Category: Art

Bildung

A sense of fulfilling one’s nature or purpose in response to the challenges of a particular historical and societal context.

Our understanding of the world is not a spectator sport, but more like an active ingredient in societal renewal.

Bildung is about our responsibility for and participation in an evolving process of social maturation that reimagines culture, technology, institutions and policies for the greater good.

Bildung entails a dynamic world view that values independence of mind and spirit grounded in ecological and social interdependence.

These qualities of heart and mind are not optional extras for the transition to a better world:

  • how well we learn to perceive and feel and know differently,
  • our capacity to question our assumptions,
  • our inclination to empathise with strangers,
  • to relate wisely to what is old and new,
  • to perceive the relationship between parts and wholes

Our task is not so much to “be the change we want to see in the world”, it rather is to become the change we want to see in the world.

Jon Amos Comenius is considered by many to be the father of the idea of universal or democratic education. A Czech philosopher and theologian who lived from 1592 to 1670, he declined the offer to be President of Harvard University. His genius lay in grasping that since learning is as natural as breathing or eating or sleeping, education should be seen as an aspect of nature’s formative process; and since nature is often experienced as sacred, and we are part of nature, an organism’s lifelong disposition to learn is the wellspring of meaning and purpose in life.

The authors of The Nordic Secret, Lene Rachel Andersen and Tomas Bjorkman argue that Bildung lies at the heart of their story of how the Nordic countries developed from poor agrarian and mostly authoritarian societies, to affluent, stable and relatively happy social democracies. They encapsulate the idea as follows:

“Bildung is the way that the individual matures and takes upon him or herself ever bigger personal responsibility towards family, friends, fellow citizens, society, humanity, our globe, and the global heritage of our species, while enjoying ever bigger personal, moral and existential freedoms. It is the enculturation and life-long learning that forces us to grow and change, it is existential and emotional depth, it is life-long interaction and struggles with new knowledge, culture, art, science, new perspectives, new people, and new truths, and it is being an active citizen in adulthood. Bildung is a constant process that never ends.”

The notion that we become ‘more’ human through various forms of maturation or development lies at the heart of Bildung, and sets it apart from other forms of education. This notion has many intellectual forebears and Hegel is certainly one of them. In The Phenomenology of Mind he writes:

“The spirit is never at rest but always engaged in ever progressive motion, in giving itself new form.”

Returning to Bildung as praxis, the profound interplay of biological, psychological, social and spiritual features of life is reflected in a line from the classic 1943 text, Education through Art, by Herbert Read:

“The aim of imaginative education…is to give the individual a concrete sensuous awareness of the harmony and rhythm which enters into the constitution of all living bodies and plants, which is the formal basis of all works of art, to the end that the child, in its life and activities, shall partake of the same organic grace and beauty. By means of such education we instil into the child that ‘instinct of relationship’ which, even before the advent of reason, enable it to distinguish the beautiful from the ugly, the good from the evil, the right pattern of behaviour from the wrong pattern, the noble person from the ignoble.”

Source: Why sustainable prosperity depends upon reimagining education | Essay by Jonathan Rowson · CUSP­

A healthy society that is attuned to nature and other sources of intrinsic value depends upon making this educative process the axis upon which society turns.

Piaget, J. (1993) John Amos Comenius Prospects (UNESCO, International Bureau of Education), vol. XXIII, no. 1/2, p. 173-96. Available Online

Froebel stars

Intricate origami stars folded as Christmas decorations in Germany are named as a tribute to Friedrich Frobel.

A 19th century German educator, who is the father of the kindergarten concept, he taught children to fold origami stars to improve their manual dexterity.

The stars have a long tradition in the state of Thuringia in Germany and to this day people still fold “Fröbelsterne” before Christmas and hang them on their trees.

Pendant is inspired by Froebel stars (Fröbelsterne)

The Fröbelstern pendant is 2.1 cm (0.8 inches) wide and 2.5 cm (1 inch) long.

Crop (Noun/Verb)

A sculpture about the clash between Western and Indigenous knowledge and what is “left out or discarded as not important or of having any value”, while also being a strike against “the myth” that the Aboriginal people had no agriculture.

“The yam daisy represents a point where Western science and indigenous knowledge came into contact,” says summit director and Canberra landscape architect Neil Hobbs.

“[to the Europeans] the yam daisy was just a field of flowers and not a crop.”

The exhibition’s tagline is Interventions in the Landscape and one clear example of that was Brisbane artist Archie Moore’s Crop (Noun/Verb) in which he has half-buried 700kg of encyclopaedias as a border for a garden of yam daisies, next to the otherwise clean lines of Bowen Place.

He went on Gumtree and to op shops to source the Funk and Wagnalls and World Books and Britannicas, which were in surprising short supply.

