Function + Fantasy — Steven and William Ladd

Solo Exhibitions

<PREVIOUS EXHIBITION NEXT EXHIBITION>

Function + Fantasy
Mingei International Museum
San Diego, California
February 1 - May 27, 2014

Curated by Christine Knoke

This exhibition at the Mingei International Museum marked a major milestone in our early museum career. It was the first time we presented a sweeping overview of our work—spanning our early design objects, from handbags and accessories to sculptural installations bridging the worlds of function and fantasy. We showed nearly 400 objects across the entire ground floor of the museum.

The title, Function + Fantasy, reflected our transformation as artists. In the beginning, we made handmade accessories—wearable pieces presented in custom boxes. Over time, those objects evolved into complex installations, and the boxes themselves became integral components of the art. A handbag once stored in a single box became a tower of boxes. A tower could become a landscape. Our work shifted from the purely functional into the fantastical

“Behind the scenes, the exhibition helped shape our practice in important ways. With Christine Knoke and the Mingei team, we began developing a museum-quality database of our archive. They called it “The Matrix”—a registration system we continue to use today. The museum’s photographic facilities allowed us to document hundreds of works, many for the first time.”

The show included early works like Water (2003), a handbag displayed inside a sculptural “whale” box that opened to reveal scrolls and beaded artifacts. For Function + Fantasy, we created a new piece, Join the Colony (2013)—a tower of nine boxes filled with purple scrolls and beaded appliqué, housing a hand-loomed necktie. Six iPads throughout the exhibition played short videos introducing different aspects of our practice: towers, performance, process, and Scrollathon.

These films, produced in collaboration with the museum, featured footage from our Manhattan studio and earlier projects.

We also installed a sweeping display of our fabric and buckle chandeliers, suspended across the space. Other pieces included an installation of boxes organized by color and function, large-scale drawings, and early sculptural experiments. Some were displayed for the first time.

“We led Scrollathon workshops in partnership with the St. Madeleine Sophie’s Center, working with individuals with developmental disabilities. It was the first time we collaborated with a special needs community in conjunction with a museum show, and it had a lasting impact on how we continue to design inclusive experiences.”