Stoel neemt stelling (2023-24) | Centraalmuseum, Utrecht
Curators: Joost van Bleiswijk & Natalie Dubois. Joost has designed and co-curated the exhibition ‘Statement Chairs’ at the Centraal Museum Utrecht. In ‘Statement Chairs,’ unexpected stories about the chair, its maker, and its user are narrated and visually supported by some striking decors that Joost has created specifically for this occasion.
In collaboration with curator Natalie Dubois, Joost aimed to captivate viewers with not only the familiar and anticipated but also with designs and artworks that may not be as widely recognized. The exhibition features contributions from renowned artists like Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Victor Sonna, and, of course, Kiki, as well as emerging designers and makers from the younger generation.
The F*word Guerrilla Girls and Feminist Graphic Design (2023)|Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
Artists: Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, Cyan, Anke Feuchtenberger, April Greiman, Grete Gross, Guerrilla Girls, Henriette Hahn-Brinckmann, Anja Kaiser, Valentina Kulagina, Lora Lamm, Elena Luksch- Makowsky, Gabriel .A. Maher, Ethel Reed, Nelly Rudin, Paula Scher, Spring Kollektiv, Warwara Stepanowa, Rebecca Stephany, The Rodina, Andrea Tinnes, Rosmarie Tissi, Annik and Paula Troxler, and many others
Curator: Dr. Julia Meer
Victor Papanek: The Politics of Design (2019-22) | Vitra Design Museum
International travelling exhibition in collaboration with Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany
The exhibition is supplemented with around twenty carefully selected contemporary works that transport Papanek’s ideas into the twenty-first century by designers including Catherine Sarah Young, Forensic Architecture, Jim Chuchu, Tomás Saraceno, Gabriel A. Maher, or the Brazilian collective Flui Coletivo and Questtonó. They, too, deal with complex themes such as global climate change, fluid gender identities, consumer behaviour, or the economic realities of migration, meaning they reflect the continuing resonance of the questions Papanek was already addressing in the 1960s. At the same time, they break out of the white, Western, and male-dominated world to which Papanek was bound despite all his efforts to the contrary.
Venues
Design Museum Den Bosch, The Netherlands
17 Oct 2020–23 March 2021
C-Mine, Genk, Belgium
10 March 2020–12 July 2020
Design Museum Barcelona, Spain
31 Oct 2019–2 Feb 2020
Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany
29 Sept 2018–10 March 2019
Desire Paths | Center for Craft (2022) North Carolina, USA
Artists: Indira Allegra, Ben Gould, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Gabriel Maher, Mark Newport, Virgil Ortiz, Piki Toi Collective, Tiffany Parbs, Rebel Nell
Curators: Lauren Kalman and Matt Lambert
Pathmakers: Women in Art Craft & Design Mid Century to Today, exhibiting ‘De_sign’, Museum of Art & Design (MAD), New York (2015)
Pathmakers: Women in Art, Craft and Design, Midcentury and Today considers the important contributions of women to modernism in postwar visual culture. In the 1950s and 60s, an era when painting, sculpture, and architecture were dominated by men, women had considerable impact in alternative materials such as textiles, ceramics, and metals. Largely unexamined in major art historical surveys, either due to their gender or choice of materials, these pioneering women achieved success and international recognition, establishing a model of professional identity for future generations of women.
Featuring more than 100 works, Pathmakers focuses on a core 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 had impact and influence 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.
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.
The legacy of these women is conveyed through a section of the exhibition that presents works by contemporary female artists and designers that reflect and expand upon the work of the earlier generation. International and United States-based artists and designers featured in this section include Polly Apfelbaum, Vivian Beer, Front Design, Christine McHorse, Michelle Grabner, Hella Jongerius, Gabriel A. Maher, Magdalene Odundo, and Anne Wilson.