A wonderful write up in HandEye about curator Emily Zilber’s The New Blue and White at Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Nice mention of our artist included in the exhibition, Gesine Hackenberg.
“The works in New Blue and White show how one remarkable set of material traditions, which have had a profound international impact, can inspire new generations of artists. They make surprising, beautiful connections across times and cultures, helping us understand our history and our present,” said Director of the MFA Malcolm Rogers. In the past, blue-and-white works focused on ideas relating to “wealth, power, exoticism, colonialism and commerce,” according to an MFA statement. Today’s artists focus on similar but modern cultural, social and historical themes. Emily Zilber, the MFA’s Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts, explains the main concern of the show: “New Blue and White asks a big question: can we understand the present—and re-evaluate the past—through creative exploration into past decorative arts and material culture? By exploring contemporary expressions of these ideas across media, the exhibition takes a fresh, interdisciplinary look at historical appropriation.”
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