A Mad Autumn
Located at 2 Columbus Circle, the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in New York has been dedicated to celebrating contemporary art, craft, and design since its founding in 1956. MAD’s diverse collection includes ceramics, textiles, jewelry, and innovative contemporary art forms, offering visitors a captivating exploration of the intersection between art and functional design. With a commitment to pushing boundaries and fostering creativity, the museum hosts exhibitions that challenge traditional notions of art and craft.
The Museum of Arts and Design at 2 Columbus Circle. (Courtesy of Museum of Arts and Design)
This fall, MAD is debuting the works of Canadian visual artist Shary Boyle. On view through February 25, 2024, Shary Boyle: Outside the Palace of Me explores the forces that create our inner and outer selves, both individual and collective. The multisensory solo exhibition of new works by the artist includes exquisitely sculpted ceramics, life-sized automatons, two-way mirrors, a coin-operated sculpture, and an interactive soundtrack. Each work in the exhibition is a testament to slow, skilled, passionate handcraft. “Building on MAD’s commitment to challenging expectations, Outside the Palace of Me transcends the passivity of the museum experience in the most ingenious and intimate ways. Casting the visitor as the protagonist interacting with and activating the works on view, the exhibition asks us to consider how we come to perform different roles in society influenced by how we see ourselves and others,” said Tim Rodgers, MAD’s Nanette L. Laitman Director. Wall paintings and works on paper add a supporting cast of complicated narrators to Boyle’s deeply imaginative, idiosyncratic, and unsettling realm. The second floor of the exhibition surveys the artist’s abiding interest in forms of theatre and performance perceived as amateur or antiquated that, through Boyle’s exceptional handcraft, become potent forms of image-making. “Shary Boyle has been galvanized by the global turmoil over the last decade to create extraordinary works of art, ambitious in their breadth of scope and the depth of discourse concerning the essential challenges facing our society, such as racism, misogyny, and environmental destruction,” said Elissa Auther, MAD’s Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and William and Lasdon Chief Curator. “Boyle sees the artist as a risk-taker and wants her art to start conversations, ask questions with no right answers, and change thought. To achieve this, she has called on all her powers as a multimedia artist and enlisted a team of collaborators to create a deceptively nostalgic space for play—and provocation. Her work addresses heavy histories but is also hopeful about our ability to creatively reimagine and collectively enact a better future,” Auther added.
“Judy” by Shary Boyle, 2021. (Photo by John Jones)
Another popular exhibition on display through March 24, 2024 is Taylor Swift: Storyteller, a career-spanning look at the artistic reinventions of the 12-time Grammy Award–winning artist. Swift’s emotional songwriting is the catalyst for the captivating worlds she brings to life on stage and screen through exquisitely crafted costumes, inventive stage design, and imaginative iconography. Whether dressed down in a flannel shirt and untamed hair or literally dazzling her audiences in head-to-toe Swarovski crystals, Swift gives greater meaning to the palettes, textures, and depths of feeling expressed in her songwriting. Concert attire by couture fashion houses are featured in Storyteller, along with props, jewelry, ephemera, and projections of music videos. Highlights include the cheerleader and ballerina ensembles from the award-winning music video for “Shake It Off” (2014), and the sparkling ensemble from “Bejeweled” (2022), directed by Taylor Swift.
Installation view of Taylor Swift: Story Teller.
(Photo by Bruce M. White)