The artwork of Rollins and K.O.S. is based on Western literary classics such as Melville’s Moby Dick or Kafka’s Amerika, and they create images on book pages which are then typically pasted on mural-sized canvases. For Frieze, they will present ‘AS IMAGINATION BODIES FORTH …’ (after Shakespeare and Mendelssohn), 2012, a choral painting rendered on top of Mendelssohn’s musical score based on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. To create the water color and ink painting on mulberry paper, the collaborative group will also facilitate a workshop for children and youth attending the fair.

Paintings, drawings, and sculptures by Rollins and K.O.S. are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the Tate Modern; the group’s work has also been featured in the Whitney Biennial (1985, 1991), Documenta XIII, and the Venice Biennale (1988).

To learn more about the Frieze Art Fair and to purchase tickets, visit friezenewyork.com. SVA students can purchase discounted tickets, which include free bus or ferry transport to and from Randall’s Island for $25 by showing their SVA ID card.

Painting: Image: ‘AS IMAGINATION BODIES FORTH …’ (after Shakespeare and Mendelssohn), 2012.

The New York Times reports that the lawsuit states that Aycock learned of the plan to remove Star Sifter when the terminal’s management unit, Terminal 1 Group Association, wrote to her last December. Ms. Aycock had been commissioned by the same unit to create the sculpture in celebration of Terminal 1’s opening in 1998 as the first new passenger building at J.F.K. in more than 25 years. “The sculpture had a dual purpose,” the lawsuit said. “Not only was the sculpture intended to enrich the terminal aesthetically, but it was also intended to fulfill a functional purpose by filling an opening in the rotunda that created an unanticipated security risk in the building design.”

Aycock, who is also a member of the city’s Public Design Commission, has created 32 public works, including pieces at other airports and suspended sculptures for convention centers in California and Connecticut. Her artwork is also included in the permanent collections of the Whitney and Brooklyn Museums and the Museum of Modern Art. “There are other instances where I have art at airports where they need to do work,” she told the Times. “They tell me well in advance, they look for an alternate space, they save the work and they reinstall it. They prioritize the work of art.”

CBS News reports that Terminal 1 Group planned to begin dismantling the structure on April 24, but a judge granted Aycock a temporary restraining order halting those plans. A hearing was scheduled for April 27 to determine if an injunction stopping the sculpture’s removal is appropriate.

When Raphaela Platow, chief curator at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, thought about organizing a Keith Haring show, she considered how to reveal a different side of the artist, knowing that his visual vocabulary and style are instantly recognizable. “He organized 30 shows in four years,” she told The Gallerist NY. “And he wrote his own press releases. They’re hilarious. Then he moved to an entire phase where he did nothing but word-based pieces.” The resulting exhibition provides some insight through 155 works on paper and more than 150 archival objects, including a selection of rarely seen videos (many produced while Haring studied at SVA), journals, subway posters, and documentary photographs. In her New York Times review, Karen Rosenberg advised, “Go, and enjoy the party. Relive the Paradise Garage, if you are old enough to have been there; celebrate the progenitor of Banksy, if you weren’t.”

“Keith Haring: 1978 – 1982” is on view at the Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, through July 8.

For more reviews of the exhibition, visit The Village Voice, Artdaily and New York Post.

TED-Ed’s mission is to capture and amplify the voices of great educators around the world. By bringing the lessons of extraordinary teachers to life through collaborations with talented animators, TED-Ed hopes to reach more students beyond their individual classrooms and encourage them to become life-long learners.

To learn more, visit TED-Ed.

The SVA alumni included in the 10-year retrospective are Michael Bilsborough (MFA 2006 Illustration as Visual Essay), Steven Bindernagel (MFA 2006 Fine Arts), Matthew Craven (MFA 2010 Fine Arts), Brandon Davey (MFA 2009 Fine Arts), Amy Elkins (BFA 2007 Photography), Daniel John Gadd (BFA 2008 Fine Arts), Yuhi Hasegawa (MFA 2009 Fine Arts), Avery McCarthy (BFA 2008 Photography), Cesar Chavez Lechowick (MFA 2007 Photography, Video and Related Media), Dan Perrone (BFA 2005 Photography), Amy Stein (MFA 2006 Photography, Video and Related Media) and Ivar Theorin (BFA 2009 Fine Arts).

Current students participating in the SVA booth this year are Ranya Asmar (BFA Visual and Critical Studies Department), Victoria Batey (MFA Fine Arts Department), Andrew Brischler (MFA Fine Arts Department), Amanda Brown (BFA Fine Arts Department), Travis Brown (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Department), Steven Chapman (MFA Fine Arts Department), Azhar Chougle (BFA Photography Department), Jeremy August Haik (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Department), M. Benjamin Herndon (BFA Fine Arts Department), Eric Mistretta (MFA Fine Arts Department), Laura Murray (BFA Fine Arts Department) and Pacifico Silano (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Department).

