In 2011, SVA won more Type Directors Club Awards than all other institutions combined, claiming 24 out of the 36 awards given for student projects. SVA also took home more TDC Awards than all professional firms in the running. The Type Directors Club is an international organization that promotes excellence in typography and awards are given annually in recognition of outstanding typeface design.
Filmmaker and alumnus Ti West (BFA 2003 Film and Video) recently talked to The New York Times about his creative process and latest writing and directing project, The Innkeepers, which opens February 3. West, a native of Wilmington, Delaware, has attracted notice since his studies at SVA for bringing a contemporary perspective to 1906s-era horror in films like The Roost and The House of the Devil.
Horror director-producer Larry Fessenden said he’s appreciated West’s unique and subtle approach since West interned for him. “Ti is absolutely focused, completely versed in the language of film,” Fessenden said. “He comes from the same school that I come from, which is where you make your film soup to nuts…It’s a real passion for the whole experience.”
The Inkeepers is about a pair of hotel clerks confronted with strange occurrences as they attempt to prove that the hotel is haunted. In the future, West said he hopes to venture into films with bigger budgets while maintaining his personal artistic vision.
To read the complete article, which accompanied by a video interview with the filmmaker and slideshow of his work, visit The New York Times.
Filmmaker, alumnus and MFA Fine Arts Department faculty member Johan Grimonprez’s (MFA 1992 Fine Arts) most recent project, The Shadow World, has been selected for a development grant from the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program. Based on a book of the same name by Andrew Feinstein, a former African National Congress member of parliament in South Africa, the documentary focuses on corruption in the international arms trade, those who profit financially from it, and the costs in human lives.
In addition to the grant, Grimonprez will also receive support from the Sundance Institute that includes work-in-progress screenings, access to creative labs, and special events and activities at the Sundance Creative Producing Summit and Sundance Film Festival. For updates about The Shadow World, which is scheduled for release in 2014, visit Louverture Films.
More than 500 photographs from the personal collection of curator and BFA Photography Department faculty member W.M. Hunt are on display through February 19 at the George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, 900 East Avenue, Rochester, New York. As the name of the exhibition suggests, “The Unseen Eye: Photographs from the W.M. Hunt Collection” is focused on not looking—the eyes of the subjects in each image are never directly fixed upon the viewer, whether due to an averted gaze, positioning of the head or blurring.
“The collection and exhibition represent a very personal journey for me,” says Hunt. “It is my conscious made manifest. These are all photos of me. But they’re all of you, too. They are evocative, whimsical, representational, many things. I love the mystery of it. You have to react, to come to the image, to make up your own story.”
The Golden Ass of Lucius Apuleius (David R. Godine, Inc. 2011), story by M.D. Usher and illustrations by BFA Illustration and Cartooning faculty member Tom Motley: Adapted for children by Usher, this classic tale centers on the misadventures of a young man obsessed with magic who mistakenly turns himself into a donkey. According to the publisher, “Motley’s lively, thoroughly contemporary drawings capture the boisterous, see-sawing plot, while wittily quoting any number of graphic predecessors.”
Orcs: Forged for War (First Second 2011), story by Stan Nicholls and illustrations by Joe Flood (BFA 2002 Illustration and Cartooning): Through highly detailed drawings, Flood brings to life the brutal warrior orcs that inhabit the fantasy landscape of Nicholls’ graphic novel, which has drawn comparisons to Frank Miller’s 300.
Life Dressing: The Idiosyncratic Fashionistas (self published, 2011) by current MFA Illustration as Visual Essay student Joana Avillez: As part of a semester-long project at SVA, Avillez focused her attention and cartooning skills on style icons The Idiosyncratic Fashionistas, whose motto is “Growing Old with Verve.” The result is Life Dressing, an illustrated book that chronicles the adventures of the art-loving duo.
