Press Room

New York, NY (February 12, 2014)

Marking the Museum of Arts and Design’s first year under the leadership of its new Nanette L. Laitman Director Glenn Adamson, the upcoming 2014-2015 exhibition programming reflects MAD’s commitment to championing skilled makers—artists, designers, and artisans—and the value they bring to the world around us. Featuring work from throughout the five boroughs and across the globe, the exhibitions will transform the Museum into a creative hub and platform for the 21^st century maker.

Bringing together key works from MAD’s permanent collection, Re: Collection will celebrate recently retired Chief Curator David McFadden’s sixteen years of curatorial choices with objects acquired during his tenure that provide insight into the creative process. Later this spring, the exhibition Multiple Exposures: Jewelry and Photography will feature over 80 international jewelry artists whose work transforms and adds new meaning to the pervasive images of this digital age.

In the summer, MAD will become a platform for present-day skilled craftsmanship through the inaugural NYC Makers: The MAD Biennial, which will spotlight New York City’s highly-skilled, innovative, collaborative and cross-disciplinary creative community. Finally this fall, New Territories: Laboratories for Design, Craft, and Art in Latin America will investigate contemporary developments in design and craft in the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking communities of South and Central America, the Caribbean and Mexico. It will focus on individuals and collaboratives that exemplify laboratories where some of the most pertinent new directions in design and craft are emerging today.

Re: Collection
April 1 through September 7, 2014

MAD celebrates the fifth anniversary of its move to 2 Columbus Circle with the special exhibition Re: Collection, on view from April 1 to September 7, 2014. The exhibition surveys Chief Curator Emeritus David McFadden’s 16 years at MAD through objects acquired during his tenure.  During McFadden’s years at MAD, the permanent collection has grown from 800 objects to more than 3,000. In the past five years alone, since MAD’s move to 2 Columbus Circle, approximately 730 objects that exemplify the imaginative transformation of materials have been added to the collection. 

Working in coordination with former Exhibitions Curator Dorothy Globus, McFadden has selected approximately 68 works of sculpture, jewelry, ceramics, furniture, and textiles, many of which are definitive works by key postwar American and international makers. The selection ranges broadly, from well-known figures such as Robert Arneson, Judy Chicago, Vincent Dubourg, Kim Schmahmann, and James Turrell to cutting-edge makers like Sebastian Brajkovic and Jennifer Trask, among many others.

Re: Collection also explores some of the material and process-centered themes of McFadden’s exhibitions, such as Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting; Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary; Dead or Alive: Nature Becomes Art; Slash: Paper Under the Knife; Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities; and Swept Away: Dust, Ashes, and Dirt in Contemporary Art and Design. These successful exhibitions have allowed MAD to reveal how the creative process firmly links formal concerns with social, political, narrative, and autobiographical content. In a cultural moment defined by its openness, McFadden has provided a cogent method for rethinking narratives around the specific possibilities of materials and making. Re: Collection examines this curatorial methodology, presenting it as a series of personal recollections drawn from the MAD permanent collection.

Major support for Re: Collection has been provided by the Windgate Charitable Foundation, with additional support from the Collectors Circle, a leading Museum support group. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is the Official Airline of MAD.

Multiple Exposures: Jewelry and Photography
May 13 through September 14, 2014

Multiple Exposures: Jewelry and Photography is the first museum exhibition to explore how contemporary jewelry artists transform and add new meaning to the pervasive images of this digital age.  Drawing inspiration from historic Daguerreotypes to manipulated digital images, international jewelry artists explore changing views of beauty and the human body; examine social, political, and cultural issues; probe perceptions of memory and desire; and question the broader relation of jewelry to society and personal identity—issues central to the contemporary experience.

More than 80 renowned artists from over 20 countries are represented—including Gijs Bakker, Wafaa Bilal, Jordan Doner, Mari Ishikawa, Jiro Kamata, Sooyeon Kim, Iris Nieuwenburg, Kara Ross, Gabriela Sanchez, Bernhard Schobinger, Bettina Speckner, Joyce J. Scott, Kiff Slemmons, Andy Warhol, and Noa Zilberman.

