Visual Arts Briefs

This month, the BFA Film, Video and Animation Department is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its Dusty Film and Animation Festival and Awards. In the tradition of two decades of Dustys, the festival will present over 100 films by students graduating from the department, including short films, documentaries and animations. For this year’s Screenwriters Night, graduating screenwriters from SVA have selected scenes to be performed live by alumni from the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. And as usual, those attending the awards ceremony can expect big names from the world of professional film and animation to serve as presenters, including actor Kevin Kline, animator Tom Sito (BFA 1977 Animation) and editor Barbara Tulliver.

One big change this year is the venue: nearly all Dustys events will be held at the SVA Theatre, the College’s new venue for screenings, lectures and other cultural programs at 333 West 23rd Street. Student films will run at the theater Monday, May 4 – Friday, May 8, from 12 noon – 11pm, along with several special events: Screenwriters Night, on Tuesday, May 5, 6pm; Animation Screenings, on Thursday, May 7, 7 – 11pm; the Dusty Awards Ceremony and Gala, on Saturday, May 9 (note: the gala takes place at the Marquee, 289 10th Avenue, 8 – 11pm); and Winners Circle Screenings, on Sunday, May 10, 12 – 6pm. The screenings are free and open to the public; RSVP is required for Screenwriters Night, Awards Ceremony and Gala. For public inquiries regarding tickets, please contact 212.592.2124. Click here for a screening schedule and other program details.

In the SVA Galleries:

• “Potential Energy: 19 Designers Set Their Ideas in Motion,” an exhibition of products, campaigns and services developed by students graduating from the MFA Design Department, curated by faculty member Dorothy Twining Globus. Both commercially viable and culturally significant, these products have been realized through graphic, Web, industrial and motion design; and “MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Thesis Projects,” an exhibition that brings together books, figurative paintings, graphic novels and narrative series by 20 students graduating from the MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Department, curated by faculty member David Sandlin. Visual Arts Gallery, 601 West 26th Street, 15th floor, May 1 – 16; Reception: Tuesday, May 5, 6 – 8pm.
• “Assets, Elements & Objects of Desire – Now in 3D,” an exhibition of still images from thesis projects by students in the BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects Department, curated by Department Chair John McIntosh and featuring an original collage by faculty member Alexander Reyna. Westside Gallery, 133/141 West 21st Street, May 2 – 23; Reception and Portfolio Review: Wednesday, May 6, 7 – 9pm. There will be an encore screening of student work on Wednesday, May 13, 7pm, at the SVA Theatre, 333 West 23rd Street.
• Happy, an exhibition of work by first-year students in the MFA Design Department, featuring an original 3D display and extensive line of products developed by each student to increase enjoyment of everyday life, curated by 3D Design Chair Kevin O’Callaghan. SVA Gallery, 209 East 23rd Street, May 8 – 30; Reception: Monday, May 11, 6 – 8pm.

Click here for more information about SVA exhibitions.

Upcoming Events:

• 20th Annual Dusty Film and Animation Festival and Awards: A showcase of over 100 films by students graduating from the BFA Film, Video and Animation Department, including short films, documentaries and animations. For this year’s Screenwriters Night, graduating screenwriters from SVA have selected scenes to be performed live by alumni from the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. Screenings: Monday, May 4 – Friday, May 8, 12 – 11pm; Screenwriters Night: Tuesday, May 5, 6pm; Animation Screenings: Thursday, May 7, 7 – 11pm; Awards Ceremony and Gala: Saturday, May 9; Winners Circle Screenings: Sunday, May 10, 12 – 6pm. SVA Theatre, 333 West 23rd Street. The screenings are free and open to the public. RSVP is required for Screenwriters Night, Awards Ceremony and Gala. For public inquiries regarding tickets, please contact 212.592.2124. Click here for screening schedule and other program details.
• Julie V. Iovine: The Difference between Newsworthy and New, a talk by Julie V. Iovine, executive editor of Architect’s Newspaper, a fortnightly newspaper serving the architecture and design community. Presented by the MFA Design Criticism Department. Tuesday, May 5, 6 – 8pm, 136 West 21st Street, 2nd floor. Free and open to the public. Please RSVP to 212.592.2228 or dcrit@sva.edu.
• BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects Department Open Studios: An opportunity to see new works by current students in the studio setting. Wednesday, May 6, 7 – 9pm, 133/141 West 21st Street. Free and open to the public.

For a complete list of SVA events, visit sva.edu/events.

Image: Scott Suiter, Blue Spot, 2009; from “Potential Energy: 19 Designers Set Their Ideas in Motion.”

