CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 7/15/2014

NYC Makers: The 2014 MAD Biennial

"Cup" (2012), by Bushwick-based art/craft collective FPOAFM Studios, is reproduced from NYC Makers: The 2014 MAD Biennial, published to accompany the Museum of Arts and Design exhibition on view through October. In his foreword, MAD director Glenn Adamson writes, "We use the term 'making'—as opposed to other such closely related terms as craft, workmanship, and artisanry—because it emphasizes the active and open nature of our subject. Our exhibition does indeed traverse the full range of arts and design, as promised in our museum's name. The show includes objects both familiar (benches), highly unconventional (designer Theremins), and somewhere in between (scratch-and-sniff wallpaper). The sets of skills on display range from the very traditional (stone carving) to the brand new (3-D printing). Industrial processes, such as 'concrete fabric' normally used in laying irrigation ditches, and historical decorative techniques, such as verre églomisé, are both imaginatively repurposed with arresting aesthetic results. There are one hundred makers in our exhibition, one hundred distinct skills, and one hundred very different stories about the city. To capture this fascinating range of production, only a very broad term like 'making' will do."