“These books represent Western knowledge and are very America-centric,” he said. “When I looked up ‘yam’ there were ones grown in Florida and South-East Asia and China, but no mention of Australia.”

Moore, who is known for tackling issues related to Aboriginal identity, has selected 20 encyclopedias to be partly buried alongside the daisies, packed into one-metre-square boxes, in Bowen Pace in a symbolic gesture.

Fashion Week

Queen Elizabeth II made her first visit to London Fashion Week to present an award recognizing British excellence.

The recipient of the Inaugural Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design was Richard Quinn, who graduated from the Central Saint Martins M.A. program in 2016. This marks the second collection for the young designer, who started his own label in 2016 and has quickly earned recognition as part of the next wave of talented young British designers. His awe-inspiring floral designs made for a particularly dazzling display on the runway.

“As a tribute to the industry, and as my legacy to all those who have contributed to British fashion, I would like to present this award for new, young talent”

Her Majesty thanked the British Fashion Council for nominating Quinn and paid tribute to Britain’s fashion history.

“From the tweed of the Hebrides to Nottingham lace, and of course Carnaby Street, our fashion industry has been renowned for outstanding craftsmanship for many years, and continues to produce world-class textiles and cutting-edge fashion designs.”

The prize is the first of its kind in the U.K. and is due to be awarded annually.

The British Fashion Council’s Caroline Rush noted in her speech, Quinn’s contribution to fashion goes beyond clothes. He’s invited students and his fellow designers to share the resources in his print studio in Peckham, and that sense of community is more vitally important than ever.

ANZAC Memorials

Ask sculptors to nominate the single greatest work of Australian sculpture and most will opt for The Sacrifice (1934), the centrepiece of the Anzac Memorial in Sydney’s Hyde Park. It is the work of Rayner Hoff (1894-1937), an exceptional artist and inspirational teacher.

Portrait of sculptor Rayner Hoff in his studio with The Sacrifice.
Photo: Harold Cazneaux

Hoff was born on the Isle of Man, the son of a stone mason. The family moved to Nottingham while he was still a child. Hoff would study at the Nottingham School of Art until interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War. In the army his drawing skills got him assigned to a Field Survey Company, where he was given the task of preparing detailed maps of the battlefields.

After the war Hoff transferred to the Royal College of Art, London, and became a star pupil. He had graduated and visited Rome, when he was invited to apply for a post as a teacher of antique drawing and sculpture at Sydney Technical College.

After migrating to Sydney in 1923, he became an acclaimed artist and teacher. His war memorial sculptures in Australia have come to represent the spirit of ANZAC in his adopted country.

Prince Harry, and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, laid a wreath at the official opening of the Centenary Extension of the Anzac Memorial at Hyde Park.

The royal couple arrived at the south end of the memorial on Liverpool Street about 10am, walking past new water cascades conceived in the original design but never completed, because of the financial hardships of the Great Depression.

For Prince Harry, being able to visit and officially open the newly renovated sections represented a royal step back in time; his great-great uncle and namesake, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester – who later went on to become Australia’s 11th Governor-General – originally opened the building in 1934.

ANZAC Memorials of Rayner Hoff

To mark the centenary of the end of The Great War, this set of six stamps celebrating the work of Rayner Hoff feature ANZAC war memorials in Sydney and Adelaide.

These stamps were designed by Australian designer Louise Cornwall in association with author Deborah Beck who recently collaborated on Rayner Hoff – The Life of A Sculptor, which tells the story of Hoff’s life and work for the first time, and how he spearheaded an Australian sculpture renaissance and left a mark that is still keenly felt today.

Rayner Hoff created a sculpture that depicts the weight of the dead young warrior carried on his shield by his mother, sister and wife nursing infant child. The Sacrifice uses the analogy of the Spartan warrior being returned to his loved ones dead on his shield to evoke the emotion experienced by the families of the young men who died in the Great War 1914-18.

Spartan men were raised as warriors from boyhood and, when marching to war, were told to come home with their shield or on it – a warning to be victorious or die in the attempt.

“Another woman handed her son his shield, and exhorted him: ‘Son, either with this or on this.’”

Quote from Plutarch in Sayings of Spartan Women.

The Roman writer Plutarch was a Greek, born approximately 46 AD in the town of Chaeronea in the region of Boeotia. He is not a contemporary source of the saying, as the days of Spartan military glory had ended more than three centuries earlier.

Because of its size and sturdiness, a shield did make a good battlefield stretcher — and if the shield used for that purpose belonged to the stretchee, no one else needed to go unprotected. Carrying someone back on his shield served another purpose as well. A shield was one of the more complicated and valuable parts of a Greek hoplite’s armour. It and other items of equipment were traditionally passed down from father to son, brother to brother, or even uncles to cousins. Families of a warrior culture such as the Spartans depended on re-use of the family shield if possible.

