Visual Arts Briefs

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

• 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

• Jonathan Bartlett, a current student in the MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Department, designed a poster for the charity Web site SmallCanBeBig.0rg, which, through small donations, helps families overcome the threat of homelessness. Bartlett donated his time and talent to design and illustrate the poster titled A Joyful Gathering.
• MFA Computer Art Department faculty member Joseph Nechvatal recently published Towards An Immersive Intelligence: Essays on the Work of Art in the Age of Computer Technology and Virtual Reality 1993-2006 (Edgewise Press, 2009). The book is a collection of Nechvatal’s essays about the relationship between art and technology in contemporary life. He will be giving a lecture about the book and presenting new digital animations at the New York Institute of Technology, 16 West 61st Street, on Thursday, February 25, 6 – 9pm.
• MFA Fine Arts Department faculty member Jerry Saltz, who is also the senior art critic at New York magazine and former senior art critic at The Village Voice, recently published the book Seeing Out Louder (Hudson Hills Press, 2009). It is a collection of essays about various aspects of the contemporary art world and a follow-up to his book Seeing Out Loud (Figures, 2003).

Image: Jonathan Bartlett, A Joyful Gathering, poster for SmallCanBeBig.org

More of a conversation starter than little candy hearts are the limited-edition valentines made by David Sandlin, faculty member in the BFA Illustration & Cartooning and the MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Departments. In anticipation of the upcoming holiday, Sandlin created silk-screened valentines in two designs: Love and Lust Valentine, and Seasons of Our Hearts. The  valentines are printed as signed and numbered editions of 50 on rag paper and feature glow-in-the-dark ink. Profits from sales will benefit Printed Matter, non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of publications made by artists.

Alumnus Viktor Koen (MFA 1992 Illustration as Visual Essay), who is also a faculty member in the MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Department, illustrated the cover of a recent issue of The New York Times Book Review. The illustration, which integrates an image of Air Force One with various warheads and ammunition, accompanies a review of two books that explore the historical role of the President of the United States during wartime.

Koen is also exploring illustrations of American engagement in politcal conflict through “Johnny Got His Gun,” an exhibition he has curated featuring work by students in the MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Department. The students created illustrations based on Dalton Trumbo’s 1939 novel Johnny Got His Gun, which tells the story of an American soldier who is wounded in World War I, losing his arms, legs and the use of his senses. Koen says, “The projects in the exhibition tell the chilling story through images focusing on the battlefront, as well as what came before and after.”

“Johnny Got His Gun” will be on view at the SVA Gallery, 209 East 23 Street, February 12 – March 6. There will be a reception on Tuesday, February 16, 6 – 8pm.

Image: (top) cover of the January 24 issue of The New York Times Book Review; (bottom) Anne Emond, Soldier 4, 2008, markers, ink, watercolor, Photoshop

• Alumni You Byun (MFA 2009 Illustration as Visual Essay) and Anna Raff (MFA 2009 Illustration as Visual Essay) were portfolio winners at the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) Conference last month. Byun also won the Tomie DePaola Illustrator Award, and alumnus David Ercolini (MFA 2008 Illustration as Visual Essay), who was a SCBWI winner in 2009, created the illustrations for all the promotional materials for the conference.
• Peter Kuper, a faculty member in the BFA Illustration and Cartooning Department, recently won an award from the Society of Illustrators. His work The Four Horsemen was the Gold winner in the sequential art category and was featured in “Annual Exhibition: Illustrators 52,” an exhibition that showcased recent illustration work at the Society of Illustrators. Alumnus and current student in the MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Department Jungyeon Roh (BFA 2009 Illustration) won a silver award in the same competition for her silk-screen book Today is Sushi Day.
• Alumnus Yoko Furusho (BFA 2008 Illustration) was named first runner up for the Static Art Prize 2009 from the creative agency Societas and  Medium Magazine. Every year, the organizations give out Creative Graduate Prizes to highlight emerging artists across many genres of fine art, including painting, illustration, photography, sculpture, installation and short film. Furusho’s illustrations were acknowledged in the Static Art category.

