Visual Arts Briefs

Slate magazine’s financial blog The Big Money tours office spaces in its occasional Web-video series Cubez. In the latest installment, Marvel Comics editor-in-chief and distinguished alumnus Joe Quesada (BFA 1984 Media Arts) takes viewers through the superhero-strewn halls of Marvel.

• Communication Arts profiled alumnus John Hendrix (MFA 2003 Illustration as Visual Essay) in an eight-page spread in the September/October issue. The article gives an overview of Hendrix’s career as an illustrator, including his stint as assistant art director at The New York Times and his SVA thesis project about real and imagined disasters, The Worst of Times.
• BFA Illustration and Cartooning faculty member Peter Kuper was just interviewed by Design Arts Daily about the publication of his book Diario de Oaxaca: A Sketchbook Journal of Two Years in Mexico. Kuper is also the subject of an exhibition at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, 594 Broadway, Suite 401, which runs through Wednesday, November 25.
• Alumnus Melanie Flood (BFA 2001 Photography) was recently featured in The New York Times‘ blog The Local for the gallery she runs out of her Brooklyn home, Melanie Flood Projects. By hanging art on her living room walls and inviting strangers into her home, Flood attempts to bring exposure to emerging photographers and help people engage with art in an intimate setting. Read the full article here.

On September 17, the design community gathered for one of its most prominent annual events: the AIGA Design Legends Gala and the awarding of the AIGA Medal. One of the three 2009 medalists was BFA Advertising and Graphic Design faculty member Carin Goldberg who is, according to the AIGA, “recognized for her exquisite ability to join intelligence, craft and an eye for the evocative image in designing iconic pop-cultural and literary artifacts, and for her commitment to design education.” Her work ranges from book and CD covers to collages for The New York Times and the BFA Advertising and Graphic Design Department’s Senior Library.

Goldberg was introduced by a fellow SVA faculty member and past medal winner, the renowned designer and Master’s Series laureate Paula Scher. In receiving this honor, Golberg joins the ranks of previous winners, who include faculty member and alumnus Gail Anderson (2008), SVA Founder Silas H. Rhodes (2004) and current Acting Chairman Milton Glaser (1972).

Image: Carin Goldberg, 2004 BFA Advertising and Graphic Design Department Senior Library.

A number of art and design luminaries turned out on September 16 to celebrate the opening and dedication of the newly-renovated SVA Theatre, with a façade and interiors by legendary designer, faculty member and SVA Acting Chairman Milton Glaser. Among those on hand were filmmaker Paul Morrissey, who was a frequent collaborator of Andy Warhol’s, and artists Marshall Arisman (chair, MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Department), Paul Davis (G 1959 Illustration) and Tony Palladino.

Following a cinematic montage of the era that inspired the design of the theater’s marquee sculpture, SVA Executive Vice President Anthony P. Rhodes paid tribute to his late parents, SVA founder Silas H. Rhodes and wife Beatrice, for whom the theater’s two auditoriums are named. SVA President David Rhodes then read from a letter by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg: “This beautiful and innovative new theater is yet another example not only of his artistic brilliance, but also of his commitment to enhancing the cultural life of our City,” said Bloomberg of Glaser’s work since creating the “I Love New York” logo. The designer himself took the podium to describe his friendship with Silas and long history with the College. “SVA has been central to my life for half a century,” he said.

The evening was capped off by the lighting of the theater’s marquee sculpture, as the crowd took to the sidewalk to admire the view.

Read an interview with Milton Glaser about his design for the SVA Theatre in the College’s 2009 Annual.

Image: The SVA Theatre. Photo by Jason Geller.

SVA was recently honored as one of the three schools selected as finalists in the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A) 2009 O’Toole Awards for Creative Excellence. Members of the BFA Advertising and Graphic Design Department attended an awards ceremony this week at the Nokia Theater, presented by 4A in conjunction with Advertising Week; Atlanta’s The Creative Circus and Virginia Commonwealth University were the other finalists. The event included appearances by prominent members of the advertising industry and a concert featuring artists Eve, Wyclef Jean and Raphael Saadiq. For more information on the O’Toole Awards, visit 4A’s Web site.

