Fanciful Visions: Real and Imagined Engineered Worlds

Jack Rosenfarb has no formal art training. His sculptural artworks are an outgrowth of his many years of experience with infrastructure engineering, construction materials, and most recently, experimenting with 3D printing technology to produce and assemble complex plastic objects.

This exhibition explores the ways in which the artist combines both found and created elements to prompt thought-provoking reactions in the real and imagined worlds. His creations demonstrate both a bit of wry wit and fanciful unreality.

Now structures and other objects acquire personality and perhaps a sense of humor as they stretch conventional rules of gravity and laws of physics.

Jack Rosenfarb was born in Brussels, Belgium, and emigrated to the United States in 1952. He is a retired geotechnical engineer and university professor who had over 30 years of experience with major infrastructure and building projects in the United States.

His professional life allowed him to work with many noted architectural and structural engineering firms, and on a variety of challenging and innovative projects.

Of particular interest to the art world, he was on the design teams for new exhibition buildings in New York City for The Morgan Library & Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Upon his retirement in 2013, he developed a keen interest in learning new technologies including microelectronics and 3D printing.

Jack Rosenfarb is currently an Ambassador with the Morris Museum’s Smithsonian Spark!Lab. Along with fellow volunteers, he guides and inspires the next generation of inventors.

Fanciful Visions: Real and Imagined Engineered Worldsis curated by Anne Ricculli, Ph.D., Director of Exhibits and Collections with the support of Curatorial Interns Emily Rainbolt, Elizabeth Shack, Jamie Zurek, and Emma Breyer. Installation by Sara O’Connor, Preparator and Michelle Graves, Curator. Photography by Jean Minthe, Graphic Designer. Lighting by Lewis Perlmutter, Bickford Theatre Technical Director and Jimmy Warren, Assistant Technical Director.

Special thanks to Jack Rosenfarb, Ph.D. for lending works from his collection and inspiring the exhibition theme.

Leadership support for this exhibition is provided by Will and Mary Leland.

Additional support is provided by The Martin Guitar Charitable Foundation.