The artwork I chose is “Skyscraper” created by Paul T. Frankl. Frankl was born on October 14, 1886. He is a furniture designer who started his own furniture company called Skyscraper Furniture. Through his company, he created his very own design-styled furniture called skyscraper style. This unique style garnered a lot of attention eventually making Frankl popular enough to open his art galleries displaying his furniture in Los Angeles.
The museum that I chose to go to was the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They had a huge section of modern art on both the first and second floors. The reason this specific artwork attracted my attention was that this is not traditional art. The more widely accepted types of art would be oil paintings and sculptures. When walking into a room filled with 2d paintings this large cabinet immediately caught my attention.
The “Skyscraper” is a bookcase. It is created from maple wood and bakelite (a very strong plastic). Like many of Frankl’s famous works the “Skyscraper” is designed with his skyscraper style. This bookcase is shaped like a towering skyscrapers. The bookcase has a section on the bottom with cabinets. On top of the bottom section of the bookcase, there are three beam-like sections ranging in size. The left beam is the tallest, the middle one is the second tallest, and the right one is the shortest. This makes it seem like there is a skyscraper coming from the bookcase.
Frankl’s style was heavily influenced by his first impression of New York City. The first time he arrived in America he was in awe of how the buildings were so tall. It was such an overwhelming feeling that was stuck with him. Frankl then outputs this feeling when designing furniture.
Frankl’s “Skyscraper” fits the aesthetics of modernism perfectly. The whole idea of modernism to to break away from conventional ideas of art. Frankl’s idea of creating art from furniture is modernism itself. Frankl is creating an entirely new way to express his feelings. This new expression pushes the border of what is even considered art. In a way the “Skyscraper” can be seen as an abstract sculpture. Instead of following realism and creating a realistic model of a skyscraper he instead made a bookcase. At first glance, you would not know what this bookcase is trying to represent until you are looking from the bottom up. Looking from the bottom of the bookcase it feels like it is looming and towering above you thus the name “skyscraper”.
Ethan, I wish you included a photo, so that we could see what this work looks like. You don’t mention what year the work was created, but it sounds like Frankl is interested in a lot of the most popular Modernist themes – urban life, industrialism, progress, etc… I think that a lot of artists during this period were experimenting with new materials – like the bakelite in this sculpture.