Special Programming Announced for Chair5 Exhibition

Four special events have been announced in support of MIAD’s Chair⁵: Five Perspectives on Form, Function and Innovation exhibition. All programming events and MIAD’s galleries are free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Generously sponsored by the Caxambas Foundation.

Special programming events:

February 21, 7 p.m.

Guest Speaker: Michael Puryear

A presentation by the world-renowned furniture maker. Puryear is a creator of objects remarkable for their attention to craft, simplicity and subtle adaptation to their use. His Dan Chair (c. 2010) is in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

February 22, 7 p.m.

Panel Discussion: Markets for Furniture Makers and Collectors

World-renowned furniture maker Michael Puryear, the Head of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Furniture Program Tom Loeser and the Chipstone Foundation’s Sarah Anne Carter discuss avenues for furniture artists/designers to produce and market their work to collectors and other markets. Moderated by MIAD’s Director of Galleries Mark Lawson.

March 7, 7 p.m.

Guest Speaker: Mollie Ferguson

MIAD alumna and furniture maker in California shares details about her career.

April 24, 7 p.m.

Guest Speaker: Glenn Adamson, “Make or Break: Inside and Outside the Rules”

Adamson discusses his current research into the work of two artists/designers and what goes into career-shaping breakthroughs. Adamson is a senior scholar at Yale University and an independent curator in the design field. He formerly served as curator at the Chipstone Foundation in Milwaukee, curator and researcher at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and director of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City.

Chair⁵: Five Perspectives on Form, Function and Innovation is a highly interactive and experimental furniture exhibition co-produced by the Chipstone Foundation and MIAD, on view in the Brooks Stevens Gallery through March 3, 2018. It introduces myriad ways to think about chairs, “chairness” and the physical act of sitting. Five distinctive exhibit spaces showcase historic, reproduction and contemporary seating furniture forms.

Projects from students in MIAD’s new Furniture Design program are now on view in the exhibition. Students in the Furniture Design program, launched in 2017, embrace all phases of the design-build process from conception to completion. Learn more about the exhibition.