SVA employee and alumnus Levent Cetiner (MFA 2005 Computer Art) recently used his creative skills to catch a burglar who was breaking into his Chelsea apartment—and the young artist did it remotely, via smartphone while seated at his desk six blocks away. Cetiner had set up a $50 motion detector in his apartment that, when triggered, sends real-time photos of the activity. He had originally purchased the device to use for an interactive art project, but then set it up to monitor his home when police issued a warning about recent burglaries in the neighborhood. “I hoped I wouldn’t actually have to use it, but I thought it was a good idea to have,” he told the New York Post.
When Centiner was alerted via e-mail that there was an intruder in his apartment, he called 911 and ran home. “I couldn’t get in because he locked the deadbolt from the inside,” he said. Centiner then shouted, “You’re being recorded, and the police are on the way!” When the police arrived moments later, Centiner used his smartphone to show them a photo of the man entering his top-floor apartment through a window off the fire escape. The law officers ended up finding the man hiding in the courtyard outside of the building and made the arrest.
Ali Eng (BFA 2011 Advertising) and Virgillio Tzaj (current student, BFA Advertising and Graphic Design) recently joined forces to form Citizens for Optimism, a team made up of over a dozen up-and-coming designers from the SVA community with the goal of promoting happiness through design. For their debut exhibition at Type Directors Club over the summer, the group asked New Yorkers to provide words they associate with optimism, which were then used as inspiration for the typographically illustrated posters created for the show.
On Friday, December 9 from 6 – 9pm at Brooklyn Collective, 212 Columbia Street, Brooklyn, Citizens for Optimism returns with a new exhibit of positive prints. Included in the show are works by Michelle Alvarez (BFA 2011 Graphic Design), Jason Arias (BFA 2011 Graphic Design), Julia Coelho (BFA 2011 Graphic Design), Phil DiBello (BFA 2011 Graphic Design), Colin Kinsley (BFA 2011 Graphic Design),Alex Kirhzner(BFA 2002 Graphic Design), Devin Washburn (BFA 2011 Graphic Design), and Leen Sadder (current student, MFA Design), as well current BFA Advertising and Graphic Design students Santiago Carrasquilla,Min Choi,Pedro Delkan, Joe Hollier, Aimee Hunt, Pedro Messias, and Rachel Willey.
Just when visitors to Art Basel Miami Beach and satellite fairs think they’ve seen it all, along come new artist-led initiatives to make each year memorable. Take COMPANY’s ArtV, a mobile art gallery that traveled New York’s Chelsea gallery district before making its way south for Art Basel. Through the week, the ArtV shuttled passengers between fairs as they enjoyed free DJ’d tunes and beverages. Among the artists with work on the ArtV was current BFA Visual & Critical Studies student Elektra KB, whose work was recently featured on COMPANY’s Web site.
And then there were the bricks-and-mortar operations that offered a fresh take on exhibiting art and building community. Co-directed by Brian Whiteley and Matthew Eck, current students in the MFA Fine Arts Department at SVA, Art Now is a young hotel fair that took place at the Catalina Hotel right alongside more established fairs. So why another fair? “I believe I can start changing the system from big money and big names and start showcasing young, hip, creative people,” said Whiteley. And what of the city’s appetite for yet another art fair? “Art has transformed Miami and Miami has welcomed it with open arms,” Whiteley told the Briefs. This year’s Art Now fair had 19 international exhibitors, with a mix of galleries, solo artists and collectives.
At NADA, a well-established fair organized by the New Art Dealers Alliance, one of the success stories belonged to alumnus Mike Egan (MFA 2007 Fine Arts), who directs New York’s Ramiken Crucible gallery. Ramiken moved into a new space on the Lower East Side earlier this year, joining several other artist-run spaces in the area. Showing just a handful of emerging artists in a compact booth at NADA, the staff at Ramiken reported doing brisk business from the fair’s opening.
SVA exhibited a selection of work by eight recent alumni at Aqua Art Miami; click here for details. To read other Briefs reports from Miami, click here.
For more images from Art Basel Miami Beach and beyond, or to post photos of your Miami art experience, visit SVA’s Facebook page.
