mad happenings

MAD Thanksgiving

I thought I would share some pics of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Images of the controlled chaos were shot from MAD’s 7th floor by Joseph D. Sullivan. Thank you MAD Admin and Staff for the opportunity.

mad happenings

DIY Thursdays @ MAD in collaboration with Etsy

During the month of August, MAD and Etsy worked together to host a series FREE hands-on workshops for crafters of all ages and skill levels. Professional artists were invited to MAD’s 6th floor classroom where they shared inspiration and techniques with visitors, highlighting their materials and process. Projects experimented with crochet, t-shirt reconstruction, 3-D embroidery and paper piercing. In case you weren’t able to make it to the Museum, Etsy shared the project live online in their Virtual Labs. In a word, awesome.

More photos!

mad happenings | museum tech

Getting the projectors ready

In two weeks, we start what is hopefully the first of many film series done in cooperation with the Museum of the Moving Image (full details here. We’ve been offering various programs in the theater, including films, for 9 months now, but this will be the first time we’ve used our pair of 35mm projectors for a full program. So, I’ve spent much of the past few days helping to get these machines ready for use.

in the studio | mad happenings

In Print/In Process with Furniture Designer Paul Loebach

 

Furniture designer Paul Loebach was at MAD last week, discussing his creative process, the new technologies he uses to create his work, and some of the issues surrounding manufacturing and design. His lecture on Thursday night and studio workshop on Saturday afternoon were part of MAD’s series with American Craft magazine called In Print/In Process, which brings artists featured in the magazine to MAD’s Open Studios to discuss and demonstrate their work. (more…)

mad happenings

Deinstall-Reinstall

This post is dedicated to the unsung heroes of the museum world: installers, preparators, and registrars. 9 days ago, we had two full floors full of Second Lives, the inaugural exhibition of our new museum building . This morning, we have the press preview for our next exhibition, Klaus Moje: Painting in Glass on the 4th floor. Next week, we open another exhibition, Object Factory, on the fifth floor. By my rough count, this is 55 very large objects packed up and out, and about 120 object unpacked and installed in less than two weeks, all without breaking a single piece, except for this one:

So, here’s to those glorious basement-dwellers that make exhibitions happen. You can come up and look out my window any time you want.

mad happenings

Thread, images, and vision

To View an artwork is to listen in on the conversation the artist has had with the material she or he used to realize their vision of the world. In a museum, as we have the opportunity to compare artworks, those individual conversations between thought and materials broaden into a dialogue of diverse ideas and the infinite ways to achieve them. Last Sunday as embroidery artists Hoa Pham and Hoa` Thai Pham stood in front of Devorah Sperber’s After the Mona Lisa 7 they were noticeably amazed and excited by that incredible diversity. Hoa Pham and Hoa` Thai Pham, representatives of La Than Imperial Embroidery, had travelled from Vietnam to demonstrate traditional Vietnamese needlework at the Museum of Arts and Design. The materials are the same in both the La Than Photographs in Thread embroideries and Sperber’s After the Mona Lisa 7. They both translate existing images into thread.
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mad happenings

Karim Rashid – Technology has democratized creativity

Karim Rashid, in his recent lecture at the Museum of Arts and Design, spoke about issues in contemporary design while referencing his current MAD exhibition, Totally Rad: Karim Rashid does Radiators that runs through May 17th.

mad happenings

Studio Sunday at MAD

Studio Sunday at MAD is a great program (and a good deal…a tour and hands-on workshop for $10!) for everyone from ages 6 and up. What I find interesting about Studio Sunday is the number of adults who come with friends or on their own. They sign up at the desk and spend a Sunday afternoon (2 hours) looking at various pieces from the museum (selected by the educator according to the theme of the week), and the group goes up to the classroom for the second half to do hands-on work related to the discussion. One would typically expect lots of children and parents for a program of this kind, but last week, when I taught Studio Sunday (on chairs), the participants were mostly adults. We looked at about five chairs (or seats) from the Second Lives exhibition. We had great conversations about material, function, value, mass production, etc. (i.e. Johnny Swing’s Quarter Lounge is made out of quarters, so is the actual amount of money he used in dollars and cents important in assessing the “value” of the piece? What about Wok Media’s Once? The material (discarded chopsticks) is virtually free, so what does that say about the value of the piece since the actual piece can’t even be transported?). Participants, young and older, shared stories about their favorite chair from home or childhood. The truly nice part about the discussion in the galleries is how it doesn’t matter what age you are, your opinion matters and there is generally a great amount respect from everyone even when the littlest participant is talking. 
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mad happenings

photo of the day

I feel a little silly posting a photo of the day considering this is the first, and I don’t intend on posting any others any time soon. However, this is such an awesome photo from our new photo intern Katie that I felt almost a moral imperative to share. We were spoiled by the fantastic work of last semester’s photo intern Irina (for details, check out pretty much every photo we have up on flickr), and it looks like the fine tradition she established will be continued.

The photo, by the way, was from last week’s public program “Where Craft and Design Intersect,” and it’s of American Craft magazine editor-in-chief Andrew Wagner.

mad happenings | new building

Discussion with Brad Cloepfil

Next Thursday, January 22, 2009, Brad Cloepfil, the architect and principal of Allied Works Architecture, will be holding a lecture and discussion about the design of the Museum’s new building at 2 Columbus Circle. The discussion will include MAD’s building in relation to Cloepfil’s other works as well as his adaptive reuse of spaces especially industrial settings turned cultural buildings. In all of his designs, the emphasis is on the art as it creates a reconnection with the building and with the surrounding environment, the play of opening up the space to allow for natural light and the play of light on the exterior of the building. Join Brad Cloepfil for this interesting discussion about his creative process and the issues that influence his designs and the trajectory of his future projects. If you have ever been to the Open Artists Studios and seen the view of Columbus Circle you can appreciate what opening up the space really means to the whole aesthetic affect of the Museum and how it affects the art and makes this Museum such a unique and remarkable place.