Self-taught photographer Lucien Hervé began working with the maverick architect Le Corbusier in 1949. As the "official" Le Corbusier photographer, Hervé documented the architect's work and projects until Le Corbusier's death in 1965. Le Corbusier once said, "Not only your remarkable vision of my work makes it more complete, but you have the soul of an architect and know how to look at architecture."

During the 16 years they worked together, Hervé took thousands of photographs of Le Corbusier's projects. All of the photographs in this exhibition were taken during two trips to India, one in 1955 and one in 1961. During this time he photographed the Ahmedabad Mill Owner's Association Building (1951) and the Villa Shodhan (1951). In Chandigarh, he photographed the High Court of Justice (1952), the Secretariat Building (1952) and the Palace of the Assembly (1955), which Le Corbusier considered his greatest work.

The exhibition Lucien Hervé: Le Corbusier in India explores two aspects: the humanistic vision, as well as the architectural dimension. Favoring high and side-angle views, a deliberate affinity for abstraction and the use of stark blacks and whites are characteristics of Lucien Hervé's very personal style. Noted for his sharp sense of framing and formal elegance, Hervé patiently built one of the major photographic œuvres of the 20th century.

Born on August 7, 1910 in Hungary, László Elkán moved to Paris in 1929. First attracted to painting, music and fashion, he started to work as a photographer for Marianne Magazine. Politically active in France, he joined the Conféderation Générale du Travail (CGT) union and the French Communist Party, from which he would be excluded twice, in 1938 and in 1947. Adhering to strong personal convictions, and following his escape from the Hohenstein war prisoners' camp, he joined the anti-Nazi French Resistance movement in 1941 under the pseudonym Lucien Hervé. He resumed his photography work after the war. Close to the postwar French humanistic movement, his career took a decisive turn when he met Le Corbusier in 1949, remaining his "official" photographer until Le Corbusier died in 1965.

Lucien Hervé died in Paris on June 26, 2007, at the age of 97.

This exhibition highlights the nearly fifty-year career of ceramicist Edward Lycett (American, 1833–1910), creative director of the Faience Manufacturing Company from 1884 to 1890. The range of works illustrates Lycett’s talent and adaptability to stylistic changes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as his vision for Faience, a company based in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, that earned acclaim for producing ornamental wares that introduced a new standard of excellence in American ceramics. These bold and eclectic pieces synthesized Japanese, Chinese, and Islamic influences characteristic of the Aesthetic movement and were sold in the United States’ foremost art ware emporiums, including Tiffany & Company.

Among the ceramics on view are 39 Faience pieces, including a number of large-scale vases. Also on view are Lycett’s formula books, family photographs, and other ephemera; rare examples of ceramic works by his three sons; and other Brooklyn-made ceramics from the Museum’s collection.

Claes Oldenburg (b. 1929, Stockholm, Sweden) has not only been a major artist in Pop Art, Performance Art and Installation Art but, in partnership with Coosje van Bruggen, also a strong influence on art in public spaces with his monumental Large Scale Projects in numerous major cities worldwide. With his humorous and profound depictions of everyday objects he is one of the most important and admired artists since the late 1950s. One central point of reference in Oldenburg’s oeuvre is the industrially produced object—the object as a commodity which, in ever-new metamorphoses of media and form, becomes a conveyor of culture and a symbol of the imagination, desires, and obsessions of the modern world.

Organized by the mumok, this is the largest show ever of Oldenburg’s ground-breaking and emblematic early work of the 1960s. Numerous icons of Pop art are on view in the exhibition, beginning with the installation The Street and its graffiti-inspired depictions of modern life in the big city and continuing to the famous consumer articles of The Store to the spectacular everyday objects of the modern Home: telephone, toilet bowl, bathtub, fan, saw, and light switch. Another chapter is dedicated to Oldenburg’s first designs for the colossal monuments of his consumer objects for public spaces. The exhibition concludes with mumok’s Mouse Museum a walk-in miniature museum in the form of a Geometric Mouse, for which Oldenburg collected 385 objects. With its souvenirs, kitsch objects, and studio models, the Mouse Museum demonstrates the incredible cultural variety—and mysteriousness—of capitalist society. With its reduction to abstract basic figures of formal invention, the Geometric Mouse, a central motif within the artist’s oeuvre, represents a dovetailing of high art and popular culture. It also functions as Oldenburg’s alter ego.

Curator
Achim Hochdörfer

After New York, this exhibition, organized by mumok, will travel to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (September 13, 2013–January 12, 2014).

In the 1970s, Anatsui began to manipulate broken ceramic fragments. With their allusions to ancient Nok terracotta sculptures, West African myths about the earth and cultural references to the use of clay, the ceramic works piece together shattered ideas and histories to form a new whole. In the same decade, he also made sculptures that brought together signs and symbols from various cultures and languages, created by chopping, carving, burning and etching wood.

In the 1990s, Anatsui made a crucial shift from working with hand tools to carving with a power saw, which enabled him to cut through blocks of wood, leaving a jagged surface that he likened to the scars left by European colonial encounters with Africa.

