Press Room

Chris Schanck: Off-World (Feb. 12, 2022–Jan. 8, 2023); Garmenting: Costume as Contemporary Art (March 12–Aug.14, 2022); Flower Craft (May 14–June 26, 2022); and Queer Maximalism x Machine Dazzle (Sept. 10, 2022–Feb. 12, 2023)

New York, NY (November 18, 2021)

The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) is pleased to announce its 2022 exhibition schedule. The 2022 season will be bookended by the first major New York City museum exhibitions for designers Chris Schanck and Machine Dazzle. Also, next year’s program will feature works from both established and emerging artists and makers including Xenobia Bailey, Zoë Buckman, Louise Bourgeois, Nick Cave, Jeffrey Gibson, Lufti Janania, Doan Ly, Esmaa Mohamoud, Kent Monkman, Devan Shimoyama, Vivan Sundaram, Bronson van Wyk, Andrea Zittel, and others, as well as performances and installations in the galleries from Kristin Alpaugh, Enoch Cheng, Lexy Ho-Tai, Manu Torres, and more.

About the upcoming exhibition schedule, Nanette L. Laitman Director Tim Rodgers said, “Since its founding 65 years ago, MAD has consistently widened the scope of New York City’s cultural institutions to include creators quite different from those ordinarily seen in a museum. With the openings of the forthcoming Chris Schanck: Off World, Garmenting: Costume as Contemporary Art, Flower Craft, and Queer Maximalism x Machine Dazzle, MAD builds on its history of highlighting creators who are redefining what art can do and be, and challenging preconceptions of what makes an object ‘museum-worthy.’ The added dimension of performance underlines our commitment to think more broadly and give all creativity a platform and a home.”

For audiences, 2022 at MAD will be a year exceptionally rich in visually stimulating and vibrant works, with many opportunities to collaborate with the artists who have created wondrous displays of color and material.

“From the pop fantasy palettes of contemporary furniture and flower design to the surreal and subversive deployment of color in costume and performance, there will be a pyrotechnic display of color at MAD next season,” said Elissa Auther, Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator. “As a museum dedicated to the expressivity of materials, MAD is keenly interested in how creators explore and experiment with color, probing its multitudes of meaning and harnessing its aesthetic appeal to further important conversations on history, the environment, identity, and culture.”

2022 EXHIBITIONS

Chris Schanck: Off-World
February 12, 2022–January 8, 2023
 
Chris Schanck: Off-World presents new work by the Detroit-based artist in his first solo museum exhibition in New York and marks his largest exhibition to date.

After graduating from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2011, Schanck founded his studio in Detroit which has grown to employ over a dozen artists, students, and craftspeople. Based in a former factory building in Banglatown, a neighborhood with a dense immigrant population, the surrounding community plays a key role in Schanck’s egalitarian studio practice. Alongside his team, Schanck continues to refine his acclaimed signature process entitled Alufoil, a laboriously crafted fabrication process in which industrial and discarded materials are sculpted, covered in aluminum foil, and then sealed with resin.

Debuting Schanck’s most ambitious works to date, Chris Schanck: Off-World offers an in-depth look into the Texas-born artist’s recent exploration into figuration while further investigating well-established methods and developing new processes. Skirting the line between refinement and camp, Schanck’s assemblages reference science fiction films and conjure up visions as diverse as ancient aliens, hidden cavernous chambers, and monolithic space operas. Schanck draws from a wide range of influences ranging from his local surroundings of Detroit, Brutalist and Art Deco architecture, ancient Egyptian and Aztec iconography, to motifs from fringe aspects of popular culture far from the mainstream. As a result, each work is a reflection on a gritty counterculture rarely explored in contemporary design.

Garmenting: Costume as Contemporary Art
March 12–August 14, 2022

This exhibition brings together thirty-five international contemporary artists who engage with clothing as a medium of sculpture, installation, and performance. The term “garmenting” describes the practice of artists making or altering clothing for expressive purposes, a prevalent yet underexamined preoccupation among many artists across the globe. While highly diverse as a group, these artists share an interest in upending distinctions between “fine” and “applied” arts and creating work rooted in a fundamental aspect of human life—the physical body and the clothing that adorns and protects it.
Garmenting is organized around five, interrelated themes that explore the role of dress in shaping aesthetic practices, individual and group identities, and social, economic, and political relations. “Functionality” showcases works that blur the line between fashion, which traditionally has a practical function, and art, which traditionally does not. “Cultural Difference” centers on works that explore the relationship between dress and cultural, racial, and ethnic identities. “Gender” explores how gender and sexuality are performed through dress. “Activism” examines how artists use garments to call attention to how political violence affects individual bodies. “Performance” features artists who engage critically with costume through live and video-based performance. The Museum will host a series of live performances by exhibiting artists, whose work also will be represented by video in the galleries.

Flower Craft
May 14–June 26, 2022

The exhibition Flower Craft is an invitation into the marvelous world of contemporary floral artistry featuring the creative visions of top designers working at the forefront of the field. More than an exhibition about the cultural symbolism of flowers in art, Flower Craft investigates floral artistry as an overlooked chapter in the history of craft and design, putting floral artists—those who use live blooms as their medium—at the center of the story. 
Flower Craft unfolds over six weeks and features a new installation by one of the participating artists each week. Every installation will be accompanied by video documentation of the artist at work, highlighting their design thinking, expressive intent, and skill at pushing the boundaries of floral artistry. Alongside the ever-changing floral installations at the core of Flower Craft is a curated selection of vessels, complementing the emphasis on the craft and design of flower arrangement with the history of functional objects made for flowers. 
The exhibition is planned with an array of special programs that will extend the themes of Flower Craft and engage the general public and the maker community with hands-on experiences.

Queer Maximalism x Machine Dazzle
September 10, 2022—February 23, 2023

Queer Maximalism x Machine Dazzle is the first solo exhibition of the genre-defying artist and costume designer Matthew Flower. Better known as Machine Dazzle and the theatrical genius behind cabaret, drag, and performance stars such as Taylor Mac and Mx Justin Vivian Bond, he is also a performer in his own right. This exhibition, spanning two floors at the Museum of Arts and Design, brings together over 60 of the artist’s stage creations made for himself and others alongside various stage environments, ephemera, material samples, photography, and video footage. Moving Machine Dazzle from backstage as a costume designer to center stage as an artist, the exhibition highlights the rich connections of his work to numerous overlapping creative communities, spanning cabaret and drag, theatrical set and costume design, handcraft, New York nightlife, and fashion.

For more information about current and upcoming exhibitions, visit madmuseum.org.

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. For more information, visit madmuseum.org.

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