STEVEN LADD AND WILLIAM LADD
Steven 1977
William 1978
Nationality: American

From early days growing up in St. Louis, Missouri, we were interested in the arts. At 15, William discovered a passion for beading; Steven began designing and making clothes while studying at Rockhurst University in Kansas City. In 1998/99, we moved to Brooklyn, New York and began our artistic collaboration, formalizing the partnership in 2000 when we started creating fashion accessories together.

Our work attracted interest from the Louvre’s Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, which included their work in an exhibition on the history of the bag. By 2006, when we were included in the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt’s Design Triennial, the context of our artwork was firmly grounded in the people, places, and memories of our shared childhood. These themes have evolved throughout our practice ever since.

Lucien Zayan, Director of The Invisible Dog Art Center in Brooklyn, sparked a career turning point in 2009 by commissioning a chandelier fashioned from buckles and trimmings discarded in the basement of his commercial space. Lucien’s donation of a treasure trove of cast-off materials fueled four solo exhibitions at the Center and enhanced the growth of our public engagement program called “Scrollathon,” which has since evolved into a core component of our shared artistic practice. (see Scrollathon Background)

In 2011, with support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, we had our first museum solo exhibition, 9769 Radio Drive, at The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii. The show’s content grew out of our shared growing-up experiences on Radio Drive in Missouri. Two major museum solo shows followed in 2014. First came Function + Fantasy, at the Mingei International Museum, San Diego, featuring 400 objects; a major early work was acquired by the museum for its permanent collection. This show was followed by Mary Queen of the Universe, titled after our elementary school and featuring 50 new works. It opened at the Parrish Art Museum, New York (with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation) then traveled to Miami’s Museum of Art + Design during Art Basel Miami Beach.

In 2015 and 2016, two exhibitions followed at the Saint Louis Art Museum (Scouts or Sports?) and SCAD Museum of Art (Blood Bound). Our achievements fed our interest and commitment to foster community involvement and transformation through the arts, and the nascent Scrollathon program became increasingly central to our practice. Several of our large scale commissions are on permanent display around the country: Fabulous Phil at City Point, Brooklyn, NY; Lesson of Encouragement at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, GA; New Beginnings at the Henry Ford Detroit Pistons Performance Center, Detroit, MI; Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow at The Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C.. The Scrollathon experience is now recognized for its success engaging diverse communities to bond through the collaboratively uplifting and healing experience of making art together.