September 25th, 2008
It was such perfect timing that I was in NYC for the opening of the new MAD, the Museum of Art and Design. The little museum that was near MOMA has grown up beautifully and still maintains the most inspiring and intimate exhibits. The new location is at 2 Columbus Circle, New York, NY. The grand opening to the public is on Saturday 27th, 2008; the pre-opening I attended was for members only.
This new location is complete except for the ninth floor, which will be a restaurant that overlooks Central Park. How spectacular! I can’t wait to go eat there when it opens in 2009. The sixth floor is open to the public as artists’ studios, and will eventually take the entire floor. This time there was only one room that housed three artists. One of them was Erica Rosenfeld, the jewelry maker who makes her jewelry from glass. She kindly explained to me how she makes all the little glass chips and how she composes them together as jewelry pieces. It’s a very interesting and inspiring technique to see. Thanks again, Erica.
The 4th and 5th floor comprise the exhibit “Second Lives,” subtitled “Re-mixing the Ordinary”. This is beyond the normal junk art (of course, since it gets into the MAD). There is a wooden bench fully covered with several thousand of spike nails, and EACH nail has been hammered into a carved wooden bench, with the top half of each spike BENT 90 degrees, then either cut length-wise on the top half or ground down and then polished—EVERY nail! This piece was called “0121-1110 = 106062”, by Jae-Hyo Lee.
If that doesn’t sound interesting enough, there is another piece by Devorah Sperber called “After Mona Lisa”. The artist used 5084 spools of thread in various colors, strung like pixel art through several stainless steel ball-chains to create a tapestry. Then, viewed through a clear acrylic sphere set on a stand about 5 feet away from the piece, the pixel art turns in to a picture of the Mona Lisa with an arm holding a camera in front of her face. Like the pixel art alone doesn’t draw attention enough!
I don’t know how long it takes to make these art pieces, but I wanted to spend a day there just to appreciate them. There is a big art piece made from liquor bottle caps. I’m not talking about 3’x3’ here. It covers the entire wall, about 18’x10’. If you are not a bartender or a professional alcoholic please, do not try this at home. Unfortunately I didn’t write down the name of the artist. These are some of the other art pieces: a suit of armor made from 3000 military dog tags, cut paper bags by Yuken Teruya, a giant abacus made of melamine dishware by Thomas Grassford (This one I hope someone will eventually adjust the abacus so it displays a real number), and so many more.
My complaint is the new “no photography or video” policy, making me miss the old, small and dark former MAD on 53rd street where you could take photographs to your heart’s content. It’s so difficult to remember the overload of information and inspiration in the mind’s eye and journal only. Sadly, these exhibits might not be there to be seen the next time I visit the museum and I will have no photographs of them. I just don’t understand this policy. The pictures will tell more stories and will bring more people to the museum also would not destroy the art pieces if a flash hasn’t been used.
To add to the great disappointment, the guards, which appear to be 3-4 on each floor (It used to be only one guard or less on each floor at the old MAD, who were always helpful) who watch you like hawk. (So I couldn’t sneak a picture!) And if you pull out your cell phone either to check your e-mail or take down some notes they will be right by your side and not even observe what you are really doing with your cell phone, jumping the gun and treating you like an elementary school kid, tell you NOT to take photographs. How annoying! I’ve found it to be tremendously disturbing and disrespectful.
The third floor is the permanent collection of design icons and the second floor, where I will visit often from now on, is the nation’s first contemporary jewelry gallery.
The small jewelry gallery (not as big as I want it to be) houses thousand of modern and contemporary jewelry pieces in glass cases displayed along all three walls and in the drawers below the glass display on the left wall. I have another complaint about the display of the jewelry in the drawers, though. It’s not as exposed and therefore many museum attendees just simply missed them. And when a drawer is pulled out it obstructs other viewers who want to see the pieces in the displays above. This hall was curated by Tiffany and Co. Would Harry Winston, Bulgari or some other jeweler please become a contributor so the museum can expand this section in the future?
Since photography was prohibited, I’m failing to show you the amazing jewelry pieces I saw. There are pieces by Gretchen Raber, Margaret De Patta, 1903-1964, a seminal figure in the American Modernist Jewelry movement, Robert W Ebendorf, the author of “1000 Rings”, David Webb, Janna Syvanoja, recycled paper jewelry maker, Arline M Fisch, The author of “Textile Techniques in Metal”, Gesine Hackenberg. You can see some samples at the museum site
I will go back to the Museum again in November and will give more details on the Jewelry Gallery later. I hope that in the meantime the museum board comes to their senses and allows photography in the museum again.
The MAD Store, located on the first floor, also carries many interesting modern jewelry pieces.
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