SVA presents “Myths & Realities,” an exhibition that brings together 16 notable alumni who create powerful visual narratives that reflect a shared interest in exploring the porous boundary between actuality and illusion and in deconstructing the innate strangeness of the everyday. The artists in the exhibition engage two centuries of popular culture, from archaic formats like the pinhole camera and daguerreotype to the museum diorama and wide-screen Hollywood film with resulting works that are potent reminders of how images can reshape perceived reality. Co-curated by New York Times Magazine Director of Photography Kathy Ryan and VII Magazine Editor Scott Thode, “Myths & Realities” will be on view at the Visual Arts Gallery, 601 West 26 Street, 15th floor, New York City, from August 29 – September 29.

Dinh Q. Lê (MFA 1992 Photography, Video and Related Media) revisits mass-entertainment accounts of the Vietnam War like Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket in a video of American military helicopters crashing into the South China Sea. In a study of youth and aging, Noah Kalina’s (BFA Photography 2006) video Everyday documents the artist’s changing appearance with daily self-portraits made over 11 years. Vera Lutter (MFA 1995 Photography, Video and Related Media) uses pinhole photography to produce unique gelatin silver prints of industrial sites like the decommissioned Battersea Power Station in London. Collier Schorr (BFA 1985 Photography) revisits Andrew Wyeth’s landmark portrait series, The Helga Pictures, with a young boy, Jens F.

Other participating artists include Brendan Austin, Kevin Cooley, Debbie Grossman, Sean Hemmerle, Ina Jang, Simen Johan, Mark Kessell, Justine Kurland, Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao, Domingo Milella, Matthew Pillsbury, and Aïda Ruilova. The exhibition will be accompanied by a full-color catalog with essay by independent critic Michael Wilson, former editor at Art in America and Artforum and contributor to Art Monthly, Contemporary and Modern Painters, among other publications. For more information about “Myths & Realities,” visit SVA.edu.

Image: Simen Johan, Untitled #137, from the series Until the Kingdom Comes, digital C-print, 2006.