On November 18, Collab will present its Design Excellence Award to Gaetano Pesce, whose innovative work in design, visual art, architecture, and planning has reshaped the international landscape with new forms, new materials, and nonstandard production processes. Following the award ceremony, Pesce will give an illustrated lecture about his theory and practice. (see website for ticket information). The exhibition, Gaetano Pesce: Pushing the Limits, will be inaugurated by Pesce following the program.

Known for his innovative designs incorporating nonstandard production processes and the latest materials developed through new technology, Gaetano Pesce (b. 1939) collaborates with the Philadelphia Museum of Art this fall in creating his first museum exhibition in the United States in nearly a decade.

Pesce’s multidisciplinary work in design, visual art, architecture, and planning can be unpredictable--like his resin furniture "customized" in form and color according to the choices of the artisan and the chance flow of pigmented materials within the molds. Italian writer Gillo Dorfles has said that Pesce has "made the world a less conformist place" with his objects that pit the conflicting values and means of handicraft against those of industry.

Born in La Spezia, Italy, in 1939, Pesce studied at the University of Venice Faculty of Architecture and the Institute of Industrial Design, also in Venice. He has worked in numerous countries, including Italy, Germany, Belgium, Japan, France, Brazil, and the United States, where he has maintained a studio since 1980. In 1959, he was one of the founders in Padua of Group N, an association of artists and designers concerned with programmed, or "Op," art. Pesce received his first important critical notice at the international furniture exhibition in Milan in 1969 when he introduced the UP series, although his work had been earlier included in shows in Finland and Italy. While Pesce has been particularly active as a furniture and interior designer, he has also found time for filmmaking, lecturing worldwide, and teaching, most notably since 1975 at the Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies in Strasbourg, France, at the Domus Academy in Milan, and at Cooper Union School of Architecture in New York.

At the opening of the exhibition, sponsored by Collab: The Group for Modern and Contemporary Design at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pesce will be honored with Collab’s Design Excellence Award. This nonprofit organization founded in 1970 raises funds for the Philadelphia Museum of Art's modern and contemporary design collection, which now includes over 1,000 works. The collection ranges from appliances and furniture to ceramics, glass, and lighting. Collab presents its prestigious annual Design Excellence Award to a design professional who has made a significant contribution to the field. Past honorees include Florence Knoll Bassett, Milton Glaser, Michael Graves, Jonathan Ive, Maya Lin, Ingo Maurer, Richard Meier, George Nakashima, Karim Rashid, Philippe Starck with Ian Schrager, and Robert Venturi. Collab also promotes public understanding and appreciation of contemporary design through its educational initiatives, including sponsorship of symposia, lectures, tours, and a citywide, college-level student design competition.

Curator: Kathryn Hiesinger • Curator of European Decorative Arts after 1700
Location: Contemporary Decorative Arts Gallery (170), first floor

A Natural Attraction: Dutch and Flemish Landscape Prints from Bruegel to Rembrandt

Over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the Netherlands, landscape began to emerge as an independent subject in painting and printmaking. Before this time, landscape had been employed by European artists primarily as a backdrop in religious, mythological, and allegorical scenes. Although landscapes continued to furnish settings for these and other narrative subjects, leading artists of the day gradually shifted their attention from human-centered activities to the wonders of the natural world around them. This exhibition of some sixty prints from the Museum’s extensive collection of Dutch and Flemish prints traces the growth of landscape as a hallmark of Netherlandish printmaking.

Then, as now, landscape prints simultaneously provided viewers with a means of vicarious travel and a way to savor the multifaceted manifestations of nature’s beauty. Imaginary alpine vistas by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (active 1550-1569) give way to realistic depictions of the flat Dutch countryside by Jan van de Velde (c. 1593-1641), while evocative Italian ruins by Herman van Swanevelt (c. 1600-1655) contrast with darkly dramatic night scenes by Hendrik Goudt (1583-1648). Other Netherlandish artists represented in the exhibition include Lucas van Leyden (c. 1494-1533), Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617), Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), and Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/29-1682).

A special highlight of the exhibition is seven etchings by Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (1606-1669). Famous as a painter of portraits and episodes from the Bible, Rembrandt is equally celebrated as a printmaker, whose deftness with the etching needle yielded an astonishing range of atmospheric effects in his prints, from the awe-inspiring explosion of supernatural light that illuminates the inky black sky in The Angel Appearing to the Shepherds (1634) to the tranquil rural terrain of Landscape with a Cottage and a Large Tree (1641).

A Natural Attraction: Dutch and Flemish Landscape Prints from Bruegel to Rembrandt will complement the major survey exhibition Jacob van Ruisdael: Dutch Master of Landscape on view in the first floor Dorrance Special Exhibition Galleries from October 23, 2005 to February 5, 2006.

Curators: Stacy Kirk • The Margaret R. Mainwaring Curatorial Fellow, Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs
John Ittmann • Curator of Prints
Location: Stieglitz Gallery, ground floor