Visual Arts Briefs

Two current exhibitions in New York City are highlighting the work of female photographers from SVA’s graduate and undergraduate photography programs. The Humble Arts Foundation (HAF) is presenting “31 Women in Art Photography” at Affirmation Arts, 523 West 37th Street, which includes work by six SVA alumni: Erica Allen (MFA 2008 Photography, Video and Related Media), Alison Malone (MFA 2008 Photography, Video and Related Media), Yamini Nayar (MFA 2005 Photography, Video and Related Media), Sarah Palmer (MFA 2008 Photography, Video and Related Media), Rachel Sussman (BFA 1998 Photography) and Kirsten Kay Thoen (MFA 2009 Photography, Video and Related Media). The show, which HAF has organized in honor of Women’s History Month, will be on view through Saturday, April 10.

Palmer’s work is also the subject of a her first solo exhibition, “As a Real House,” at the Wild Project, 195 East 3rd Street, March 18 – May 15 (with an opening reception on Thursday, March 18, 6 – 8pm). Collecting images from a series that uses landscapes, rooms and objects to examine memory and lost time, the show is co-curated by Kate Greenberg and Hilary Schaffner, who are both currently students in the MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Department.

Image: Sarah Palmer, Post–Post Etiquette, 2009.

Late last year current MFA Design Criticism Department student Mike Neal visited Utah’s Mars Desert Research Station as part of research for his thesis project. He recently appeared on WNYC’s Studio 360 to discusss the project with faculty member Kurt Anderson (who is also hosting the department’s upcoming D-Crit Conference), and Neal sent the Briefs the following dispatch from the red planet…

Right after Thanksgiving dinner, I packed my bags and flew to Mars—or rather the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), a Martian simulation in the Utah desert. As part of my thesis project I was selected by the Mars Society to spend two weeks at MDRS, where I would study the design for living on another planet.

Crew 84, my rotation, included a Swiss astrophysicist, an Italian evolutionary biologist, a geoscientist and two mechanical engineers. We lived in a tiny “tuna can” habitat based on the proposals of aerospace engineer Dr. Robert Zubrin, the founder of the Mars Society. The air was thin and dry; personal space meant a 4×10’ room; and going outside meant wearing a space suit that took away much of our vision, hearing and dexterity while conducting experiments and navigating the rocky and dangerous and surprisingly Mars-like terrain.

Our limited water was rationed to one Navy shower every three days and two toilet flushes each day per person. Much of it was recycled through the greenhouse, making most products like shampoo, soap and even toothpaste incompatible with the sensitive biological components. Even the potable water for drinking and rehydrating our meals was boiled and filtered. As on Mars, there was no phone signal, and the Internet was severely limited in bandwidth. If the generators gave out late at night, the subzero temperatures outside made us never take the heating system and warm clothes for granted. The small luxuries of normal life I began to think of as “Earth excess.”

The design around us became our world; like a planetary Modernism (though not as sleek), it was one of minimums. Yet, surprisingly much of what we lost didn’t seem that important. Even in the claustrophobic suits the expanse of the landscape was freeing, and personal retreats into our rooms seemed less important than gathering around the table at mealtime. After coming back to New York I realized that my time on “Mars” had taught me a lot about how I lived on Earth, that design had a long way to go on both planets, and that people can be a lot stronger and more adaptable than they think.

Images: Mike Neal at the Mars Desert Research Station, 2009.

Recognizing outstanding type design created in the past year, the Type Directors Club’s (TDC) just announced the lineup for their annual exhibition and print publication. Of the 36 winning student projects to make it into the exhibition TDC 56, 16 were created by SVA students and alumni. The TDC is an international organization whose aim is to support excellence in typography, both in print and on screen. TDC 56 will open Tuesday, July 13, at The Cooper Union in New York. The work will also be part of traveling exhibitions to Canada, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Spain and Taiwan and included in the organization’s annual, Typography 31. The annual will be designed by BFA Advertising and Graphic Design Department faculty member Paul Sahre and will be released in December.

