Barbara Madsen is known for her works in installation, sculpture, photography and video.  Her vast collection of cast-off 20th century industrial matter -- spark plugs, machine parts, welding masks, light switches, rubber, plastic, prosthetics, artificial eyes, and much more – serve as fodder for her work depicting a voracious world gone awry.


Madsen's exhibition takes place in three different locations within the Library:

1. Art and Pictures Collections, now until August 17, 2015.
2. The Corner Room, now until May 21, 2015.
3. Art in the Windows, now until May 21, 2015.  

In the Art and Pictures Collections: "Further Removed," twelve large photographs hang on the wall with twenty small photographs mounted on fluorescent plastic.

In the Corner Room: Filling the 16 foot windows, Portraits, a series of translucent photographs of inanimate plastic objects, radiates and disappears depending on the time of day. Facing Fifth Avenue are 15 architectural plywood sculptures whose angled surfaces are covered with photographs of objects.

Art in the Windows: In the south window are videos by Barbara Madsen, Venezuelan poet Ely Rosa Zamora, and sound artist A.P. Vague, combining images from Madsen's collection of objects with readings from Zamora's book No Tongue directed by Sheila Dabney at the Living Theatre, with Joanie Fritz Zosike, Betty La Roe, Ilion Troya and Robert Heiger.

 

Barbara Madsen is the Associate Professor at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University.

Madsen's recent videos have been broadcast in Germany, France, and Italy. She has had solo exhibitions in Italy, Scotland, the Czech Republic, Serbia, and the United States. Her works have been shown in numerous international exhibitions in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Her art has been exhibited at the New York Public Library, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, the Lowry Lab Theater in Minneapolis, and at the International Print Center New York. She has been a visiting artist in New Zealand, Serbia, Belgium, Scotland, the Czech Republic, and Singapore. Her works are in the collections of the New York Public Library, Library of Congress, Dartmouth College, University of Sharijah: United Arab Emirates, Guanlan Art Center; Shenzhen, China, and Amoco Corporation. 

More info about Barbara Madsen: http://www.barbaramadsen.net/

More event info: http://www.yalegala.org/article.html?aid=297

Facebook event page: 

Thanks to the Art and Picture Collections at Mid-Manhattan Library and to Artist Barbara Madsen for inviting us, to Natasha of Yale GALA for organizing and to Co-hosts: FFR/Princeton BTGALA (host list in formation)