Museum of Arts and Design presents Against the Grain. Wood in Contemporary Art, Craft and Design an exhibition on view March 19 – September 15, 2013.
Featuring nearly 90 installations, sculptures, furniture, and vessels, Against the Grain: Wood in Contemporary Art, Craft and Design explores the latest conceptual and technical trends in woodworking today. The exhibition, which focuses on works created since 2000, examines the ways in which artists, craftspeople and designers have incorporated modernist approaches and strategies into woodworking, including the deconstruction of vessel forms, interplay between function and form, and co-opting of woodturning and furniture techniques into sculpture.
Loosely organized around the themes of mimicry, assemblage, virtuosity and whimsy with a purpose, Against the Grain includes works by sculptors Ursula von Rydingsvard, Courtney Smith, Betye Saar, Laurel Roth, Marc Andre Robinson and William Pope.L; installation artists Gary Carsley, Sarah Oppenheimer and Alison Elizabeth Taylor; designers Maarten Baas, Sebastian Errazuriz, Elisa Strozyk and Piet Hein Eek; and studio wood artists Bud Latven, Andrew Early, Thomas Loeser and Hunt Clark.
Against the Grain is organized by Lowery Stokes Sims, Charles Bronfman International Curator and Elizabeth Edwards Kirrane, Assistant Curator and Exhibition Project Manager.
The accompanying 160-page catalogue includes essays by Sims on the conceptual framework of the exhibition; by Kirrane who chronicles how history, environmental issues and politics have predicated the use of various woods; and by Suzanne Ramljak, editor and noted expert on craft, who examines the enduring preoccupation with wood in human cultures.
Against the Grain: Wood in Contemporary Art, Craft and Design is made possible through the support of the Windgate Charitable Foundation and, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional support from Larry and Madeline Mohr. www.madmuseum.org