MAD | Museum of Arts and Design

In conceiving the collaborative eight-year Holocaust Project: From Darkness into Light (1985-1993), Judy Chicago and her husband photographer Donald Woodman visited the geographic sites of the Shoah to examine their own Jewish heritage, as well as to explore, in the most extreme sense, themes of oppression and evil that have been recurring subjects in Chicago’s work. The four and a half feet high by eighteen feet wide tapestry, The Fall (1993), is the largest piece that Chica...go created for the Holocaust Project and was woven by Audrey Cowan. Charting a history of violent oppression, the tapestry not only depicts the Holocaust, but also references the exploitation and domination of the earth, the burning of witches, the subjugation of laborers, and the crucifixion of Christ. Chicago has used both the grand narrative tradition of tapestry and its incorporation of mythology and history, to send a message with epic force. Cowan, like the weavers of the Middle Ages, has used her skills to render these stories clearly and to devastating, yet beautiful effect. In this project, however, the narrative and grandeur of the tapestry do not serve to reinforce existing power structures. Instead, The Fall challenges these power structures, forcing us to confront their negative consequences at a scale that cannot be ignored. Excerpted from the exhibition publication, Judy Chicago Tapestries: Woven by Audrey Cowan. Judy Chicago (United States, b. 1939), Audrey Cowan (United States, 1931-2017), The Fall (from the Holocaust Project), 1993. Modified Aubusson tapestry. Museum of Arts and Design, New York; gift of The Robert and Audrey Cowan Family Trust, 2012 #HolocaustRemembranceDay

Register now for a free online lecture delivered by artist Sheila Pepe Wednesday evening January 26, at 6 pm. Titled Upon an Old Pile of Bones in reference to the artist's recent research and richly illustrated with images of architecture, artifacts, and reliquaries, Pepe looks to our present political moment and reminds us of the historical bones beneath our feet. #TabernaclesMAD #sheilapepe... https://madmuseum.org/events/upon-pile-old-bones

"There’s a real human truth that these artists want to communicate using jewelry," says the exhibition's curator. The New York Times visits 45 Stories in Jewelry: 1947 to Now. #45Stories #artjewelry

...My work is not postmodern in the sense that I am not making any statementssocial, political, conceptual, or even intellectual. There is no meaning or metaphor. I am committed more to the idea of pure beauty. When it is finished, the piece should be like an ornament, exquisitely beautiful. -Ralph Bacerra Born on this day in 1938, ceramicist and MAD Collection artist Ralph Bacerra was known for his complex forms, geometric shapes, and rich colors. Inspired by traditional... non-western techniques and 20th studio craft, Bacerra created an intricate and unique style of his very own. The artist was also one of the first potters to revitalize the decorative surface, often incorporating enamels and luster glazes. _______ Ralph Bacerra Orange Form, 1968. Medium: Earthenware, metallic (chrome, lead) overglaze; wheel-thrown

As we near the close of the exhibition Carrie Moyer and Sheila Pepe: Tabernacles for Trying Times on February 6, we invite you to join Sheila Pepe next Wednesday, January 26, from 6 7 pm ET for an online lecture in which she questions how the concept of origin has shaped her work, identity, and world view. Built around the artist’s current project to visit collections and archeological sites on the Italian peninsula to find her ancestors’ bones, this richly illustrated le...cture weaves imagery of architecture, artifacts, and reliquaries into a narrative of Pepe's quest for her family’s origin and her investigation of the history of Western civilization. The ideas presented by Pepe will be laid out as a Moebius strip, evidencing how history, art, and politics are intertwined. Tap the link below to register for this free program. https://madmuseum.org/events/upon-pile-old-bones ___________ Image: Pepe’s archival materials from her ongoing investigation into Mediterranean archeology, and the history of Catholic artifacts and iconography currently on view in Carrie Moyer and Sheila Pepe: Tabernacles for Trying Times. Photo: Jenna Bascom

MAD Museum mourns the passing of André Leon Talley, whose courage, determination, and brilliance was an inspiration to all. A year ago today, MAD welcomed Talley and Ford Foundation president Darren Walker for a discussion of Talley’s memoir, The Chiffon Trenches, in which the long-time friends spoke forthrightly on issues of race, representation, and power in the fashion world, a creative sector deeply shaped by hierarchies and boundaries designed to exclude. Talley elevated... fashion as an art form and championed style as a material expression of identity and agency, desire, and power. Walker, whose leadership on race, equity, and inclusion both within and outside of the art world is unparalleled, was the ideal interlocutor for the evening’s honest conversation and joyful celebration of Talley’s extraordinary life. A video of the evening’s conversation is available online. Link below. https://madmuseum.org/e/andre-leon-talley-and-darren-walker #andreleontally #yvessaintlaurent

