Press Room

New York, NY (October 13, 2020)

The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) presents Beth Lipman: Collective Elegy, from September 25 to August 15, 2021, a major midcareer survey that assesses the remarkable achievements of the renowned contemporary artist. From sumptuous displays of excess, including provocative installations comprising hundreds of individual glass elements, to poetic and contemplative works in glass, metal, clay, video, and photography, the works on view are ethereal meditations on time and mortality and simultaneously sobering indictments of our contemporary consumer culture and its impact on the planet.

“For more than twenty years, Beth has built on the still-life tradition, illustrating the ability of objects to signify wealth, class, and identity. She further critiques Western society’s capitalist values and the environmental consequences of unfettered consumption,” said Samantha De Tillio, MAD’s curator of collections. “A new project, House Album, investigates the subjectivity of history and the necessity of including a wider range of voices in its telling; a topic of particular importance in 2020.”

Lipman’s monumental Laid (Time-) Table with Cycads forms the centerpiece of the exhibition. Melding landscape and tablescape through representations of prehistoric plant life bursting forth through a table laden with goblets, bowls of fruit, books, textiles, and other cultural markers, the work evokes the interdependence and tension between humanity and the natural world.  

"Collective Elegy represents a decade of investigation centering the human condition, demarcating the present moment in deep time,” said Lipman. “In this sense, the work examines aspects of material culture and history through still lifes, site-specific installations, and photographs.”

Accompanying the exhibition is an 88-page catalog, published by the Museum and Lucia | Marquand, featuring full-color plates of Lipman’s artworks, to be released in early 2021. Public programs and workshops to be scheduled during the run of the exhibition will illuminate the exhibition’s content and themes further and will encourage participants to explore and consider the materiality of glass.

Opening in conjunction with Collective Elegy, New York City’s Nohra Haime Gallery will present EVERY LAST THING, the first solo exhibition of Lipman’s work at the gallery, from November 5 to January 16, 2021.

EXHIBITION CREDITS

Beth Lipman: Collective Elegy is curated by MAD’s curator of collections, Samantha De Tillio.

Generous support for Beth Lipman: Collective Elegy provided by Marian and Russell Burke, Victoria F. Morris, Sharon Karmazin, Alturas Foundation, Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass, and Kohler Foundation.

This exhibition is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

ABOUT BETH LIPMAN

Born in Philadelphia, Beth Lipman is a multidisciplinary sculptor living and working in Wisconsin. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Tyler School of Art, Temple University in 1994. Lipman has received numerous awards including the USA Berman Bloch Fellowship, Pollock Krasner Grant, and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant and was recently inducted into the American Craft Council’s College of Fellows. Lipman’s work has been widely exhibited at institutions such as Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, FL; ICA/MECA, Portland, ME; RISD Museum, Providence, RI; Milwaukee Art Museum, WI and Gustavsbergs Konsthall, Gustavsberg, Sweden. Lipman’s work is in the collection of over 30 museums, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC; Des Moines Art Center, IA; Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY; Kemper Museum for Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO; and the Jewish Museum, New York, NY.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM OF ARTS AND DESIGN

The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) champions contemporary makers across creative fields and presents the work of artists, designers, and artisans who apply the highest level of ingenuity and skill. Since the Museum’s founding in 1956 by philanthropist and visionary Aileen Osborn Webb, MAD has celebrated all facets of making and the creative processes by which materials are transformed, from traditional techniques to cutting-edge technologies. Today, the Museum’s curatorial program builds upon a rich history of exhibitions that emphasize a cross-disciplinary approach to art and design, and reveals the workmanship behind the objects and environments that shape our everyday lives. MAD provides an international platform for practitioners who are influencing the direction of cultural production and driving twenty-first-century innovation, and fosters a participatory setting for visitors to have direct encounters with skilled making and compelling works of art and design. For more information, visit madmuseum.org.

For high-resolution images, visit our press image archive: http://press.madmuseum.org

User ID: mad
Password: media
Folder: Beth Lipman

#BethLipman @MADmuseum