Unseen: Assembly Required

Unseen: Assembly Required is a solo exhibition by Barbara Madsen. Madsen’s work utilizes abstract expressionism, photorealism, minimalism, neo-pop, and amorphous wooden forms. Each sculpture toes the line between two and three-dimensional representations, eschewing the rectangular pictorial plane. Moving parts like antennae, slinkies, and flippers animate the viewer’s senses. Blackout black silhouettes spring forth from backgrounds of alien green, perfect sky blue, blazing bonfire orange, extreme yellow, and sleeping beauty pink, calling to mind the absurd forms of Rorschach tests. Madsen’s pieces are blithely campy, sinister, and nostalgic all at once, suggesting a world off-kilter.

Madsen’s sculptures dynamically address themes of functionalism, incorporating utilitarian elements like cupholders, shelves, wheels, and whistles. Humorous and transcendent, each sculpture contains an intricately designed interior chamber hidden from the viewer. Unseen objects have been sealed into each chamber, never to be opened. What lies inside? A Jack-in-the-Box? A buried treasure? Trojan Toast? Madsen’s wild assemblage of artistic techniques pays tribute to the beauty of the unseen labor that shapes our everyday worlds.

The exhibition also features a variety of silkscreen prints produced by Madsen during a residency in Shenzhen, China that provoke similar themes of beauty, labor, abstraction, and chaos.

Unseen: Assembly Required celebrates and reflects on the beauty of the physical and psychological world. Please join us in celebrating this groundbreaking exhibition on April 5th from 5pm to 8pm.

Artist

Barbara Madsen, born Rigby, Idaho 1958 is an artist and Professor at Rutgers, Mason Gross School of the Arts. Madsen is known for her work in sculpture, photography, print, and installation. Her vast collections of industrial matter -- spark plugs, machine parts, welding masks, light switches, rubber, plastic, toys and drawings from daily observations – serve as the stimulus for her work in print, sculpture, video and installation.  Her art employs the tropes of modernism, popular culture and objects that are consumed and discarded creating a mythical narrative using devices that may be sinister, creepy, nostalgic and blithely campy. Color is the siren's song that lures the viewer in.

Her solo exhibitions include: Qi Fengge Museum of Print History, Shenzhen, China; New York Public Library; MGalleries; Pratt Institute; Tyler School of Art; Millersville University; St. Lawrence University; Miami University; University of Delaware; Palacky University-CZ; Graficki Collective-Serbia; Scuola Internazionale di Grafica-Venice; ULUS Gallery-Serbia; Edinburgh Print Gallery-Scotland.

Madsen has had over 150 group exhibitions in: Croatia, Romania, Spain, Portugal, Canada, Japan, China, Belgium, France, Spain, Serbia, Germany, Poland, India, United Arab Emirates. Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC, the New York Public Library, the Lowry Lab Theater in Minneapolis, the International Print Center, New York.

Madsen's works are in the collections of: The Legion of Honor, San Francisco Museum of Art; Firestone Library, Princeton University; Swarthmore College, Lafayette College, New York Public Library; Library of Congress; Dartmouth College; University of Sharijah, United Arab Emirates; Guanlan Art Center, Shenzhen, China, and the Amoco Corporation.