“Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary”
By: Sarah Blumberg
First, let me first confess that I have always had a soft spot for the Museum of Arts & Design. Yes, I am biased. It’s a bias rooted in a history of attending craft schools, cavorting and collaborating with artists and crafters, and a graduate degree for which I, naturally, made my focus craft and design history. So if ever there was a museum that I could feel at home in, MAD is it. While I have not always loved their exhibitions, I do love the collection, their new fancy home at
It is this idea of innovation, of taking something ordinary and making sure that the viewer never looks at it the same way again, that the exhibit “Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary,” on display now at MAD, excels. This is not to say that things don’t occasionally go amiss. While there is much in the exhibit that exemplifies a genuinely unique and interesting use of materials to create new works of art, there are also the pieces that come off as gimmicky, that make you pause and think “that’s pretty cool” before quickly moving on to the next cool thing. But there are also the pieces that combine the unique with the merely contrived, often very successfully.
One of my favorite works from this exhibit, one that combines the clever with the cohesive in a meaningful way, is Yuken Teruya’s 2006 Untitled. Created from a set of ten diversely-colored paper shopping bags, this piece can be viewed either as one entity or as the ten individual works that comprise it. Each bag has the image of a tree cut out from its side, with this cutting done so that the positive image of the tree appears to have grown from the wall of the bag, and so that the subsequent negative space created casts shadows on both the interior of the bag and on the tree itself. This is a successful piece because it draws the viewer in by creating a sense of wonder – the first image the visitor sees is that of the ten bags side-by-side on the wall – and becomes even more interesting upon further examination by playing on the viewer’s notions about consumerism and nature.
There’s an array of different types of work represented in “Second Lives”, from Tejo Remy’s 1991 Droog classic “You Can’t Lay Down Your Memory” Chest of Drawers, which plays with the idea of repurposing, to more current works, such as El Anatsui’s 2008 piece Skylines?, which presents a large metal tapestry made out of liquor bottles that recalls the textile traditions of Africa through a literal refashioning of Nigeria’s liquor industry. It is this type of variety and innovative use of materials that “Second Lives” does best.
In addition, while I thought that the exhibit lacked a sense of cohesion, with no real categorization of the works outside of the broad theme of the show, there was a lot of interesting information being offered. I was particularly impressed with the touch-screen panels that provide footage of artist interviews. I’ve seen these screens both in other galleries throughout MAD and in other museums to both a greater and lesser degree of success. Not only were the ones in this exhibit being utilized by visitors, but I had to wait a while to get a chance to look at them myself, and the interviews and commentary offered were surprisingly enlightening.
"Second Lives" is one of the better shows I've been to lately at MAD. In general, I've been fairly disappointed by some of their recent exhibitions, but I really enjoyed the time I spent at this one. Go to "Second Lives" if you want to see innovative examples of craft and design that are at once beautiful, thoughtful, often a little too recherché, but always sincere.
“Second-Lives: Remixing the Ordinary” runs from now until April 19, 2009.
The Museum of Arts & Design is loacted at 2 Columbus Circle.
Take the A, B, C, D or 1 trains to
Museum hours: are W-Sun, 11-6 and Thurs 11-9 (Thursday from 6-9 are pay-what-you-wish).
Museum website: www.madmuseum.org
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