The shield was made of multiple layers of metal (bronze, copper, or sometimes tin), wood, and tough linen, cloth, or leather, and could weigh as much as 15 to 20 pounds. In the Greek battle formation known as the phalanx, the shield protected not only the warrior holding it (while leaving his right arm free to wield a spear), but also the warrior on his left. A phalanx that stayed in tight formation was well protected by the interlocking shields.

Architecture

The Froebel Decade theme for 2019 will be dedicated to the impact Froebel’s philosophy had on art and architecture, especially his “gifts” and the mathematical aspects of his early childhood education concept.

The first building gift designed by Friedrich Froebel is eight cubes.

With the founding of a kindergarten teachers’ training school, Froebel was also seen as a supporter of women’s emancipation.

Like Child’s Play

‘For me, colour is pure thought, and therefore completely inexpressible, every bit as abstract as a mathematical formula or a philosophical concept’ Daniel Buren

Like Child’s Play is inspired by German educational theorist Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbels. Consisting of 100 blocks, arches, triangles and pediments, Buren plays with scale so that the objects, which, as children we towered over now dwarf us. Throughout his career, Buren has created artworks that complicate the relationship between art and the structures that frame it. His work questions how space can be used, appropriated, and revealed both physically and socially.

Daniel Buren is recognised as one of France’s foremost contemporary artists, he has exhibited at the Venice Biennale, winning the Golden Lion in 1986. His work has been the focus of exhibitions at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in New York. Buren’s career spans five decades of interventions, controversial critical texts, thought-provoking public art projects and engaging collaborations with artists from across generations.

Source: Like Child’s Play

Arzberg 2000

Timeless and minimalist.

Heinrich Löffelhardt designed Form 2000 in 1954, for Arzberg. This design was conferred the coveted ‘Gold Medal’ by the international jury at the X Triennale 1954 in Milan.

To mark the 100th birthday of Heinrich Löffelhardt in 2001, the Federal Chancellery in Berlin was presented with an exclusive and specially created set of tableware and some new items.

Special edition of Form 2000 with golden rim and the vignette of the federal eagle provided in the late sixties for the Federal Chancellery.

Arzberg 1382

A milestone in modern design.

Designed in 1931 by Hermann Gretsch based on Bauhaus principles, the round and restrained forms of Arzberg Form 1382 have endured as some of the best selling porcelain in the world for 80 years.

Hermann Gretsch made his intention clear when he said “Get to the heart of things” and then created the Form 1382. Gretsch’s maxim was the reason behind the Frankish porcelain manufacturer’s rise to become an international porcelain design brand and still remains Arzberg’s guiding principle.

“We can no longer afford to bring products to the market which bring no joy to customers after even a short while because they are impractical, dated or simply not modern enough” – such were the words of Dr. Hermann Gretsch, whose Form 1382 revolutionised the world of porcelain in the early 30s.

“If you’re such and expert on what a good terrine should look like, then go and make one,” Fritz Kreikemeier, director of the Arzberg porcelain factory, challenged the young graduate engineer Hermann Gretsch, who has criticised the fact that none of the terrines on the market allows the last remnants of food to be ladled out. Gretsch goes off and designs. And the result is convincing. Form 1382 marks the start of the Frankish porcelain manufacturer’s rise to become a successful frontrunner of modern and functional everyday porcelain.

This legendary design has become one of the absolute classics of modern industrial design. It is on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York as one of the few porcelain exhibits. Even today, the best designers design for life. Arzberg porcelain is always functional and always beautiful: it is created to eat from, to serve food and celebrate. To touch and admire. To use and enjoy.

It is hardly surprising that many designers, architects and photographers so often serve their food on Arzberg porcelain. Most creatives prefer not to burden themselves with excessive decoration. They seek authentic beauty – both in their work and in their own life. In their circles, Arzberg forms a kind of cult: “Because the brand stands for the interplay between interesting design and functionality”, as head designer Heike Philipp puts it. And porcelain expert Helmut Sättler is quite clear: “Arzberg is not just about selling porcelain. It is about history, design and quality. Porcelain is not simply an everyday item for the dinner table – it is an expression of style, indulgence and joy in setting a table.”

Viennese Rose

Founded in 1718, the Augarten Vienna Porcelain Manufactory is the second-oldest in Europe. Now as then, porcelain is made and painted by hand. This makes each piece unique.

The designs of Augarten porcelain have been created in cooperation with notable artists ever since the manufactory first opened its doors. Artists of all epochs have designed masterpieces. The “Viennese Rose” is a famous decoration from the Biedermeier period.

The Biedermeier period refers to an era in Central Europe between 1815 and 1848 during which the middle class grew and arts appealed to common sensibilities. It began with the time of the Congress of Vienna at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and ended with the onset of the European revolutions in 1848.

Source: Viennese Rose – Augarten Porzellan