Alumnus Peter Buchanan-Smith (MFA 2000 Design) earned a lot of attention earlier this year for his line of designer axes. Building on the success of the project, Buchanan-Smith is now producing a series of five short films showing the axes in action. The Chop series is a collaboration between the designer, photographer Finn O’Hara and composer Nico Muhly, slowing down the action of the ax to reveal the inherent drama of steel splitting wood.
The Guardian’s My Best Shot series selects photographers to share and comment on their favorite works. Alumnus Molly Landreth’s (MFA 2005 Photography, Video and Related Media) image It’s Very Tender…, featuring young women in Orthodox Jewish drag, was a recent feature. Landreth, who took the photograph as part of series on “queer life in America” while at SVA, says of the shoot, “Most of the photographs felt too camp, but this one was different. It’s very tender: when I saw it, I felt it was a portrait of the girls themselves, instead of the male characters they were portraying.”
The Sunday, September 26, edition of The New York Times included a special pull-out section, entitled Op-Ed at 40: Four Decades of Argument and Illustration, that celebrated 40 years of the newspaper’s Op-Ed page.
The section reprints excerpts of opinion columns written over the years by such guests as Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Regan, writers W.H. Auden and Tom Wolfe, among others from across the spectrum of the arts, business, culture and politics. Alongside the columns are samples of “Op-Art” illustrations created exclusively for the page, including work from MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Department Chair Marshall Arisman, Masters Series laureate Seymour Chwast, Acting Chairman Milton Glaser, MFA Design Department faculty member Maira Kalman and alumnus Sam Weber (MFA 2005 Illustration as Visual Essay).
The coverage also extends to the Times’ Web site, which includes an interactive version of the special section and a 10-minute video about the history of the Op-Ed page. Among those interviewed for the video—written and narrated by MFA Design Department Co-chair Steven Heller—are Kalman and faculty member Mirko Ilic.
Image: Maira Kalman, And the Pursuit of Happiness, December 31, 2009, in The New York Times, Op-Ed at 40: Four Decades of Argument and Illustration, September 26, 2010.
After closing out its successful debut season of Work of Art: The Next Great Artist, cable network Bravo is beginning production on season two. To begin assembling the show’s next group of emerging artists, Bravo invited members of the SVA community to participate in a large-scale portfolio review session that was held September 25 at the Brooklyn Museum.
Among the first-round judges at the event were 3D Design Chair Kevin O’Callaghan, and staff members Quinn Dukes, Adria Ingegneri and Chris Jessick (BFA 2006 Film and Video). According to Jessick, who is the manager of transfer admissions in the Office of Admissions, more than 700 artists brought their work for review before the panel. “We were the first line of review, giving a ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ to artists who want to be on the show,” he said. “It was a similar format to what we do as admissions recruiters, and it was an interesting experience to do it as part of a TV show.”
While this initial round of reviews was not filmed for Work of Art, some of the artists Jessick and his fellow reviewers evaluated are likely to appear in the sophomore season.
Although best known for its photos of naked and scantily clad women, Playboy magazine also has a long history of publishing short stories by notable writers, including Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Joyce Carol Oates and John Updike. The magazine started a college fiction competition in 1986, and this year Playboy asked students in the MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Department to compete to illustrate the winning story, Meaghan Mulholland’s Woman, Fire & The Sea.
The winning image by recent graduate Clay Rodery (MFA 2010 Illustration as Visual Essay) is featured on a two-page spread in the October 2010 issue, and images by current MFA students Philip Cheaney, Pat Kinsella, Jungyeon Roh (BFA 2009 Illustration), and 2010 graduates Jonathan Bartlett, Kelley Hensing and Andrew Roberts also accompany the story.
Image: page 64 – 65 of the October 2010 issue of Playboy; illustration by Clay Rodery.
The Martha Stewart Show traveled to Istanbul, Turkey, for a series of segments, and the September 24 episode featured an interview with Peter Hristoff (BFA 1981 Fine Arts; faculty member, BFA Fine Arts and BFA Visual & Critical Studies Departments). Hristoff joined Martha Stewart on a tour of Istanbul’s iconic Sultan Ahmed Mosque (aka, the Blue Mosque) and spoke about the history of the house of worship as well as the visual motifs of the Iznik tiles that decorate the interior.
To view the full five-minute segment with Hristoff and Stewart in Turkey, visit The Martha Stewart Show site.
Viewers of the September 26 installment of AMC’s Mad Men might have noticed a familiar name in the opening credits: alumnus Lynn Shelton (MFA 1995 Photography and Related Media) directed the “Hands and Knees” episode. Shelton’s work for the award-winning TV show follows last year’s critical acclaim for her feature film Humpday.
Monumental: The Reimagined World of Kevin O’Callaghan (Abrams, 2010) collects more than two decades worth of outsized works by 3D Design Chair Kevin O’Callaghan and his students. With text by Deborah Hussey (curriculum coordinator at SVA) and a foreword by MFA Design Department Co-chair Steven Heller, Monumental includes work from “Yugo Next,” “TVs for Movie People,” “Off-Roading” and other exhibitions that transform everyday objects into one-of-a-kind works of art.
SVA has partnered with Advertising Week to present two programs for New York City high school students at the SVA Theatre, 333 West 23rd Street. On Monday, September 27, 9 – 11am, the College hosts Operation Inspire 4.0, a program that includes Wilde Thinking: A Creative Process, led by BFA Advertising and Graphic Design Department Chair Richard Wilde (Wilde will also be presenting the opening keynote address at this year’s UCDA Design Conference, on Saturday, October 2); and a talk by VCU Brandcenter’s Rick Boyko, geared to inspire students to pursue a career in the advertising industry.
On Wednesday, September 29, SVA hosts the Advertising Futures Competition student presentations. This competition unites student teams from 20 NYC high schools with the nation’s top advertising agencies to create an ad campaign—this year, to fight online exploitation of young girls. The winning team will be announced at the afternoon’s program. As part of the competition, the College is offering one $50,000 Silas H. Rhodes Merit Scholarship to a participating student who meets the requirements to attend SVA.
The MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Department’s class of 2010 is back at SVA for a special event, with a program of the recent graduates’ thesis videos. On Sunday, September 26, 6pm, at the SVA Theatre, 333 West 23rd Street, video work by 2010 alumni Isabel Rosemblatt Bono, Madeline LaLande, Chompunutt Mayta, Violana Murataj and Eliana Ujueta will be screening, followed by a reception with refreshments.
For more information on the alumni and their work, visit the department’s Web site. Admission to this event is free and open to the public.