Image: SCBWI Conference blog

• MFA Design Department faculty member Stefan Sagmeister is the winner of the 2009 Lucky Strike Designer Award. This international design award from the Raymond Loewy Foundation recognizes a designer whose work has helped improve the social and cultural conditions of everyday life. The jury said of Sagmeister, “His work is highly creative, bold and innovative. It combines philosophy, politics and socially relevant subjects with avant-garde design; it’s democratic and accessible to everyone.”
• Critics at The Onion’s A.V. Club compiled their list of the 25 Best Comics of the ‘00s, and three members of the SVA community made the cut: alumnus Michael Kupperman (BFA 1998 Fine Arts) for Tales Designed to Thrizzle (Fantagraphics, 2005–present); BFA Illustration and Cartooning Department faculty member David Mazzucchelli for his graphic novel Asterios Polyp (Pantheon, 2009); and alumnus James Sturm (MFA 1991 Illustration as Visual Essay) for The Golem’s Mighty Swing (D&Q, 2000).
• At this fall’s NYC Metropolitan Area College Computer Animation Festival (MetroCAF), 10 of the 26 digital animations selected for the festival came from the BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects and MFA Computer Art Departments. The 2009 MetroCAF continues a multi-year run for the College as one of the festival’s top contributors. Click here for the complete list of 26 honorees.
• The Art Directors Club (ADC) recently announced the recipients of its 2009 National Scholarships, and three of the eight winners were students in the BFA Advertising and Graphic Design Department: Yumi Nakamura won the $2,500 ADC Scholarship in Graphic Design; Kaya Ono won the $2,500 Sahre, Victore, Wilker Scholarship in Graphic Design; and Youngbum Kim won the $500 Jeffrey Metzner and Carin Goldberg Scholarship.

Image: Stefan Sagmeister with his Lucky Strike Design Award; photo by Elias Wessel.

• Honeybee: From Hive to Home, Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper, by C. Marina Marchese (BFA 1988 Illustration): An unusual memoir by an illustrator-turned-beekeeper, describing the path from her first tour of a neighbor’s honeybee hives to the eventual founding of her company Red Bee Honey (Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2009).
• Helvetica and the New York City Subway System: The True (Maybe) Story, by Paul Shaw (faculty, Art History and BFA Advertising and Graphic Design Departments): A limited-edition book that traces the history of Helvetica as the official typeface of the NYC subways. Shaw will be on hand for a book signing event at the Type Directors Club, 347 West 36th Street, Suite 603, on Wednesday, December 9, 6 – 8pm. To register for the free event, e-mail director@tdc.org or call 212.633.8943 (110 Editions, 2009).
• The Grand Mosque of Paris: A Story of How Muslims Rescued Jews During the Holocaust, by Deborah Durland DeSaix (MFA 1986 Illustration as Visual Essay) and Karen Gray Ruelle: A book for young readers that tells the true story of Muslims in a French mosque who saved Jews from capture by the Nazis (Holiday House, 2009).

Brazil is getting a double dose of SVA this month, with one department chair just returned from the South American nation and another chair due to fly down soon. MFA Design Department Co-chair Lita Talarico was in Sao Paulo for Brazil Design Week, where a variety of talks, workshops and seminars about global issues in design were presented from November 3 – 6. Talarico gave a keynote address as part of a forum focusing on colleges and universities involved in teaching design. “The theme for the forum was entrepreneurship and how to educate students for the future so that they are prepared for the business side of design,” said Talarico. “I talked about and showed case studies from the book The Design Entrepreneur: Turning Graphic Design into Goods that Sell, which included more than 20 student projects from the MFA Design Department.” She also took some time to visit Rio de Janerio and meet up with several SVA alumni who are living and working there: Renato Alarcao (MFA 2001 Illustration as Visual Essay), Celina Carvalho (MFA 2003 Design), Alexandre Damiano (MFA 1999 Fine Arts), Luiza Novaes (MFA 1994 Photography and Related Media) and Marta Strauch (MFA 1990 Illustration as Visual Essay).

Later this month, MFA Social Documentary Film Department Chair Maro Chermayeff will be in Sao Paulo to attend PIC DOC, a five-day international training program in documentaries that begins Monday, November 30. Chermayeff is one of a select group of industry professionals invited to participate in the week-long conference, sponsored by the Brazilian TV Producers organization to help Brazilian filmmakers increase the competitiveness of their documentary projects in the international marketplace.

Image: Lita Talarico and Luiza Novaes in Rio de Janerio.

• SVA’s Undergraduate Catalog 2010-2011 has been selected as a winner by the 2010 Learning Resources Network (LERN) International Awards in the category of Brochure Design. Michael Walsh, the art director at the Visual Arts Press, will be accepting the award and representing the College at the LERN annual conference in Savannah, Georgia, on Friday, November 20.
• The New York Times Book Review has chosen Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11 by Brian Floca (MFA 2001 Illustration as Visual Essay) and Only a Witch Can Fly, illustrated by Taeeun Yoo (MFA 2005 Illustration as Visual Essay) as two of the Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2009. Faculty member Jillian Tamaki (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Department) served as one of the judges for the Times.
• Jake Armstrong (BFA Animation 2009) won the Best Undergraduate Animation award at Ottawa International Animation Festival for his short film The Terrible Thing of Alpha-9. This is the latest in a string of festival wins for Armstrong, who has also taken home prizes at Bornshorts in Denmark, the Coney Island Film Festival, Romania’s Muvi Fest and the Woodstock International Film Festival.

Image: The Undergraduate Catalog 2010-2011; ©Visual Arts Press, Ltd.