Visual Arts Briefs » BFA Fine Arts http://blog.sva.edu News and Events for the SVA Community Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:18:49 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 New Exhibitions by Chris Martin, Marianne Vitale and Gudmundur Thoroddsen http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20120206/new-exhibitions-by-chris-martin-marianne-vitale-and-gudmundur-thoroddsen http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20120206/new-exhibitions-by-chris-martin-marianne-vitale-and-gudmundur-thoroddsen#comments Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:23:43 +0000 kswitzer http://blog.sva.edu/?p=22103 For his first New York solo exhibition, “Father’s Fathers,” Guðmundur Thoroddsen (MFA 2011 Fine Arts) presents wood sculpture and works on paper. Initially trained as a painter, Thoroddsen began working in wood as a way to explore masculinity and unquestioned reliance on patriarchs and all-powerful gods. Thoroddsen’s coarsely rendered bearded heads and contemplative ink drawings explore the idea of man as simultaneously omnipotent and enormously base. On view at Asya Geisberg Gallery, 537-B West 23 Street, through February 18.

Chris Martin (BFA 1992 Fine Arts) continues to push the boundaries of painting with his latest show in Chelsea. While he is perhaps most known for creating work that emphasizes the beauty to be found in randomness, Martin also surprises viewers by using unexpected materials such as foam installation or even bread as canvases and by experimenting with unusual processes like fumage, painting with candle smoke. For the current exhibition, Martin displays a new series of paintings that includes works painted on newspaper pages. On view at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, 534 West 26 Street, through March 3.

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.

Image: Guðmundur Thoroddsen, Primogenitor, 2011, Wood, 19″ x 8″ x 10″.

]]> http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20120206/new-exhibitions-by-chris-martin-marianne-vitale-and-gudmundur-thoroddsen/feed 0 SVA Faculty and Alumni in the Whitney Biennial 2012 http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20120119/sva-faculty-and-alumni-in-the-whitney-biennial-2012 http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20120119/sva-faculty-and-alumni-in-the-whitney-biennial-2012#comments Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:26:40 +0000 kswitzer http://blog.sva.edu/?p=21651 Since its introduction in 1932, the Whitney Biennial—the museum’s signature exhibition and one of the art world’s most highly anticipated events—has kept a firm finger on the pulse of contemporary art across genres from painting, sculpture and installation to film, choreography and music. Of the fifty-one emerging and established artists chosen to participate in the 2012 Biennial, which opens March 1 and will be on view through May 27 (with additional programming continuing through June 10), four SVA faculty and alumni will be featured. Artists create works specifically for the Biennial; the Whitney will release details about the 2012 Biennial projects and a schedule of events in the coming weeks. But here is an overview of the types of work these four artists have built their reputations on.

Photographer and sculptor Sam Lewitt’s (BFA 2004 Fine Arts) preoccupation with text and imaging apparatus compel him to scrutinize the two with juxtapositions resulting in tableaus of its cast-offs. Through images of the innards of letterpress machinery to compositions consisting of reflective surfaces, Lewitt’s work tries to determine the ways in which “…language points up…materiality beyond the vagaries of self-representation.”

Matt Hoyt’s (BFA 2000 Fine Arts) unassuming sculptures that resemble found objects are usually displayed in groupings on shelves. Although the figures look like rocks or broken pottery he might have scavenged on a trail walk, these forms are carefully and meticulously made. Hoyt’s patina-covered materials—melted tape, plastic, resin—suggest a mutability that is reflected in their intimate scale.

Since the early 1990s, Liz Deschenes (faculty member in the MFA Photography, Video, and Related Media Department) has been making work that examines the variable nature of photography. For Deschenes, abstraction seems most interesting when it is revealed through explorations of more antiquated imaging processes like photograms. Her tongue-in-cheek union of the classic and the modern give her images a depth that belies their seeming minimalism.

Performance artist Andrea Fraser (1983 Fine Arts) is most known for risqué and controversial works that turn a critical eye on the business of art and cultural production. “All of my work is about what we want from art, what collectors want, what artists want from collectors, what museum audiences want,” Fraser explained in a 2004 New York Times article about her video Untitled (2003), in which she filmed herself having sex with an unidentified American collector.

For more information and updates about the Whitney Biennial 2012, visit the Whitney’s Web site.

