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FOCUSING EXCLUSIVELY ON ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN, CHRISTOPHER W. MOUNT GALLERY OPENS IN LOS ANGELES AND NEW YORK

Public Opening Event at Gallery’s Pacific Design Center Location in Los Angeles Friday, May 23, from 5:00-8:30 pm

Specializing exclusively in architecture and design material, the newly established Christopher W. Mount Gallery, with locations in Los Angeles and New York, opens to the public on May 23, 2014. Uniquely positioned among traditional American galleries, Mount Gallery presents drawings, sketches, models,

Photograph: Brant Brogan
Photograph: Brant Brogan
The Gallery offers the public the opportunity to view and acquire work collected by eminent institutions like The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Centre Georges Pompidou, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, in New York. As recent auction results attest, this is a burgeoning field for collectors.

The vibrant intersection between the fine arts and architecture and design will be explored in an ongoing program of museum-quality exhibitions in Los Angeles, at the Gallery’s Pacific Design Center location. The inaugural exhibition in Los Angeles, opening on May 23, 2014, titled A Modern Master: Photographs by Balthazar Korab, is drawn from the late photographer’s estate.

Upcoming exhibitions include the first major gallery presentations of the work of architectural photographer Benny Chan, drawings by influential graphic designer Edward Fella, design maquettes from the heyday of the American auto industry, and working materials from the important early street art of the Los Angeles Fine Art Squad. Future exhibitions under consideration are the first retrospective of the organic architecture of Kendrick Kellogg, the experimental firm of Baumgartner + Uriu, architect Neil Denari, and the late seminal photographer Marvin Rand.

Founder and Director Christopher W. Mount said, “By showcasing historic and contemporary material–from three-dimensional prototypes to sophisticated photography to sketched design concepts–produced by distinguished individuals in the design arts, the Gallery provides a singular opportunity for the general public. These often beautiful, expressive, and experimental works have previously been collected primarily in archives and museums. In Los Angeles, in particular, there has been a long tradition of individuals working in different media and blurring the rigid distinction between the fine arts and design, such as in the work of practitioners like Frank Gehry, the Eameses, and Claire Falkenstein.”

Mr. Mount brings thirty years of curatorial and scholarly work in the field, including fourteen years as a curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at MoMA. With extensive experience as a curator, editor, writer, historian, academic, and certified appraiser, Mr. Mount also provides curatorial services including the development of publications and traveling exhibitions, sales counsel, and consulting in “legacy building” for architecture and design firms and related estate planning. Mount Gallery assists in placement, general advisement, appraising, and cataloging of large collections and firm archives.

Background
After curating his first major exhibition at MoMA at twenty-six, Christopher Mount devoted his career to researching, examining, and promoting twentieth- and twenty-first century art, photography, architecture, design, and graphics. Most recently, he served as guest curator at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, where, as part of the Getty Research Institute’s Pacific Standard Time initiative, he organized A New Sculpturalism: Contemporary Architecture from Southern California, an exhibition and publication devoted to architecture produced by Los Angeles firms in the last twenty-five years.

Previously, Mr. Mount was editor-in-chief of the national award-winning magazine I.D., and the director of exhibitions and public programs at Parsons, the New School for Design, in New York, where he oversaw the founding of the Sheila A. Johnson Design Center. In addition, he has served as executive director of the Pasadena Museum of California Art. He has been a professor of art, architecture, and design history and theory in California at CalArts, University of California, Los Angeles, and Otis College of Art and Design and in the Master’s program at Parsons/Cooper-Hewitt and the Bard Graduate Center for Decorative Arts in New York City.

Mr. Mount has lectured and written extensively about art and design. Publications include monographs on Vladimir and Georgii Stenberg, Tadanori Yokoo, Philippe Starck, Seiju Toda, and Arne Jacobsen, and he has contributed to numerous catalogues. He has also served as a contributing editor for such periodicals as Interiors, Glass Quarterly, and e-Design, and his essays and articles have appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Dwell, Travel & Leisure, Vogue, Print, Automobile, Graphis, and Interiors.

Exhibitions
Christopher Mount has curated and directed numerous exhibitions (many of which toured nationally and internationally) including:

A New Sculpturalism: Contemporary Architecture from Southern California,
Different Roads: Automobiles for the Next Century,
Anarchy to Affluence: Design in New York, 1974-1984,
Arne Jacobsen: A Centenary Exhibition,
Stenberg Brothers: Constructing a Revolution in Soviet Design,
Designed for Speed: Three Automobiles by Ferrari,
Kaj Franck: Designer,
Designing the Taxi,
Tupperware Party: Past, Present, Future,
Making Choices, Graphic and Photographic and Modern Living,
Rethinking the Modern: Towards a New Museum,
From Bauhaus to Pop: Masterworks given by Philip Johnson,
Refining the Sports Car: Jaguars’ E-type,
Piet Mondrian’s De Stijl Colleagues,
BMW’s Art Cars at LACMA,
Preview: Nara Convention Hall,
Typography and the Poster,
The Graphic Designs of Herbert Matter,
Recent Japanese Posters, and
Projects 35: Stephen Kroninger.

Los Angeles
Pacific Design Center (designLAb), Suite B267
8687 Melrose Avenue
West Hollywood, CA 90069
Monday through Friday, noon to 5 pm or by appointment

New York
689 Columbus Avenue, Suite 17D
New York, NY 10025
By appointment

917-549-7944
[email protected]
christopherwmountgallery.com