Since the TDC also awards scholarships, they recently revisted some of their past winners and featured interviews with the former students on their Web site, including SVA graduates Wei Lieh Lee (BFA 2007 Graphic Design) and Natsumi Nishizumi (BFA 2003 Graphic Design). Lee and Nishizumi spoke about the importance of typography to them, now that they are working designers. Click here to read the interviews.

The winners from SVA in this year’s TDC competition were current students in the BFA Advertising and Graphic Design Department Jiwon Kim, Young Bum Kim, Thomas Losinski, Yumi Nakamura and Eunjung Yoo; current students in the MFA Design Department: Rosina Bosco, Wesley Gott, Karin Soukup, Jules Tardy and James Kyungmo Yang; and 2009 graduates from the BFA Advertising and Graphic Design Department Tom Grunwald, Ihn Sun Kim and Ann Im Sunwoo.

Image:  Eun-Jung Yoo, Fork Alphabet, 2010

• Several members of the SVA community are featured in the March/April issue of Communication Arts. The magazine has reviews of Milton Glaser: To Inform & Delight, a documentary about SVA Acting Chairman Milton Glaser;  Design School Confidential, the latest book from MFA Design Department Co-chairs Steven Heller and Lita Talarico; and Look Both Ways, the new book by MPS Branding Department Chair Debbie Millman. Millman was also quoted in an article about the ethics of spec work in the design field. The issue also includes a profile of illustrator and alumnus Lisel Jane Ashlock (MFA 2009 Illustration as Visual Essay).
• Maira Kalman, faculty member in the MFA Design Department, was recently interviewed by Paper magazine. Kalman spoke about the exhibition of her work currently up at The University of Pennsylvania’s Institute of Contemporary Art as well as her New York Times blog And The Pursuit of Happiness.
• The MFA Fine Arts Department exhibition “Thanks…but it’s actually on purpose” was covered by the Spanish-language news outlet El Diario/La Prensa. The video report features highlights of the exhibition as well as interviews with exhibiting artists Lorena Duran, Maria Jose Duran Steinman and Visual Arts Gallery Director Francis Di Tommaso. Click here to view the video.
• ABC’s The View hosted alumnus Elissa Stein (BFA 1994 Graphic Design) on Tuesday, March 10. Stein talked about the book she co-wrote, Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation. Click here to view the clip. Stein was also quoted in a New York Times article about euphemistic advertising for feminine care products and the book was covered in U.S.1.

Student Health and Counseling Services at SVA, in partnership with The Samaritans of New York, sponsored the 5th Annual HOPE Art Competition. Students from all departments were invited to submit artwork that embodied this year’s theme of suicide prevention. The competition reception was held on March 4 at the Monkey Bar Lounge where two winners were announced: Erin M. Hesser, a first-year animation student won the film/motion category for her piece Meant to be Shared and Rachel Pontious, a third-year illustration student, was the winner in the print category for her piece We Can Share the Load.

The Samaritans is a non-profit organization that operates New York City’s 24-hour suicide prevention hotline (212.673.3000), public education and awareness programs and support groups for those who have lost a loved one to suicide. The winning artists of the HOPE competition may have their work reproduced by Samaritans for use in both print and media advertisement throughout the New York City-Metropolitan area and beyond to raise awareness about the availability of suicide prevention services.

Student Health and Counseling Services awarded each winner a $300 gift card, made possible by The Alumni Society of School of Visual Arts and the Tim Sharkey Memorial Fund. Speakers at the reception included Rachel Dress, LMSW psychotherapist, Student Health and Counseling Services, Shannon Erwin, development manager, Development and Alumni Affairs; and Alan Ross, executive director, The Samaritans.