On Saturday, April 21, 4pm SVA Project Manager and alumnus Dan Halm (MFA 2001 Illustration as Visual Essay; BFA 1994 Illustration), curator of the booth and the retrospective, will moderate Fair Game, a panel discussion between artists, gallerists and collectors. They’ll talk about how art fairs impact emerging artists and how, for collectors in particular, art fairs facilitate the discovery of new talent.

The Affordable Art Fair takes place April 18 – 22 at 7 West New York, located at 7 West 34th Street. Tickets are $12 a day or $10 a day for students and seniors with ID. Free admission is offered to the public on Thursday, April 19, 5 – 9pm. For more information, visit www.affordableartfair.us.

Image: Victoria Batey, Nobody puts Baby in a corner, 2012, spray paint, gouache, pen, and thread on canvas

MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Department and BFA Photography Department faculty member Penelope Umbrico reflects on the anonymity of photographs in a limitless digital age and her 2011 work Signals Still/TVs from Craigslist is featured on the cover of the magazine.”Pictures are not still anymore…” writes Umbrico. “The image torrent is actually alive, emergent and perhaps more indexical than photography has ever been in the past.”

In an interview, MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Department faculty member Liz Deschenes discusses her new series of photographs (currently on view in the Whitney Biennial) and the evolution of her practice. When asked about the connections she makes between her work that focuses on the mechanical process of creating photos and installations, Deschenes says, “I think both aspects of my practices have always existed. Over time, and through the accumulation of installations, I’ve been able to remove some of the more peripheral or external concerns that I previously used to give people access to my work.”

BFA Fine Arts faculty member Liz Magic Laser writes some thoughts on her unease with the interview form (something she also explored in her critically acclaimed piece for Performa 11 I Feel Your Pain) and what it means for artists. Laser noted that most interviews seem forced and unnatural since they ask artists to stand outside of their work to talk about their “real” intentions.

In his feature article entitled “Think and Shoot,” MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Department faculty member Marvin Heiferman writes about the exhibition “Light Years: Conceptual Art and the Photograph, 1964 – 1977,” which was recently on view at the Art Institute of Chicago. “What makes ‘Light Years’ so timely is the fact that—with digital technology radically transforming the definition of and our relationship to photographic imagining—it’s clearly time to rethink what photography is, and can be, again,” he writes.

The American Academy of Arts and Letters was established in 1898 by a Congressional charter and works to sustain an interest in literature, music, and the fine arts by identifying and encouraging individual artists through the administration of awards and prizes, exhibiting art and manuscripts, funding staged readings and performances of new works, and purchasing works of art to be donated to museums.  To learn more about the Academy and its programs, visit their website.

Image: John Newman, yellow dipped hawaiian drawing, 2005, colored pencil, pencil, china marker, ink collage on paper, 32.625″ x 20.875″.

Along with just seven other artists, SVA faculty member Tim Rollins (BFA 1977 Fine Arts) has been commissioned to create work for the Frieze New York 2012 art fair from May 4 – 7 in Randall’s Island Park, Manhattan. He will appear as part of Tim Rollins and K.O.S. (Kids of Survival), a group of at-risk students that he has collaborated with artistically since 1984. Other commissioned artists for Frieze New York 2012 include American novelist Rick Moody and artist Uri Aran. The annual event offers the opportunity to view artwork by more than 1,000 international artists and also includes debates, panel discussions and lectures. For more information, visit Frieze New York.

Participating artists include current students and alumni from SVA and Yale, where Minter also teaches. From SVA, current MFA Fine Arts students Andrew Brischler, Eric Mistretta and Rebecca Ward will exhibit paintings alongside alumni David Mramor (MFA 2008 Fine Arts) and Aïda Ruilova (MFA 1999 Photography, Video and Related Media). According to the exhibition’s press release, SVA faculty members Laurel Nakadate (BFA Photography Department) and Patty Chang (BFA Fine Arts Department), along with alumni Kate Gilmore (MFA 2002 Fine Arts) and Mika Rottenberg (BFA 2001 Fine Arts), will exhibit work as “Born Again Virgins” for the occasion.

The opening at Family Business won’t be exclusive to fine arts, though—the event will also feature a performance by the Brooklyn-based band The Virgins. “The art world takes itself too seriously,” Minter said. “We’re trying to have some fun.”

Image: Pantyhose by Eric Mistretta.

Marianne Vitale (BFA 1996 Film and Video) investigates a lesser known chapter of history in her solo exhibition “What I Need To Do Is Lighten The Fuck Up About A Lot of Shit.” The artist invokes the phenomenon of “Combustivism,” the mass hysteria that spread throughout the northeastern U.S. in the 19th century, resulting in rampant violence that led President James K. Polk to declare to Congress that he would “…use the big stick of the law and beat back” if the mayhem did not end. In this exhibition, Vitale presents her own charred and battered sculptural emblems and installations meant to represent these historic events, and commemorates a time when razing entire neighborhoods to stop the spread of mysteriously infectious dust, which was believed to be causing the strange behavior, was as common as going to church on Sunday. On view at Zach Feuer Gallery, 548 West 22 Street, through February 25.