Saturday, April 11: Haas Brothers | Uncanny Valley at MAD Museum

This wildly imaginative mid-career survey will plunge visitors into the exuberant, uncanny worlds of twin artists Nikolai and Simon Haas. Spanning more than fifteen years of collaborative practice, the show brings together approximately 85 works, featuring the surreal hybrid creatures, imaginative environments, and exuberant material experimentation across art, design, craft, and technology the brothers are known for.

Through a series of dynamic vignettes, Uncanny Valley invites visitors into alternate realities shaped by what the artists describes as “problem-solving fantasies,” a process that combines meticulous handcraft, digital technologies, and playful narrative world-building. Essentially self-taught, the Haas Brothers defy conventional categorization, seamlessly blending mediums and methods with curiosity, humor, and technical rigor. Below: The Haas Bros. Photo by Magda Wosinka

Founded in Los Angeles in 2010, the Haas Brothers studio is celebrated for its surreal hybrid creatures, imaginative environments, and exuberant material experimentation. “The Haas Brothers embody everything MAD stands for: fearless experimentation, material mastery, and an expansive vision of what craft can be today,” said Tim Rodgers, Nanette L. Laitman Director, Museum of Arts and Design. “Uncanny Valley invites our audiences into worlds that are at once playful and profound, where digital processes and handwork coexist, and where imagination becomes a powerful tool for rethinking how objects are made, experienced, and valued.” This New York presentation of Uncanny Valley is part of a nationally touring exhibition organized by Cranbrook Art Museum. Future stops include the Blanton Museum of Art (Austin, TX, September 20, 2026–January 17, 2027), and the Mint Museum (Charlotte, NC, July 17, 2027–January 2, 2028).Info

The exhibition includes major sculptural works and key series that trace the evolution of the artists’ practice. Highlights include the Haas Brothers’ iconic Beasts, zoomorphic sculptures brimming with personality and cultural commentary. Also on view are the Endless Paintings, algorithmically generated landscapes inspired by early computer graphics, and Emergent Sculptures, which explore self-generating forms through digital code.

Museum of Arts and Design, 2 Columbus Circle at West 59^th Street, New York, NY Info

Closing Party Thursday, April 2, 6-9pm: Art (Official) Intelligence  at Gallery 14C

Curated by Alexis Caruso and Velawsmo, Art (Official) Intelligence brings together 21 Project 14C artists-in-residence to ask a pressing question: what can human creativity do that machines simply cannot? Tris McCall, of NJArts.net answered that question, in part: This feels a little like visiting a fortune teller, a little like “Star Trek,” and more than a bit like getting hooked up to a monitor at an aesthetically sensitive cardiologist’s office. The sculpture seems to be speaking directly to your body but, really, it’s an indication that your body is constantly speaking to itself. Above: Lauren Krasnoff’s “500 Club Crowd”

That’s a metaphor for artificial intelligence and the LLM experience. No matter how intelligent the machine seems to be or how quick a processor it is, it is only as smart as what we ordinary humans put into it. The machine is not a foe. It is something scarier: It’s our mirror.

If you can’t get to the closing party, you can read Tris’s take here

Gallery 14C, 157A First Street, FL2, Jersey City, NJ RSVP required

Friday, April 3, 6:00-9:00pm: Artist Talk/Book Launch | Philipe Baeza at Print Center

To celebrate the launch of the publication for Felipe Baeza: Anima, join us for an evening conversation with Felipe Baeza and Leslie Martinez, moderated by Barbara Calderón. The artists will discuss their longtime friendship and well as the material affinities behind their respective practices.Following the talk, join us for a launch party! Enjoy refreshments, view the exhibition, and purchase your copy of the publication. Felipe Beza: Anima is a bilingual, illustrated catalog featuring original essays by exhibition curators Jenn Bratovich and Alex Santana, and guest essayist Donna Honarpisheh, that critically and thematically contextualize Baeza’s practice.Print Center NY, 535 West 24th Street, New York, NY Register

Monday, April 6, 12:30–2:30 PM  Typographic Signals: Phototypesetting as a New Form of Writing at The Cooper Union on Zoom

The radical physical alteration from lead to light had a deep impact on typography. Basically two media, photography and typesetting converged in the new hybrid technology of phototypesetting. But it revolutionized not only the production of print media and its aesthetics, but also writing as a whole. As part of the Herb Lubalin Lecture Series, Katharina Walter will embark on a media-historical search for traces of the beginnings of writing with light. It will lead not only into the early history of photography, but also into telegraphy and its electrification of letters.

Katharina Walter is both a communication designer and a cultural and media scholar. Her research focuses on the cultural technique of writing, with a particular emphasis on typography. From 2023 to March 2025, she was director of the Museum for Printing Arts in Leipzig (Germany). She is also a member of the board of the German Design Day and represents it in the Cultural Heritage Committee of the German Cultural Council.