Image: (top) photo of Erin M. Hesser with her work Meant to be Shared; (bottom) photo of Rachel Pontious with her work We Can Share the Load

Last weekend New York City hosted more than a dozen art fairs, and SVA was well represented at several venues. At The Armory Show, faculty member Nancy Chunn’s Chicken Little and the Culture of Fear, a work that includes nearly 300 paintings, took over the Ronald Feldman Gallery booth. Off site, through a new partnership with SVA, Armory Show VIPs were able to enjoy private studio tours of alumni Alexis Rockman (BFA 1985 Fine Arts) and Billy Sullivan (1968 Fine Arts) who opened up their studios to guests for several hours on Saturday and Sunday. “It’s a chance for people who have long admired the work of these artists to meet them in an intimate setting and for the most part, to see work that hasn’t been shown anywhere else yet,” explains SVA staff member and alumnus Dan Halm (MFA 2001 Illustration as Visual Essay; BFA 1994 Illustration), who organized the program. Visitors were able to see some of the new pieces that Rockman is preparing in advance of his mid-career retrospective at the Smithsonian American Art Museum later this year. Also present at the Armory Show was Dear Dave, magazine.

Several SVA alumni participated in the PULSE fair, including: George Boorujy (MFA 2002 Illustration as Visual Essay) at the P.P.O.W. Gallery booth; Lili Almog (BFA 1992 Photography) at the Andrea Meislin Gallery booth; Robert Lazzarini (BFA 1990 Fine Arts) at the Winkleman booth; and Thordis Adalsteinsdottir (MFA 2003 Fine Arts) at the Stux Gallery booth.

Over at VOLTA, alumnus Soyeon Cho (MFA 2004 Fine Arts) showed at the SKL Gallery Palma de Mallorca booth and alumni Gregg Louis (MFA 2009 Fine Arts) and Noa Charuvi (MFA 2009 Fine Arts) participated in the group performance The Holistic Healing Center and Emerging Artist Massage Parlor, which was part of the VOLTA NY Happenings program. PooL Art Fair showed the work of Cat Del Buono (MFA 2008 Photography, Video and Related Media) and the Verge Art Fair, new to New York this year, hosted a conversation with alumnus Katarina Jerinic (MFA 2002 Photography and Related Media), who discussed her multidisciplinary project The Work Office.

Image: Nancy Chunn, Chicken Little and the Culture of Fear Scene VI: The Road (detail), 2006-07, acrylic on canvas, 64 panels, 142 x 336 inches overall, courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York

Alumnus Michael Giacchino (BFA 1990 Film and Video) has won an Oscar in the category of Music (Original Score) for his score for the animated film Up. Giacchino, who had previously been nominated in 2007 for his score for the animated film Ratatouille, thanked his parents in his acceptance speech for always being supportive of his creative pursuits, beginning at age nine when he borrowed his dad’s movie camera to start making films. Giacchino continued, “I know there are kids out there that don’t have that support system, so if you’re out there and you’re listening, listen to me: If you want to be creative, get out there and do it. It’s not a waste of time.”

In an interview with The Los Angeles Times last month, Giacchino talked about the music and composers that have influenced his work, from The Dick Van Dyke Show to Star Wars. Click here to view his acceptance speech on the Academy Web site.

Other SVA alumni to be recognized recently for outstanding filmmaking include Lynn Shelton (MFA 1995 Photography and Related Media), who won the John Cassavetes Award at the Film Independent Spirit Awards for her film Humpday, and Brenton Cottman (BFA 2003 Illustration), who won a Visual Effects Society (VES) Award for Outstanding Matte Paintings in a Feature Motion Picture for his work as leade matte painter on the film Avatar.

Image: Still from video from Oscar.com

The third in a series of one-on-one conversations with SVA’s department chairs.

Deborah Farber chairs the MPS Art Therapy Department, a two-year program that combines clinical experience with training in studio art and contemporary theories of psychological development and creativity. In addition to an annual conference and public lectures, the department hosts an annual exhibition highlighting students’ internships. Farber talked to the Briefs as the department was about to open “Counterbalance,” which is on view through March 20.

Tell me about the exhibition.
It’s called “Counterbalance” because the premise of the exhibition is how the therapist responds to the client’s needs by providing the resources and creative environment so that the client can find his or her own curative path. The relationship is very fluid, and it’s always changing based on the needs of the client. The show supports the notion of humanistic art therapy, that both the therapist and the client learn from each other and grow as a result of the relationship.