In his most recent metal wall sculptures, Anatsui assembles thousands of West African liquor-bottle tops into moving patterns of stunning visual impact, transforming this simple material into large shimmering forms. When I Last Wrote to You about Africa includes the largest compilation of Anatsui’s works ever assembled, including massive wall pieces and large-scale floor installations. "I think of myself as an artist," Anatsui said in an interview with Agence-France-Presse. "And I'm an African." 

The Cassatt String Quartet, composer/violinist Mari Kimura and vocalist Kyoko Kitamura perform the World Premiere of Ms. Kimura’s new work ONE, written for quartet, computer and interactive graphics by Japanese film maker Tomoyuki Kato, with image programing by Onishi and visual production by Chisako Hasegawa.

Cassatt String Quartet

Muneko Otani, violin
Jennifer Leshnower, violin
Sarah Adams, violin
Nicole Johnson, cello

ONE was commissioned by Harvestworks with support from New Music USA’s Commissioning Music/USA program, which is made possible by annual support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs as well as endowment support from The Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, The Helen F. Whitaker Fund, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trust.

Dion Parsons and the 21st Century Band combines Caribbean rhythms with jazz, pop, and reggae harmonies.

With Dion Parson, Drums; Ron Blake, Sax; Reuben Rogers, Bass; Carlton Holmes, Piano; Victor Provost, Steel Pan; Alioune Faye, Percussion/Sabar

Cedar Walton & Barry Harris: In Memory Of Mulgrew Miller

The two NEA Jazz Master pianists are joined by jazz bassist Buster Williams and Willie Jones III on drums.

Christian Wallumrød Ensemble

The ensemble of Christian Wallumrød's multi-dimensional chamber music inspired by the sonorities of Norwegian folk and church music, influenced by early music and the post-Cage avant-garde.

Christian Wallumrød on piano, harmonium, and toy piano
Eivind Lønning on trumpet
Gjermund Larsen on violin, hardanger fiddle, and viola
Espen Reinertsen on tenor saxophone
Tove Törngren on cello
Per Oddvar Johansen on drums and vibraphone.

David Murray Infinity Quartet Featuring Macy Gray

Grammy® Award-winner David Murray is considered by many to be among the greatest and most versatile saxophonists, composers and bandleaders this country has produced. Having risen to prominence in the downtown jazz loft scene in 1970s New York, co-founded the World Saxophone Quartet, and gone on to create a vast and stunningly broad variety of music, Murray moved to Europe in 1996. Over the past few years, however, Murray has made a triumphant homecoming: He signed to the NYC-based Motéma Music, released the celebrated David Murray Cuban Ensemble Plays Nat King Cole En Español, and toured the country, with various bands, to much acclaim. Now he has formed a new quartet of American players, the David Murray Infinity Quartet, whose name harkens back to Murray’s formative days in New York, when he and his Pomona College friend Stanley Crouch operated the Studio Infinity loft.

Horton Foote: The Trip to Bountiful

Directed by Michael Wilson

The Trip to Bountiful tells the story of Carrie Watts, an elderly woman who dreams of returning to her small hometown of Bountiful, Texas one last time, against the wishes of her overprotective son and domineering daughter-in-law.

Cast

Carrie Watts: Cicely Tyson
Ludie Watts: Cuba Gooding Jr.
Thelma: Condola Rashad
Jessie Mae Watts: Vanessa Williams
Sheriff: Tom Wopat
Written by  
Horton Foote
 
Set Designer: Jeff Cowie
Costume Designer: Vsn Broughton Ramsey
Lighting Designer: Rui Rita
Sound Designer: John Gromada

Today nearly 4,000 former players are suing the National Football League (NFL) over the link between American football and long-term brain damage. A joint investigation between ESPN's Outside the Lines and PBS FRONTLINE reveals that years before the NFL publicly acknowledged a connection between football and long-term mental disease, the NFL’s disability board was quietly paying more than a million dollars in benefits to several players with brain-related illnesses.

Based on reporting by ESPN reporters Steve Fainaru and Mark Fainaru-Wada, the year-long effort will examine the latest research on brain injuries and football, the impact on players, and the NFL’s effort to deal with a crisis that threatens the long-term health and popularity of the sport.

The collaboration kicks off Friday, 16 November 2012 with a segment on ESPN’s Outside the Lines (3 p.m. ET, check local listings) focusing on late Hall of Famer, Mike Webster. The former Pittsburgh Steelers center was the first NFL player officially diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy – or “football brain disease.”

The collaboration includes online companion stories published on November 16 at 9 a.m. ET on ESPN.com and PBS.org/FRONTLINE. A podcast with the brother reporting team can be found at http://www.espnfrontrow.com.

Concussion Watch, an extensive website tracking each concussion officially identified by the NFL this season will launch later this month on PBS.org/FRONTLINE. ESPN and FRONTLINE will also invite fans online to help report questionable hits and possible concussions.