Making your weekend plans? Add a visit to MAD to your itinerary! Book your timed tickets and explore over 100 works of stained glass, compositions in lead, and related drawings from aesthetic innovator Brian Clarke featured in Brian Clarke: The Art of Light. During your visit, screen the HENI Talks film, Brian Clarke: The Art of Light, which walks through Clarke’s life and his celebrated career, featuring commentary from collaborators and friends, including exhibition curato...r Paul Greenhalgh, Director, Sainsbury Centre, Dame Zaha Hadid, architect Sir Peter Cook, and June Osborne, DL, Bishop of Llandaff. Tickets: https://madmuseum.org/exhibition/brian-clarke-art-light HeniTalks is a non-profit initiative dedicated to sharing insights about art history from authorities in the field as part of a broader commitment to supporting art education and riding public access to art. Brian Clarke: The Art of Light is made possible by presenting sponsor #DAVIDYURMAN.

Join us this Saturday at 11 am ET for a SPOOKTACULAR workshop! #MADArtistsStudio artist Rhonda Weppler and artist Trevor Mahovsky will lead a crafting bee inspired by their series, Craft Abyss. Learn how to create a spooky paper viewfinder based on nineteenth-century folding paper dioramas, and share your own home craft designs ( finished or in progress). The artists will also discuss the paper jewelry pieces by artist Wendy Ramshaw, currently featured in our permanent col...lection exhibition, #45Stories in Jewelry: 1947 to Now. Weppler and Mahovsky evoked elements of DIY and ASMR videos to create the surreal and meditative world of Crafts Abyss, a video series that explores the fuzzy boundaries of the World Wide Web. Click the link below to sign up! https://madmuseum.org/events/spooky-peep-shows-crafts-abyss #MADArtistStudios

Innovative jewelry designer, Tone Vigeland, pushed Scandinavian design in new directions and challenged fashionable women during the 1960s and beyond to embrace new shapes materials in jewelry. One of the themes of Vigeland’s work in the 1980s was nails. Her friends were renovating an old house and gave Vigeland a handmade iron nail they had found, and she used it to create a piece that wound around the neck and ended in a diamond set in gold. After this, she began collecting... nails and pins in great quantity. She molded them into feather-like elements and mounted them on a metal construction or a silver mesh. Like the one above, her nail-inspired pieces fit the hard rock and punk aesthetic of the time. Following a show at Robert Lee Morris’ gallery Artwear in 1993, music artists, including Marianne Faithful, began wearing Vigeland’s work. See this piece and other work from Vigeland in 45 Stories in Jewelry: 1947 to Now, on view through January 24. _________ Tone Vigeland Bracelet, 1986 Silver

We're excited to partner with our friends, BOMB Magazine, tomorrow at 7:30 pm ET for an evening of conversation with Indira Allegra, winner of MAD's 2019 Burke Prize, and BOMB contributor and choreographer Mariana Valencia. Drawing inspiration from BOMB’s Room with a View series of virtual talks between artists and writers, this session will be the first live meeting between the two creatives. We will view performance clips, stills, and pieces of their process throughout the conversation. ________ Click the link below to get your tickets for this virtual talk. https://madmuseum.org//room-view-indira-allegra-and-marian

Tomorrow at 7 pm ET, 2017 MAD Artist-in-Residence Fabiola Jean-Louis will host the next Digital Drop-in: Paper Textiles. Join Jean-Louis as she demonstrates her process of making fabric from paper. The workshop is inspired by the paper garments Jean-Louis constructs for her conceptual photography, which examines the depiction of black and brown female bodies through history. MAD’s Digital Drop-ins are for participants of all ages, backgrounds, and skill levels. Following the ...demonstration, participants will have time to work independently on their projects and share with neighbors in the virtual class. Click the link below to register. https://madmuseum.org/events/digital-drop-paper-textiles ______ Fabiola Jean-Louis Madame Leroy Archival pigment print, unframed

