About the Show

Severe Optimism is an exhibition of new work by artist, maker, and writer Dotan Appelbaum. This body of work reflects on the life and ideas of 19th-century English designer and craftsman William Morris, reconsidering their meaning in today’s world. For Morris, design was a way to make sense of the Industrial Revolution and its impact on labor, modes of making, and the built environment. As society now undergoes a digital industrial revolution, these concerns remain urgent.

Appelbaum engages this history by working with a Morris wallpaper pattern alongside two patterns inspired by Morris. Through these motifs, he investigates the tensions of contemporary labor, the changing nature of craft, and the ways digital visual culture seeps into the material world. The resulting work confronts the grim realities of the future and the natural environment while holding on to a sense of severe optimism.

Appelbaum’s practice takes a critical orientation toward design and craft, informed by a sociological perspective. He is committed to unraveling the histories of the built environment and exposing the ideologies that shape it. His work focuses on ornamentation and its relationship to liberal capitalism, colonialism, and Enlightenment narratives of progress—tracing how these logics continue to influence contemporary design.

At the core of his practice is an understanding that history is not fixed but constructed through the narratives we use to organize the past. How history is shaped determines how the present is understood, and the future is imagined. With this perspective, Appelbaum works through critical reproduction, reinterpreting historical forms and styles in light of the social, cultural, political, economic, and technological contexts in which they were first produced. In doing so, his practice seeks to sharpen understanding of the present moment while opening possibilities for the future.

Dotan Appelbaum

Dotan Appelbaum is a furniture designer, artist and writer from Minneapolis, Minnesota, currently based in Richmond, Virginia. He holds an MFA in Furniture Design from the Rhode Island School of Design with further background in painting and fine woodworking. Dotan brings a theory-oriented sociological approach to furniture design. Mining histories of design, as well as contemporary trends and precedents, he seeks to question and undermine how we understand our social relationship to furniture and craft. Dotan’s work most often exists as critical reproduction, reinterpreting historical forms in order to better understand the present.

Dotan's first solo show is opening in October at Mercer University's McEachern Art Center. His work has been shown in NYC Design Week, Design Week RI, the Zilka Gallery in Middletown, CT, the Woods-Gerry Gallery, and the Sol-Koffler Gallery in Providence, RI, various craft schools, and more. He has won numerous awards, including ‘Best in Show’ in the Innovation + Design Awards from the International Society of Furniture Designers and first place in the ‘Open Category’ in the Fresh Woods competition.

Opening Reception

Friday, October 3rd at 6PM featuring a brief artist talk by Dotan Appelbaum

Light Bites and Beverages will be served

Plunkett Artist Lecture Series

Join us the following Saturday morning for an extended, hour long, artist lecture featuring Dotan Appelbaum.

Date and Time: Saturday, October 4 at 11am

Location: McEachern Art Center (332 Second Street, Macon, GA)

FREE ADMISSION

The Plunkett Lecture Series is made possible in part by an endowment from the Plunkett family, in memory of Frances Sewell Plunkett.

Special Thanks to Art Historian and Mercer Professor, Dr. McClenathan for planning and arranging this opportunity for our students and community members.

For more information about the Plunkett Lecture Series, please contact Dr. McClenathan at mcclenathan_ee@mercer.edu