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MUSEUM OF ARTS AND DESIGN
NYC Makers: The 2014 MAD Biennial
Edited with text by Jake Yuzna.
This publication traces the curatorial methodology behind the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD)'s institution-wide exhibition, NYC Makers: The 2014 MAD Biennial. Marking a new chapter for the Museum, NYC Makers surveys the work of approximately 100 twenty-first-century makers who have flattened traditional hierarchies and escaped rigid categories of production through post-disciplinary practices as well as innovative application of skill and technique. From world-renowned cultural leaders to emergent enfants terribles, those included demonstrate the highest level of skill in their respective field, whether by fabricating furniture or fashion, creating artworks, cinema and architecture, inventing new possibilities for food, or reshaping educational and social gatherings. Marking a unique moment in time as the museum and the city are reshaped by the cultural production of these inventive individuals living and working within a single city, this publication acts as a process book for NYC Makers: The MAD Biennial by combining analysis and comments on culture within New York, transparent documentation of the curatorial process, as well as plates from the 100 makers in the exhibition.
Featured image, representing Fort Standard, is reproduced from NYC Makers: The 2014 MAD Biennial.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Art + Auction
S M
"There os a prevailing perception that New York in the digital age is no longer a city of skilled makers." says Glenn Adamson, director of the city's Museum of Arts and Design. With "NYC Makers," the debut of a MAD biennial exhibition opening July 1, Adamson plans to set the record straight with 100 pieces by local artisans responding to technological advances. In addition to works by set and lighting designers and instrument makers, milliner Heidi Lee flaunts a combination of traditional and contemporary techniques in the service of creations such as the nylon Echo Hat, made on a 3-D printer. The show spills into the museum stairwell, which will be lined with scratch-and-sniff wallpaper by olfactory artist and perfumer Carlos Benaim. In the lobby, a paper-and-Mylar mural by the collective Confettisystem, known for merging craft and celebration, gets the party started.
The Art Newspaper
Francesca Price
For the very first time, approximately 100 of New York's established and emerging artisans, artists and designers have taken over the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), exhibiting everything from costume designs to furniture for a little over three months. What makes this different from other biennial projects "is that it has been concieved and organised within an egalitarian curatorial framework, one that is dedicated to examining the breadth of cultural production occurring in urban communities throughout the US. and which recognises skilled creativity of all kinds, not just in fine art," says Glenn Adamson, the director of MAD. Highlights include the Metropolitan Opera's set design for "Die Fledermaus", a stained-glass window of Jacqueline Onassis by Joseph Cavalieri and wearable technology by Aisen Caro Chacin. Adamson says the biennial has an emphasis on "back-stage" making. "Even our own museum practices of art handling, which many people don't get to experience directly, are crucial ro keeping the city going."
The New Yorker
The museum's first biennial is so stuffed to the rafters with art, design, and everything else that it does none of its participants any favors. More than a hundred "makers" have little in common except locale and, too often, frivolity. Works by some predictable elder stateswomen (Laurie Anderson, Meredith Monk, Yoko Ono) are degraded by their proximity to giant sugar candies bearing the museum's logo, not to mention to organic expresso beans from the dogmatics of Blue Bottle Coffee. Even the museum's security staff has been conscripted, outfitted with knit vests designed by the downtown fashion house Eckhaus Latta. Only a handful of contributors - notably Natalie Jeremijenko's collaboration with New York schoolchildren on a nutrition program - convey the idea that design can effect change.
"Cup" (2012), by Bushwick-based art/craft collective FPOAFM Studios, is reproduced from NYC Makers: The 2014 MAD Biennial, published to accompany the Museum of Arts and Design exhibition on view through October. In his foreword, MAD director Glenn Adamson writes, "We use the term 'making'—as opposed to other such closely related terms as craft, workmanship, and artisanry—because it emphasizes the active and open nature of our subject. Our exhibition does indeed traverse the full range of arts and design, as promised in our museum's name. The show includes objects both familiar (benches), highly unconventional (designer Theremins), and somewhere in between (scratch-and-sniff wallpaper). The sets of skills on display range from the very traditional (stone carving) to the brand new (3-D printing). Industrial processes, such as 'concrete fabric' normally used in laying irrigation ditches, and historical decorative techniques, such as verre églomisé, are both imaginatively repurposed with arresting aesthetic results. There are one hundred makers in our exhibition, one hundred distinct skills, and one hundred very different stories about the city. To capture this fascinating range of production, only a very broad term like 'making' will do." continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.5 x 11 in. / 352 pgs / illustrated throughout. LIST PRICE: U.S. $45.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $60 GBP £40.00 ISBN: 9781890385293 PUBLISHER: Museum of Arts and Design AVAILABLE: 8/31/2014 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: WORLD
Published by Museum of Arts and Design. Edited with text by Jake Yuzna.
This publication traces the curatorial methodology behind the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD)'s institution-wide exhibition, NYC Makers: The 2014 MAD Biennial. Marking a new chapter for the Museum, NYC Makers surveys the work of approximately 100 twenty-first-century makers who have flattened traditional hierarchies and escaped rigid categories of production through post-disciplinary practices as well as innovative application of skill and technique. From world-renowned cultural leaders to emergent enfants terribles, those included demonstrate the highest level of skill in their respective field, whether by fabricating furniture or fashion, creating artworks, cinema and architecture, inventing new possibilities for food, or reshaping educational and social gatherings. Marking a unique moment in time as the museum and the city are reshaped by the cultural production of these inventive individuals living and working within a single city, this publication acts as a process book for NYC Makers: The MAD Biennial by combining analysis and comments on culture within New York, transparent documentation of the curatorial process, as well as plates from the 100 makers in the exhibition.