Through Wednesday, September 30, the BFA Photography Department will host an online auction to benefit a scholarship fund established in the memory of alumnus Tracey Baran (BFA 1997 Photography). Proceeds will benefit the Tracey Baran Award, an annual grant open by application to an emerging female photographer from the US.  Additionally, the auction is intended to celebrate Baran’s life and photographic work and to encourage interest in her work.

The auction will include works by members of the SVA community, including BFA Photography Department alumni John Arsenault (1999), Monica Bradley (1999), Brian Finke (1998), Carrie Levy (2000), Megan Maloy (1997), Darin Mickey (1998), Katie Murray (1997), Mark Roussel (2001), Michael Stuetz (1996), Jonathan Torgovnik (1996) and Bahar Yurukoglu (2003); faculty members Elinor Carucci, Allen Frame, Joseph Maida, Michael Van Horne (BFA 1999 Photography), Jerry Vezzuso (BFA 1968 Photography), Eric Weeks (BFA 1987 Photography); and Department Chair Stephen Frailey.

Image: Tracy Baran, I Miss You Already, 2004, C-print.

This week, the political pranksters known as The Yes Men perpetrated their latest elaborate joke in New York City. Almost a million newspaper readers were handed The Yes Men’s satirical version of the New York Post, featuring the banner headline “We’re Screwed!”; the rest of the paper included additional absurdist twists on the stories of the day, all rendered in the Post’s signature visual and journalistic style.

MFA Design Department Co-chair Steven Heller appeared on the September 23 edition of WNYC radio’s morning show The Takeaway to talk about the efficacy of this and other political pranks in changing conversations and point of view. Visit The Takeaway’s show page to listen to the segment online and view a collection of Web videos by The Yes Men.

MFA Interaction Design Department Chair Liz Danzico recently penned an article for design magazine Core77 entitled “Check Please: How To Learn About Your Clients From Their Table Manners.”

The humorously insightful guide for designers looking to suss out the qualities of prospective clients provides tips including how to interpret the choice of bottled or tap water (“Those confident enough to order tap water are most likely authentic and confident, not afraid to be themselves”) and the telling use of salt and pepper (“When the food arrives, does your client salt and pepper the food before he or she tastes it? If so, this is a clear sign that your client is potentially closed-minded, not open to new ideas, or set in his or her ways.”) For more of Danzico’s writing and sage advice for digital designers, visit her blog at bobulate.com.

The MFA Art Criticism and Writing Department invited noted cultural critic and provocateur Dave Hickey to speak at the SVA Theatre on Thursday as part of the Art in the First Person fall lecture series. With his trademark wit and candor, Hickey spoke to a standing room only crowd from his perspective as a writer, educator and art-world observer for the past four decades. Addressing a range of issues—from supply-side economics in systems of patronage to the Darwinian market situations facing artists today—Hickey stressed the importance of rethinking currently accepted trends and practices in art.

Hickey’s observations included:

• “There is always a stable field of artistic maneuvers that may be said to constitute standard practice at any moment and a field of historical works of art that constitute the fashionable canon.”
• “Any work of art that is in perfect compliance with standard practice and the fashionable canon of its moment is for all intents and purposes, invisible.”

The complete lecture will be available in October on iTunesU, and you can read Aimee Walleston’s (MFA 2009 Art Criticism) interview with Hickey in The New York Times blog The Moment.

Coming up next in the Art in the First Person series is a conversation between painter David Salle and art historian Karen Lang on Tuesday, September 29, 7pm, at the SVA Theatre; click here for more information.

Image: Dave Hickey speaking at SVA; photo by Keri Murawski.

This year’s New York Television Festival is touching down in the city September 21 – 26, providing a week’s worth of events and screenings for both established and emerging members of the industry. Lost Cities, a project created by current BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects Department student Dillon McCarthy and alumnus Chad Von Nau (BFA 2006 Computer Art), will be shown as part of the festival’s Independent Pilots Competition on Thursday, September 24, 6:15pm, and Friday, September 25, 5pm.

“Lost Cities is an adventure tourism series that explores lesser-known cities in the U.S.,” say the comedy show’s creators, adding, “It’s also completely made up.” The episodes are hosted by a character named Nate Starkey, whose attempts to show various locales in a positive light invariably uncover each location’s worst qualities. For information on the Lost Cities screenings, click here.