]]> http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20120119/sva-faculty-and-alumni-in-the-whitney-biennial-2012/feed 0 Steven Heller and Lita Talarico Present ‘Typography Sketchbooks’ at the NYPL http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20120117/steven-heller-and-lita-talarico-present-%e2%80%98typography-sketchbooks%e2%80%99-at-the-nypl http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20120117/steven-heller-and-lita-talarico-present-%e2%80%98typography-sketchbooks%e2%80%99-at-the-nypl#comments Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:28:49 +0000 kswitzer http://blog.sva.edu/?p=21581 In front of a standing room-only audience, MFA Design Department Co-chairs Steven Heller and Lita Talarico led a lively discussion about their new book Typography Sketchbooks (Princeton Architectural Press) at The New York Public Library’s Berger Forum on Wednesday, January 11. They were joined by several contributors to the book (which features 118 designers in all), including alumni Travis Cain (MFA 2004 Design) and Matt Luckhurst (MFA 2010 Design), MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Department faculty member Viktor Koen, and Purgatory Pie Press duo Esther K. Smith and Dikko Faust.

Heller started the evening with a slideshow and enthusiastically praised the work featured in the book—“It transcends what’s on the screen.” He applauded both the refined and the very rough starts of the field of typography and demonstrated that “(typefaces) can represent things in the street that have nothing to do with typefaces.” Koen talked about his early distaste for sketches during his student years (one of his teachers required seven additional sketches in addition to final assignments), but said he soon began to appreciate sketching as an important part of the design process. Cain, currently the Art Director for Kiehl’s, said that because he focuses on easily readable type for Kiehl’s health and beauty products, in his spare time, he gravitates to “typography that doesn’t concern itself (with) whether the viewer can read it.”

Wearing a t-shirt displaying his students’ proofs, BFA Fine Arts Department faculty member and “Letterpress” instructor Faust presented with his professional and personal partner Smith. While showing the audience some of the process behind the duo’s Purgatory Pie Press, Smith emphatically stated that Faust hated Helvetica. The evening’s last presentation was from Luckhurst, who got into design via graffiti work. “Sketches don’t need to have an intent, other than to be sketches. Not to say they can’t, but it is novel to have a place to let the mind and hand wander,” he says in Typography Sketchbooks.

]]> http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20120117/steven-heller-and-lita-talarico-present-%e2%80%98typography-sketchbooks%e2%80%99-at-the-nypl/feed 0 SVA Filmmakers at Sundance 2012 http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20111212/sva-filmmakers-at-sundance-2012 http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20111212/sva-filmmakers-at-sundance-2012#comments Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:09:45 +0000 kswitzer http://blog.sva.edu/?p=21127
Once again, SVA will be well represented at the Sundance Film Festival. Of the only 16 coveted slots in the documentary category of the competition, four of the movies accepted were created by MFA Social Documentary Film Department faculty, alumni and guest lecturers. Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present was produced by Department Chair Maro Chermayeff and guest lecturer Jeff Dupre, directed by alumnus Matthew Akers (BFA 1998 Fine Arts), and edited by faculty member Donna Shepherd. Faculty member Tom Hurwitz served as director of photography for The Queen of Versailles, and films by guest lecturers Sam Pollard (Slavery By Another Name) and Susan Froemke (ESCAPE FIRE: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare) are premiering as well.

In addition, the fictional drama L Train by Anna Musso (BFA 2003 Film and Video)—who also worked as an assistant to director Alexander Payne on The Descendants, starring George Clooney—is competing in the short film category.

Image: A still from The Queen of Versailles, about a couple facing foreclosure while building America’s biggest house.

]]> http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20111212/sva-filmmakers-at-sundance-2012/feed 0 SVA in Miami: Beyond Art Basel http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20111207/sva-in-miami-beyond-art-basel http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20111207/sva-in-miami-beyond-art-basel#comments Wed, 07 Dec 2011 18:38:31 +0000 mgrant http://blog.sva.edu/?p=20944 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 Mayerson at 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.

