MAD Museum

Our required visit to the MAD museum was very inspirational. I started from the 2nd floor up and worked my way up to the 5th floor. The 2nd floor was very interesting, my first impression was that it was very colorful. Some of the pieces were very conceptual and at the same time could be functional (such as bowls etc.) My favorite one from that floor was a bright, orange glowing "Cityscape Bowl" by Jay Musler. The color was so bright and orange it seemed like it was glowing from some intense heat. There was a jewelry exhibit was unlike any jewelry I had ever seen - the ones I were most drawn to were the pieces that were created from non-typical material such as "Kitchen Necklace" by Gesine Hakenburg and the Newspaper covered ball necklace byRobert W. Ebendorf.

The 3rd Floor had alot of objects that combined materials in unexpected ways. My favorite piece was "Pike Pod" Fran Reed (Which was a bowl that looked like a puffed up blow fish). The fourth and fifth floor was an exhibit called "Second Live - Remixing the Ordinary" The exhibit used pre-existing/everyday items to create a larger form. Each piece had some sort of social commentary - addressing issues that exist in the current day.

Yuken Teruya "Ten Cut Paper Bags" was the most fascinating. He used high end brand paper/shopping bags and cut a pattern out to create a extremely intricate and small 3 dimensional tree. His idea was to bring the trees used to create the bag back to their original shape.

Another stunning piece was Fred Wilson's "Love and Loss in the Milky way". The way the artist used sculptures, broken/unbroken, cups and dishes to create a narrative by positioning them in a unique way was something I had never considered. Donna Marcus' "Dodecahedron i, x" reminded me of Alexa and my project - using units to create geometric spaces.
The overall exhibit opened my eyes to how designers don't have to use typical material in art stores to create a new object. I hope I will be able to incorporate this idea of using items in our upcoming assignments.