Development of Aluminum Chairs, with Ray and Charles at left, circa 1958, photograph from Library of Congress.

While interest in the work of Charles and Ray Eames remains high, this fall it seems to be peaking: there are countless exhibitions, projects, publications, and auctions that will feature their work, or projects inspired by them. At the Indianapolis Museum of Art, I have been working with Tricia Gilson, Ball State University professor and independent researcher, to study the Eames material contained within the Eero Saaranin-designed Miller House and Garden, located in Columbus, Indiana.

Although the Miller House and Garden opened just this year, we’ve already had a lot of scholarly interest in it and its mid-century modern contents. One of the most memorable and knowledgeable visitors we’ve had recently was Daniel Ostroff, who came with some folks from Herman Miller to look at the furnishings in the house.

To expand on the conversations we had with him at the Miller House, I invited Tricia to help interview Dan about his work with the Eameses.  This will be a two-part interview, with the second part coming on Tuesday.

Daniel Ostroff is a Los Angeles-based film producer, researcher, curator, and collector. He is also the producer and editor of EamesDesigns.com, a consultant for Herman Miller, and has been sitting on an Equa Chair behind an Action Office System desk for the past 10 years.

Today the exhibition he curated, Collecting Eames: The JF Chen Collection, opens at JF Chen in Los Angeles.  The exhibition is part of the Getty’s massive Pacific Standard Time  project and consists of 450 pieces, with a corresponding 135 page catalog with a preface by Eames Demetrios and an essay by Dan (available soon on Amazon, or by e-mail here). Also, next month Dan will have an Eames-related  book out and another in 2012.

Daniel Ostroff in his favorite place in all of Los Angeles, The JF Chen Storage and Study Area. Photo by Grant Taylor.

Richard McCoy and Tricia Gilson: How did you first start collecting and researching the work of Charles and Ray Eames?

Daniel Ostroff: I am a film producer now, but I was a Hollywood agent before that.  In 1987 I opened The Daniel Ostroff Agency in Los Angeles, an agency for screenwriters, directors, and books to film.  While I had worked before that as an agent, I had either worked for other companies or with a partner.

With my own office I was faced with the prospect of having to furnish the place.  I started with rented furniture, and then an artist friend came to visit.  He pointed out that given the business that I was in, rented furniture wouldn’t do, and so I asked him what I should get.  He replied with a question: “Why buy furniture that depreciates in value?” He told me about a rare Eames desk for sale in San Diego, and my journey began.

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Robert Adams. "Arriba," 1966. © Robert Adams, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery and Matthew Marks Gallery; "Longmont, Colorado," 1979. Yale University Art Gallery.

In this week’s roundup, a Robert Adams retrospective, Mark Dion’s site-specific production, Josiah McElheny’s abstract film reflections, new sculptures by Richard Serra, and much more.

• Robert Adams: The Place We Live, A Retrospective Selection of Photographs at the Denver Art Museum offers a look at work that challenges conventional ideas of landscape photography.  Robert Adams‘ photos ask viewers to acknowledge and care for the world in all its imperfection.  This work is on view until January 1, 2012.

• Mark Dion: Process and Inquiry at University of Arkansas’ Fine Arts Center Gallery features selections from the world-renowned artist’s work, as well as related preparatory drawings, and works made as part of a proposal for a public art piece.  Mark Dion was selected to create a site-specific proposal based on his sensitivity to place and his profound investigation into the natural sciences and our understanding of it.  The exhibition will run October 8–November 18.

• Josiah McElheny has work at Gallery 2 of the Whitechapel Art Gallery (London). The Past Was A Mirage I’d Left Far Behind consists of seven large–scale mirrored sculptures arranged as multiple reflective screens, upon which Dion will project selected experimental abstract films. These sculptures will abstract the films by reflection and refraction of the imagery onto the gallery walls. Also, the artist has organized film presentations, lectures and events.  This work is on view until August 12, 2012.

• Lari Pittman is at Gladstone Gallery (NYC) with all-new works, which together reflect upon themes of musicality and time, intimately linking each within an engrossing tableaux of Dutch still-lifes, images of guitars, portraiture and words connoting musical styles. While Pittman’s visual vocabulary has continually tested the limits of metaphor, meaning and aesthetics, these works address an emotive intensity that is at once personal and universal in its meditation upon time, mortality, longing and loss.  The show closes October 22.

• Pepón Osorio‘s work is on view at the Ronald Feldman Fine Arts Gallery (NYC).  Osorio contributes four new works in his first solo exhibition in New York since 2005.  In this exhibition, Osorio’s socially engaged art practice transforms real life stories, weaving together themes of psychological hunger and nourishment within the cultural context of class difference. The exhibition run until October 22.

• Richard Serra presents two new sculptures at Gagosian Gallery (NYC).  Junction/Cycle pushes the unique sculptural syntax that the artist developed over the last fifteen years to arrive at entirely new forms in two of his most complex and challenging works to date.  This work is on view until November 26.

• Do Ho Suh‘s dioramas and miniatures are currently on view at Lehmann Maupin (NYC) at part of Home Within Home.  Fallen Star 1/5 is a 1:5 scale version of the apartment where the artist lived while attending Rhode Island School of Design.  Home Within Home is a model of the artist’s Korean home that is housed inside the Providence building and glows like an architectural plan for the Emerald City.  This work can be seen until October 22.

• Mark your calendars for the transatlantic exhibition Paul McCarthy: The King, The Island, The Dwarves, The Train… at Hauser & Wirth, in different locations.  The show features McCarthy’s “sculpture machine,” Pig Island, which has given birth to numerous large-scale sculptures, including Train, Mechanical with figures that perform choreographed actions.  Two different exhibitions will be on view simultaneously at the New York gallery November 7–December 17 and both London galleries November 16–January 14.