• Alumnus Julieta Aranda (BFA 2000 Film and Video) is the first artist to be featured in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s new contemporary art series, Intervals, which presents solo exhibitions by emerging artists. In this exhibition, Aranda exposes the subjective experience of time, with pieces such as an oversized clock divided into 10 hours. Click here to read Flavorwire’s interview with Aranda about the show and her time at SVA .
• Artist and alumnus Alexis Rockman (BFA 1985 Fine Arts) was just featured in Boise Weekly. Rockman, known for his paintings depicting the precarious relationship between culture and natural history, gives a lecture at Boise State College on Thursday, April 30. The college is organizing an outreach program around the event, asking local junior and high school art students to submit works for a competition “imagining the future of nature and the earth’s ecology.”
• Canada’s National Post recently interviewed alumnus Jen Miller (BFA 1994 Fine Arts), better known as performance artist and writer Reverend Jen. The article delves into Miller’s past work, life on the Lower East Side and her new book Live Nude Elf (Soft Skull, 2009).

At a recent meeting of the BFA Illustration and Cartooning course 2 Eyes, Nose and a Mouth, faculty member and alumnus Stephen Savage (MFA 1996 Illustration as Visual Essay) gave his students an assignment to examine the light and dark properties of Shepard Fairey’s iconic image of Barack Obama. As students Michael Bowers, Eui Min Kim, Alisha McKinney, Jamie Miryoung and Soojin Areeum Yun began reproducing the image, Savage switched on his digital video camera and made this sped-up video of education in action:

Stephen Savage’s Students from PR Office on Vimeo.

The MFA Interaction Design Department is preparing for its first classes in the fall, and the program’s faculty members are working on both their syllabi and professional projects. Robert Faludi, a telecommunications expert who will be teaching a course entitled The Fundamentals of Physical Computing, has co-created the Botanicalls Kit. Using a collection of basic electronic components, Botanicalls allows household plants to communicate information via Twitter when they need more water. Faludi talks about this and other projects in a new interview on the MFA Interaction Design Department’s blog.

In addition, the program is continuing its Dot Dot Dot lecture series during the summer term with two events: on Wednesday, May 13, will be The Improvisors, featuring talks by experts in improvisation and quick-thinking design; and on Wednesday, June 10, faculty member Jenn Bove will join NYC Assistant Commissioner Chenda Fruchter and others for The Service Designers, which will address the designable experiences of the service economy. Both events take place at the White Rabbit, 145 East Houston Street, 6:30 – 8:30pm; RSVP at interactiondesign.sva.edu.

Image: The Botanicalls Kit.

Faculty member and alumnus Billy Sullivan (1968 Fine Arts) is wearing two hats for a pair of new shows at the Nicole Klagsbrun gallery in Chelsea. First, Sullivan is the artist featured in “Conversations,” an exhibition that collects his paintings and drawings, all of which are based on his photographs of friends and acquaintances. Taken together, the works form a sort of “visual diary” of the artist’s social scene. (To see more of Sullivan’s work, view his “Portfolio” from the spring 2009 issue of the Visual Arts Journal.)

In the gallery’s project room, Sullivan reappears in the role of curator, selecting artists and work for “Seven.” Among the septet of photographers chosen for the show are alumni Patricia Coffie (BFA 2008 Photography), Dustin Wayne Harris (BFA 2007 Photography), Barclay Hughes (BFA 1998 Photography), Sarah Forbes Keough (BFA 2008 Photography) and Jason Noyes (BFA 2007 Photography). Both exhibitions are on view at Nicole Klagsbrun, 526 West 26th Street, April 24 – June 6, with an opening reception on Friday, April 24, 6 – 8pm.

Image: Billy Sullivan, Petrova & Mike, 2008.

In the SVA Galleries:

• LAST CHANCE: “Mentors,” an exhibition of work by BFA Photography Department students inspired by their working relationships with key figures in the New York arts community. The 2008-2009 mentors include creative director Fabien Baron, cinematographer and SVA alumnus Harris Savides, New York Times writer Philip Gefter, and photographers Ari Marcoupolis, Sally Gall and Gregory Crewdson, among others. Visual Arts Gallery, 601 West 26th Street, 15th floor, through Saturday, April 25.
• LAST CHANCE: Foundation Painting and Photography Exhibition, a juried exhibition of work by first-year students at SVA. SVA Gallery, 209 East 23rd Street, and Westside Gallery, 133/141 West 21st Street, through Saturday, April 25.

Click here for more information about SVA exhibitions.

Upcoming Events:

• Artists Talk on Art Presents: Curator’s Choice. ATOA’s annual artist slide competition winners will be announced, as selected by Dr. Thalia Vrachopolous. Winners will have their works exhibited at Tenri Cultural Institute, 43A West 13 Street. Friday, April 24, 7pm, 209 East 23rd Street, 3rd-floor amphitheater. Admission is free for SVA students, faculty, staff and ATOA members; $7 regular admission; $3 for SVA alumni, non-SVA students and seniors.
• BFA Fine Arts Department Open Studios: An open studios event for sculpture, Monday, April 27, 5 – 9pm, 30 West 17th Street; and painting, Thursday, April 30, 5 – 9pm, 133/141 West 21st Street, 4th and 6th floors. Free and open to the public.
• Spyros Papapetros: A lecture entitled Figure and Frame in German Architecture and Film: From Mies to Murnau by Spyros Papapetros, assistant professor in the School of Architecture and member of the Program in Media and Modernity at Princeton University. Presented by the MFA Design Criticism Department. Tuesday, April 28, 6 – 8pm, 136 West 21st Street, 2nd floor. Free and open to the public. Please RSVP to 212.592.2228 or dcrit@sva.edu.
• MFA Fine Arts Department Open Studios: An opportunity to see new works by current students in the studio setting. Friday, May 1, 12 – 8pm; Saturday, May 2, 12 – 6pm; Reception: Thursday, April 30, 5 – 9pm. 133/141 West 21st Street, 8th and 9th floors. Free and open to the public.