Image: Art Now 2011 at the Catalina Hotel, Miami; courtesy Art Now, photo Matthew Eck.
With numerous satellite fairs going strong in Miami during Art Basel Miami Beach this year, SVA alumni were much in evidence throughout the city. At NADA, held at the landmark Deauville Hotel on the beach, a small canvas by alumnus and BFA Illustration and Cartooning Department faculty member Keith Mayersonat Derek Eller’s booth stood out from geometric abstraction and gesturalism on view nearby. The Invisible Exports booth had heads turning with Lisa Kirk’s (BFA 1991 Fine Arts) twin floor “speakers” and Paul Gabrielli’s (BFA 2005 Fine Arts) hair-dryer-meets-hand-dryer.
The Wynwood design district was bustling again with enough pop-up galleries and special events to make New Yorkers and Los Angelenos envious. At Scope, Artists Wanted exhibited Yuhi Hasegawa (MFA 2009 Fine Arts) as the winner of Art Takes London 2011 Prize. Yuhi was first introduced to Miami art audiences in SVA’s booth at Aqua Art Miami in 2009. New York’s Like A Spice Gallery showed Matt Stone (MFA 2010 Fine Arts) and Jason Bard Yarmosky (BFA 2010 Illustration), both of whom had their Miami debut last year at SVA’s booth at Aqua Art Miami, along with alumni Jenny Morgan (MFA 2008 Fine Arts) and Reuben Negron (MFA 2004 Illustration as Visual Essay).
This year also saw the return of Seven, a standout satellite fair in Wynwood that is produced through a collaboration by 7 New York galleries. SVA was represented by George Boorujy(MFA 2002 Illustration as Visual Essay), BFA Visual and Critical Studies Department faculty member and alumnus Amy Wilson (BFA 1995 Fine Arts) and Michelle Matson(BFA 2005 Fine Arts)–fresh off her appearance on Bravo TV’s Work of Art.
At Pulse, which was held at Miami’s historic Ice Palace, Michael Combs (MFA 1996 Illustration) was exhibited at Jonathan Ferrari, Simen Johan (BFA 1996 Photography) at Yossi Milo, Joe Fig (MFA 2002 Fine Arts) was at Christin Tierney, Donna Sharrett (BFA 1984 Fine Arts) at Pavel Zabouk, Jason Bard Yarmosky (BFA 2010 Illustration) and Martin Witfooth (MFA 2008 Illustration as Visual Essay) at Lyons Wier; and Jaime Ferreyros (BFA 1985 Media Arts) showed iPhone photography at Miami’s Independent Thinkers, a satellite fair held at Awarehouse.
SVA also exhibited a selection of work by 8 recent alumni at Aqua Art Miami; click here for details. To read other Briefs reports from Miami, click here.
For more images from Art Basel Miami Beach and beyond, or to post photos of your Miami art experience, visit SVA’s Facebook page.
Images: Works by alumni Paul Gabrielli (left) and Lisa Kirk (right) at Invisible Exports’ booth at NADA, photo Michael Grant; alumnus Yuhi Hasegawa at SCOPE, photo courtesy Artists Wanted.
Members of the SVA community were invited to participate in a recent Lands’ End launch party for the clothing brand’s Spring/Summer 2012 Canvas collection. With a soundtrack provided by Boston pop rockers The Wandas inside the walls of the Highline Stages in New York City’s Meatpacking District, MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Department faculty member Carl Titolo, alumnus Daniel Fishel (MFA 2011 Illustration as Visual Essay), and current MFA Illustration as Visual Essay students Keith Negley, John Malta and Cecilia Ruiz captivated the fashion-forward crowd with live painting on one of the walls of the giant space. For highlights from the event and more photos, visit District L or Tineey.
In 2011, SVA won more Type Directors Club Awards than all other institutions combined, claiming 24 out of the 36 awards given for student projects. SVA also took home more TDC Awards than all professional firms in the running. The Type Directors Club is an international organization that promotes excellence in typography and awards are given annually in recognition of outstanding typeface design.
