MAD's Annual Visionaries! Gala and Awards Ceremony
George M. Beylerian, Founder & CEO of Material ConneXion wins Visionaries! Award
To Be Held at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel
on November 30, 2010
Wall Street Legend and MAD Trustee, Seth Glickenhaus, Design Pioneer
George Beylerian, Business Leader Dan Doctoroff, and Artisan/Entrepreneurs Janet Nkubana and Joy Ndungutse to be Honored
NEW YORK, NY (November 11, 2010) – On Tuesday, November 30, the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) will host its Visionaries 2010! Gala, celebrating five exceptional individuals for lifetime achievement and contributions to the arts, design, and education. This year’s honorees are:
Seth Glickenhaus, a Wall Street legend, founding trustee of the Museum, and a generous patron of the arts and education George Beylerian, a pioneering design retailer, collector, and founder and CEO of the design consultancies, Material ConneXion and Culture & Commerce
Dan Doctoroff, President of Bloomberg LP, former Deputy Mayor of New York City, and a champion of the arts as an economic generator Janet Nkubana and Joy Ndungutse, artist and social entrepreneurs, who founded the Rwandan basket weaving collaborative Gahaya Links. The company’s Peace Baskets are featured in MAD’s recently opened exhibition The Global Africa Project
“We are particularly excited to be honoring founding trustee Seth Glickenhaus this year, together with design icon George Beylerian, business leader Dan Doctoroff, and artisan/entrepreneurs Janet Nkubana and Joy Ndungutse because their achievements are central to the Museum’s mission of fostering an appreciation of contemporary art, craft, and design,” says Holly Hotchner, the Museum’s Nanette L. Laitman Director.
Held for the second year at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Visionaries! begins with a cocktail reception and silent auction of artworks specially made by artists who have been represented in exhibitions at MAD over the last two years. The awards ceremony follows, and then dinner.
The Visionaries! Gala is the Museum’s most important annual fundraiser supporting MAD’s exhibitions and educational programs. Each year, more than 500 guests, including arts patrons, artists, designers and noted corporate and civic leaders, attend the event. Ticket prices for the gala range from $1,000–$2,500; tables are priced from $10,000–$25,000. For more information, please call Stephanie Lang, 212.299.7729 or email Stephanie.lang@madmuseum.org.
About the Honorees
Seth Glickenhaus, founder of the venerable Wall Street firm that bears his name, has served on the board of trustees of the Museum of Arts and Design for two decades. The 96-year-old Glickenhaus has a singular perspective on the ways of Wall Street. Thanks to his long life, he has witnessed and analyzed the rise and fall of many a financial market, from the Crash of 1929 to the Global Meltdown of 2008. He’s also a man who has always understood the value of education, especially arts education. During his tenure, Glickenhaus has been a major voice in defining the Museum’s education programs. In acknowledgement of his abiding interest in and support, MAD has named its Museum classrooms, where some 10,000 children and students annually receive instruction in art making, the Sarah and Seth Glickenhaus Education Center.
George M. Beylerian is a legendary trailblazer in the field of contemporary design. Whether as an importer, retailer, curator, author, entrepreneur or general impresario, over the past 40-plus years, this Cairo-born Armenian-American has worked tirelessly to nurture design in the United States and abroad. Today, as founder and CEO of Material ConneXion, a revolutionary global materials consultancy and materials library, and Culture & Commerce, a business incubator and management firm for such design talent as Yves Behar, Philippe Starck, and Marcel Wanders, Beylerian continues to shape the face of design and material innovation in the twenty-first century.
Daniel L. Doctoroff is President of Bloomberg, L.P., a leading global provider of financial data, analytics and news. Doctoroff was previously Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding for the City of New York. After 9/11, under the leadership of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Doctoroff led the city’s dramatic economic resurgence, with a comprehensive economic development strategy. He also led the creation of PlaNYC, the most extensive plan to strengthen an urban environment ever undertaken by an American city. Prior to joining the Bloomberg administration, Doctoroff served as Managing Partner of Oak Hill Capital Partners, a major private equity investment firm. Prior to joining Oak Hill, Doctoroff was an investment banker at Lehman Brothers.
Janet Nkubana and Joy Ndungutse are the sisters behind Gahaya Links, a company which they set up in Rwanda in 2004 to empower rural women, who had been widowed and impoverished by the war. The company's beginnings were modest: a small band of women weaving traditional Agaseke baskets under a tree. Yet it was the aim of these sisters, skilled weavers and natural entrepreneurs, to market these baskets in the United States and to establish a global business. Today, Gahaya Links works with 4,500 artisans in 52 cooperatives and associates established across Rwanda, creating employement where none had existed, increasing the income of thousands of rural families, and improving the quality of life for thousands of women whose lives were torn apart by civil and ethnic strife, as well as keeping traditional basketweaving skills alive.
Past Honorees of MAD’s Visionaries! Award have included:
Architects and Designers Ron Arad; Michael Graves; Todd Oldham; Lella and Massimo Vignelli; Marcel Wanders
Business Leaders Shelly Lazarus, Chairman, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide; Kenneth A. Himmel, CEO, Related Companies; Herbert V. Kohler, Jr., CEO of the Kohler Company; Martha Stewart, CEO of Martha Stewart Living; Burton M. Tansky, CEO of Neiman Marcus; Claudio Luti, Chairman of Kartell
Artists El Anatsui; Dale Chihuly; Ruth Duckworth; Sam Maloof; William Morris; Lino Tagliapietra; Toshiko Takaezu; Lenore Tawney; Peter Voulkos; and Eva Zeisel
Arts Patrons Jerome Chazen; Ella Fontanal Cisneros; Nanette L. Laitman; Henry Luce III; and Barbara Tober
About the Museum of Arts and Design
The Museum of Arts and Design explores how art, design and artisanship intersect in the visual arts today. The Museum focuses on contemporary creativity and the ways in which artists and designers from around the world transform materials through processes that range from the handmade to cutting-edge technologies. The Museum’s exhibition program explores and illuminates issues and ideas; highlights creativity and craftsmanship; and celebrates the limitless potential of materials and techniques when used by creative and innovative artists. MAD’s permanent collection is global in scope and focuses on art, craft, and design from 1950 to the present day.
Education is central to the Museum’s mission. The Museum’s dynamic new facility features classrooms and studios for master classes, seminars, and workshops for students, families and adults. Three open artist studios engage visitors in the creative processes of artists at work and enhance the exhibition programs. Lectures, films, performances and symposia related to the Museum’s collection and topical subjects affecting the world of contemporary art, craft and design are held in a renovated 144-seat auditorium.
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Press Contact:
Marisa Bartolucci, Director of Public Affairs
marisa.bartolucci@madmuseum.org / 1-212-299-7722