Visual Arts Briefs

The latest in a series of one-on-one conversations with SVA department chairs.

When the MPS Digital Photography Department opened its doors in 2007, it provided an innovative curriculum aimed at photography professionals who wanted an intensive approach to shoring up their skills in the field’s latest methods and technologies. This past year, Department Chair Katrin Eismann innovated further by offering the College’s first distance-learning program, wherein students take fall and spring-semester courses with SVA faculty online, followed by a rigorous summer term in New York City during which they produce their thesis projects (an electronic portfolio, book and exhibition prints) alongside the department’s other students.

Eismann and Tom Ashe, the MPS program’s associate chair, sat down with the Briefs to discuss the low-residency option and their cooperative approach to running the department.

Your program is the first at SVA to integrate distance-learning technology into the curriculum. How does that work for your students and faculty?
Eismann: Students take the same curriculum with many of the same instructors in fall and spring; in summer they come here and produce their final thesis. We put a lot of time and effort into creating a rich environment where the students get a lot of information: we take them on virtual gallery tours, have Skype meetings and do live critiques. They form a sense of community with each other and with us, so when they show up in NYC, it’s like picking up an old friend at the airport.

Ashe: The students’ main interface is a system called Blackboard, through which they’re interacting with the course info, the other students, video content and interactive content. Every week, students get new lecture materials and assignments on Sunday night; by the next week, they’ve discussed it and presented their assignments.

KE: A lot of times online education has a tainted reputation. But our class size is equal to or smaller than what we have in the classroom. Students get a lot of attention, and we notice that students are putting 40–50 hours a week into the online courses. It’s a rigorous, graduate-level learning experience.

The two of you run the department in a very cooperative manner. How did you develop your division of labor and how does it benefit the program?
KE: The program couldn’t work without either of us. Tom and I each have specialties, and we balance one another.

TA: Katrin really comes in from the aspect of Photoshop and the creative side; my specialty is color management, output, the technical side. As far as division of labor, we’ve divided a faculty/student focus: Katrin focuses on faculty and development of curriculum; I’m the advisor to the students, and I make sure they’re registered and have the requirements to graduate.

KE: If students have a problem, Tom is their first resource, which frees me up to work with faculty and curriculum. Because our student body is so diverse with such a variety of interests, they know they can reach out to either one of us for advice and get an answer.

Why does your program include the summer term?
KE: It would be very easy for us to add classes and become a full two-year program. But we talk to students at the end of each year and many tell us, ‘I signed up because the program is concentrated and one year long.’ That said, starting in September we’re offering a part-time, two-year online version. The part-time option has been well-received with applicants who have to maintain a full-time job; it allows us to offer our curriculum and knowledge to people who have a job, a mortgage or a family and can’t come to New York full-time.

Is there a particular style or quality to the work that your students do that you think is beginning to be identifiable with the program?
KE: Each year we have photographers who work in fashion, landscape, journalism, editorial—we have all types of photographers, and they’re learning from each other. There isn’t a look, but the thing that sets our students’ work apart is the quality of it. It’s high-quality work conceptually, and they learn to produce professional Web sites, branding materials and gallery-quality prints.

What impresses you most about your students?
TA: The diversity of the people and their work. They come here from all over the world, all over the country. Their ages range from 23 to 60, and they have very different life experiences—we’re all richer for that.

KE: Because the students take all the same classes together, they become a real group. They really support one another. They’re a dedicated, passionate, serious group of students. We require a lot of work from each of our faculty members, and they come into each class very prepared. The students pick up on that and they come in prepared. They all step up to the plate.

Image: ©2010 Visual Arts Press, Ltd.

We asked SVA students and faculty to send in work they were creating over the summer. This is one in an occasional series of Summer Session posts.

MAT Art Education Department faculty member and recent graduate Jaime Permuth (MPS 2009 Digital Photography) sent in this update about his busy summer:

“Over the summer I will be working on completing my series The Completely Visible World, which I began in 2009.

Most recently in New York, images from this body of work have been featured in Daniel Cooney Fine Art’s contemporary photography auction; En Foco’s ‘LATENT’ exhibition at Umbrella Arts; and ‘The Naked Truth,’ curated by Ruben Natal-San Miguel and currently at Hous Projects [through Saturday, July 17]. The series was also featured in the 2010 ‘Bienal de Arte Paiz‘ in Guatemala, curated by Jose Roca.

I will be collaborating on the third and final installment in a trilogy of family projects which I began with my father Mario and younger brother Igal in 2004. To date we have presented the first two installments of the trilogy (in exhibition and book format): Re-trato de familia (2004) and Tarzan Lopez (2007).”

Image: Jaime Permuth, from The Completely Visible World, 2009 – 2010.

In the past few years, a host of new public activities have been happening on Governors Island; this spring, 24 visual artists and four performing groups started making art in a former munitions storehouse on the lower-Manhattan island. One of the artists is alumnus Jessica Bruah (MFA 2009 Photography, Video and Related Media) whose installation features postcards of esoteric tourist spots in the off season, and who was interviewed by The New York Times for an article on the residencies.

