On the occasion of the
Art Nouveau/Art Deco Biennale, the last weekend of October 2013 will show the Art Nouveau and Art Deco fans of Margaretha Mazura for the first time. The "Deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft Belgiens" opens its Brussels residence "Hotel de Brouckere" for this purpose, a building co-designed by Henry Van de Velde who celebrates this year his 150th anniversary. The fans are put into relation to architecture and other applied arts, a typical postulate of Art Nouveau whose ambition was the "Gesamtkunstwerk" that penetrates all levels of daily life. Van de Velde himself designed at least one fan (in the collection of the Karlsruhe Museum) and held a conference on the fan in 1905 in Berlin. There, he predicts the decline of the use of the fan - a prophetic view despite of some highlights of advertising fans and ostrich feather fans throughout the twenties and thirties. More info: mm[at]e-accelerator.eu
Two-pager on Art Nouveau/Art Deco fans: Download
here (15 MB)
Faksimile of the conference on the fan held by
Henry Van de Velde 1905 in Berlin (Thanks to Thomas DeLeo for sending me the pdf!): Download
here (6 MB)
Advertising fan by E. Gendrot for The Carlton Hotel, London
Book cover taking up the theme of a female head with hair entangled with flowers
