What is your favorite piece in the exhibit "Lisa Gralnick: The Gold Standard"?

With the closing of Lisa Gralnick: The Gold Standard at the end of the month, we decided to ask the staff to share their favorite pieces from this expansive exhibition, which is comprised of Gralnick’s work from the past seven years. The show is up through Saturday, May 28, 2011. If you’ve visited the show, please share your favorites in the comments below!

Julie Farr, Executive Director, writes about enjoying the works in Part I: Commodification and the Sensible Economy. She loves that Gralnick honors the original intent of the gold by preserving people’s sentimentally charged objects as plaster artifacts of emotion.

Communications Director, Mary Headrick, is fascinated by all of Part I: Commodification and the Sensible Economy. "I like the dual effect of first seeing a piece that is visually intriguing and then reading the text, which gives each piece a deeper meaning. After you see a few pieces, the whole concept really clicks. They're all so clever. My favorites are probably Rhinoplasty, Zoloft, and the Italian Shoes.

Education Director, Carol Klahn, chose the Coin Collection Picture Gallery in Part III: Transubstantiation and the Historicized Object as her favorite because of her love of art history. She loves the ambiguity of the tiny paintings and that many of them seem to be variations on historical designs. She enjoys that there are many things that are familiar about the designs of the miniature gouache paintings, but that it is hard to pinpoint all of the influences. She also likes these because she is a fan of gouache paintings and loves the way they contrast with their gold frames.

An avid coffee drinker, Volunteer Coordinator, Marina Lewis enjoys Lisa Gralnick's #7 Starbucks Coffee. It reminds her of how expensive coffee can be and to enjoy it.

Lisa Gralnick, The Gold Standard Part I: #6 Zoloft (detail)
Plaster, gold and acrylic, Photo by: Jim Escalante

Curatorial Assistant, Ashley Powell, chose #6 Zoloft in Part I: Commodification and the Sensible Economy. She found the piece to be clever and a bit humorous because the artist has managed to put a price or value on happiness / mental health. She also likes the way Gralnick used only a portion of the gold needed to equal the monetary value on the medicine bottles, and with the rest of the gold she made a beautiful necklace with beads in the shape of Zoloft pills.

Asher Gallery Manager, Suzanne Sippel’s favorite is #4 Violin in Part I: Commodification and the Sensible Economy. She appreciates this piece because it was cast from Gralnick’s own violin and the investment the artist has in this piece because of that incredibly personal touch. She also identifies with this piece because Gralnick is displaying herself as not only an artist but a musician as well.

Lisa Gralnick, The Gold Standard Part I: #4 Violin
Plaster, gold, violin strings and acrylic
Photo by: Jim Escalante

Asher Gallery Sales Associate and Gallery Attendant, M’kina Tapscott, chose # 3 Cell Phone in Part I: Commodification and the Sensible Economy as her favorite because this piece works on multiple layers. It is a historical account of technology because of its dated and antique look, resembling a home phone of today more than a cell phone. The work is also a documentation of the price of gold at that time and how it has increased over the years.

Asher Gallery Sales Associate, Zoya Tommy, likes the #1 Sink in Part I: Commodification and the Sensible Economy because it is the focal point of the show. She is interested in the way it’s positioned in the show and the way it stands out because of its isolation. She also appreciates this piece because of its domesticity and she has seen other works that use sinks and finds it interesting to see how different artists work with this subject.
 
#17 Duncan Painting in Frame in Part I: Commodification and the Sensible Economy is Curator, Anna Walker’s favorite. She appreciates that it is a reference to an art object, a painting in this case, and how the value would usually be based on the image. However, Gralnick has removed the image, causing the viewer to confront how we value art. Walker also likes how well executed the gold corner of the piece is, from transitions in texture from canvas to frame.

Jenny Lynn Weitz, Web and Marketing Assistant, likes every single piece from Part II: Phenomenology and Substantialism because of the heavily personal stories behind each melted item. “I think that Lisa did a great job cataloguing the owner’s reasoning for selling their valuable gold belongings to her to melt, and then create the pieces for Part III. Through the label descriptions, we can see that some of the items in Part II are there because of broken marriages, deceased relatives, economic hardship, all of which are incredible emotional, intriguing… it makes me want to know more about all the previous owners, see pictures of them or know how they feel about this exhibition.”

