There’s lots going on this spring and summer at MAD with Dead or Alive opening officially on April 27th, Bespoke on May 13th and Abraaj 2010, scheduled for August 31st. In the midst of all this preparations for The Global Africa Project—to open on November 16, 2010—are progressing with great intensity.
On Monday February 1, 2010 I ventured into the Javits Center here in New York City in the midst of the International Gift Fair. I was on a mission. I was meeting with Oumar Cisse (AKA Peace Corps Baba) from Mopti, Mali.
A recent comment on the “Making It Real” blog was “What is the Making it Real exhibition about and when will it take place?” The short answer is: Making it Real will be at MAD from October 12, 2011, until January 15, 2012, and will look at the emergence of the American Studio Craft Movement in the period after World War II. But that begs the question—what was the studio craft movement? So today’s blog is a (short, I promise) history lesson about how and why crafts went from being a necessity to being a choice. Along the way, I will also explain how we came up with the title.
As you may have heard, Robert, MAD’s fabulous new restaurant with its spectacular view of Columbus Circle, has finally opened. You may not know that the restaurant is named after Robert Isabell, the famed events planner involved in the project who died unexpectedly in 2009. In reading articles about his death in the New York Times , and later information about the auction of his property at Sotheby’s, we realized another link we had with Robert—he loved many of the artists that we are including in Making It Real.
Have you heard of the YA/YAs of New Orleans? No, I don’t mean the “Divine Sisterhood” of movie fame, but the organization (Young Aspirations/ Young Artists) whose mission is to “empower creative young people to become successful adults.” Founded over twenty years ago by Jana Napoli this organization works to give the youth of New Orleans “educational experiences in arts” and encourage “entrepreneurship…by fostering and supporting their ambitions.”
When we visited San Francisco to do research for this exhibition, a visit to the Heath Ceramics factory in Sausalito was a must. Heath Ceramics was represented with a stoneware saucepot in Craftsmanship in a Changing World, the Museum of Art and Design’s inaugural show (at the time it was called the Museum of Contemporary Crafts).
The church (and by “church” I mean all religious groups) has historically been an important patron of the arts, and we found that this was especially true in the postwar period when many new churches and synagogues were built. So, we are including a section in Making it Real of “Craft in the Service of Worship.”
This is not your little cousin Muffie’s Barbie – not at all. With his limited-edition figurines for Mattel, Fashion Designer Byron Lars plays around with the legendary plastic style icon, keeping all the prerequisite Barbie musts intact – pointy ‘Barbie’ toes, beyond-perfect makeup, posture, and figure – whilst deftly playing around with her overall style dna.
One of the best parts of being a curator, other than all the curating, is attending really gorgeous art and design fairs for research. Last month the Modernism + Art20 fair was on at the Armory on the Upper East Side. Each of the curators involved in our exhibition went to take a look.
The relationship between Black people and our hair has always been a many layered one. Awe-inspiring at best – and mind-boggling at worst – the hair as a medium of self-expression can be simultaneously representative and abstract; take a look at American comedian Chris Rock’s recent documentary, ‘Good Hair’, and you’ll see what I mean.
