Visiting Artist Lecture: Barbara Madsen

Wednesday, September 16, 2020 at 6:40 p.m.

The Visiting Artists Lecture Series is central to Art & Design and includes weekly lectures, studio visits, and critiques by leading artists, curators, and writers working across a wide spectrum of practices and critical perspectives. Students across all programs are invited and encouraged to attend these public lectures, which take place throughout the academic year. All visiting artist talks are free and open to the public.

For access to the Zoom lecture, please email art.design@mgsa.rutgers.edu.

Barbara Madsen is an artist and Associate Professor at Mason Gross School of the Arts. Madsen is known for her work in photography, print, sculpture, and installation. Her vast collections of industrial matter — spark plugs, machine parts, welding masks, light switches, rubber, plastic, and photographs 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 sirens song that lures the viewer in.

Her solo exhibtions include the New York Public Library, Pratt Institute, Tyler School of Art, Millersville University, St. Lawrence University, Miami University, University of Delaware, Palacky University-CZ, Graficki Collective-Serbia, Scuolal Internazionale di Grafica-Venice, ULUS Gallery-Serbia, Edinburgh Print Gallery- Scotland.

Madsen has had over 100 group exhibitions in: 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.