Featuring more than 70 works of furniture, textiles, sculpture, jewelry, ceramics and other media, the Re: Collection exhibition celebrates the Museum of Arts and Design's (MAD) five years at the Columbus Circle location as well as Chief Curator Emeritus David McFadden's 16 years with the museum.
Through objects acquired during McFadden’s tenure, MAD’s permanent collection has grown from 800 to more than 3,000 objects, approximately 730 of which have been added in the last five years. Re: Collection will feature some of the most emblematic of these acquisitions and will highlight the collection's diversity of materials and techniques, and of the makers as well, while revealing the multiple narratives at play behind each object.
David McFadden
“David's curatorial vision has not only been defining for MAD over the last 16 years, but also groundbreaking in establishing process and materials as wellsprings for creativity across the arts,” said Glenn Adamson, MAD's Nanette L. Laitman Director. “Re: Collection will highlight his positive impact on the Museum's collection and acquisitions, and provide an opportunity for the greater public to engage with his singular vision.”
Organized around several thematic threads, Re: Collection will examine McFadden's curatorial methodology through personal recollections drawn from the permanent collection, and showcase acquisitions that embrace both MAD's founding focus and McFadden's farseeing vision of contemporary craftsmanship.
“Today, the MAD collection is international in scope and significance,” said McFadden. “I hope that this selection of works acquired from 1997 to today will engage people on many levels, revealing how and of what they were made, why there were made, and who was the individual who created them. These works are personally very meaningful for me, and I trust that our visitors will share my enthusiasm for them.”
Highlights from the exhibition include the following works:
Vika Mitrichenka's Teaset “Victoria” no. 12 (2008) is a poignant and humorous commemoration of Mitrichenka's elderly grandmother, who lovingly repaired (often incorrectly) pieces of her prized family china.
Terese Agnew's Portrait of a Textile Worker (2005), sewn together out tens of thousands of donated designer labels, calls attention to the factory garment worker in Bangladesh, and underscores the process of creating while highlighting systems of production and the relationship between people and their “built” environment.
Jennifer Trask's exuberant Intrinsecus (2010), a large-scale installation that evokes a seventeenth-century “vanitas” still life, symbolizes the transistoriness of all life. Trask has created baroque flowers and foliage using natural materials that range from bison teeth and deer skulls to antler and cobra ribs.
Re: Collection will be on view through September 7.
