Writers and Artists Respond
Artist-Led Gallery Talk with Arlene Shechet
Walk through the exhibition Modernity and Opulence: Women of the Wiener Werkstätte (on view through November 15, 2026) with Jewish Museum collection artist Arlene Shechet, a ceramicist whose work has revolutionized and revitalized contemporary engagement with the medium. Shechet, known for finding relationships between artworks and the sites that situate them, is a longtime admirer of the artists and theories of the Wiener Werkstätte.
Tickets: Free with Museum admission; advance RSVP required.
About the artist:
Arlene Shechet is an American sculptor whose dynamic forms are sensuous and full of delightful surprises. Working in the pastoral Hudson Valley in upstate New York, she embraces an eclectic approach, combining unexpected materials and moving fluidly between intimate and monumental scales. She splices wood with steel, stacks ceramic on concrete, and pairs rough handworked textures with smooth planes, allowing her sculptures to unfold organically, alive with intention and discovery. Shechet has solo exhibitions opening at Pace Gallery in New York on September 11 and Galerie Lelong & Co. in Paris on October 19.
Images courtesy of Fashion Institute of Technology | SUNY, FIT Library Special Collections and FIT Archive
