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R & Company Presents OBJECTS: USA 2020 - A Landmark Exhibition Reframing the History, Present, and Future of Handmade American Arts
Objects: USA 2020 surveys American handmade arts through a curated selection of 100 artists, including 50 of the most impactful contemporary makers working today and 50 historical artists, whose work viewed together is a testament to the diverse, pluralistic, and hybrid state of handmade objects in American culture today.
Curated by Glenn Adamson, James Zemaitis, Abby Bangser, and Evan Snyderman.
Opening Tuesday, February 16th and running through September 2021
There is a movement in America of artists who have taken up object-making as a form of high art. These makers are blurring boundaries that have been entrenched in artistic culture for decades. Objects: USA 2020 brings together a diverse group of 50 contemporary makers at the forefront of this movement, and exhibits them side by side with 50 historical object makers that were shown together in a seminal exhibition of the same name in 1969, which continues to impact American art and design.
The makers featured in this new exhibition reflect a diversity of age, background, origin, and medium. They include contemporaries such as Ebitenyefa Baralaye, Dana Barnes, Rogan Gregory, the Haas Brothers, Misha Kahn, Serban Ionescu, Joyce Lin, Tiff Massey, Monique Pean, John Souter, Katie Stout, and Jeff Zimmerman, exhibited alongside 20th-century pioneers such as Wendell Castle, Arline Fisch, Jun Kaneko, Doyle Lane, Lenore Tawney, Richard Marquis, Peter Voulkos, Svetozar Radakovich & Ruch Clark, and Sheila Hicks to name just a few.
“The energy and creativity of today’s object makers for us parallel what was happening in America when the original Objects: USA took place,” says Zesty Meyers, R & Company Co-Founder, “and we strongly believe our exhibition will inspire a new generation of collectors, curators and most importantly emerging talents to redefine art-making in America.”
Objects: USA 2020 will directly contribute to the creation of important private and museum collections, a core component of R & Company’s work over its two decades of leadership in the field.
ABOUT R & COMPANY
Celebrating 20 years in business, R & Company represents a distinguished group of historical and contemporary designers whose work is among the most innovative and finely crafted of their time.
Initially founded as R 20th Century in 1997 by Zesty Meyers and Evan Snyderman, the gallery is defined by their combined goals of promoting a closer study, appreciation, and preservation of 20th and 21st century object-making.
Meyers and Snyderman have garnered international acclaim for their groundbreaking exhibitions and publications. Their passionate commitment to historical preservation is embodied in the R & Company archives, library, and private collection. Consistently, Meyers and Snyderman exhibit an extraordinary acumen for discovering and bringing designers to the forefront of the rapidly escalating design market.
R & Company is currently developing exhibitions and publications about its represented designers, encompassing a diverse program that includes work from North America, South America, Europe, and Asia produced between 1945 and today. In addition to international participation in respected exhibitions and fairs, the R & Company program in New York is anchored by two gallery spaces located in the Tribeca East Historic District: 82 Franklin Street, opened in 2000, and the 64 White Street expansion opened in 2018. The 64 White Street space provides a dynamic new platform for continued exploration into historical and contemporary design. Through passion, research, and collecting, R & Company continues to champion collectible design and develop the contemporary marketplace.