"Pathmakers" at MAD celebrates lasting legacy of women in postwar design, art, and craft
By Bustler Editors|
Friday, Apr 24, 2015
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The "Pathmakers: Women in Art, Craft, and Design, Midcentury and Today" exhibition at New York's Museum of Arts and Design highlights creative women and their contributions to modernism in midcentury visual culture -- and whose legacy fights on in today's cultural fabric.
Opening on April 28, "Pathmakers" will feature more than 100 works of midcentury icons like Ruth Asawa, Sheila Hicks, and Eva Zeisel as well as contemporary artists and designers including Hella Jongerius, Michelle Grabner and Polly Apfelbaum.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of educational and public programs, as well as a special issue of the Journal of Modern Craft (to published in July 2015).
Find out more below.
"In the 1950s and ’60s, an era when painting, sculpture and architecture were dominated by men, women had extensive impact in alternative materials such as textiles, ceramics and metals. Largely unexamined in major art historical surveys, due to either their gender or their choice of materials, these pioneering women achieved success and international recognition, establishing a model of professional identity for future generations."
"Featuring more than 100 works, Pathmakers focuses on a cadre of women — including Ruth Asawa, Edith Heath, Sheila Hicks, Karen Karnes, Dorothy Liebes, Alice Kagawa Parrott, Toshiko Takaezu, Lenore Tawney and Eva Zeisel — who were influential as designers, artists and teachers, using materials such as clay, fiber and metals in innovative ways. Significantly, the group came to maturity along with the Museum of Arts and Design itself, which was founded in 1956 as the center of the emerging American modern craft movement."
"'Pathmakers places women at the center of the midcentury modernist narrative, and makes a powerful case for the importance of craft and design media as professional pathways,' stated Glenn Adamson, MAD’s Nanette L. Laitman Director."
'Founded by a woman and with half of its collection representing works by female artists, MAD continues to champion the inclusion of women in the narrative of art and design history, along with other groups that have traditionally been marginalized.'"
"The exhibition also highlights contributions of European émigrés, including Anni Albers and Maija Grotell, who brought with them a conviction that craft could serve as a pathway to modernist innovation.
"Parallels between women creating work in Scandinavia and the United States are emphasized by the inclusion of important Scandinavian designers such as Rut Bryk, Vuokko Nurmesniemi and Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe. 'We aim to expand the historical view of the postwar period, to showcase important artists and designers, and to introduce names that have been overlooked,' said exhibition curator Jennifer Scanlan."
"The legacy of the midcentury women is conveyed through a section of the exhibition that presents w orks by contemporary female artists and designers that reflect and expand upon the work of the earlier generation. International and US-based artists and designers featured in this section include Polly Apfelbaum, Vivian Beer, Front Design, Christine McHor se, Michelle Grabner, Hella Jongerius, Gabriel A. Maher, Magdalene Odundo and Anne Wilson."
More info here.
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