CURATOR INDEX

Alastair Gordon

Museum Exhibition Catalogues, Monographs, Artist's Projects, Curatorial Writings and Essays


MONOGRAPHS & CATALOGS

Wendell Castle: Wandering Forms
Wendell Castle: Wandering Forms
GREGORY R. MILLER & CO./THE ALDRICH CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM

American furniture designer Wendell Castle’s exceptional works in stacked-laminate woodwork and fiberglass documented in detail with material from Castle's personal archives

Hbk, 10 x 12 in. / 239 pgs / 200 color / 200 bw. | 11/30/2012 | Out of stock
$60.00



Qualities of Duration: The Architecture of Phillip Smith & Douglas Thompson
Qualities of Duration: The Architecture of Phillip Smith & Douglas Thompson
DAMIANI/GORDON DE VRIES STUDIO

Hbk, 9 x 9 in. / 221 pgs / illustrated throughout. | 10/31/2012 | Not available
$50.00



Fire Island Modernist: Horace Gifford and the Architecture of Seduction
Fire Island Modernist: Horace Gifford and the Architecture of Seduction
METROPOLIS BOOKS/GORDON DE VRIES STUDIO

Blending cultural and architectural history, Fire Island Modernist ponders a fascinating era of gay culture through an overlooked 1960s architect

Hbk, 9 x 12 in. / 204 pgs / 140 color / 100 bw. | 5/30/2013 | Not available
$60.00



Fire Island Modernist: Horace Gifford and the Architecture of SeductionFire Island Modernist: Horace Gifford and the Architecture of Seduction

Published by Metropolis Books/Gordon de Vries Studio.
Foreword by Alastair Gordon. Text by Christopher Bascom Rawlins.

As the 1960s became The Sixties, architect Horace Gifford executed a remarkable series of beach houses that transformed the terrain and culture of New York’s Fire Island. Growing up on the beaches of Florida, Gifford forged a deep connection with coastal landscapes. Pairing this sensitivity with jazzy improvisations on modernist themes, he perfected a sustainable modernism in cedar and glass that was as attuned to natural landscapes as to our animal natures. Gifford’s serene 1960s pavilions provided refuge from a hostile world, while his exuberant post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS masterpieces orchestrated bacchanals of liberation. Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift once spurned Hollywood limos for the rustic charm of Fire Island’s boardwalks. Truman Capote wrote Breakfast at Tiffany’s here. Diane von Furstenburg showed off her latest wrap dresses to an audience that included Halston, Giorgio Sant’ Angelo, Calvin Klein and Geoffrey Beene. Today, such a roster evokes the aloof, gated compounds of the Hamptons or Malibu. But these celebrities lived in modestly scaled homes alongside middle-class vacationers, all with equal access to Fire Island’s natural beauty. Blending cultural and architectural history, Fire Island Modernist ponders a fascinating era through an overlooked architect whose life, work and colorful milieu trace the operatic arc of a lost generation, and still resonate with artistic and historical import.

PUBLISHER
Metropolis Books/Gordon de Vries Studio

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 9 x 12 in. / 204 pgs / 140 color / 100 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Out of stock indefinitely

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2013 p. 32   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9781938922091 TRADE
List Price: $60.00 CDN $85.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely.

Wendell Castle: Wandering FormsWendell Castle: Wandering Forms

Works from 1959-1979

Published by Gregory R. Miller & Co./The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.
Introduction by Evan Snyderman. Text by Alastair Gordon.

American studio furniture icon Wendell Castle is one of the most important, influential and celebrated designers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. For more than 50 years, he has consistently pioneered new territory in design and beyond. His visionary constructions and distinctive stacked-laminate woodworking process cross the boundaries between sculpture, design and craft. Published on the occasion of Castle’s retrospective exhibition at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, this publication is the first in 20 years devoted to the designer’s work. The book focuses on Castle’s exceptional early works in wood and fiberglass, which transformed the way we look at furniture and its making. These highly original works have influenced generations of furniture makers, designers, artists, sculptors, collectors and design enthusiasts. Renowned writer Alastair Gordon lucidly tells the exciting story of Castle’s impact and innovations through the defining works of his career. The text is accompanied by hundreds of drawings, press clippings and never-before-seen images of Castle, his workspace and process. Beautifully designed by the award-winning Pandiscio Co. and incorporating materials from Castle’s personal archives, this book is certain to be the definitive study of one of the most significant furniture designers working in the world today and one of America’s true cultural treasures.

PUBLISHER
Gregory R. Miller & Co./The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 10 x 12 in. / 239 pgs / 200 color / 200 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2012 p. 41   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780982681343 TRADE
List Price: $60.00 CDN $79.00 GBP £53.00

AVAILABILITY
Out of stock

STATUS: Out of stock

Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.

Qualities of Duration: The Architecture of Phillip Smith & Douglas ThompsonQualities of Duration: The Architecture of Phillip Smith & Douglas Thompson

Published by Damiani/Gordon De Vries Studio.
Text by Alastair Gordon.

The branch of a sycamore grows through the opening of a wall in a Manhattan studio. A pool-house on Long Island becomes a sod-roofed teahouse. An eighteenth-century farmhouse in Pennsylvania expands to echo the path of a meandering stream. Such are the inventive and inspired designs of Phillip Smith and Douglas Thompson, whose work stands out as an oasis of calm in an age of hyperspeed and information smog. Since they met in 1966, Smith and Thompson have sought out a “softer” alternative to the legacy of “heroic modernism,” a quest for spatial quietude guided more by instinct and gradual accretion than enforced concept and ideology. Taking Bernard Rudofsky’s emphasis on forgotten vernacular buildings and “architecture without architects” as the underlying theme in their work, Smith and Thompson’s sources of inspiration have varied widely over the years, from early European modernism to the barns and fishermen’s cottages of Nantucket, to the monasteries of Tibet, the hill towns of Italy and the stilted kampongs of Malaysia. Qualities of Duration is the first book to chronicle their firm’s complete body of work, detailing its numerous residential, commercial, corporate and institutional projects through 350 illustrations and a text by architectural historian Alastair Gordon.

PUBLISHER
Damiani/Gordon De Vries Studio

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 9 x 9 in. / 221 pgs / illustrated throughout.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2012 p. 132   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9788862082310 TRADE
List Price: $50.00 CDN $60.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

STATUS: Out of print | 00/00/00

For assistance locating a copy, please see our list of recommended out of print specialists

print doc