The first page of the May 13 issue of Time Out New York opens with a photo of Marissa Havers, a current student in the BFA Visual and Critical Studies Department. The magazine interviewed Havers for the “I, New York” section while she was staging a performance art piece in Washington Square Park, for which she asked passersby to brush her hair.
Visitors to lower Manhattan can see public art installations by two members of the SVA community as a part of Re: Construction, a program of the Downtown Alliance, which aims to transform area construction sites into spaces for the display of new public art.
Walking Men 99, a work by alumnus Maya Barkai (2005 BFA Photography), is on view at 99 Church Street, covering plywood street facades that stretch across three city blocks. The 500-foot-long installation features 99 life-size images of pedestrian traffic-light icons. The images were gathered from around the world as a part of Barkai’s ongoing project Walking Men Worldwide, for which she has invited people to submit photographs of the familiar pedestrian symbols from across the globe. “The ‘walking man’ is an international celebrity and one of our most recognizable figures,” says Barkai. “Walking Men 99” is curated by Ayelet Danielle Aldouby and Elinor Milchan of Artea Projects and will be on display through January 2011.
BFA Visual and Critical Studies Department faculty member Amy Wilson’s piece It Takes Time to Turn a Space Around is a series of drawings printed on a 150-foot vinyl banner attached to construction fencing at West Thames Park in Battery Park City. The work consists of seven panels showing images of young girls in a field, cleaning and clearing away weeds and rebuilding and replanting the landscape. Wilson explains that the idea for the project was rooted in her own experience of fixing up an abandoned garden over several years and connecting the lessons learned there to the experience of fixing up lower Manhattan—particularly West Thames Park, which is the future site of a playground and park. “Sometimes you have to coax the earth back to life and to do so can take years,” she says. The original drawings from It Takes Time to Turn a Space Around will be displayed along with their text accompaniment at a solo show at BravinLee programs from April 22 – June 5.
Images: (top) Maya Barkai, Walking Men 99, 2010. Courtesy of the artist; (bottom) Amy Wilson, It Takes Time to Turn a Space Around, 2009-2010. Courtest of BravinLee programs. Photo by Katie Arms.
The spring 2010 semester at SVA is bringing a new slate of classes, new exhibitions in the galleries and, once again, a new installment of the Art in the First Person lecture series. The series of talks and panel discussions begins on Tuesday, January 19, at 6:30pm, when the BFA Fine Arts and BFA Visual & Critical Studies Departments bring electronic media artist Perry Bard to 133/144 West 21st Street, Room 101C, for Video in the Age of YouTube; two days later, the MFA Art Criticism and Writing Department presents Everybody is an Artist, a talk by educator and critic Boris Groys at the SVA Theatre, 333 West 23rd Street, 7pm.
Art in the First Person will continue to bring speakers to SVA throughout the semester, including Exit Art founders Papo Colo and Jeanette Ingberman (Thursday, February 4, 7pm, 209 East 23rd Street, 3rd-floor Amphitheater); poet Ann Lauterbach (Thursday, February 11, 7pm, SVA Theatre); and painter Megan Craig (Tuesday, February 16, 6:30pm, room 101C). All events are free and open to the public. For more information on these and other events in the series (which runs through April), visit sva.edu/events.
Image: Megan Craig, Heavy, 2009.
Just in time for the holiday shopping season, several members of the SVA community are displaying their work at the Degenerate Craft Fair (DCF), a traveling pop-up shop featuring handmade works of art. Organized by Art History, BFA Fine Arts and BFA Visual and Critical Studies Department faculty member Amy Wilson (BFA 1995 Fine Arts) and current BFA Visual and Critical Studies Department student Shannon Broder, the DCF will have jewelry, stuffed animals, CDs, stickers, clothing and books, all generally priced under $50.
