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Chaises longues at the Busch-Reisinger, and fairy tales at the DeCordova
BY RANDI HOPKINS
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Americans have been misspelling and mispronouncing France’s elegant "chaise longue" as chaise LOUNGE since at least the mid 1800s. Of course, the very sight of these sultry, extended chairs invites one to lie back and stretch out, Theda Bara style, in the boudoir or at poolside — in a word, to lounge. Opening at Harvard’s Busch-Reisinger Museum this Saturday, "Decline–Recline: Modern Architecture and the Mid-Century Chaise Longue" examines the popularity of this sleek forerunner to the Barcalounger with radical-thinking mid-20th-century architects, who viewed the flexible, portable items of furniture as well suited to expressing their visionary ideas about modern living. Organized by Robin Schuldenfrei, a doctoral candidate in Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, "Design–Recline" displays nine chaises longues designed between 1928 and 1968 by such acclaimed architects as Le Corbusier, Marcel Breuer, and Charles and Ray Eames in front of eight large-scale photo murals of related modern architecture. Although these luminaries did not invent the chaise longue, which has existed since at least the 16th century in France, they did turn a fresh eye on it, using it to experiment with new materials and technology as well as to explore their ideas about new modes of living. They had a passion for expansive, open floor plans permitting multiple uses for domestic spaces; their ideas about healthful living and the value of incorporating open air and sun into home design included furniture that worked both in the den and out on the roof deck or terrace. We’re even invited to lie back on two of the chaises longues. Although these pieces are impeccably designed and conceptually top-notch, I’m not sure they’re as comfortable as they look — but here’s our chance to see for ourselves. Fairy tales would have been anathema to the early modernists, who preferred functionality and honesty to ornamentation and gewgawry in all things. Contemporary author Gregory Maguire likewise has issues with fairy tales, and he’s made a career of retelling sugar-coated fictions from the viewpoint of traditionally unsympathetic characters. His 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West was the basis for the hit Broadway play Wicked. In Mirror Mirror, his most recent adult novel, Maguire sets the Snow White story in the political and cultural context of Renaissance Italy. And what does this have to do with the visual arts? On March 25, at 6 p.m., he’ll be talking about "What Lies in the Mirror: A Novelist on the Fictions of Identity" at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, in conjunction with the DeCordova’s current "Self-Evidence: Identity in Contemporary Art" (up through May 30), in which 28 contemporary artists explore aspects of individual identity or "self." Maguire is interested in how our self-perception, as well as how we’re perceived by others, is colored by the cultural material we take in, from the movies and the television we watch to the books we read, with a particular interest in the material that we’re introduced to as children. Is Aesop steering us wrong? Do the Berenstain Bears really know best? Where does our sense of self originate, and how does culture conspire to mold it to its own evil ends? Find out when Maguire scrutinizes the role of art in both disguising and revealing the world. "Design–Recline: Modern Architecture and the Mid-Century Chaise Longue" is at Harvard’s Busch-Reisinger Museum, 32 Quincy Street (enter through the Fogg) in Harvard Square, March 20 through July 11; call (617) 495-9400. Gregory Maguire speaks at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, 51 Sandy Pond Road in Lincoln, on March 25 at 6 p.m. Tickets are $5 for members and $7 for non-members, and reservations are recommended; call (781) 259-3604.
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