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MAD Announces Summer 2017 Artist Studios Program Residents and Van Lier Fellow
Featuring artists Rachel Frank, Mariana Garibay Raeke, Tai Hwa Goh, Ilana Harris-Babou, Heidi Lau, Kathleen McDermott, and Christa Pratt
New York, NY (June 1, 2017)
The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) announces the Summer 2017 session of its Artist Studios Program and Van Lier Fellowship. The selected artists, who will work in MAD’s sixth-floor open studios from June through September, are Rachel Frank, Mariana Garibay Raeke, Tai Hwa Goh, Ilana Harris-Babou, Heidi Lau, Kathleen McDermott, and Christa Pratt. Harris-Babou is this session’s Van Lier Fellow.
“All seven incoming residents have transdisciplinary practices, and approach materials in uncommon ways,” said Cathleen Lewis, Vice President of Education and Programs at MAD. “This is sure to lead to enriching conversations between the artists and visitors.”
Launched nine years ago by the Museum’s Education Department, the Artist Studios Program assigns studio space to seven emerging to midcareer artists and designers for a four-month period, during which visitors to MAD are invited to observe and interact with the artists at work. A diverse committee of Museum staff members and outside professionals in the fields of art, craft, and design selects six residents to work at MAD one day per week, as well as one full-time Van Lier Fellow, whose fellowship is funded by the New York Community Trust. Introduced to the Artist Studios Program in 2016, the Van Lier Fellowship provides talented young people from historically underrepresented populations who are dedicated to a career in the arts with financial support and a dedicated studio at MAD for full-time use.
The MAD Artist Studios Program is both a platform for creativity and an innovative model of engagement that has served more than 140 artists and designers. The studios are open to the public; the residents welcome dialogue around concepts, materials, and processes, and visitors are encouraged to spend time in the studios exchanging ideas. This is an exciting chance for museumgoers to meet working artists, and a remarkable opportunity for the residents to actively participate in the public’s engagement with their work.
During each Artist Studios Program session, some of the artist residents elect to host a MADmakes workshop. MADmakes is a drop-in, hands-on educational series that invites visitors to learn the artists’ own methods and test their skills at art making and creative production. The series engages visitors in various techniques and ideas, facilitating greater understanding and appreciation of skill-based practices. Great for visitors of all ages, backgrounds, and interests, MADmakes workshops are free with Museum admission. They will take place as follows:
Thursday, June 15, 6 pm – Kathleen McDermott
Thursday, July 13, 6 pm – Mariana Garibay Raeke
Thursday, August 17, 6 pm – Tai Hwa Goh
Thursday, September 7, 6 pm – Rachel Frank
The Artist Studios Talk and Closing Reception will take place Thursday, September 14, at 6:30 pm.
While at MAD, Garibay Raeke will explore ways of shaping and giving form to clay and paper pulp with the aid of modifiable molds. The use of the same mold to cast a series of unique objects will reveal similarities and differences in form and color, with the aim of questioning and playing with the logic of mass production. Garibay Raeke was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and lives and works in Brooklyn. She received her MFA in Painting/Printmaking from Yale University and her BFA in Painting/Visual Studios from California College of the Arts. Her work has been exhibited in New York and San Francisco, as well as in Mexico. For more information, please visit: www.marianagr.com. |
During her residency at MAD, she will go beyond hand-pulled prints. Goh will recycle used materials—old t-shirts and jeans, lace, curtains, phonebook pages, gift wrap, magazines, wallpaper, old letters, old notebooks, etc. She will sew, glue, and transform these “found” prints to construct three-dimensional objects. Born and raised in Seoul, Korea, Goh holds an MFA from the University of Maryland, as well as an MFA and a BFA from Seoul National University. She has been featured in US and international exhibitions. For more information, please visit: www.taihwagoh.com. |
While at MAD, McDermott will explore the relationship between robots and protest. Popular conceptions of robots produce visions of metallic objects that are use-oriented, calculating, and driven by logic; but what about robots that appear to be expressive, useless, or illogical, or robots that fail to perform their intended functions? This investigation might relate to larger cultural attitudes toward work and productivity. McDermott is pursuing a PhD in Electronic Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She has an MFA in Creative Media from City University of Hong Kong and a BFA from Cornell University. Her work has been exhibited internationally. For more information, please visit: www.kthartic.com. |
While at MAD, Frank will work on a series of sculptures and masks using fabric and other materials to address issues related to climate change and the Anthropocene. Expanding upon recent works focused on the environmental practice of rewilding, as well as her 2017 video project, Vapors, which featured performers wearing the masks of an extinct woolly rhinoceros and a woolly mammoth, Frank will continue to explore visions of our landscape’s past and present and its sustainability into the future. Born and raised in Kentucky, Frank received her MFA from the University of Pennsylvania and her BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute. She has participated in numerous residencies and has exhibited her work internationally. For more information, please visit: www.rachelfrank.com. |
While in residence at MAD, Lau will be hand-building ceramic sculptures and experimenting with the suminagashi marbling process, which has an ancient history in hydromancy, to create ghost-like circular ink marks on the surface of her pieces. Lau grew up in Macau, under Portuguese colonial and later Chinese rule. She currently lives and works in New York. The recipient of a BS in Studio Art from New York University, she has received numerous awards and exhibited extensively. For more information, please visit: www.heidilau.org. |
During her residency at MAD, Pratt will continue her meditations on the psychological effects of gender and race through her series of Planet paintings, as well as her ongoing series of black-on-black portrait paintings. She will be using beauty materials and modern paint technology to continue celebrating Womanism and the freedom in painting. Born in the Bronx but raised in the South, she received her BFA in Painting from Pratt Institute. She has exhibited her work nationally. For more information, please visit: www.christapratt.tumblr.com. |
While at MAD, she will continue working on a series of dysfunctional ceramics: fantastically distorted kitchenware and household tools that ask users to question their relationship to touch and utility. How might a three-foot spatula change the way we relate to flipping pancakes? This process will serve as inspiration for new performance and video works after the residency. Harris-Babou received an MFA in New Genres from Columbia University and a BA in Art from Yale University. She has exhibited her work throughout the United States and Europe. For more information, please visit: www.ilanahb.com. |
ABOUT THE MUSEUM OF ARTS AND DESIGN
The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) champions contemporary makers across creative fields and presents the work of artists, designers, and artisans who apply the highest level of ingenuity and skill. Since the Museum's founding in 1956 by philanthropist and visionary Aileen Osborn Webb, MAD has celebrated all facets of making and the creative processes by which materials are transformed, from traditional techniques to cutting-edge technologies. Today, the Museum's curatorial program builds upon a rich history of exhibitions that emphasize a cross-disciplinary approach to art and design, and reveals the workmanship behind the objects and environments that shape our everyday lives. MAD provides an international platform for practitioners who are influencing the direction of cultural production and driving twenty-first-century innovation, and fosters a participatory setting for visitors to have direct encounters with skilled making and compelling works of art and design. The Museum will be celebrating its Diamond Jubilee 60th Anniversary this year.