Your students are artists who have decided to pursue another avenue of creative expression. How does that come into play?
Being an artist, you understand innately that the creative process is healing, and you’ve developed a kind of vocabulary, a personal hieroglyphics. When you experience something that’s beyond words, and you can deal with it through art, there’s something cathartic about that. After you put it down on paper it doesn’t feel the same as before, because you understand it in your own personal artistic language. So students are learning about the creative process and how to harness it in other people. And they’re learning patience. They might understand where a client is at, because they have the diagnosis, but they might have to wait for clients to tell the story of what happened to them—either through art, or through words, or both. They have to know how to support and not judge it.

How has the field changed since you started the program?
There’s a lot of focus now on neuroscience and how trauma is processed, and it turns out that trauma memories are stored in the right cerebral hemisphere, in a part of the brain that is nonverbal, so nonverbal methods such as art therapy are an excellent way to access and process trauma. We’ve had lecturers like Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk, a leader in neuroscience, and we have a physician on the faculty, whose specialty is addiction and neuropsychiatry, who teaches the physiology of addiction. So students come away with an understanding of the brain that art therapists who were trained 10 years ago did not.

You not only chair the department and teach, you also practice art therapy.
I worked for the past year with women soldiers in transition. They were taken out of the field because of physical injuries, or psychological injuries, or both. I met women who, in Iraq, for example, went out with a partner to search for weapons, and then a bomb hits their vehicle, and the person they were talking to five minutes ago is dead. So they suffered multiple traumas. They weren’t sure if they were going back to war. But through art therapy they got to examine different sides of themselves, different masks they would wear in combat and in other aspects of their personal and professional lives.

Image: Katherine Hinson, untitled, 2010, mixed media; from “Counterbalance”

One of the most watched medal ceremonies last week took place not in Vancouver but in Washington, DC, as President Obama presented the National Medal of Arts at the White House. Among those receiving the country’s highest honor for artistic excellence was SVA Acting Chairman and longtime faculty member Milton Glaser. As the first graphic designer to earn a medal, Glaser was commended for a lifetime devoted to improving the way people communicate through innovation in graphic design. Click the image below to view the video of the ceremony.

In addition to teaching at SVA since 1960, Glaser has created many of the iconic subway posters published by the College, some of which were exhibited last fall in “Milton Glaser’s SVA: A Legacy of Graphic Design.” New Yorkers can also experience Glaser’s work in person at the SVA Theatre, whose interiors and façade he designed.

Since the official announcement, design aficionados have noted that another of this year’s medalists, Bob Dylan, was memorably captured by Glaser in a 1966 poster that is in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Other medalists include: Clint Eastwood, Maya Lin, Rita Moreno, Jessye Norman, Joseph P. Riley, Jr., Frank Stella, Michael Tilson Thomas and John Williams.

Image: Still from White House video.

• For its February 25th Brooklyn v. Manhattan issue, Time Out New York commissioned alumnus Rich Tu (MFA 2009 Illustration as Visual Essay) to create an illustration of what Manhattan and Brooklyn would look like if all the bridges and tunnels between the two boroughs were disabled. Tu created an illustrated map with icons depicting various Time Out quips, such as “Upper East Siders ask themselves, What bridges?”
• The BFA Film, Video and Animation Department’s 21st Annual Dusty Film and Animation Festival and Awards was also featured in Time Out New York, as well as on BroadwayWorld.com. The Festival will take place May 2 – 7 and includes screenings of short films, videos and animations and an awards ceremony and gala with notable presenters from the film industry.
• Eye blog covered MFA Computer Art Department Chair Bruce Wands‘ presentation at Decoding the Digital, a conference at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Wands made predictions about the future of computer art and design. Click here to read Eye’s rundown of the presentations.
• GOOD magazine covered faculty member Chris Fahey’s class in the MFA Interaction Design Department. Fahey asked his students to use publicly accessible data about New York City and transform it into something useful for New Yorkers via an application for a handheld device. Final products included an application to find the nearest subway stop and one to help educate parents about local schools.

Image: Rich Tu, illustration for February 25 issue of Time Out New York