Playing Judge

I'm back again, this time with some thoughts on an article in the New York Times. The American Craft Museum in New York just relocated and subsequently changed its name to the Museum of Art and Design and the Times is giving its opening exhibition and attempt to revamp its image of craft mixed reviews.


I have to agree.

The new name alone gives me mixed thoughts. Maybe it's simply the fact that it's so similar to the name of the art school I graduated from "U of M School of Art and Design" that frustrates me, but I think it might be something a bit deeper. This is supposed to be a museum, a well established foundation; a place filled with thought provoking and inspirational art work, and the title is a bit...bland. I'm not inspired. Heck, I'm not even really interested. If you're going to go through the trouble of changing your name to catch some new attention, you should be a bit more creative. Sure, you've got a cute acronym now: MAD, but I don't think that's enough these days. There are so many museums and galleries out there that already have a similar title. If you're going to change it, you'd better have something creative to change it to, otherwise, don't bother.

Name aside, I also agree with the Times' thoughts on the contents of the show. Granted I haven't been, and I'm basing my thoughts on a few images and descriptions, but I'm feeling rather hot and cold. Looking at the museum's website, the past exhibitions show some stuff that I don't find worthy of distinction. You could come back by saying "Who are you to judge", but as far as I'm concerned, everyone is, and should be, an art critic to a certain extent. Why else would you create work and display it in such a prominent location if you didn't want others to see it and respond?

Now I feel guilty. I've been ranting and criticizing when I was rather inspired by one of the exhibitions they had: "Second Lives." It resonates with a lot of my tendencies toward using found objects.

Again, the Times brought up some good criticism about some of the pieces: "Are you really giving the objects you’re using a second life, or just enabling them to last longer and take up more space?" Good question. Maybe some of the intentions were to get viewers to think about just that. And maybe that's enough of a reason to keep them from falling into the category of "just taking up space." The question even got me thinking about my own work (a sign of a good critique), and I'm really glad it did.
Food for thought I suppose.

All criticisms aside, I found some of the pieces really beautiful. Here are some photos. I'll let you judge for yourself.




Michael, this one with the transformed LPs taking flight as butterflies made me think of your flying bread installation - which I don't think was just taking up space :)