MAD Ball 2022 honorees Jeffrey Gibson and Cristina Grajales wearing custom-designed awards by commissioned artist Beau McCall center (Photo Credit: Souleo)
Hosted by Murray Hill, with awards presented by Colleen Keegan and Beth Rudin DeWoody, MAD Ball 2022 took place Monday, November 14, at the Museum of Arts and Design, 2 Columbus Circle, NYC.
On Monday, November 14, the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) held its annual MAD Ball gala at the Museum’s home at 2 Columbus Circle, New York. The benefit will honor renowned multimedia artist Jeffrey Gibson and esteemed New York gallerist Cristina Grajales while celebrating the institution’s mission to champion contemporary makers across creative fields.
The gala dinner was hosted by New York comedian, beloved cabaret performer, and actor Murray Hill, and the celebration was held in all of the Museum’s spaces and galleries, where guests viewed current exhibitions. Highlights of the evening included a conversation between MAD Windgate Research Curator Christian Larsen and Cristina Grajales in The Theater at MAD; cocktails in the Luminaries Lounge, specially designed with items from the Shantell Martin x HOEK limited-edition collab and featured music by DJ Timo Weiland; open galleries with art-making activities; and dinner at Robert restaurant.
In September of this year, the Brooklyn-based sustainable furniture company Hoek Home launched a new artist collaboration program by debuting a limited-edition line with renowned artist Shantell Martin in an interactive exhibit at MAD. The Shantell Martin x HOEK collaboration is returning to the Museum to design the Luminaries Lounge, and featured exclusive pieces that combine Martin’s signature black and white abstract lines and Hoek’s innovative assembly technology to challenge how consumers use space.
During dinner at MAD’s Robert restaurant, Jeffrey Gibson and Cristina Grajales was presented with awards by Colleen Keegan, Art Business Advisor of the TED Fellows program and Partner in Keegan Fowler Companies, and the celebrated American art collector, patron, curator, and philanthropist Beth Rudin DeWoody, respectively.
The awards took the form of one-of-a-kind sashes made by artist Beau McCall in his signature style, using hand-sewn decorative buttons of various materials such as rhinestone, wood, and mother-of-pearl to create wearable visual artworks, each customized to reflect the honoree’s affinities and interests. Sashes are often worn to mark ceremonial occasions, and this choice of body ornament complemented the event’s festive atmosphere as MAD honors two outstanding figures in the art world. Additionally, the gala featured a special in memoriam tribute to Jerome A. Chazen, Chairman Emeritus,who passed away on February 6.
ABOUT BEAU MCCALL
Beau McCall began his career after arriving in Harlem in the 1980s from his native Philadelphia. Applying his mastery of the button to visual art, McCall has been enthusiastically proclaimed by American Craft magazine as the “Button Man.” His visual and wearable art has been included in exhibitions at the Museum at FIT, New York; Nordstrom, New York; the African American Museum in Philadelphia; the Houston Museum of African American Culture; the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit; the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, Memphis; the Langston Hughes House in partnership with the inaugural Columbia University Wallach Art Gallery Uptown Triennial and StoryCorps, New York; and Rush Arts Gallery, New York.
McCall’s work is held in the permanent collections of public institutions and by private individuals, including the Museum of Arts and Design, New York; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Museum at FIT, New York; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York; Amistad Research Center, New Orleans; the Museum of Modern Art Library, New York; the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, New York; the Stonewall National Museum & Archives, Fort Lauderdale, Florida; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Library; Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors Residence, New York; and Debbie Harry of Blondie. McCall has been featured in the New York Times, the Associated Press, NPR, the Los Angeles Times, and other outlets. In addition, he has served as a teaching artist at the Newark Museum of Art, the New
York Public Library, and Harlem Arts Alliance.
McCall has also created a wearable art line called Triple T-Shirts. For each piece, he upcycles three T-shirts, combining them into one flowing garment that can be worn in six different ways. In 2021, he released his debut artist’s book, REWIND: MEMORIES ON REPEAT, commissioned and published by SHINE Portrait Studio, Express Newark (Rutgers University–Newark). The book honors the legacy of ten of McCall’s deceased friends through collages composed of archival photos and images from his button artwork. The collages capture the late 1970s to the mid-1980s in cities from Philadelphia to New York, during the LGBTQ+ rights movement, the height of disco music, and the AIDS crisis.
In 2024, McCall will debut his first-ever retrospective, titled Beau McCall: Buttons On! at Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, Massachusetts.