The connection between photography and jewelry extends back more than 150 years to the invention of the photographic process.  The exhibition provides historical context for this evolving relationship by presenting outstanding 19^th-century pieces, many of which have never before been exhibited. In recent years, both photography and art jewelry have changed dramatically, and the exhibition presents cutting-edge videos and installations that provide viewers with a broader perspective of contemporary jewelry today.

Organized by MAD’s Curator of Jewelry, Ursula Ilse-Neuman, Multiple Exposures: Jewelry and Photography is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with essays by Ilse-Neuman, MAD’s Chief Curator Lowery Stokes Sims, Dutch author and jewelry curator Liesbeth den Besten, photography expert Mark Durant, Curator of Decorative Arts at the Toledo Museum of Art Jutta Page, American author and Metalsmith editor Suzanne Ramljak, photography historian and critic Lyle Rexer, and German author and critic Ellen Maurer Zillioli. 

Support for Multiple Exposures: Jewelry and Photography has been provided by Hasselblad, Kara Ross NY, Betsy Z. and Edward E. Cohen, Washington Square Hotel, the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, Creative New Zealand, Janet Kardon, and Frame Finland. Additional support is made possible in part through the generosity of the Inner Circle, one of the Museum's leadership support groups. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is the official airline of MAD.

NYC Makers: The MAD Biennial
July 1 through October 12, 2014

The first exhibition to be organized under the leadership of MAD’s new Director Glenn Adamson, NYC Makers: The MAD Biennial spotlights the creative communities thriving across the five boroughs today. The exhibition showcases the work of approximately 100 makers—highly inventive artisans, artists, and designers who create objects or environments through exquisite workmanship and skill. Exemplifying the Museum’s ongoing commitment to craftsmanship across all creative fields, the exhibition serves as a platform not only for makers who typically display their work in a museum setting, but also those who operate behind the scenes.

The 21^st-century maker has flattened traditional hierarchies and escaped rigid categories of production through post-disciplinary practices and the innovative application of skill and technique. NYC Makers presents a sweeping cross-section of the cultural production of these inventive individuals, living and working within a single city. Makers were nominated by a pool of over 300 New York City–based cultural leaders and civic figures from a range of trades and disciplines, including museum curators, choreographers, academics, chefs, musicians, and journalists, with final participants selected by a jury led by Adamson and exhibition curator Jake Yuzna. From world-renowned cultural leaders to emergent enfants terribles, every maker selected demonstrates the highest level of skill in their respective field, whether by fabricating furniture or fashion; creating artworks, films, and architecture; inventing new possibilities for food; or reshaping educational and social gatherings.

The exhibition is structured as a series of immersive tableaus that presents the diverse creative output of makers alongside one another. These environments house live programs throughout the exhibition’s run, including fashion shows, performances, social practice projects, and culinary explorations, which underline the relationship between material and immaterial making found in New York City today. Through this approach, NYC Makers transforms MAD into a production studio that links creative, innovative, and skillful makers into one immense collaborative undertaking: an undertaking that manifests the cultural capital of New York. 

Organized by Jake Yuzna, Director of Public Programs, NYC Makers inaugurates a new series of MAD exhibitions that will examine the culture of making and highlight the contributions of the makers who shape contemporary life. The accompanying publication will be edited by Jake Yuzna and designed by NYC-based studio Other Means.

Support for NYC Makers: The MAD Biennial is provided by Dan Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser; Siegelson, New York; Michael Sonnenfeldt and Katja Goldman; Ken Spitzbard; and Jill Bokor and Sanford Smith. Additional thanks to KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, the official airline of MAD.

LOOT: MAD About Jewelry
October 6–10, 2014

Now, in its 14th year, LOOT: MAD About Jewelry, MAD’s juried selling exhibition of artist-made jewelry, has earned the reputation of being the ultimate pop-up shop for contemporary art and studio jewelry by both artists and collectors alike.  LOOT will feature a range of work, including inventive pieces in gold, sterling silver, and semiprecious stones alongside jewelry made of unexpected materials such as titanium, stainless steel, glass, wood, rubber, fabric, and found objects.  Unlike any other jewelry event in the country, LOOT gives jewelry lovers the opportunity to meet some of the most innovative creators in the field and acquire work directly from them.