]]> http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20111207/sva-in-miami-beyond-art-basel/feed 0 SVA in Miami: Art in the Park http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20111206/sva-in-miami-art-in-the-park http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20111206/sva-in-miami-art-in-the-park#comments Tue, 06 Dec 2011 18:12:13 +0000 mgrant http://blog.sva.edu/?p=20890
Even with some 260 participating galleries from around the world showing museum-quality work at this year’s Art Basel Miami Beach, not all the fair’s viewing action was on the floor of the Convention Center. For its 10th anniversary edition, the fair teamed up with the Bass Museum of Art to present Art Public, an installation of outdoor sculptures in the recently redesigned Collins Park. Among the 24 artists selected were two SVA alumni: Robert Melee (BFA 1990 Visual Arts) and Banks Violette (BFA 1998 Fine Arts), who is showing his first outdoor sculpture.

Occupying opposite ends of verdant Collins Park, Melee and Violette’s works are a study in contrasts. Melee’s 2008 bronze It Sitting is a pock-marked biomorphic mass doused in a rainbow of nautical paint. On the other side of the block, in more ways than one, Violette’s all-black 2011 aluminum structure Not yet titled looks like a roadside traffic barrier destroyed in a critical collision.

“The installation is intended to compliment, frustrate, soothe, challenge and distract from the cacophony and activity of South Beach during the show,” said Art Public Curator Christine Kim.

SVA also 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 SVA at Art Basel Miami Beach, or to post photos from your Miami art experience, visit SVA’s Facebook page.

Image: (top) Robert Melee, It Sitting, 2008. Photo by Onajide Shabaka/miamiartexchange.com. (bottom) Banks Violette, Not yet titled, 2011. Photo by Sam Modenstein. Both installed at Collins Park, Miami, for Art Public 2011.

]]> http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20111206/sva-in-miami-art-in-the-park/feed 0 SVA in Miami: Women Dominate at Art Basel http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20111205/sva-in-miami-women-dominate-at-art-basel http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20111205/sva-in-miami-women-dominate-at-art-basel#comments Mon, 05 Dec 2011 19:02:54 +0000 mgrant http://blog.sva.edu/?p=20826
2011 was a milestone for Art Basel Miami Beach as the world’s most watched art fair celebrated its 10th anniversary, and SVA alumni and faculty were well represented there. In terms of sheer numbers and attention-grabbing work, this was a banner year for women artists. One of the most popular booths on the Convention Center floor was Miami’s David Castillo Gallery, where a new video by Kate Gilmore (MFA 2002 Fine Arts) attracted a crowd. Buster has Gilmore smashing 200 paint-filled ceramic vessels, which flood the set with purple drips, pools and spatters.

Over at Salon 94, the booth was aglow with gold floor-to-ceiling architectural prints by alumnus Lorna Simpson (BFA 1982 Photography) and a shimmering new painting by Marilyn Minter (faculty member, MFA Fine Arts Department). Across the convention center floor at Galerie Lelong, another showstopper was MFA Fine Arts Department faculty member Petah Coyne’s untitled chandelier made from taxidermy birds and candles—one of those “you have to see it to believe it” works that rewards fairgoers of all stripes.

Striking a more somber note were twin portraits of George Harrison by Elizabeth Peyton (BFA 1987 Fine Arts) at Gavin Brown; a large black-and-white painting by Katherine Bernhardt (MFA 2000 Fine Arts) at CANADA; a pitch-black mirror painting by Liz Deschenes (faculty member, MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Department) at Miguel Abreu; and recent photography by Justine Kurland (BFA 1996 Photography) at Mitchell-Innes & Nash.

SVA also exhibited a selection of work by eight recent alumni at Aqua Art Miami; click here for details.

For more images from Art Basel Miami Beach, or to post photos from your art viewing in Miami, visit SVA’s Facebook page.

Images: (top) Kate Gilmore, Buster, 2011 video still, HD video; (bottom) works by Marilyn Minter (left) and Lorna Simpson (background) at Art Basel Miami Beach.

]]> http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20111205/sva-in-miami-women-dominate-at-art-basel/feed 0 SVA at Aqua Art Fair 2011 http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20111117/sva-at-aqua-art-fair-2011 http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20111117/sva-at-aqua-art-fair-2011#comments Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:34:04 +0000 kswitzer http://blog.sva.edu/?p=20456 For the sixth consecutive year, the College has a team in Miami, Florida for the 2011 edition of the season’s highly anticipated art fairs. Through Sunday, December 4, SVA will be participating in the Aqua Art Fair at the Aqua Hotel (Room #108), 1530 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach.