View of Part II: Phenomenology and Substantialism
Photo by Jack Zilker

Nyala Wright, Associate Director of Fundraising, chose the Fourteen Unusually Small Rings in Part III: Transubstantiation and the Historicized Object because of their delicateness and beauty. They make her wish she had tiny fingers so she could wear them.

If you've had a chance to visit the exhibition share your favorite below. We hope you will stop by to see this great show before it closes May 28!

Metalsmith Lisa Gralnick Speaks about “The Gold Standard”

Earlier this month, Houston Public Radio, KUHF, broadcast Bob Stevenson’s interview with artist and metalsmith, Lisa Gralnick, on their daily arts show, “The Front Row.”  Stevenson interviewed Gralnick when she was in town for the opening of her exhibition, The Gold Standard, which is on view at HCCC through May 28. This interview provides a wonderful overview of the exhibit, and we encourage you to listen to the extended version.

Also, if you want to hear a few one-to-two minute “sound bites” about some highlights from the show, Bellevue Arts Museum has been kind enough to provide audio clips of Lisa Gralnick discussing some of her works. Whether or not you are able to see the show in person, you have a chance to listen to the artist talk about her work and learn a little bit more about the ideas behind this impressive show.

Below are images of the pieces she talks about with an audio file below each image.

Lisa Gralnick, The Gold Standard Part III: Tool, Medical Device or Implement.
Recycled gold, and acrylic, 2007. Photo: Jim Escalante.

Lisa Gralnick, The Gold Standard Part III: Military Brooch, 1940.
Recycle gold, garnets and fragments of gold chain, 2007. Photo: Jim Escalante.

Lisa Gralnick, The Gold Standar Part III: Fourteen Unusually Small Rings.
Recycled gold, gemstones (amethyst, aquamarine, citrine, emerald, green amethyst, moissanite, morganite,
peridot, ruby, sapphire, sunstone, tanzanite, tourmaline), pearls, enamel, and acrylic, 2009. Photo: Jim Escalante.

Lisa Gralnick, The Gold Standard Part III: Foucault’s Panopticon.
Recycled gold, leather, mirror, and acrylic, 2010. Photo: Jim Escalante.

Q & A with Nora Atkinson, Curator of "Lisa Gralnick: The Gold Standard" – Part II

Nora Atkinson, Curator at Bellevue Arts Museum in Bellevue, Washington, curated the current major exhibition, Lisa Gralnick: The Gold Standard, at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. She was kind enough to answer some questions over email about the show. This is the second part of the interview we published last week; to read Part I, click here.

Lisa Gralnick, The Gold Standard Part I: #16 Italian Shoes.
Plaster, gold and acrylic. 9” x 16” x 25”. Photo: Jim Escalante.

HCCC: Many of the works, especially those in Part I, were made prior to the housing market collapse and bank closings in 2008. With the current state of our global economy, this exhibit is timely in exploring issues of commodity and value. Were you planning this exhibit prior to these events, or was it important to stage the exhibit now because of the events? How do you see the work relating to our contemporary culture of corporate greed and excess?


NA: Recent events were definitely a consideration in planning the exhibition. My first conversations with Lisa about showing the work came just after the collapse, and the work struck a cord, not only in its thematic content as an exploration of value, but as a genuine record of the events as they happened—from the impetus for the work, the artist’s search for a house and struggle with the cost of living versus the cost of gold and of making, to the collapse and subsequent rise of gold’s price, which she recorded in her works, even as it became more and more expensive to purchase the material. Although in some ways the timing of the series and exhibition were coincidental, The Gold Standard really goes back to the core of what it means to be valuable–which is something we all can relate to and have probably thought very much about in these times. Although we likely would have done the show regardless of the crash, it gave it a certain urgency and potency.

The exhibition is a consideration of the almost random association of importance and value we assign—be it through the stock market or symbols of status—in our society, and Lisa’s comparisons run from the obvious to the subtle. I love the inclusion of her favorite, and very expensive, Italian leather shoes, which by their unpretentious appearance beg the question: What is the value of a good pair of walking shoes? Why shouldn’t it be the same as Christian Louboutins or Manholo Blahniks? And almost every object in the exhibition carries with it that kind of question, from the absurdity of a Tiffany ring that is prized so highly as to outweigh its own materials, to the comparative worthlessness of a vacuum cleaner or a sink, with both its utility and art-symbolic Duchampian value. Through her cold meticulous calculations, Lisa brings out the irrationality in measuring these objects and ideas by the same system, and the objects are so ubiquitous and charged, enhanced by their almost monumental appearance in plaster and gold, as to take on a moralistic dimension.

