Glenn Adamson (born 1972) is an American curator, author, and historian whose work focuses on design, craft, and contemporary art.
Early life and education
Glenn Adamson was born in 1972 and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, along with his identical twin brother Peter Adamson.
He earned his B.A. in History of Art from Cornell University in 1994 and his
PhD in Art History from
Yale University in 2001.
Museum and curatorial work
Museum of Arts and Design
From 2013 to 2016 Glenn Adamson served as the Nanette L. Laitman Director of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. Adamson's hire at the Museum of Arts and Design came as a somewhat surprise.
Previously, Adamson had been a critic of the museum, using a 2011 review of the exhibition
The Global Africa Project in the magazine
Art in America to critique the institution itself. Adamson's critiques included the architecture of the museum's new building and their gallery layouts, the 2002 name change, and the "incoherent execution" of exhibitions.
, director of the Museum of Arts and Design from 1996 to 2013, responded to Adamson's critiques in a letter to the editor of
Art in America in 2011 where she defended many of the topics Adamson critiqued.
In spite of this previous tension, the museum found Adamson to be the "most exciting candidate"
when searching for Hotchner's replacement in 2013.
In 2016, when Adamson stepped down from his post as Director at the Museum of Arts and Design, the museum stated:
"During his tenure, Dr. Adamson led the institution through a period of significant growth of its programming and resources, and built a new leadership team. Dr. Adamson spearheaded an exhibitions program that explored and expanded MAD's unique mission and role in the arts ecology of New York and the nation, including NYC Makers: The MAD Biennial; Ralph Pucci: The Art of the Mannequin; Pathmakers: Women in Art, Craft, and Design, Midcentury and Today; Wendell Castle Remastered; Studio Job: MAD HOUSE; and Peter Voulkos: The Breakthrough Years. Dr. Adamson created the position of Windgate Research Curator, in collaboration with the Bard Graduate Center, to further enhance the scholarship of MAD's publications and exhibitions. He also expanded MAD's noted artist-in-residence program by engaging younger artists from traditionally under-represented communities, through an initiative funded by a grant from The New York Community Trust."
Victoria and Albert Museum
From 2005 to 2013 Glenn Adamson served as the head of research at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
During his time there, Adamson published several books and essays, as well as co-curated the exhibition
along with Jane Pavitt.
Adamson was also a key proponent in initiating the "Rapid Response Unit" of the V&A, where contemporary objects like 3D printed guns and "
pussy hats" are added to the museum's collection quickly in direct response to contemporary culture.
Chipstone Foundation
Glenn Adamson served as curator for the Chipstone Foundation from 2000 to 2005.
The Chipstone Foundation focuses on the study, preservation, and championing of American material culture with heavy emphases on the decorative arts.
This mission can be seen reflected in Adamson's work there, where he curated such historically American focused exhibitions as
Skin Deep: Three Masters of American Inlay and
Tea Table Coffee Table.
In addition to his curatorial work, Adamson also made regular contributions to the Chipstone's journals
American Furniture and
Ceramics in America.
Design Miami
Adamson is the curatorial director of
Design Miami.
Guest curatorial work
-
2003 Industrial Strength Design: How Brooks Stevens Shaped Your World, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI
-
2013 fix fix fix, Gallery SO, London, UK
-
2017 Things of Beauty Growing: British Studio Pottery (co-curated with Martina Droth and Simon Olding), Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT
-
2017 Static, Friedman Benda Gallery, New York City, NY
-
2017 Beazley Designs of the Year, Design Museum, London, UK
-
2018 Raw Design, Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco, CA
-
2021 Crafting America, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas
-
2023 Mirror Mirror: Reflections on Design at Chatsworth House, UK
-
2024 The New Transcendence, Friedman Benda Gallery, NY
-
2024 Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within (co-curated with Kate Weiner and Leilehua Lanzilotti), The Noguchi Museum, Long Island City, New York
-
2024 Nike: Form Follows Motion, Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany
Selected publications
Books
-
A Century of Tomorrows (Bloomsbury, 2024)
-
Craft: An American History (Bloomsbury, 2021)
-
Fewer Better Things: The Hidden Wisdom of Objects (Bloomsbury, 2018)
-
The Invention of Craft (Bloomsbury, 2013)
-
The Craft Reader (Berg, 2010)
