesy of the artist and Goodman Gallery
Museums at Night: Figures & Fictions
Friday 13 May 2011

Join us for a special evening of free events inspired by the exhibition Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography, as part of Museums at Night weekend.

In Focus: Normski in Conversation
19.15–20.15
Hear photographer and cultural commentator Normski discuss music and fashion from post-apartheid South Africa.
Free, advance booking essential

In Fusion: Normski with Special Guests
19.30–21.45
Hear vibrant South African and UK sounds in a DJ set featuring Normski with special guest DJs and live musicians.
Free, drop-in






Page from Baby’s Own ABC – EFG, illustrated by Walter Crane, English, 1870s © V&A Images
Crafting the Collection:
A is for Aestheticism
Saturday 14 May 2011
11.00–16.00
Art Studio and Seminar Room 1
Sackler Centre

Explore the enchanting world of Walter Crane in the second in our new workshop series, Crafting the Collection. Join artist Rosalind Wyatt to create your own colourful design incorporating calligraphic text and childhood illustrations, and contribute to a quirky stitched alphabet display.

Free, drop-in





Few and Far, 242 Brompton Road, London SW3 2BB
Few and Far in collaboration
with the V&A
Friday 20 May 2011
18.30 – 19.30
Few and Far, 242 Brompton Road
London SW3 2BB

To celebrate the Yohji Yamamoto exhibition, we have collaborated with Few and Far to offer 10 e-newsletter subscribers the chance to attend a Yamamoto inspired evening. Join exhibition curator Ligaya Salazar as she provides a behind-the-scenes talk about the exhibition in-store, followed by complimentary entry into the exhibition at the V&A.

Few and Far is a seasonal and personal collection selected by Priscilla Carluccio. The collection includes clothes, jewellery, vintage and contemporary furniture, tabletop, toys and craft from India, France, Morocco, Italy and UK. You can buy this seasons collections online and in the shop now.

The first 10 people to email marketing@vam.ac.uk will receive a ticket to this exclusive event.

www.fewandfar.net



Spring/Summer 2011 range at the V&A Shop
Spring/Summer 2011 at the V&A Shop

Keep up with this summer's trends with our beautiful ranges. Our new collection is inspired by early twentieth century Art Nouveau textiles designed by Frederick Steiner. Steiner was a fan of florals and foliage, which can be seen in the perfectly coloured patterns that decorate our fantastic range of homeware, clothing and accessories. Jewellery inspired by the patterns accent the collection with new jewels by Cilea and The Branch.

View the entire Spring/Summer 2011 range at the V&A Shop



Oscar Wilde carte de visite © V&A Images
’Elementary, my dear Oscar’: Gyles Brandreth on Wilde, Conan Doyle and their circle
Sunday 15 May 2011
15.00 – 16.45

Taking inspiration from The Cult of Beauty exhibition, the inimitable Gyles Brandreth will divulge some entertaining tales of the legendary Irish writer and wit – from his friendship with the creators of Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula to unlikely (but true) encounters with Pope Pius IX and Jumbo the Elephant. Afterwards enjoy a wine reception and book signing with the speaker.

Tickets £15

To book call 020 7942 2277

Organised by V&A Membership as part of Members’ Week 14–20 May 2011. Have a look online for other talks, concerts and special offers.

Find out more





Grandma goes to Tokyo by Elise Hatlø, Photo: Kirsti Mørch, Represented at COLLECT by Galleri Format
COLLECT – The International Art Fair for Contemporary Objects
6 - 9 May 2011
Saatchi Gallery

COLLECT, taking place at the Saatchi Gallery, London from 6 – 9 May, is a highlight in the cultural calendar for anyone interested in buying dynamic contemporary craft. The fair brings together an exciting selection of UK and international galleries showcasing work by over 300 new and established artists.

To book tickets call 0844 873 7348

www.craftscouncil.org.uk/collect



© Haylee Lee, courtesy Sony World Photography Awards 2011
World Photography Festival
Until 1 May 2011

Sony World Photography Awards exhibitions
Until 22 May 2011

Somerset House

Love photography? Find inspiration and get involved at the World Photography Festival and Sony World Photography Awards exhibitions at Somerset House, London. Share your work, network and learn new skills at the Festival until 1 May. Be dazzled by the fantastic imagery showcased in the exhibitions until 22 May.

