Maria Reidelbach

Maria Reidelbach (born July 23, 1956) is a Manhattan-based installation artist, curator and author, who is the creator of award-winning public art. In 1991, she wrote the definitive history of Mad, the bestselling Completely Mad: A History of the Comic Book and Magazine (Little, Brown), ranked by Library Journal as "essential for pop culture collections."

As an artist, she attempts an "interaction of art and life," bringing the people of New York City neighborhoods together in public art projects, sometimes involving found objects and retailer donations of materials, along with recycled items collected by dumpster diving through lower Manhattan.

Born in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, Reidelbach spent much time in western Pennsylvania where her mother's family were farmers. In 1985, at New York's Guggenheim Museum, she organized an exhibition on the eccentric visionary painter Alfred Jensen. Garnering favorable reviews, her art exhibitions and gallery shows have often displayed unusual subjects (art revealing the subjectivity of science, editorial cartoons, architect-designed furniture, Victorian underwear).

Reidelbach worked with sculptor Milo Mottola to create the Totally Kid Carousel, an award-winning public artwork and amusement ride at Riverbank State Park (at 145th Street and Riverside Drive), facing the Hudson River. Displaying a menagerie of full-scale carousel figures designed in collaboration with neighborhood children, the carousel received the 1996 Award for Excellence in Design from the Art Commission of the City of New York.