#MADMonday Thank you so much to everyone who joined us for #MADBall2020! It was great to virtually connect with our supporters for our global celebration honoring #JudyChicago’s lifetime achievements, hosted by the fabulous Justin Vivian Bond with a memorable musical tribute from Rosanne Cash. We were fortunate that we could host several intimate and socially distanced gatherings from various locations around the country to celebrate the MAD community. Check a few pics above ...from the MAD Luminaries' fête! If you have not yet had the chance to donate to MAD, please consider doing so. Your support helps fund our education programs and helps us support artists and their futures. Click below to make your contribution today. https://thestore.madmuseum.org//mad-ball-general-contribut

#45Stories featured artist Kiff Slemmons was born on this day in 1944. The metalsmith primarily known for her work in jewelry and metal one wrote that her work uses ... tools, instruments & devices as indicators of function, and of function as an indicator of intent. Slemmons’ neckpiece Circumspect featured in the exhibition is an object that does what it is and is what it does. Made up of lenses and mirrors collected and categorized for a purpose that the collecting its...elf reveals, it is both an assessment tool and a record of the classification of useful and evocative things. Denying jewelry's role as something only to be looked at, the piece meets and counters the gaze- returning agency to those being seen. And it asks us to mimic what it promotes, the art of careful looking as a way of understanding. Book your timed ticket to explore 45 Stories in Jewelry: 1947 to Now. https://madmuseum.org/exhibition/45-stories-jewelry ______ Kiff Slemmons, Circumspect, 2003 Silver, brass, mirrors, lenses

For twenty years, artist Beth Lipman has explored mortality and temporality through iconography rooted in art history, particularly still-life painting and the decorative arts. Recently, curator of collections Samantha De Tillo reflected on the signs of rebirth in Lipman’s mournful remembrances. Margin for Error: Crib and Cradle doesn’t rely on symbols but instead speaks to the subject matter of death through the use of familiar household objects, a crib and cradle. By using... relatable furniture forms, Lipman asks us to contemplate the cycle of life from birth to death and the similar states of vulnerability and nakedness in which one enters and exits the world. The crib tilts downward, propelling its inhabitant toward childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age, at which point the cradle awaits occupation. Modeled after Shaker forms for rocking the ill or moribund, the cradle represents the inevitable mortality we all must face. The softness of the ethereal cast glass mirrors the sensitivity and care inherent in the act of rocking the dyingan action usually reserved for comforting infants, while the work simultaneously emphasizes the universality inherent in the journey to death. Read De Tillos’ full article, Beth Lipman's Memento Mori. https://madmuseum.org/views/beth-lipmans-memento-mori See the artist's work in Beth Lipman: Collective Elegy on view through April 4. ________ #BethLipman Margin for Error: Crib and Cradle, 2014, Glass, and adhesive Photo credit: John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art #MADMuseum

"Night Orchids, like most of my drawings, are imaginings of coloured architectural experiencessometimes I have a frontal view, sometimes from above, at an angle of about 30 degrees, and so onhuge walls of stained glass flickering with liquid colour, that sort of thing, a sort of harnessed euphoria. I think a lot of my drawings are scaled-down sketches of something architectural, about 1:25 or 1:50. It’s not always a conscious decision but it nearly always gets in there, eve...n if it’s only looking at the thing afterwards. Not always, of course, but architectural space and the sense of experiencing colour through volume in an imagined building or structure never seems far away." Brian Clarke See Clarke’s Night Orchids, now on view in Brian Clarke: The Art of Light. Book your timed tickets today: https://madmuseum.org/exhibition/brian-clarke-art-light____ _______ #BrianClarke Lead Night Orchids, 2015 Lead and stained glass on lead #MADMuseum

Tomorrow at 10 am ET, artist and educator Dionis Ortiz will lead our Digital Drop-in: Family Collages. Learn how to use recycled materials around the house to make a collage celebrating your loved ones. MAD’s Digital Drop-ins are for participants of all ages, backgrounds, and skill levels. https://madmuseum.org/events/digital-drop-family-collages

TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT! Everyone, everywhere, tune in to the #MADBall2020 virtual celebration at 6:30 pm ET. Join us as we celebrate the lifetime contributions of artist and feminist icon Judy Chicago. We are bringing the museum experience direct-to-you in an action-packed, livestreamed event hosted by Justin Bond, with a special musical tribute by singer/songwriter Rosanne Cash. Join the party for as little as $5 and help MAD remain home for artists and a center for craft. Ge...t your tickets now! https://madmuseum.org/support/mad-ball See more