The SVA room features work by members of the class of 2011: Elektra KB (BFA Visual and Critical Studies), Christopher Patrick Ernst (BFA Photography), Carly Gaebe (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media), Miyeon Lee (MFA Fine Arts), Michael Severance (BFA Fine Arts), Rebecca Starr (BFA Photography), Joey Varas (MFA Fine Arts) and Emily Weiner (MFA Fine Arts).

For those who are going to be in Miami for the fairs, the Briefs has VIP passes (each ticket admits two) to give away to the first 10 people to email their mailing address to news@sva.edu. Please include “Aqua Art Fair” in the subject line.

For future giveaways, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Photo by Adam L. Weintraub.

]]> http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20111117/sva-at-aqua-art-fair-2011/feed 4 SVA Alumni Steer ‘Carrier Pigeon’ http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20111103/sva-alumni-guide-%e2%80%98carrier-pigeon%e2%80%99 http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20111103/sva-alumni-guide-%e2%80%98carrier-pigeon%e2%80%99#comments Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:33:17 +0000 kswitzer http://blog.sva.edu/?p=20077
After completing studies in the MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Department in 2009, Russ Spitkovsky, Kristy Caldwell, Ray Jones, Matt Barteluce, and Christopher Darling sought to create a platform where artists, writers, designers, and illustrators could have full creative control but still participate in the commercial art market. The result is Carrier Pigeon, a quarterly journal of illustrated fiction and fine art that challenges the idea that there is a hierarchy among artistic disciplines. Each issue contains six sinister tales of short fiction along with six forward-looking artist portfolios. The main aim of the project is to create a publication that is also a stand-alone work of art.

Issue 4 (now available) features an eye-catching cover design by BFA Fine Arts Department faculty member Bruce Waldman. Kristy Caldwell captures the mood of an artfully crafted monologue with her clever brush and ink drawings, while artist Rachel Allison (MFA 2009 Illustration as Visual Essay) locates the essence of “discovery” in a story about reconciliation through her intimate illustrations that read like environmental snapshots. Editor-in-chief Russ Spitkovsky adds some poetic musings about sleeping and dreaming in outer space, complimented by Matt Barteluce’s playfully whimsical images. Plus much more.

For more information about Carrier Pigeon and to preview the latest issue, visit www.carrierpigeonmag.com.

]]> http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20111103/sva-alumni-guide-%e2%80%98carrier-pigeon%e2%80%99/feed 0 What’s In Store: Lying Maps, Keith Haring, and Forged http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20111102/what%e2%80%99s-in-store-lying-maps-keith-haring-and-forged http://blog.sva.edu/index.php/20111102/what%e2%80%99s-in-store-lying-maps-keith-haring-and-forged#comments Wed, 02 Nov 2011 20:33:00 +0000 kswitzer http://blog.sva.edu/?p=20052 Paula Scher MAPS: Paintings, Installations, Drawings, and Prints (Princeton Architectural Press 2011) by Paula Scher (Masters Series laureate and former BFA Advertising and Graphic Design Department faculty member): In the early 1990s, celebrated graphic designer Paula Scher began painting maps of the world as she saw it. The larger her canvases grew, the more expressionistic her geographical visions became. Collected here for the first time, Paula Scher MAPS presents 39 of her creations. The forward of the book is titled “All Maps Lie,” an assertion directly from Scher that seems to celebrate the accuracy of maps despite their inherent distortion. To read a recent interview with Scher by MFA Design Department co-chair Steven Heller, visit The Atlantic.

Keith Haring Exhibition and Pop Shop at Pace Prints, 521 West 26 Street, through December 3: This exhibition of prints and small-scale multiples by Keith Haring (1979 Fine Arts) features works created by the artist between 1983 and 1990. For the occasion, Pace Prints has also set up a Pop Shop, which, in addition to prints, offers Haring-inspired footwear by British shoe designer Nicholas Kirkwood, as well as Haring-inspired apparel and accessories by New York stylist Patricia Field.

Forged (Revere Pictures, LLC 2010) directed by William Wedig (BFA 2006 Film and Video): After a jam packed summer full of screenings and a major city tour with stops in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami, William Wedig’s film Forged is now available on DVD. Set in the cold and rusty town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, Forged follows ex-con Chuco (Manny Perez) on his quest to redeem himself after committing a horrific sin against his son, Machito (David Castro). Watch the trailer for Forged below.

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