News | MAD Gets a New Director, Contemporary Ceramics Gets Free Database and more!

Welcome to News, our weekly roundup of goings-on in the contemporary ceramics and contemporary ceramic art worlds.

Above image: Jorge Daniel Veneciano. Photograph by Jenna Bascom.

The Museum of Arts and Design announced their pick of Jorge Daniel Veneciano as their new director. From the museum:

After an extensive international search, the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) announces the appointment of Jorge Daniel Veneciano as its next Nanette L. Laitman Director. Veneciano, who most recently served as the Executive Director of New York City’s El Museo del Barrio, will start at MAD on October 3, 2016, kicking off the Museum’s 60th Anniversary year. He succeeds Glenn Adamson, who stepped down in March 2016.

“I have been enthralled with MAD ever since it opened on Columbus Circle,” said Veneciano. “The Museum has been nothing short of magical in its presentations, and I’d like to see it reach more visitors and new audiences, to share with them the Museum’s attention to the power of art in the making of worldly things. MAD is brimming with potential, and I am excited to work with its passionate board and staff in directing the Museum to its destiny of leadership among New York institutions.”

“We are thrilled to welcome Daniel to MAD,” stated Board Chair Michele Cohen. “In addition to strong leadership skills, he brings to the Museum decades of experience at national contemporary art institutions, and his vision will enable us to further connect with our diverse city and visitors.”

Mike De Paola, Trustee and Chair of the Search Committee, added, “Daniel’s arrival will support and expand upon the scholarship and vision of our Chief Curator, Shannon R. Stratton, allowing MAD to present cutting-edge and insightful exhibitions that showcase contemporary visual art and culture through the lens of craft.”

Martha Vida, Greenwich collector, Starts Free Database

From the Greenwich Post:

Greenwich collector Martha Vida has established the Internet’s first free searchable database for American studio ceramics and pottery produced since the end of World War II.

Vida, a onetime interior designer, converted a lifelong interest in ceramics into The Dictionary of American Studio Ceramics, 1946 to Present (themarksproject.org).

The registry is an illustrated encyclopedia of American studio ceramics, assembling for the first time in electronic form a listing of ceramic artists, active and departed, with the marks and signatures commonly found on the bottom of their work — enhanced with images, biographies, bibliographies and a directory of museums and galleries where the pieces are on display.

Ruth Braunstein Passes at 93

Sad news today as we report that Ruth Braunstein, a prominent art dealer in San Francisco, has passed earlier this month. Braunstein was one of the important drivers of contemporary ceramic art and she represented the likes of Peter Voulkos and others over her decades-long career. From SF Gate:

Ruth Braunstein, one of San Francisco’s most prominent art dealers for 50 years and a recognized leader among the region’s top gallerists, died Tuesday night after a short illness.

Her death, at the Davies Campus of California Pacific Medical Center, was confirmed by her daughter, Marna Braunstein Clark. She was 93.

Mrs. Braunstein was a purveyor of contemporary art when there was little market for it in the Bay Area, and an early champion of such artists as Bruce Conner, John Altoon and Mary Snowden. She was particularly supportive of artists who worked in clay, taking the so-called “craft” medium of ceramics seriously and building an audience for the work of Peter Voulkos, Richard Shaw and Robert Brady, among others.

British Sculptor to Create Mud-Based Work in New York

From The Art Newspaper:

Donald Judd once described the British sculptor Richard Long as “the best artist in Europe” and “a far better artist than Bacon or Henry Moore”. Now the Judd Foundation has invited Long to create new work at 101 Spring Street, the US artist’s former home and studio in New York.

Long will create two monumental terracotta works on the ground floor by applying mud directly to the walls, which are nearly 60 feet long (1 October-17 December). The British artist is known for making work with natural materials and transforming landscape into sculpture simply by walking for days and leaving footprints behind. Judd and Long met in 1988 at an exhibition in Reykjavik, Iceland. The US artist bought the volcanic rock sculpture Long created for the exhibition, Sea Lava Circles (1988), and permanently installed it on a former tennis court at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas.

Do you love or loathe these missives from the world of contemporary ceramics and contemporary ceramic art? Let us know in the comments!