For a complete list of SVA events, visit sva.edu/events.

Image: Julian Gilbert, Untitled, 2009; from “Mentors.”

The Advertising Club of New York recently announced the winners for the 2009 International ANDY Awards, and the list includes two recent SVA graduates: Annie Chiu (BFA 2008 Advertising) and Anna Echiverri (BFA 2008 Advertising). The ANDYs recognize excellence in advertising campaigns, and Chiu and Echiverri won a Gold award for Fashion, Apparrel and Accessories in the Student Division. They submitted a campaign created for Nike featuring a seatless park bench (pictured, right).

The pair began collaborating as students of BFA Advertising and Graphic Design faculty members Frank Anselmo and Jack Mariucci. Chiu and Echiverri spoke with the Briefs about their recent success and future plans:

Tell me about work submitted to the 2009 Student ANDY Awards.
Nike was one of the toughest assignments to work on because of all the great advertising done for them already. In Frank Anselmo’s Unconventional Advertising course, he does this slide show the very first week with the best work that’s been done and we distinctly remember a Nike ad. It was just caution tape over an escalator with a Nike logo. It was brilliant and simple. That’s what we strived for with our piece.

What are some of your more recent projects?
In the three months we’ve been at [boutique creative agency] Nitro, we’ve worked with almost every client there. They range from Philadelphia Cream Cheese to Foot Locker to Twix to 1-800-flowers.com

What lessons or skills learned at SVA have been helpful to you in your professional work?
Class critiques at SVA have given us pretty thick skins. We’ve been through many critiques with various creative directors and they’re tough. We’ve slaved over work that gets killed in less than a minute. But we love our work, so no matter how badly our work gets killed by the client or our creative directors, we can always look forward to another brief.

In addition, members of the SVA community recently received these industry accolades:

• The top three spots in the Society of Publication Designers’ Student Outreach Awards went to two current students in the BFA Advertising and Graphic Design Department: Melanie Teppich (first place) and Raul Aguila (second and third place) each won Adobe Scholarships and software, along with internships at W and Inc. magazines, respectively.
• Design work by Takashi Kusui (BFA 2008 Graphic Design), Jamus Marquette (BFA 2008 Graphic Design) and current student Adriana Uribe appears in the Spring 2009 issue of CMYK magazine.
• Alumnus and faculty member Benita Raphan (BFA 1984 Graphic Design) has received a fellowship from the Macdowell Colony for her film and video work. As an artist-in-residence at the Colony, she will receive room, board and exclusive use of a private studio on the property for up to eight weeks.

Image: Annie Chiu and Anna Echiverri, art directors and copywriters; Frank Anselmo, instructor.

The BFA Interior Design Department hosted a lively crowd of students, parents and industry professionals on Tuesday night to celebrate the department’s annual thesis exhibition. Held this year at the Art Directors Club, the show makes dramatic use of the warehouse-like space with a series of floor-to-ceiling printouts documenting the designs of graduating students. Many of the ambitious projects on view seem to answer President Obama’s call for rebuilding and modernizing the country’s infrastructure, from Mohamed Amer’s luxe airport terminal in San Francisco and Stephen Parker’s ferry terminal/entertainment multiplex at New York City’s Battery-Maritime Building to Jamie Slaper’s sustainable New Jersey Transit rail station.

After a welcome from Department Chair Jane Smith, the evening was capped off by the presentation of awards for outstanding thesis projects to four students: Mohamed Amer, Hayley Gardner, Ambar Margarida and Larissa Raywood.

Curated by faculty members Anthony Lee and Neville Lewis, “BFA Interior Design Department Thesis Exhibition” remains on view through Friday, April 24, at the Art Directors Club, 106 West 29th Street; viewing hours are from 10am to 6pm daily.

Images: Photo by Tanya Braganti; rendering by Mohammed Amer.

Digital artist and MFA Computer Art Department faculty member Joseph Nechvatal has an exhibition of computer-assisted paintings, “terra incOgnitO,” on view at the Wm Turner Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia, through Friday, April 24. The works are acrylic-on-canvas paintings in which the artist “collaborates” with a computer to generate the final pieces. Nechvatal recently sat down for an interview about his work and process; click here to view.

Joseph Nechvatal Interview from Anthony-Masterson on Vimeo.