What the work really gets across is the multifaceted nature of value, and how skewed it can become in contemporary capitalist society, where markets are run and value is assigned more by desire and perception than by need. There are many metaphors in the exhibition that speak to our cultural values--the value of an honest day's work, of history and provenance, of sentimentality, of knowledge--and Lisa plays these values back and forth. The painting she casts, for instance, in Part I, is a garage-sale amateur painting, but it is up to us to decide if it seems to be paired with the proper ratio of gold. It looks like something we might value, but we can't quite tell. And the real question is what is the value of art? And can anyone really tell? Who makes that decision? That same question is echoed in Part III, and all of the parts play off each other. It’s this kind of questioning--breaking down and building up the concept of value, so that we divorce status symbols, intrinsic and cultural value, and importantly, perceived worth, from each other and analyze them each separately--which really speaks to the nature of the cult of the dollar, and our current financial crisis.

HCCC: While addressing issues of commodity, the exhibit also comments on institutional authority, such as the power museums have in displaying objects and placing value on certain items over others. What is the responsibility of the institutions displaying historic and art objects in relation to the value of those same items?


NA: Everyone who works in the museum field understands, at least to some degree, the influence we have over the worlds of both academia and the market, and the responsibility that comes with it. Museums vary wildly in their size and scope--from tiny cabinets of curiosity, to authoritative institutions--and within that range, there are varying levels of authoritative voice, but the concept is nearly always there. Museums, by and large, are educational institutions and collectors of our shared history, so the expectation follows that the information they convey, in so far as it can be, should be well researched, truthful, and more or less unbiased. It is what places like the Museum of Jurassic Technology play upon, and also what Lisa, not without some humor, places a critical—or at least questioning—eye upon in her work.

As Lisa points out, there is certain sentimental quality and fond appeal to the kind of strange small museums that spring up out of the passion of an earnest or idiosyncratic collector, and we know better than to take the information we find there for granted, but it is harder to call into question the elegant laser-cut labels of a respected institution like the Met or the Smithsonian. More than just that, the choice of which pieces to exalt—through accession and display—as part of our history, the authenticity of artifacts, their provenance, and speculation about their use and meaning, are all vital to our cultural patrimony, and for the most part dictated by such institutions. To say that these museums play an important role in both the cultural and monetary value of objects would be understating the case, and the institution’s responsibility here, as the guardian of that trust, is to always maintain the highest ethical and intellectual standards in making decisions about the objects it houses and the information it conveys. Losing that trust is not only a loss to the credibility of the institution, but can be tantamount to losing a part of our cultural history.

Of course, there are many types of museums, each of which deals with this issue in different ways, but despite these technical differences, almost invariably, the museum is a safeguard of our collective material history, and artifacts in museum collections are the records we rely upon, so the responsibility remains the same. Given all of that, the notion is particularly interesting in the field of contemporary art, where a historic precedent isn’t so much present, and the choice to show (or not) an artist in a major institution can make or break a career. In the case of a contemporary art institution, museum professionals actually affect and, to a large degree, effectively write the history of art for the future by assigning the value of present day artworks.

Exhibition Information

• Lisa Gralnick: The Gold Standard
  On view at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft
  4848 Main Street. Houston, Texas 77002
  January 22 - May 28
  
  
• To view images of the Opening Reception and
  Lisa Gralnick's Gallery Talk, visit our Facebook Page
  
  
• To read Part I of our interview with Nora Atkinson, click here

Q & A with Nora Atkinson, Curator of "Lisa Gralnick: The Gold Standard" – Part I

Nora Atkinson, Curator at Bellevue Arts Museum in Bellevue, Washington, curated the current major exhibition, Lisa Gralnick: The Gold Standard, at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. She was kind enough to answer some questions over email about the show.

HCCC: The general public may not be familiar with how an exhibition is conceived and organized. Can you explain why you approached Lisa Gralnick, what first drew you to her work and, inevitably, how the exhibition came together?

