In person / Exhibition / Fiber Art
On view all month! The first major museum exhibition spotlighting the artist’s singular vision, "Dana Barnes: Untamed Gestures" features monumental hand-formed fiber works alongside a fully immersive recreation of Barnes’s Lower East Side studio in New York City. Barnes’s sculptural landscapes composed of fibers such as merino, yak, alpaca, and silk create a compelling tactile environment in which motion and stillness, as well as strength and fragility, coexist in dynamic tension. Inspired by the slow, persistent forces of nature, Barnes twists, knots, and fuses her materials into sprawling, living forms that sag, climb, and unfurl across the gallery space. Her works pulse with a quiet vitality, inviting viewers into a dialogue between materiality and metamorphosis.
The exhibition’s immersive studio experience meticulously replicates Barnes’s original workspace, a former 19th-century synagogue once home to Abstract Expressionist painter Pat Passlof. Within the space, visitors will encounter a laboratory of creativity: overflowing sacks of colorful fibers, experimental maquettes, geological fragments, and handmade tools bearing the patina of daily use. A self-directed drawing exercise will invite visitors to participate in the same spirit of wonder and material exploration that animates Barnes’s practice.
NOTE: This exhibition is on view through Oct 17, 2026; consult museum website for hours of operations and admissions fees.
The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) champions contemporary makers across creative fields and presents the work of artists, designers, and artisans who apply the highest level of ingenuity and skill. Since the Museum’s founding in 1956 by philanthropist and visionary Aileen Osborn Webb, MAD has celebrated all facets of making and the creative processes by which materials are transformed, from traditional techniques to cutting-edge technologies. Today, the Museum’s curatorial program builds upon a rich history of exhibitions that emphasize a cross-disciplinary approach to art and design, and reveals the workmanship behind the objects and environments that shape our everyday lives. MAD provides an international platform for practitioners who are influencing the direction of cultural production and driving twenty-first-century innovation, and fosters a participatory setting for visitors to have direct encounters with skilled making and compelling works of art and design.