Find out more







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Earth Day Literature and Summer Guides Gratis!

Last week, I was at our local Earth Day fair. As promised, here is a brief annotated list of the publications I picked up there for free. There were also organizations giving out small trees and seeds of various types, as well as nature crafts, kids activites, and the travelling book bus that gives away books:

1. Eat Well Guide: given as a post card for www.eatwellguide.org. The Guide is an online food directory indlucing stores, restuarants, mailorder outlets and other venues that offer "sustainably-raised" meat, poultry,and other organic, no drugs or hormone products. You can search by zip code on the site and it is free. You can call the Eat Well Guide Coordinator, too, at 212-726-9161 or contact at info@eatwell.org.

2. Emerald Ash Borer Identification Guide handed out as a small plastic card, similar to a credit card. There is a website for this, as well, and a ruler on the back of the card for use in identification: www.emeraldashborer.infor or www.na.fs.fed.us/fhp/eab/info/info/shtm.

3. Environmental Education Guide for Earth Week, by the local Earth Week Coalition. Check your own locality for more information. Information includes Tours and Field Trips, Presentations and Activities, Educational Resources, Environmental Clubs and Groups, and Special Events. This is a nice booklet, colorful and well-organzied, that includes all kinds of museums and parks.

4. How Livestock Antibiotics Threaten our Health pamphlet by the Sierra Club is part of "The Sierra Club's Campaign to Protect America's Water from Factory Farm Pollution." Includes address forthe Sierra Club, and its url, www.sierraclub.org. It also suggests places to write to take action.

5. Keep our City Beautiful; a Series of pamphlets including-
a. Drainage Assistance Program by Dept. of Public Works
b. Green Power Team
c. New Trees and Better Sidewalks
d. Public Works Department Programs

6. Parks and Recreation Program Thrive! Cover written in several languages, including Vietnamese, Chinese, and Spanish. This is the official guide of one of our regional cities.

7. Sierra Club Publications:
a. Alternatives to Logging our National Forests
b. Book Discussion Schedule [on a bookmark]
c. Tomorrow's Planet Newsletter for kids

8. Summer Camps 2011; everything you ever wanted to know

Happy Greening!

The Violets are Out! Earth Day 2011

I wait all year from the simplest things; the violets are here--I wait all year for them, and fondly remember making may baskets to leave at my mother's door, and for all my friends. I used violets, and lilacs, as well as all types of crabappbles, leaves, and grasses. We used to weave baskets out of construction paper; still think they are the best.

Upcoming attractions: I went to the local Earth Week Fair and have lots of good literature to share. For those interested in Earth Day Trivia, note that Ira Einhorn, aka, The Unicorn Killer, was instrumental in creating Earth Day during "another life."

Happy planting!

Dale Salwak edits a new Collection

For those of us who love simplicty, and who love to read:

New Book Conjures The Literary Dead

Posted at 11:20PM Wednesday 20 Apr 2011
If you could meet one deceased literary figure, who would that be? What would you ask? What would you say, and why? In AFTERWORD: CONJURING THE LITERARY DEAD (May 1st, University of Iowa Press), edited by Dale Salwak, eighteen distinguished authors respond to this challenge by creating imagined conversations with a constellation of British and American authors, from Samuel Johnson to Jane Austen to Samuel Beckett to Edith Wharton.

Each chapter embarks on an intellectual, emotional, and often humorous voyage as the layers of time are peeled away, letting readers experience authors as they really were in their own era or, on occasion, transported to the present. As eccentric as it is eclectic, this collection takes the audience on a dizzying descent into a literary Inferno where biographers, novelists, and critics eat the food of the dead and return to tell the tale. Readers will take great pleasure in seeing what happens when scholars are loosed from the chains of fact and conduct imaginary interviews with deceased authors.

Covering 200 years of literary history, the essays in AFTERWORD draw upon the lifelong, consuming interest of the contributors, each fashioning a vivid, credible portrait of a vulnerable, driven, fully human character. As contributors appeal to what Margaret Atwood calls the deep human desire to "go to the land of the dead, to bring back to the living someone who has gone there," readers are privy to questions that have seldom been asked, to incidents that have been suppressed, to some of the secrets that have puzzled readers for years, and to novel literary truths about the essential nature of each author.

