OBJECTS: USA 2020
A Landmark Exhibition Reframing the History, Present, and Future of Handmade American Arts
Curated by Glenn Adamson, James Zemaitis, Abby Banger, and Evan Snyderman for R & Company, February 16th – September, 2021
Objects: USA 2020 surveys American handmade arts through a curated selection of 100 artists, including 50 of the most impactful contemporary makers working today and 50 historical artists, whose work viewed together is a testament to the diverse, pluralistic, and hybrid state of handmade objects in American culture today.
There is a movement in America of artists who have taken up object-making as a form of high art. These makers are blurring boundaries that have been entrenched in artistic culture for decades. Objects: USA 2020 brings together a diverse group of 50 contemporary makers at the forefront of this movement, and exhibits them side by side with 50 historical object makers that were shown together in a seminal exhibition of the same name in 1969, which continues to impact American art and design.
The makers featured in this new exhibition reflect a diversity of age, background, origin, and medium. They include contemporaries such as Ebitenyefa Baralaye, Dana Barnes, Rogan Gregory, the Haas Brothers, Misha Kahn, Serban Ionescu, Joyce Lin, Tiff Massey, Monique Pean, John Souter, Katie Stout, and Jeff Zimmerman, exhibited alongside 20th-century pioneers such as Wendell Castle, Arline Fisch, Jun Kaneko, Doyle Lane, Lenore Tawney, Richard Marquis, Peter Voulkos, Svetozar Radakovich & Ruch Clark, and Sheila Hicks to name just a few.