Artist Lecture – Radical Softness: The Responsive Art of Janet Echelman
Radical Softness: The Responsive Art of Janet Echelman
Join us for an artist lecture with Janet Echelman, an artist featured in the exhibition Avant Garde: Remarkable Women in the Permanent Collection. Echelman creates experiential sculpture at the scale of buildings that transform with wind and light. The art shifts from being an object you look at, to something you can get lost in. Her work defies categorization as it intersects disciplinary boundaries, from Sculpture, Architecture, and Urban Design to Material Science, Computer Science, Engineering, and Performance. Using unlikely materials from knotted fiber and atomized water particles to choreographed dancers, Echelman combines ancient craft with original computational design software to create artworks that have become focal points for urban life on five continents.
Lectures are offered free with the cost of daily admission:
- Art+ Museum Members: Free
- Not-Yet-Members: $25
- College Students: Free
Janet Echelman sculpts at the scale of buildings and city blocks, creating large-scale, fluid installations that merge art, architecture, and engineering to anchor public spaces across five continents five continents. Her work transforms with wind and light, inviting viewers into immersive experiences rather than static observation. Echelman uses unlikely materials—from atomized water particles to fiber stronger than steel—blending traditional craft with advanced computational design. Echelman’s unconventional path includes five years living in a Balinese village, graduate studies in both painting and psychology, and teaching at MIT, Harvard, and Princeton. Oprah ranked Echelman’s work #1 on her List of 50 Things That Make You Say Wow!, and she received the Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award in Visual Arts, honoring “the greatest innovators in America today.” For more information visit www.echelman.com
Image Caption: Photograph by Amy Martz