Wednesday, 14 November 2007 | Levent OZLER
New West Coast Design: Contemporary Objects
 San Francisco Museum of Craft+Design
January 18 through April 27, 2008
With new work and projects from over 50 California, Oregon and Washington designers and studios, New West Coast Design: Contemporary Objects offers an up-to-the-minute look at the many objects that have kept California, and its neighbors, at the forefront of innovation for nearly a half-century. This exhibition will highlight a collection of the most exciting new designs for contemporary living currently emerging on the West Coast, including functional pieces for interiors, outdoor sports gear, and landscape design. The breadth of work to be displayed will emphasize multiplicity of materials and objects, designed and fabricated by established and new artists in the field.
New materials worked into traditional forms highlight the works from San Francisco design studios Pablo, Council, and Meyerhoffer. Exploring personal ideas of innovation are unique projects like Wendy Maruyama's digitally enhanced vanity, Wendell Jones' retro-Pop influenced coffee table, Kim Kelzer's turned-wood sculpture, Heath Matysek-Snyder's molded rubber table, Lee Miltier's lyrically hand-blown goblets and Alexis Moran's colored concrete bookends. Also showcased will be Bruce Gordon's elegantly styled bicycle (winner of Best of Show 2007 North American Handmade Bicycle Show); Thomas Meyerhoffer's custom constructed surfboards; and Shinya Kimura's exquisitely updated motorcycle.
In the sculpture garden, the Museum is presenting "Solar Terrain," a special commission by award-winning San Francisco-based landscape architect Marcel Wilson. Solar panels on the Museum's roof collect sunlight throughout the day and activate electroluminescent wires at night. Groups of rods measuring various heights support the wires, traveling down the building's facade to the garden. As a field, the rods and wires create the elevations of a glowing compact terrain that undulates in response to the existing features of the space. "Solar Terrain" with its combination of high-tech materials and cartography, is a reflect of the sculpture garden itself and its blending of old and new.
Ted Cohen and Kathleen Hanna co-curated New West Coast Design: Contemporary Objects. Besides the SFMC+D's presentation of New West Coast Design: Contemporary Objects, there are five other participating New West Coast Design exhibitions in various Bay Area museums and galleries.
History of The New West Coast Design Project
The impulse to exhibit and celebrate furniture and objects designed and made by California artists resulted in the California Design exhibitions at the Pasadena Museum from the 1950's to 1970's. Designer Craftsmen of the West curated by Elizabeth Moses in 1957 at the de Young Museum and the thirteen California Design events sponsored by the Baulines Craft Guild in San Francisco from 1988 to 2004 were also premier showcases for regional design.
West Coast architects, designers and studio artists have continued to create unique work. There is a strong West Coast presence in important private and museum collections and pioneers of the West Coast contemporary craft movement are bringing record prices at auction.
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