Last year, MAD honored fashion icons Iris Apfel and Barbara Berger with LOOT Awards for Contemporary Art Jewelry. This annual prize is in keeping with the long-standing commitment of the Museum of Arts and Design to present jewelry as an art form. MAD is the only American museum to possess a gallery dedicated to the display of both temporary jewelry exhibits and its own collection of contemporary and modern studio and art jewelry, which it began assembling soon after its founding in 1956.

To date, LOOT has showcased famous jewelry artists like Eva Eisler, Robert Lee Morris and Kara Ross along with newer names—thus becoming an important platform to launch the careers of many young, cutting-edge creators from around the globe. In 2013, 50 jewelry artists from 20 countries –including Argentina, Denmark, Indonesia, Japan, Poland, South Africa, South Korea, and the United Kingdom— participated.  This year’s participating LOOT artists and LOOT Award recipient will be announced in the spring.

Proceeds from the selling show benefit the Museum's exhibition and education programs.

New Territories: Laboratories for Design, Craft, and Art in Latin America
November 4, 2014–February 22, 2015

The term “new territories,” as evoked by Italian architect and designer Gaetano Pesce, refers to the state of making in today’s globalized society, a phenomenon that has helped to spur a confluence of art, design, and craft. The exhibition New Territories: Laboratories for Design, Craft, and Art in Latin America will examine this trend in several distinct cities throughout Latin America, where some of the most pertinent new directions in arts and design are emerging today.

New Territories explores the collaborations between small manufacturing operations and craftspersons, artists, and designers, and demonstrates how the resulting work addresses not only the issues of commodification and production, but also of urbanization, displacement, and sustainability. The exhibition will explore a number of key themes, including: the dialogue between contemporary trends and artistic legacies in Latin American art; the use of recycled and repurposed materials and objects; the blending of digital and traditional skills; and the reclamation of personal and public space.

New Territories is organized by MAD’s Chief Curator Lowery Stokes Sims and follows MAD’s groundbreaking 2010 exhibition The Global Africa Project, which presented new craft, design, and art that transcended nationality and regionalism in its presentation of the new nomadic paradigm of African identity. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully-illustrated, full color catalogue that will be published in separate English and Spanish editions by Turner Libros of Madrid and Mexico City.

Major support for New Territories: Laboratories for Art, Craft and Design in Latin America is provided by the Ford Foundation and the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation. Additional support is provided by Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund, The Venezuelan American Endowment for the Arts and The Louise D. and Morton J. Macks Family Foundation. 

Ongoing Exhibitions

Body & Soul: New International Ceramics
Through March 2, 2014

In recent years, the human figure has returned to center stage in the work of artists around the world. Body & Soul: New International Ceramics underscores the power of the figure to convey strong emotions, and also to the accessibility of the ceramic medium. Through clay the figure becomes the catalyst for addressing the emotional impact of contemporary pressures that confront our society today. Each work, inspired by a personal incident or symbolic tale, expresses a deep emotional identity, contrasting societal, political, and personal views on themes such as anxiety, bias, mortality and memory.

The exhibition highlights approximately 25 international artists who came to clay as painters, draughtsmen, or sculptors. Many are being shown for the first time in the United States. The range and quality of the works will make this exhibition engaging and provocative, and will bring this special area of creativity into a much-deserved focus.

This exhibition is organized and curated by Wendy Tarlow Kaplan with the advisement of Laurent de Verneuil, Martin S. Kaplan, and by David McFadden, William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design.

Major support for Body & Soul: New International Ceramics is provided by George Abrams, Kate and Gerald Chertavian, Chubb Insurance, Friends of Contemporary Ceramics, the Glassman Family Fund at the Boston Foundation, Hunt Alternatives Fund, Nancy Klavans, Cheryl and Philip Milstein, David and Susan Rockefeller, Michael and Karen Rotenberg, Shepherd Kaplan LLC, Lisbeth Tarlow, five anonymous donors, with additional support from a group of private donors.

Fashion Jewelry: The Collection of Barbara Berger
Through April 20, 2014

Presenting a stunning array of extravagant fashion jewelry, this exhibition celebrates craftsmanship and creativity spanning five decades. The exhibition features pieces by designers such as Balenciaga, Chanel, Dior, Miriam Haskell, and Yves Saint Laurent in an eye-popping display of necklaces, bracelets, brooches and earrings, many of them one of a kind.

