Michael LaForte

Lecturer

MFA, Sculpture, Cranbrook Academy of Art

BSD, Architecture, Arizona State University

Lecturer LaForte has been the Art Director for leading architecture and design firms including Jones Studio, Rafael Viñoly Architects, Perkins Eastman Architects, and Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn Architects. Working with complex teams, he has designed compelling visual presentations, proposal submissions for highly competitive international projects, brochure collateral, exhibitions and environmental graphics.

In the early '90s he led the model shop at the New York office of Skidmore Ownings & Merrill Architects, where he was first introduced to CAD driven laser cutting in architectural model making. This new means of production later inspired his own digital sculpture practice which utilizes 3D modeling and rapid prototyping technologies. Computer-based object making is a means of liberating the sculptor from the traditional fabrication overhead and studio, enabling the sculptor to live and work transiently. His work has been shown in galleries throughout the United States as well as in Argentina. In 2003 he was a runner up for the prestigious Rome Prize and in 2005 he was awarded the Young Sculptor's Award from the Hiestand Gallery at Miami University of Ohio. Over the past few years, he has been exploring a new body of work, Drawing Routine, which has taken him out of the studio and into the world of amateur bicycle racing. Each training ride and race results in a GPS drawing record of the event which is then translated into a digitally produced object. The new work explores issues of discipline, conditioning, physiology, movement, place, and conscious versus unconscious drawing acts.