One week from today, Roberto Lugo’s “Alfarero del Barrio (Village Potter)" opens in Madison Square Park! If you walked through the park today, you might have noticed our teams hard at work installing these vibrant and monumental pieces on Redbud and Sparrow Lawns. (And in case you were wondering, the artist tagged the fire hydrant!)
Join us next Wednesday, May 20, on Redbud Lawn from 5 - 6:30 PM for remarks by the artist and a live musical performance. Free and open to all, you can read more about the event and this latest public exhibition on our website.
Before there was R & Company, @zestym and @evansnyderman were part of The B Team, an experimental performance collective that challenged the limits of glass. The group transformed the material into a tool for live performance, existing somewhere between craft, fine art, installation, and action. In many ways, The B Team became the foundation for what R & Company is today. The spirit of experimentation, risk, collaboration, and human connection that shaped those performances still lives at the core of everything we do.
For the first time in over two decades, the B Team will reunite for a new performance at the Corning Museum of Glass during the Glass Art Society conference. One act centers around a “Fear Jar.” Audience members are invited to write down a fear, which will then be burned inside a hot glass vessel and sealed within it—transforming something private and heavy into something shared, physical, and ultimately released.
At a moment when so many people are carrying uncertainty and fear about the world around us, this performance is about acknowledging those feelings and letting them go. If you can’t attend in person, you can still participate by anonymously submitting a fear through the link in bio.
From left to right: Evan Snyderman, Zesty Meyers, and Thor Bueno making a Fear Jar during the Spontaneous Combustion performance at UrbanGlass, 1996.
Learn more about the B Team: link in bio
Today we are installing “Alfarero Del Barrio” @madsqparknyc made by the incredible people at @johnsonatelierdigital@groundsforsculpture This fire hydrant is an ode to growing up and playing on a hot day. Making the best out of one’s circumstances. It’s a reminder of our ancestors being hosed down to protest for the freedom we have. The freedom to make art, to protest, to speak. Thank you ancestors but this one; this one is for my dad @gilban777 who used to have the monkey wrench that would open the hydrant for all the neighborhood kids. Dad you showed me the way, now it’s time for me to get back on my feet and show the world what time it is. Thank you to @colibriworks@gustavo.garcia3@joeronca all my team, my family, my kids and everyone who believed in me.
The Haas Brothers have long been captivated by the mathematical systems that underlie the natural world. In ‘Tree House’ forests, organic growth and invented ecosystems take shape through geometry, repetition, emergence, and pattern formation. The artists are interested not only in how nature looks, but in the invisible structures and behaviors that organize it.
'Tree House' is on view at 82 Franklin Street through August 14.
Plan your visit: link in bio
Wall color for this exhibition generously provided by @alkemispaint
Since 2004, Madison Square Park Conservancy has commissioned outdoor work by dynamic artists for all to view in public space. Our next exhibition, “Alfarero del Barrio (Village Potter),” by artist Roberto Lugo, will open on Wednesday May 20 at 5 PM.
Lugo will present two sculptures made from hand-painted milled foam, a twenty-foot-high urn recalling traditional ceramics and a fifteen-foot-high fire hydrant, in honor of the urban environment. The event will feature remarks by the MSPC team and a live musical performance.
No registration is required to attend, but you can click the link in our bio to RSVP for event updates online.
Photos by Timothy Schenck at Johnson Atelier
A quiet moment from 'The Chair, Collected.' Juxtaposing modern and contemporary works, the exhibition explores inventive approaches to seat design throughout time. Our library of archival material, installed alongside the show, further explores the histories, ideas, and designers behind these works.
On view at 64 White Street.
Photo by @_loganjackson
Reese Youngblood (@reese.youngblood ) is a Texas-based artist and designer whose work explores land, industry, and belonging. The 'Corrosion Chair' examines the tension between natural landscapes and human intervention.
For Youngblood, textiles provide a medium for working through the contradictions embedded in the Texan landscape. At the loom, she translates her experiences of the land, the body, and the industrial environment into patterns that oscillate between order and disruption. Geometries drawn from tire treads, rusting metal, and other manufactured forms recur across the fabric and surfaces, mediating the relationship between the natural and the artificial.
Youngblood transforms a functional object into a meditation on belonging, resistance, and environmental engagement. The 'Corrosion Chair' is currently on view at 64 White Street in 'The Chair, Collected,' an exhibition that brings together 20 modern and contemporary works highlighting inventive approaches to seat design.
Inquire now: link in bio
José Zanine Caldas (1919–2001) is among the defining figures of Brazilian design, an architect, furniture maker, and sculptor whose practice was built on instinct, craft, and a profound sense of place. Self-taught and rooted in Bahia, he was shaped early on by local craftsmen who carved boats and furniture from felled trees. That influence never left him. He went on to produce a wide body of work. His output included architectural maquettes, housing, pavilion-like structures, and large sculptural carvings that would define his later career.
A throughline across all of it was a deep relationship and appreciation for Brazilian wood. He worked almost exclusively with native species, such as pequi, acajou, and vinhático. He was a devoted steward of the forests they came from. He wrote extensively about his connection to the land and, wherever possible, committed to using already-felled trees or replanting what he took. His furniture embraced the cracks, knots, and natural curves of the wood rather than working against them.
Learn more about Zanine Caldas: link in bio
Step inside an imagined home—where history, identity, and culture collide.
In American Crib: What’s Happening?, Roberto Lugo transforms The Clay Studio’s gallery into a deeply personal reflection on America today—blending ceramic tradition with pop culture, humor, and sharp social critique.
Presented as part of Radical Americana, this exhibition is supported by @randcompanynyc
In today’s New York Times, "The Haas Brothers’ Creative Creations Are on Tour," Ted Loos (@looslips ) spotlights the imaginative practice of Nikolai and Simon Haas, alongside their mid-career museum survey now on view. He highlights the duo’s signature blend of the unexpected and the beautiful—where playful, creature-like forms and intricate beaded works bring wit, material experimentation, and a sense of surprise into everyday objects.
“We’re trying to make objects that give you an alternative experience... If we can just push people this far over, so they can see a whole different world.” - Nikolai Haas
From their nature-infused inspirations to their embrace of unconventional materials and collaboration, the Haas Brothers create objects that feel alive, humorous, and slightly uncanny.
Organized by the Cranbrook Art Museum (Bloomfield Hills, MI) and curated by Laura Mott, Uncanny Valley is now on view at the Museum of Arts and Design (New York, NY) through August 16 and will travel to the Blanton Museum of Art (Austin, TX) and the Mint Museum (Charlotte, NC).
#HaasBrothers #NYTimes #TedLoos #MADMusem #ContemporaryDesign #ArtExhibition #uncannyvalley #NYCArt #CranbrookArtMuseum #MintMuseum #BlantonMuseumOfArt
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Photographs courtesy of MAD Museum, The New York Times, and Jenna Bascom