Many of the works were expressly made to be worn with haute couture clothing by fashion designers that range from Chanel to Yves Saint Laurent, and Dior to Dolce & Gabbana. The Berger collection and this exhibition are virtual encyclopedias of this exciting and provocative era of fashion history. The exhibition also underscores the continuing popularity of couture jewelry today through stellar contemporary works. 

The exhibition is accompanied by a major publication on the Barbara Berger collection published by Assouline, with a preface by Pamela Golbin, who is the chief curator of Paris’ Musée de la Mode et du Textile; an essay by fashion guru Iris Apfel; and text by jewelry historian Harrice Simons Miller. A wide range of educational programs will accompany the exhibition, including lectures and panel discussions, designer-led exhibition tours, and hands-on jewelry workshops and demonstrations in MAD’s 6^th floor Open Studios.

The exhibition was organized by David McFadden, William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design, in collaboration with jewelry historian Harrice Simons Miller, as guest curator.

Support for Fashion Jewelry: The Collection of Barbara Berger generously provided by Miriam Haskell, with additional support from KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, the official airline of MAD.

A portion of the exhibition closed on September 22, 2013.

Out of Hand: Materializing the Postdigital
Through June 1, 2014

Out of Hand: Materializing the Postdigital explores the many areas of 21st-century creativity made possible by advanced methods of computer-assisted production known as digital fabrication. In today’s postdigital world, artists are using these means to achieve levels of expression never before possible – an explosive, unprecedented scope of artistic expression that extends from sculptural fantasy to functional beauty. Out of Hand is the first major museum exhibition to examine this interdisciplinary trend through the pioneering works of more than 80 international artists, architects, and designers, including Ron Arad, Barry X Ball, Zaha Hadid, Stephen Jones, Anish Kapoor, Allan McCollum, Marc Newson, and Roxy Paine. Represented are some of the most compelling creations from the past decade ranging from sculpture and furniture to fashion and transport.

Organized by MAD curator Ron Labaco, Out of Hand will be on view at MAD from October 16, 2013 to June 1, 2014. It is the first museum show to consider the impact of these new, revolutionary methods of computer-assisted manufacture on fine art, design, and architecture, and introduces the public to the imaginative expression that these emerging processes enable. Through this exhibition, MAD explores a monumental transition in the way human beings understand creation, from the earliest objects conceived and produced by individual makers through the tools of technological innovation. Today’s digital fabrication methods such as 3D printing, CNC (computer-numerically-controlled) machining, and digital knitting unite divergent artistic approaches, offering new opportunities for individual artists, architects, and designers to integrate these skills as vital part of their personal creative processes, representing the fruits of a new movement.

The exhibition is accompanied by an active roster of public and educational programs, from workshops and lectures to curriculum-based programs serving K-12 students, as well as in-gallery interactive stations. A series of master classes featuring the designers and technology in the exhibition is scheduled, as well as programs designed to engage visitors in the creative processes of artists at work and to reveal the far-reaching potential of many of these new technologies.

Major support for Out of Hand: Materializing the Postdigital is generously provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Industries Fund NL, and Infor. Additional support has been provided by Dassault Systèmes, the Dutch Culture USA program by the Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York, Toyota, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature,  the Flemish Agency for Arts and Heritage, and Design Flanders. Major in-kind support for the exhibition has been provided by Shapeways and LuciteLux. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is the official airline of MAD.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM OF ARTS AND DESIGN

The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) explores the value of making across all fields of contemporary creative practice. The Museum focuses on the ways in which artists and designers transform the world around us, through processes ranging from the artisanal to the digital. MAD’s exhibition program is dedicated to creativity and craftsmanship, and demonstrates the limitless potential of materials and techniques when used by gifted and innovative artists. The Museum’s permanent collection is global in scope and includes art, craft, and design from 1950 to the present day. At the center of the Museum's mission is education. The Museum houses classrooms and studios for master classes, seminars, and workshops for students, families, and adults. Three open 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 subjects across the full spectrum of making practices are held in a renovated 144-seat auditorium.