The DCF is making rounds in the city this month, setting up shop in three different locations over three weeks in December. Last weekend the fair opened at Silent Barn, and this week the fair will be at 303 Grand, 303 Grand Street, Brooklyn, on Sunday, December 13, from 12 noon – 10pm, with a reception from 8 – 10pm; and Monday, December 14, from 12 noon – 8pm. The final location will be BravinLee programs in Mahattan, 526 West 26th Street, Suite 211, on Friday, December 18, from 12 noon – 9pm; and Saturday, December 19, from 12 noon – 6pm.
The fair features the work of several SVA artists including: current BFA Fine Arts Department students Victoria Duffee, Florencia Escudero, George Heintz, Ji Youn Hong, Nina Lichtman, Abigail Lloyd, Chris Retsina and Thang Tran; BFA Illustration and Cartooning Department students Giancarlo Corbacho, Erin Dodge and Jonny Ruzzo; BFA Photography Department student Carly Planker; BFA Visual and Critical Studies Deparment student Marissa Havers; and alumni Renee Delosh (BFA 2009 Fine Arts), James Farias (BFA 2009 Fine Arts), Lauren Fatzinger (BFA 2009 Fine Arts), Shalimar Luis (BFA 2007 Graphic Design), Andi Magenheimer (BFA 2009 Fine Arts), Yura Osborn (BFA 2009 Fine Arts), Greg Roth (BFA 2009 Cartooning) and Rachel Wheeler (BFA 2007 Graphic Design). More images of the fair and work for sale are viewable on the DCF’s Flickr photostream.
Image: The Rapt Boutique table at the Degenerate Craft Fair at Silent Barn; photo by Shannon Broder.
As the passing of pop icon Michael Jackson continues to reverberate throughout the culture, a recent work by BFA Visual and Critical Studies Department faculty member Josh Azzarella has gotten swept along with the media tide. Untitled #100 (Fantasia) takes Jackson’s long-form Thriller video and strips out the song, the star, the dancing and every other key element, leaving only the shots of rolling fog, atmospheric scenery and a deserted ticket booth.
The piece is on view at the Kavi Gupta gallery in Chicago, October 31 – December 5, and can be viewed online at thefunkof40000years.com; Azzarella discussed the work with the Briefs via e-mail:
Tell me about Untitled #100 (Fantasia).
This piece is part of a body of work started in late 2003 that investigates collective memory, as defined by Susan Sontag in her book Regarding the Pain of Others (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002). There is specific focus on how memories are formed or not formed, and are initiated or recalled. Moreover, this practice of interfering with what is considered cemented, canonical documentation touches on issues of authorship and selective memory.
Was this a response to Michael Jackson’s death?
This piece has been in progress since 2007, when I began working on a feature-length film project in which I removed all of the people and events, rendering it a contemplative space constructed of only background and panning shots. As I began working, I found that I needed to understand a few things in terms of camera movement and film replication, so I decided that I needed a smaller project to work on, and that project needed to fit within the scope of my other works.
Is it difficult to begin to approach such well-known imagery from the collective visual culture?
With my previous work at times it has been difficult, and I attribute that difficulty to the sacredness of the images that I deal with. However, with Thriller it wasn’t as difficult, and that lack of difficulty is something I attribute to Michael Jackson still being alive when I started the work. The Thriller video had been remade and/or spoofed so many times; it is an icon of popular culture, and not one that evokes events or memories with which we may not want to be confronted.
What does the original Thriller video mean to you?
I remember watching the original as a child, but it doesn’t really hold any personal significance for me. However, its impact on current and popular culture is virtually immeasurable, and that’s what drew me to it.
Images: Josh Azzarella, stills from Untitled #100 (Fantasia), 2007–2009; Courtesy DCKT Contemporary, New York.
Responding to the economic recession and probing the larger question of the value of works of art, students from the BFA Visual and Critical Studies Department are rethinking systems of exchange with their current exhibition “Outpost.” They are inviting the public to barter goods and services in exchange for their works of art, which include paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture. Next to each work will be a “mailbox,” allowing members of the public to contact the artist with a non-monetary offer to exchange for the work. The artists are also applying a DIY approach by hosting the exhibition in a colorfully decorated studio space at 133/141 West 21st Street, 6th floor. Organized by faculty member and alumnus Amy Wilson (BFA 1995 Fine Arts), the exhibition opens Thursday, October 15, with a reception from 5 – 7pm, and runs through Monday, November 9.
