Museum Of Arts and Design Announces 2023 Exhibition Schedule, Spotlighting Ceramic Works and Material Innovation

The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) is pleased to announce its 2023 exhibition schedule. Presenting the New York debut of visual artist and performer Shary Boyle and the first major museum survey of humor and irreverence in modern and contemporary clay sculpture, MAD's 2023 exhibitions foreground material innovation in contemporary art and contextualize these advancements with compelling explorations of historical achievements of craft's pioneers.

"In 2023, we are particularly excited to open our multiyear installation of MAD's permanent collection, which will be a rotating display of historic works and contemporary acquisitions," said Nanette L. Laitman Director Tim Rodgers. "Fulfilling the Museum's important goal of broadening public access to its rich and eclectic holdings, Craft Front & Center will showcase our growing collection of over 3,400 objects and speak to the core of our mission to advocate for the value of the handmade."

"In true MAD fashion, our 2023 exhibition program will engage audiences in the mutable boundaries of art and design through dynamic encounters with creators who are challenging received wisdoms," said Elissa Auther, Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator. "With the opening of Craft Front & Center and Generation Paper: Fashion of the 1960s, we will examine how material innovation has advanced creative expression in both art and commerce. Funk You Too! Humor and Irreverence in Ceramic Sculpture will highlight a new generation of makers who are shaping the discourse surrounding ceramic sculpture and finally, our major exhibition for fall, Shary Boyle: Outside the Palace of Me, places the visitor at the center of an enthralling multisensory, immersive experience for reflections on contemporary constructions of the self."

2023 EXHIBITIONS

Craft Front & Center
Opening February 4

A multiyear, rotating installation of historic works and new acquisitions from the Museum's permanent collection, Craft Front & Center highlights the significance of craft from the golden age of the American Craft Movement to the present day. Global in scope and democratic in spirit, the exhibition brings together a broad and diverse sampling of objects addressing craft and design histories; medium-specific techniques and traditions; craft and design as vehicles for the exploration of racial, gender, and sexual identities; and ways in which craftsmanship, art, and design intersect in the visual arts today.

Generation Paper: Fashion of the 1960s
March 18-August 27, 2023

Generation Paper: Fashion of the 1960s explores the era's short-lived phenomenon of paper fashion through more than 80 rare garments, accessories, and textiles crafted from disposable materials. Introduced in 1966 as a marketing scheme by the Scott Paper Company, these fashions combined bold, graphic design with space-age innovations in non-woven textiles. Surfacing a little-known chapter in the history of design, Generation Paper illuminates the creative partnership of craft and commerce in the development of semi-synthetic and synthetic materials.

Funk You Too! Humor and Irreverence in Ceramic Sculpture
March 18-August 27, 2023

Funk You Too! Humor and Irreverence in Ceramic Sculpture brings together over 65 sculptures from the 1960s to the present day in which clay is used as a tool of critique and satire. In the exhibition, works by the original Funk Art generation will be placed next to contemporary sculpture by artists who are drawing from Funk Art's legacy of humor, subversion, and expressive figuration to address political, social, and aesthetic concerns.

Shary Boyle: Outside the Palace of Me
September 23, 2023-February 25, 2024

The New York debut for the Canadian visual artist and performer, Shary Boyle: Outside the Palace of Me reimagines the museum as a collective performance space-strange, subversive, and politically charged. Blurring the line between observer and observed, the multisensory, interactive installation encompasses recent paintings, animations, ceramic sculpture, life-sized automatons, two-way mirrors, and coin-operated sculpture, all set to an interactive score. Reversing the frame on her uncanny characters and their destabilized audience, Boyle urges viewers to think critically about how they create both themselves and the world they inhabit.

For more information about current and upcoming exhibitions, visit madmuseum.org.