Beau McCall: Buttons On!
May 10 – September 14, 2025
Guest Curator: Souleo
Beau McCall: Buttons On! was organized by Fuller Craft Museum.
Buttons On! marks the first-ever retrospective for artist, Beau McCall. Proclaimed by American Craft magazine as “The Button Man,” McCall creates wearable and visual art by hand-sewing clothing buttons onto mostly upcycled fabrics, materials, and objects. Buttons On! showcases pieces from McCall’s nearly forty-year career, the debut of several new works, and select archival material. Organized into several themes, the exhibition explores McCall’s mastery of the button and commentary on topics such as pop culture and social justice.
The exhibition’s four themes include: “Buttons on the Body,” “Buttons on the Mind,” “Buttons on the Soul,” and “Buttons Off,” each one representing a different facet of McCall’s creative practice. Visitors will experience McCall’s button-embellished plethora of wearable art including jackets, vests, yokes, shorts, aprons, sneakers, jewelry, and durags; visual art such as a 450-pound cast iron bathtub, a life-size Kool-Aid Man, and an installation of over 100 jars of buttons; mostly never-before-seen archival materials documenting McCall’s career and evolution; and a few select items of McCall’s button-less works that spotlight his versatility and boundless creativity.
Visitors are invited to share their “button” experiences in the form of art and text, which becomes part of the exhibition.
Get ready to put your buttons on!
Above Image: Beau McCall, Button Yoke: Sunny, 2020. Photo courtesy of Will Howcroft.
ARTIST
Beau McCall creates wearable and visual art by applying clothing buttons onto mostly upcycled fabrics, materials, and objects. Proclaimed by American Craft magazine as “The Button Man,” Beau McCall began his career in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood after arriving from his native Philadelphia with nothing more than a few hundred dollars, a duffel bag, and buttons. Circa 1988, he made his professional debut with wearable art at The Harlem Institute of Fashion (HIF) show for HARLEM WEEK. McCall became an established force within HIF’s collective, presenting at their runway and museum shows through circa 1995. Since then, McCall has added visual art to his portfolio and entered the permanent collections of public institutions, including the Museum of Arts and Design (New York, NY), Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, PA), Victoria and Albert Museum (London, UK), The Museum at FIT (New York, NY), and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (New York, NY). Media outlets featuring McCall and his work include Women’s Wear Daily, PBS, the New York Times, Associated Press, and NPR. For more info: www.BeauMccall.com
PRESS RELEASE
View the full press release for Beau McCall: Buttons On! here.