Contributors:

Catherine Aird (on Rudyard Kipling), Brian Aldiss (on Thomas Hardy), Margaret Atwood (on negotiating with the dead), William M. Chace (on Ezra Pound), Nora Crook (on the Shelleys), Paul Delany (on George Gissing), Colin Dexter (on Alfred Edward Housman), Margaret Drabble (on Arnold Bennett), Peter Firchow (on George Orwell), Alan W. Friedman (on Samuel Beckett), Eugene Goodheart (on Jane Austen), John Halperin (on Edith Wharton), Francis King (on Oscar Wilde), Jeffrey Meyers (on Samuel Johnson), Cynthia Ozick (on Henry James), Jay Parini (on Robert Frost), Carl Rollyson (on William Faulkner), Dale Salwak and Laura Nagy (on literary imagination), Alan Sillitoe (on Joseph Conrad), and Ann Thwaite (on Frances Hodgson Burnett, Edmund Gosse, A. A. Milne, and Emily Tennyson).

The Madwoman in the Attic

Received another fantastic doll from our friends at Uneek Designs; this one is Bertha Rochester, complete with candle held carelessly in her hand. She is ensconced in the attic of our new dollhouse, under the gothic arch. She is a masterpiece of sinister expression, and we love her, even if she is a little scary!

Trash Museum; Historical Recycling

I love it!!

Politics - Published Thursday, 31 March 2011 03:08 | Author: AFP / The Swedish Wire
Stockholm museum plunges down in our trash



It may not be the Mona Lisa, but an old, empty milk carton and other trash we toss away can also tell an interesting story about our culture, our history and ourselves, according to a new exhibit in Stockholm called "Garbage".

"We are ethnologists and we are interested in how people live, and we found it interesting to look into how they act when it comes to garbage," says Christina Matsson, who heads up the Nordiska museum in central Stockholm that recently opened a whole exhibit on the topic.

The first and most obvious conclusion to be drawn from the samples of rubbish gathered through the ages is that our garbage has changed dramatically in step with our own changing times.

An 18th-century pair of discarded trousers says a lot.

It was worn until faded and threadbare, repeatedly mended, darned, patched until it was finally used to help to fill in a large crack in a wall and block a cold draft.

Compare that to a pair of 2010 hip, Swedish branded jeans, which have been industrially "pre-used" and ripped, and carries a sales notices informing the consumer that the "new" product has "half the life but double the look."

Another stark contrast can be seen in a modest, antique doll from the Swedish Lapland, dressed simply in a ragged piece of cloth cut from a worn-out old curtain.

The caption below the doll showcase reads: "Young Swedes today on average have 536 toys during the course of their childhoods."

Reusable, cotton sanitary napkins, broken china repaired with metal staples, carpets made entirely out of used and left-over fabric scraps: recycling is no modern concept -- in the squalid 18th and 19th centuries it was the norm.

"What we want to show is that during that period, nothing, or virtually nothing was garbage," explains Lena Landerberg, the exhibit curator.

That mentality abruptly ended around 1920, when the "garbage-emptying" era set in, lasting unabated until the early 1980s.

Things were consumed and tossed aside at a dizzying speed, and few questioned the reining attitude until a gradual ecological awakening first brought us garbage bags at the end of the 1960s and eventually the idea of sorting and recycling our trash.

Today, Swedes each on average throw away about a half tonne of garbage every year -- which is still three times less than the average American -- if you only count their domestic "production".

"Our objective is to push people to think. We do not want to point a finger. People are raising lots of questions and a lot of them are trying to show an environmentally responsible attitude," says ethnologist Erik Ottosson-Truvalla.

After having interviewed and observed many people in the process of discarding their garbage, he says he is most drawn to "the feelings" that, more or less consciously, bind us to the objects we throw away.

"In recycling centres, it is fairly common for workers to set aside the day's finds. It is like a short break before destroying them, an improvised, temporary exhibit," he says.

Curator Landerberg meanwhile stresses that our trash "raises difficult questions."

"Why do we keep, why do we throw away? Why can a thing be considered garbage by one person and not by another? Garbage is often a question of point of view," she says.

The small temporary exhibit is included in the general entrance fee to Nordiska (80 kronor, nine euros, $13, but free for anyone under 19 years of age), and will be on display until September 25.