DOUG & GENE MEYER - The Longue Vue Installation

January 31 - March 31, 2013

Museum Director - Joe Baker

Guest Curator - Jeff McKay

Exhibition management - Emily Wilkerson and Lenora Costa

Construction of exhibition displays - Tim Evans, Ryal Skaggs, Mathew and John Skaggs

Catalog essays about Doug & Gene - Amy Fine Collins and Wendy Goodman

Catalog design execution - Jakob Rosenzweig
Exhibition photography - Michael Smith
Portrait - Mark Roskams

Beginning January 31, 2013, Longue Vue House and Gardens welcomes designers Doug and Gene Meyer for a an installation throughout the historic house and gardens. Based in New York City, the Meyer brothers have designed a unique range of products, from men’s and women’s fashion and accessories, to furniture, tile, wallpaper, fabrics, as well as interior design projects - at the Longue Vue house, the designers will intervene in the classic New Orleans home, showcasing their rugs, furniture, home accessories and fashion designs. The Meyer brothers will also be designing and incorporating their outdoor fabrics on the patio furniture in the estate’s gardens. Simultaneous to their interventions in the existing home and gardens, they will develop a new site-specific installation in the Whim House—the guest house on the Longue Vue grounds, previously closed to the public—as well as a retrospective exhibition of their work in the exhibition gallery. Doug and Gene Meyer: The Longue Vue Installation will be on view thru March 31, 2013.

Doug Meyer, (the wild and gregarious one) has kindly shared his surreal and moody fine art (working with the legendary, late Holly Solomon will do that to a guy); and has imposed his mad sense of color and completely original sense of fun and fantasy on some of the most notable and widely publicized interiors ever seen.

- Jeff McKay

Gene Meyer, (the quiet and contemplative one) has given us among other things: devastatingly elegant  women’s couture; men’s wear that is sexy and smart (and short and tight – waaaaaay before anyone else even thought about that); graphically gorgeous accessories for everybody;  beautiful, covetable tableware;  and those crazily collectible neckties. 

- Jeff McKay  

Longue Vue House and Gardens is an eight-acre estate built by New Orleans civic activists and philanthropists Edith and Edgar Stern. It was the combination of the Sterns working with landscape architect Ellen Biddle Shipman and architects William and Geoffrey Platt that resulted in this wonderful oasis of beauty and elegance. The Longue Vue house is one of the last great houses to be custom-built in America during the Country Place Era, taking the Platt brothers three years to build. Due to Ms. Shipman's dedication to Longue Vue, whose work began at the estate in 1935, the organization is one of thirty National Historic Landmarks recognized for outstanding landscape architecture and preservation.

Gene is a peerless colorist – on par with Yves Saint Laurent, as the New York Times memorably reported years ago. He possesses an unerring sense of proportion, when it comes to the placement of a cuff or a pocket, or to the disposition of color on a two-dimensional field.  How wide must a wobbly band of butter yellow be in order to balance a thin streak of cobalt blue?  Gene intuitively knows the answer. Stripes are for Gene a recurrent motif – it is his version of playing scales, or striking a xylophone.

- Amy Fine Collins

I sometimes think my apartment resembles the inside of Gene Meyer’s brain. Its closets are densely packed not only with Gene’s now decades-old dresses but also with stacks of his scarves, some still sealed virginally in their plastic wrappers. I could not, however, leave all of these silken masterpieces as is, in their intended 2-D, quadrilateral state.  They were such tonic to the eyes, I felt compelled to convert them into handbags, blouses, pillows, and upholstery.

- Amy Fine Collins

A master mentored this design rebel; Doug worked with the legendary art dealer, Holly Solomon, as his first job out Parson’s School of Design. He says, “I realized that interiors could become livable works of art.” Doug then worked with Helene Weiner and Janelle Reiring of Metro Pictures Gallery. His first interior project was designing a loft for Helene Weiner. “This” Doug says, “was a pivotal moment when I switched my attention to creating conceptual interiors over conceptual art.”

- Wendy Goodman 

Doug is a powerhouse. He is impatient, thinks on his feet, and does not suffer fools. He is energized by a wit and sense of humor that elevates his take on life to a delicious plateau. His work is virtually unlike anyone else’s. Color is not an accessory; it is the centrifugal force of his aesthetic. Doug wields color to conquer a space in ways that no one else would dare.

- Wendy Goodman

Special Thanks

Doug and Gene would like to thank the following individuals who were very helpful in the preparation of this exhibit: Frank de Biasi for his generosity and support of the fashion presentation of this exhibition; Amy Fine Collins for preserving and maintaining many of the clothes lent to this exhibition; Eugene Freeland and Amy Till of Link Outdoor Fabric for coordinating and donating the fabric and cushions. Holland & Sherry for their unwavering support. Enormous gratitude and heartfelt thanks to Wendy Goodman and Amy Fine Collins for their beautifully written essays.

This project would not have been possible without the generosity of the Helis Foundation.

Exhibition catalogs available at www.dougandgene.com

Longue Vue House & Gardens
7 Bamboo Road
New Orleans, LA 70124
www.longuevue.com