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Upcoming Exhibitions
BGC Gallery will resume its exhibition programming this September with the return of Sèvres Extraordinaire: Sculpture from 1740 until Today, originally slated for fall 2024.
Bard Graduate Center is an advanced graduate research institute in New York City dedicated to the cultural histories of the material world. Our MA and PhD degree programs, Gallery exhibitions, research initiatives, scholarly publications and public programs explore new ways of thinking about decorative arts, design history, and material culture.

About
28th Annual Iris Foundation Awards
Honoring Irene Roosevelt Aitken, Dr. Julius Bryant, Dr. Meredith Martin, and Katherine Purcell





Exhibitions

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BGC Gallery reopens this September with the return of Sèvres Extraordinaire: Sculpture from 1740 until Today, originally slated for fall 2024.

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The Bard Graduate Center Gallery produces multiple exhibitions and publications each year, serving as a vital center of learning and a catalyst for engagement in the interrelated disciplines of decorative arts, design, and material culture. The gallery is celebrated in the museum world for its longstanding legacy of landmark projects dedicated to significant—yet often understudied—figures and movements in the history of decorative arts and design; these exhibitions and publications typically represent the definitive intervention on the artists and objects they investigate. BGC Gallery is also committed to generating and supporting a vast range of diverse presentations, small and large, that challenge traditional approaches to object inquiry; these examinations of material culture explore the human experience as manifest in our creation and use of “things” of all kinds. Whether originating in internal research and expertise, or in collaboration with external subject specialists, these endeavors prioritize rigorous scholarship while seeking to adhere to the field’s highest standards in production and design.





From the Exhibition:
The Codex and Crafts in Late Antiquity

A multigathering codex, the precursor of today’s bound book, is a complex object with many parts that work together to protect the text and to make it easily accessible for reading. In late antiquity (3rd–8th centuries AD), makers of codices adapted a number of existing craft techniques. This interactive features the five main processes used to make a bound codex, all of which are closely related to processes used to make other common items. For example, techniques for sewing endbands resemble those used in finishing the edges of textiles and mats, and techniques for decorating leather covers are similar to those used in making shoes. Through drawings, photographs, and animations, this interactive demonstrates craft techniques used to make multigathering codices.

Launch the exhibition website.