Art You Can Live With

Two exhibits currently showing at the RISD Museum concentrate on 20nth century art designed for the home..

The first, Zig-Zag Chairs and Wobbly Mirrors, celebrates the enormous variety and vitality of 20th-century furniture making, bringing into focus the contrasts and congruencies of factory-produced furniture and work made in the individual furniture artist’s studio. Production furniture is represented through pieces designed by Alvar Aalto, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Charles and Ray Eames and Verner Panton. Studio furniture by Wharton Esherick and Tage Frid (who established RISD’s Furniture Department), is also on view, as well as objects by subsequent generations of studio artists, including Jere Osgood, John Dunnigan [RISD MFA ’80, Industrial Design], Thomas Loeser, Judy Kensley McKie [RISD ’66, Painting] and Lee Schuette [RISD MFA ’80, Industrial Design].


The second exhibit features artists trained in the fine arts that have created wall coverings and consider this endeavor to be just as significant as their work in other media. Called On the Wall , the exhibit spans the period from 1966 to the present and includes Andy Warhol’s now-classic Cow pattern and gallery installations designed specifically for the Museum by Virgil Marti and Francesco Simeti. Among those represented in the diverse group of 23 artists are Ann Agee, John Baldessari, Adam Cvijanovic, Do-Ho Suh [RISD ’94, Painting], General Idea, Robert Gober, Renée Green, Jenny Holzer [MFA RISD ’77, Painting] and Jorge Pardo.

On the Wall is accompanied by a companion exhibition of historic wallpapers from RISD’s renowned collection. Historic Wallpapers 1750-1949 traces the history of wallpaper from its 18th-century origins to its adoption by 20th-century modernists. This historical exhibit puts the On The Wall exhibit into historical context.



"On the Wall: Wallpaper by Contemporary Artists" runs through April 20 and "Zig-Zag Chairs and Wobbly Mirrors" through April 27 at the RISD Museum, 224 Benefit St., Providence. Hours: Tues.-Sun. 10-5. For more information, call 401-454-6500. Or visit the website