On View Magazine Fall 2015 | Page 48

MetaModern

Fernanda Fragateiro,
MR10 Double Chair after
Mies van der Rohe
and Lilly Reich, 2009;
Polished stainless steel,
Guttermann silk thread,
94-1/2 x 31-1/2 x 15-7/8”,
© Fernanda Fragateiro.

the mid-century. It is a testament to their enduring power
that these objects now catalyze a generation of artists
too young to have experienced modernism firsthand,
to return to them in a spirit of
critique and homage.
The notion of modernism
had its genesis in Europe
during an intense decade of
experimentation at the Bauhaus, beginning in 1919.

Function and utility were
the school’s ethos while the
hallmarks were the use of
modern materials and manufacturing methods, honesty in the facture of form,
and an embrace of abstraction over symbolism. World
War II shifted the activity
to this side of the ocean,
as European practitioners,
including Walter Gropius,
Erich Mendelsohn, Ludwig