#4 FLOWER POWER ROSENTHAL ET AL

Rosenthal's 2007 Andy Warhol themed dinnerware:

This display was contained within a glass case and not resting on a sumptuous banquet table festooned with candelabrum, exotic sweet tropical fruits, and finely fragrant herbed tender game as the venerable old semi-royal European name might infer. Novel as it was I found this manufacturing combo to be a clash as loud as a Rolls Royce designed by Willem de Kooning in his last years might have been.

This fine bourgeois classic porcelain name was once the epitome of superbly executed antique elegance--but not quite on a par with Sevres [which one doubts has ever crossed The Big Pond for inspiration with the possible exception of 1776].

I recall that I once worked for an accounting firm owned by the creator of 'Beanie Babies' near Mill Valley, California. While browsing some receipts for Santa Barbara's exclusive Auberge du Soleil I had to take pause when I came across one in the amount of $800.00 for a NEW replacement of ONE Rosenthal dinner platter. Yet other versions--recent teapots, gravy boats, etc. which might be forgeries regularly sell for a few dollars on eBay in 'mint' condition. Apparently there's rosenthal and there is Rosenthal.

These pieces were cheerful and unpretentious recalling a pit stop in a 1960's classic diner or Trailer Heaven on Route 66. I could see these in a Jackie Onassis Cape Cod cottage or at a Lady Bird Johnson picnic reflecting the latter's love of wildflowers and Texan informality [ and the former's adoration of her sycophantic artist devotee ].

Takashi Murakami's 'Untitled', 2000, polychrome plastic and mini CD:

Toylike, diminutive brightly colored gleeful sculpture resembling a design from the classic 'Jetsons' cartoon or recent Japanese video games. One half expects to open it up and find bubblegum inside. The main figural piece wears a huge brilliant white porcelainlike smile with a grid of giant geometric perfect teeth reminiscent of the Kennedys on parade or a very happy five year old overdosed on sugared chocolates and Turkish coffee. The constructional execution is exceedingly precise allowing one to surmise that Murakami would be a wiz at designing fine jewelry and automobile styles.

The almost carnivorous smile of the main piece brings to mind the way some dogs smile just before they bite you in the behind or a pirhana crossedbred with Stephen King's Langoliers.

This toothsome streamlined toy flies straight out of a winning toothpaste advertisement in a kindergarten playroom. The viewer is somewhat comforted that this hungrily happy plastical, evangelical robot is confined within a display case like a tiger in a cage to prevent the curious from testing a bite with their fingers. Excellent craftsmanship and period 2008 C.E. popculture genre. If Leonardo were alive today or Rafael this is the style they would be using to produce technomadonnas.

Erika Wanenmacher's 'My Trick Ride', 2007, steel, enamel and vinyl.

So that's where the efforvescent music was coming from. This deliciously enchanting music was a warmup and seductive invite to 'Wanenmacher's'
gleaming luxurious toy craft poised on the wall like a charming winged dragonfly cousin.

This work resembles a B-1 Bomber's body in miniature. Only here the great black death machine's progeny has been [dare I say] 'feminized' and luxurized a la Bat Girl Mobile. One can't help again remembering the 'Jetsons' ' flying cars. The tufted white upholstery of the open cockpit invites comparisons to the pimpiest supercomfortable Philadelphia Cadillac while also seeming somewhat like a coffinish pillbox. The gorgeous lavender color of this sharp hyper-Barbie aeroposse leads to thoughts of oversweet Valentine's Day mints and licorice; several viewers were blatantly drooling.

This is a piece highly impressive in its skill of manufacture. The theme calls to mind the scene in Stephen King's 'Hearts in Atlantis' where hundreds of motorists stranded on a New England superhighway endure an aerial bombardment of American Consumer Products; where the tools of consumerism become agents of death and destruction; Erika's bomberette flies in the opposite direction.

One can imagine ubiquitous dear Paris Hilton cavorting above Harvard in this minijet while tossing candy apple grenades to the onlookers below; or, if Zsa Zsa had been driving this turbo charged petite missile through Beverly Hills on that infamous and fateful day of proactive diva brutality she would have undoubtedly left her battered, 'disrespectful', anti-elitist patrol officer pursuer behind in Rodeo Drive's glittering faux-gold dust.

'My Trick Ride', if slightly modified could be seriously marketed worldwide as a 'toy' childrens' vehicle with great success and popularity--start with Dubai--then as you work your way west go the Barbie route Erika and please give me a few shares of your IPO.

Polly Apfelbaum's 'Flags of Revolt'.

...is a neatly arrayed large floor-to-ceiling display of banners imprinted with brightly colored carefully executed and balanced graphic logo type designs. This is where a photo would come in handy [but I can't take photos in the museum--yet!]. The initial feeling of this display is an announced officialdom and an expectation of a breeze to animate the flags as one would normally experience in the natural habitat of such fluttering alliances at a yacht club or outside the United Nations headquarters. It seems this big bright, gameboard montage alludes to a similar arrangement in one of the UN's great halls of nations.

Oddly the only logo image I recall from 'Flags of Revolt' is that of a marijuana leaf--which is not to suggest that I was ever a great fan of King Mota because paranoia is not my gig. It seems that the magic leaf impresses here because it is by nature a strong design motif, an essence of the '60's culture theme and was simply one of the few flag logos that I recognized; the remainder remaining rather elusive to me. Perhaps as an aside a small card or brochure freebie alongside this exhibit designed by Apfelbaum elucidating the intent or meaning of her crisp enigmatic images might have been a complimentary addition. ...or maybe I'm just plain ignorant.