Current student Katie Armstrong, one of the participating artists, co-designed the space for the exhibition. She discussed “Outpost” with the Briefs.
Tell me about the genesis of “Outpost.”
The project sprouted from a discussion that several students had during a drawing class with Amy Wilson. Many of us feel lost when it comes to placing a numerical value on our work. We see “Outpost” as a fun, interactive way to get artists and those buying art to have dialogue regarding the value of artwork.
How do you think the exhibition fits in (or doesn’t fit in) with other activity in the art world?
I think “Outpost” is definitely cohesive with what is going on in the art world today. With our current economic situation forcing even the bustling gallery community in Chelsea to shrink, now is the time for alternative exhibition spaces more than ever. The BFA Visual and Critical Studies Department is about to release its first set of graduates into the world, myself included, and we know that scoring gallery representation is going to be harder for our generation. Perhaps it is time for us to reconvene with the general public in a non-threatening environment. Maybe it is time for artist and art buyer to really communicate.
Are there any offers that you are hoping to receive for your pieces in the exhibition?
I am pretty open to anything, as far as trading goes, but something edible would definitely be extraordinary—like a bag of oranges or a bottle of wine. Cat food is also on the wish list for a few of us!
Click here to read more about “Outpost” on the exhibition’s blog.
Image: “Outpost” postcard, designed by Katie Armstrong.
On Thursday, April 2, stop-motion animators the Brothers Quay made a rare public appearance at SVA to discuss their work with faculty member Thyrza Goodeve. A crowd of students, faculty members and fans were treated to lively discussion interspersed with screenings of two recent shorts films, In Absentia (2000) and The Phantom Museum (2003), along with a reel of excerpted works and commercials.
Lasting more than two hours, the conversation focused on the Quays’ history, collaborative process and influences. Being careful not to reveal too much, the Quays shrugged off certain questions from the audience, but admitted that many of their films “investigated the pre-history of objects.” They primarily work as a team in their 1,000 square-foot studio, shifting roles between puppet maker, puppeteer, set building, camera man and sound designer. As college students at the Philadelphia College of Art, the brothers studied illustration and “hoped for a successful career as book cover designers.” They explained that they many of their early influences, like Eastern European literature, Polish theater posters and the diaries of Franz Kafka, were stumbled upon by chance.
Part of the Art in the First Person lecture series, the discussion was titled The Pharmacist’s Prescription for Lip-Reading Puppets and was co-presented by the BFA Film, Video and Animation; BFA Fine Arts; BFA Visual and Critical Studies; and MFA Art Criticism and Writing Departments at SVA.
Image: The Brothers Quay, with faculty member Thyrza Goodeve, at the SVA Theater; photo by Kathy Brew.
After closing 2008 with a successful showing at Art Basel Miami Beach, abstract painter and alumnus Chris Martin (BFA 1992 Fine Arts) journeys north to present a lecture at SVA about his work on Tuesday, March 3 at 6:30pm. Combining visual and musical influences to explore color, form and texture, Martin’s drawings and paintings on paper incorporate diverse materials such as crayon, fabric, aluminum foil and album covers. The lecture will take place at 133/141 West 21st Street, room 101C and is presented by the BFA Fine Arts and BFA Visual and Critical Studies Departments.
In addition to this opportunity to hear from Martin, his work is on view at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, 1018 Madison Avenue. The solo exhibition “Works on Paper” runs through Tuesday, March 17, with more than 40 of Martin’s works from the last 20 years on display.
Images: (top) Chris Martin, Glitter, 2006 – 2007; and (bottom) Chris Martin, untitled, 2006, mixed media on paper.