NA: My first encounter with this body of work was at the SOFA Chicago Convention in 2008. I was transfixed by the piece, Chastity Belt Necklace—first by the object: the beauty of the delicate gold links in harsh contrast with the menace of the hair and barbs, then by its anachronistic caption.  It was among a few pieces from the series that Lisa was showing at the fair, and it pulled me into her booth to investigate further and talk with her about her work.  She was giving a lecture the following morning, so our Artistic Director/Chief Curator, Stefano Catalani, and I took the opportunity to listen to her speak, and it was just after the lecture that we began discussions about the show. 

Lisa Gralnick, The Gold Standard Part III: Victorian Chastity Belt Necklace.
Recycle gold, hair.23” x 2” x 1”. Photo: Jim Escalante.

It was a very serendipitous meeting, since it seemed like the ideal moment for an exhibition of Lisa’s work.  A well-known jeweler with an impressive body of prior work, she was reaching the end of a monumental conceptual project that had spanned seven years and gone beyond the usual bounds of jewelry to explore something completely unique.  She had always hoped that the pieces would be shown all together. 

We discussed the prospect of the exhibition with Lisa on the spot, and then concreted the plan for the exhibition over the next several months, flying her out for an interview and site visit, locating and arranging the shipment of the pieces, and working on the catalogue with a talented team, which included writers Tacey Rosolowski and Michael J. McClure, and a wonderful photographer, Jim Escalante, who photographed the works for long hours, even as the last few were being completed.  Although Lisa’s prior work is worthy of a mid-career survey, it was a conscious choice to show this body of work as a single, separate exhibition on its own.  The recession had just begun to hit, and I felt that although the artist has dealt with many of the same issues throughout her work, this series, which is at its heart a meditation on value, deserved to take center stage and felt too important and relevant to current events in its own right to be placed in a larger historical context. 

HCCC: This exhibition is framed in three parts.  Obviously, this is partly chronological, but it is also grouped by theme.  Why is it important that the artist is exhibiting this show in three parts?  Why not three different exhibitions?

NA: The question is a good one.  As you can imagine, in working on the same project over the course of seven years, Lisa has displayed parts of the series alone along the way. The simple answer to this question would be that the work was always conceived of by the artist as a single series, to be shown together, but more than that, I think the works are individually stronger for their connection. 

In Part III, for example, the pieces themselves are opulent and full of individual societal commentary, but they don’t go conceptually as far without thinking of them and questioning them in the terms of value that Part I sets up as a framework, or the context of gold as simultaneously being immutable and ever changing—able to maintain its brilliance through the ages and retain the knowledge of human history, while at the same time able to erase the past and leave no trace of its previous incarnations—as set up through Part II.  Similarly, the labels, which are laser inscribed in Part I and gradually slide to typewriter in Part II, and to handwriting in Part III, are a good example of the kind of subtle manipulations Lisa makes over the entire body of work that would be lost without the whole.  Without other labels to compare these to, they seem less deliberate, but this intentional juxtaposition, or others, like the use of vitrines—sparingly in Part I, not at all in Part II, but present in Part III—add a rich subtext to the work.

Lisa Gralnick, The Gold Standard Part I: #11 Tiffany Ring.
Gold and acrylic. 2” x 40” x 16”. Photo: Jim Escalante.

And not only does Lisa use these devices differently, but she addresses many of the same subjects from different angles, as she has often done in her oeuvre, and her larger meditations are always present, even in her very specific investigations.  The huge tiffany ring she presents us in Part I is interesting when played off of The Jeweler’s Revenge in Part III, where the form of the ring appears again, and countless such comparisons arise within the work. 

Although the title of the series refers to The Gold Standard, the exploration is about much more than this face value:  Lisa not only calls into question the essential and assigned qualities of gold (the express purpose of the work), but also all aspects of what we, as a society, place value upon, and how that value is derived. Any single part of the series would be an incomplete mediation on this subject.

Exhibition Information

• Lisa Gralnick: The Gold Standard
  On view at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft
  4848 Main Street. Houston, Texas 77002
  January 22 - May 28
  
  
• To view images of the Opening Reception and
  Lisa Gralnick's Gallery Talk, visit our Facebook Page
  
  
• To read Part II of our interview with Nora Atkinson, click here.