An exclusive reception on Feb. 3 marked the opening of the Architecture and Design Center’s spring exhibition “In Conversation: Alma Allen and J.B. Blunk.” Curated by Palm Spring Art Museum’s Director of Architecture and Design Brooke Hodge, the exhibition pairs the work of artists Alma Allen and J.B. Blunk.
“I like to think of it as a blind date,” said Hodge, “where two people are introduced who’ve never met but who have a lot in common.”
The work of Allen, who until recently was based in Joshua Tree, and Blunk, who lived and worked in Inverness, California, until his death in 2002, blurs the line between design, craft, and sculpture. Both Allen and Blunk hand-built their own homes, studios, and many of the furnishings in them. The exhibition features photographs by Leslie Williamson and Lisa Eisner that offer a glimpse inside the worlds of these two creative men.
J.B. Blunk’s daughter, Mariah Nielson, and her husband, Max Frommeld, traveled to Palm Springs from London for the event while artist Alma Allen and his wife, Su Wu, were in attendance from Mexico City, where they now live. The crowd also included exhibition sponsors art and design collector L.J. Cella; fashion designer Trina Turk and Jonathan Skow; Cary LoGrande, cultural engineer at the Ace Hotel & Swim Club; realtors Keith Markowitz and Clayton Baldwin; design principal Roman Alonso of Commune design collective in Los Angeles; independent publisher Dung Ngo from New York; photographer Leslie Nielson from the Bay Area; graphic designer Boris Bencic of Palm Springs; Architecture and Design Council board members Robin Abrahams, Bernie Cain, Joan Gand, Tom Headrick, Roswitha Smale, and Dan Spencer; gallerists Tim Blum and Sarvia Jasso of Blum & Poe New York/Los Angeles/Tokyo; Gerard O’Brien of Reform Gallery in Los Angeles; TV writer Dan Greaney; fashion designer Christina Kim of Los Angeles; and artists Jim Isermann of Palm Springs, and Martino Gamper and Francis Upritchard of London.
The exhibition is on view at Palm Springs Art Museum’s Architecture and Design Center through June 4, 2018. Visit psmuseum.org for more information.
Palm Springs Art Museum Architecture and Design Center
300 S Palm Canyon Drive
Palm Springs, CA 92262
760-423-5260
psmuseum.org/architecture-design-center
