Press Room

Works by Damien Hirst, Tim Hawkinson, Jennifer Angus, Nick Cave, Jochem Hendricks, Tessa Farmer, Susie MacMurray and Others On view from April to October 2010

Special Visitor Preview Offers Opportunities to Watch 8 Artists Install Site-Specific Works

New York, NY (January 6, 2010)

Dead or Alive, presented by the Museum of Arts and Design from April 27 through October 24, 2010, will showcase the work of over 30 international artists who transform organic materials and objects that were once produced by or part of living organisms—insects, feathers, shells, bones, silkworm cocoons, plant materials, and fur—to create intricately crafted and designed installations and sculptures.

Organized by the Museum’s Chief Curator David McFadden and Curator Lowery Sims with Assistant Curator Elizabeth Edwards Kirrane, Dead or Alive features new site-specific installations and recent work by contemporary artists from around the world, including Jennifer Angus, Nick Cave, Tessa Farmer, Tim Hawkinson, Jochem Hendricks, Damien Hirst, Alastair Mackie, Kate MccGwire, Susie MacMurray, Shen Shaomin, and Levi van Veluw among others. A special weeklong visitor preview starting Tuesday, April 20, will allow MAD visitors to observe artists as they create and install site- specific works in the museum galleries.

“Dead or Alive highlights the elaborate creative processes that reanimate these once-living objects as part of large-scale installations, photographs, videos, and sculptures,” says Holly Hotchner, the Museum’s Nanette L. Laitman Director. “Using intricate and sometimes painstakingly difficult techniques, the artists infuse these unusual materials with symbolism and social commentary. We are pleased to share these extraordinary meditations on mortality and celebrations of life as follow up to our inaugural exhibition Second Lives.”

New commissions include works by Costa Rican artist Lucia Madriz, who will create a massive, politically charged floor installation made from black beans and rice; German artist Christiane Löhr, who creates fragile nests of thistle and dandelion silk; American artist Jennifer Angus, known for her architectural interiors covered with thousands of dried insects that are pinned to mimic vintage wallpaper; and Kate MccGwire who will create a large cascade of pigeon feathers emanating from one of MAD’s signature glass bands that cut across the gallery ceilings. Chinese artist Shen Shaomin will create imaginary animals made from pulverized bones; and internationally renowned installation artist Xu Bing will make a shadow version of a 24-foot Song Dynasty painting using only vegetable detritus, weeds, leaves, and roots.

"In the hands of these artists mute materials are brought back to life as a work of art,” states Chief Curator David McFadden. “With profound and provocative associations, organic materials are transformed and resuscitated. This exhibition evokes our deepest emotions about mortality, but at the same time celebrates the new life given to lifeless materials by these talented individuals.”

About the Exhibition
Dead or Alive follows upon themes first presented in the inaugural exhibition of MAD’s new home, Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary, which featured contemporary works created from multiples of ordinary manufactured items. Here, the materials used are entirely natural. Once-living parts of flora and fauna are recombined and rearranged into works of art that address the transience of life, and all that is elegant and alarming about the natural world.

• German artist Christiane Löhr,  creates sculptures from the most fragile of natural materials, such as burrs, seed pods, and strands of animal hair. For Dead or Alive, Löhr will capture the ephemerality of nature with nets of dandelions and thistle.

• American artist Nick Cave uses leaves, hair, twigs, and other found objects to create bold costume-sculptures called Soundsuits. When worn, the Soundsuits are brought to life and create a loud swell of noise as the performer moves—a meditation on the power of ritual and ceremony.

• Dutch performance artist Levi van Veluw also layers natural materials on the human body in his elaborate self-portrait photographs and videos. In his landscape series, van Veluw adheres miniature plots of grass and clusters of trees onto the contours of his own face, overturning traditional concepts of landscape by placing the human body at its core.

• Jennifer Angus also subverts familiar forms with her site-specific architectural installations. Built to mimic interiors furnished with traditional wallpaper and textiles, the works are actually ornamented with thousands of dried insects pinned directly to the wall. These installations blur the distinction between decoration and expression, and between domestic comforts and disturbance.

• Cuban artist Fabian Peña employs insects to explore the endless cycle of life and death, and to comment on the foulest conditions of human existence. For The Impossibility of Storage for the Soul (2007), Peña has rendered an image of the human skull using only clipped cockroach wings. Mounted on a light box, the wings cast an eerie amber glow into the gallery.

• American artist Christy Rupp uses the bones of chickens discarded by fast food restaurants to create life-size skeletal reconstructions of extinct birds, including the Great Auk, the Moa and the California Condor. Her Dodo Bird, on view in Dead or Alive, is a meditation on man slowly devouring his environment.

• Chinese artist Shen Shaomin also adopts the role of anthropologist and scientist as he creates fanciful mythological creatures from pulverized animal bones. His three-headed monsters, gigantic mosquitoes, and other constructions recall a fictional prehistoric time and explore the coexistence of myth and scientific methodology.

PUBLIC PROGRAMS
Dead or Alive will be complemented by a wealth of public and educational programs, including lectures; workshops; interactive activities; and collections interpretation and artist’s demonstrations which are part of the Museum’s groundbreaking Open Studios effort.

EXHIBITION ORGANIZATION AND CREDITS
Dead or Alive is made possible in part by American Express.

CATALOGUE
Dead or Alive will be accompanied by a fully-illustrated color catalogue which includes a foreword, essays by the exhibition’s curators David Revere McFadden (Chief Curator and Vice President for Programs and Collections of the Museum) and Museum curator Lowery Stokes Sims, multiple images of work by the artists in the exhibition, first-person statements by the artists and biographies.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM OF ARTS AND DESIGN
The Museum of Arts and Design explores how craftsmanship, art, and design intersect in the visual arts today. The Museum focuses on contemporary creativity and the ways in which artists and designers from around the world transform materials through processes ranging from the handmade to cutting edge technologies.

The Museum’s exhibition program explores and illuminates issues and ideas, highlights creativity and craftsmanship, and celebrates the limitless potential of materials and techniques when used by creative and innovative artists. MAD’s permanent collection is global in scope and focuses on art, craft, and design from 1950 to the present day.

At the center of the Museum’s mission is education. The Museum’s dynamic new facility features classrooms and studios for master classes, seminars, and workshops for students, families and adults. Three open artist studios engage visitors in the creative processes of artists at work and enhance the exhibition programs. Lectures, films, performances and symposia related to the Museum’s collection and topical subjects affecting the world of contemporary art, craft and design are held in a renovated 144-seat auditorium.