-
Thinking Through Craft (Berg, 2007)
-
Industrial Strength Design: How Brooks Stevens Shaped Your World (MIT Press, 2003)
Book collaborations
-
Creating Ourselves: The Self in Art (Whitechapel Gallery, 2017) (co-authored with Frances Borzello, Nicholas Cullinan, and Amelia Jones)
-
Art in the Making: Artists and Their Materials from the Studio to Crowdsourcing (Thames & Hudson, 2016) (co-authored with Julia Bryan-Wilson)
-
Things of Beauty Growing: British Studio Pottery (Yale University Press, 2016) (co-edited with Martina Droth, and Simon Olding)
-
Peter Voulkos: The Breakthrough Years (Black Dog Publishing, 2016) (co-authored with Elissa Auther, Barbara Paris Gifford, Jim Melchert, Ruby Neri, Andrew Perchuk, and Jenni Sorkin)
-
Paul Evans: Crossing Boundaries and Crafting Modernism (Arnoldsche, 2014) (co-authored with Edward S. Cooke, Jr., Helen W. Drutt English, Robert Slifkin, and Gregory Wittkopp)
-
Surface tensions: Surface, finish and the meaning of objects (Manchester University Press, 2013) (co-edited with Victoria Kelley)
-
Global Design History (Routledge, 2011) (co-edited with Giorgio Riello and Sarah Teasley)
-
Postmodernism: Style and Subversion (V & A Publishing, 2011) (co-edited with Jane Pavitt)
-
Hand + Made: The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft (Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, 2010) (co-authored with Valerie Cassel Oliver and Namita Wiggers)
-
Unpacking the Collection: Selections from the Museum of Contemporary Craft (Museum of Contemporary Craft, 2010) (co-authored with Janet Koplos and Namita Wiggers)
Articles and essays
-
Sculpture: An Art of Craft and Storytelling (Art in America, 2022)
-
How Sheila Hicks Changed the Way We Think About Sculpture (Frieze, 2019)
-
Gloria Kisch: A Career at the Crossroads of Art and Design (Frieze, 2019)
-
Midlife Crisis on an Unlimited Budget: Marc Newson’s Furniture for the 1% (Frieze, 2019)
-
A Young Designer's Pulpy and Surprisingly Personal Furniture (Hyperallergic, 2018)
-
Katherine Westphal, Fiber Art Pioneer, Dies at 99 (Hyperallergic, 2018)
-
A Shrewd Designer Balances Craft and Commerce (Hyperallergic, 2018)
-
Great Estates: How Contemporary Ceramics Are Keeping Chatsworth House Relevant (Frieze, 2018)
-
Fallen Idylls (The Magazine Antiques, 2018)
-
The Future Starts Here: Jes Fan (Crafts Magazine, 2018)
-
The Seamless Weaving of Fine Arts with Crafts (Hyperallergic, 2017)
-
Weaving Together the Story of a Forgotten Pop Artist and Her Rugs (Hyperallergic, 2017)
-
Normal Design (Art in America, 2017)
-
Silver Spoons (Frieze, 2017)
-
The Complexity Complex (Frieze, 2017)
-
Demo Job: Craft, Art, and the Politics of Demonstration (Art Jewelry Forum, 2016)
-
Summer Work: The Art of Pae White (Afterall, 2013)
-
Issues & Commentary: Tsunami Africa (Art in America, 2011)
-
The American Arcanum: Porcelain and the Alchemical Tradition (Ceramics in America, 2007)
-
Mannerism in Early American Furniture: Connoisseurship, Intention, and Theatricality (American Furniture, 2005)
-
The Politics of the Caned Chair (American Furniture, 2002)
-
The Furniture of Sam Maloof (American Furniture, 2002)
The Journal of Modern Craft
The Journal of Modern Craft (first launched in 2008) is a peer reviewed academic journal focused on interdisciplinary writings on the topics of design, craft, art, architecture, and related fields.
The journal is published by Taylor & Francis, and releases three issues a year. The editorial board consists of Glenn Adamson (USA); Tanya Harrod, Independent Scholar (UK); Edward S. Cooke Jr.,
Yale University (USA); Stephen Knott, Kingston University (UK); Elissa Auther, Windgate Research Curator, Bard Graduate Center and Center for Craft, Creativity and Design (USA);
Jenni Sorkin, University of California (USA). The journal is funded in part by the Windgate Charitable Foundation and The Center for Craft, Creativity & Design, with Joseph McBrinn, University of Ulster (UK) as the Book Review Editor, and Namita Wiggers, Museum of Contemporary Craft (USA) as the Exhibition Review Editor.
Personal life
Adamson is currently based in London and New York.
Further reading
-
James Gleick, "The Prophet Business" (review of Glenn Adamson, A Century of Tomorrows: How Imagining the Future Shapes the Present, Bloomsbury, 2024, 336 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXXII, no. 3 (27 February 2025), pp. 6, 8, 10. "Glenn Adamson, having exposed... strains of failed futurology, suggests nonetheless that we... should continue to make our best guesses... always remembering that every prediction is a statement about the present... For... fourteen years, Wikipedia has included an entry titled 'Timeline of the Far Future'... An editor responsible for one recent addition justified it with the comment, 'Adds a bit of hope.' A different editor deleted it a few seconds later." (p. 10.)
External links
