If They Can Make it Here
During his first week as the director of the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), Glenn Adamson proposed an idea for an exhibition that would celebrate not only New York’s newest crop of designers but also the established makers that are essential to the city’s creative life force. Eight months later, at the press preview of NYC Makers: The MAD Biennial, Adamson spoke proudly in one of the show’s immersive environments, an otherworldly lecture room conceived by Rafael de Cardenas and realized by local artisans whose names were prominently on display along with the designer’s. “This show came together in 8 months which is lighting fast for museums,” Adamson said of the exhibition, which includes works by 100 artists, from up-and-comers like Misha Kahn and Shayne Oliver to local legends like Marilyn Minter and Yoko Ono. “I think you’ll feel the electricity.” See our highlights here.
Three iterations of Paula Hayes’s Giant Terrarium, 2008-2009.
The succulent lined stairs of Rafael de Cardenas’s Stepin One 2 look almost aquatic thanks to optical illusion created by a wash of purple and blue lighting.
Based in Brooklyn, Boxart makes fine art crates that have become an industry standard for protecting and moving high value works.
Using verre églomisé, a hand-gilding technique pioneered in pre-Roman times, Miriam Ellner creates collages of precious materials on glass.
Although it looks like a piece of Memphis design, Francois Chamard’s colorful creation is actually a functional theremin, an electronic musical instrument from the late 1920s that is not controlled by human touch.