Another photography alumnus with a fresh take on New York City is Robert Herman (MPS 2010 Digital Photography), who recently talked to Sharpen blog about The New Yorkers, his book of color street photography made mostly on Kodachrome over the years 1978 – 2005. Herman discusses shooting different neighborhoods in New York, including his favorite, SoHo.

Cataloging the “innovators who made the year in photography,” Photo District News’ (PDN) Photo Annual 2010 includes several members of the SVA community. Faculty member Elinor Carucci’s reissued book Closer (Chronicle, 2009) made the list for Photo Books, as did Jonathan Torgovnik’s (BFa 1996 Photography) Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape (Aperture, 2009). Torgovnik was also recognized in the Photojournalism/Sports/Documentary category, and Robert Anthony DeRosa (MPS 2010 Digital Photography) and Elizabeth Clark Libert (MFA 2010 Photography, Video and Related Media) were included in the Student Work section. View a slide show of images on the PDN Web site.

Image: May 2010 issue of Photo District News.

The international coffee company Illy Issimo has partnered with SVA for AuthentiCity, a multi-stage photography competition and exhibition currently taking place in Milan, Italy. Following an open call for students and alumni from the BFA Photography, MPS Digital Photography, and MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Departments to submit images on the contest’s theme, “Revealing purity and authenticity in urban life,” Illy and SVA showed selections from the entries as part of the Salone del Mobile international design fair in Milan. From among the 19 artists exhibited, five have been chosen to advance to the next round: Carlos Alvarez Montero (current student, MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Department), Igor Aronov (BFA 1997 Photography), Matthew Baum (MFA 2007 Photography, Video and Related Media), Giselle Behrens (current student, MPS Digital Photography Department) and Caroline Shepard (MFA 2002 Photography and Related Media).

These five photographers will now each receive $3,000 to complete a body of work expressing the main theme, and their work will be exhibited in New York later this year. One AuthentiCity finalist will be selected based on the work submitted, and will win a $10,000 commission for an upcoming Illy campaign. The winning work will be selected by a jury that includes Carlo Bach, artistic Director of illycaffè; Ilaria Presotto, international marketing director for Illy; and Charles Traub, chair of the MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Department. For more information on the AuthentiCity competition, click here.

Images: Photos from the Salone del Mobile by Adam Bell.

• “Mentors,” an exhibition of work by students in the BFA Photography Department inspired by their mentorships with leading figures in the New York arts community, has been featured in Daily Candy, ArtDaily, the Sundance Channel and Artnet. The Sundance Channel called “Mentors,” “the kind of program you probably wish was an option when you were in school.” The exhibition will be on view at the Visual Arts Gallery, 601 West 26th Street, 15th floor, through Saturday, April 3.
• The New York Times interviewed Katrin Eismann, chair of the MPS Digital Photography Department, in an article about how the field of photojournalism is changing. Eismann discusses the difference between professional and amateur photography.
• MFA Design Criticism Department Chair Alice Twemlow was interviewed on BBC Radio Wales this past Sunday. Twemlow spoke about the recent acquisition of the @ symbol by The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Twemlow explains the move in terms of current design thinking, which she says is moving from considering objects to considering systems and symbols. Click here to listen to Twemlow speak, beginning at 29:52.
• In an interactive piece for The New York Times, alumnus Drew Hodges (BFA 1984 Graphic Design) speaks about various posters his advertising agency SpotCo designed for the Broadway revival of La Cage aux Folles. Hodges explains why certain posters were rejected and how they decided on the final version. Click here to read the accompanying article.

Image: from Dailycandy.com.

For the fourth year in a row, the College will be heading to Miami, Florida for the season’s major art fairs. From December 2 – 6, SVA will be hosting booth #48 at Aqua Wynwood, 42 NE 25 Street at North Miami Avenue, featuring work by Yiftach Belsky (MFA 2009 Photography, Video and Related Media), Aaron Boldt (BFA Photography Department student), Brandon Davey (MFA 2009 Fine Arts), Darlin Frometa (BFA 2009 Illustration), Darya Golubina (BFA Fine Arts Department student), Yuhi Hasegawa (MFA 2009 Fine Arts), Gregg Louis (MFA 2009 Fine Arts), LaNola Stone (MPS 2009 Digital Photography) and Ivar Theorin (BFA 2009 Fine Arts). For an updated list of Aqua participants and events, visit aquaartmiami.com.

In addition to the booth at Aqua, SVA is deploying a mobile billboard that will cruise the Wynwood and Miami Beach fair areas on Friday, December 4. If you catch a glimpse, take a photo and send it to dhalm@sva.edu—we’ll include the shots we receive in our digital scrapbook of the 2009 fair.

Image: Yuhi Hasegawa, A Hundred Years in a Moment, 2009.

During the last week of October, three SVA department chairs traveled to China to attend the Adobe Design Achievement Awards (ADAA). This prestigious annual competition recognizes the best work in a dozen disciplines, including animation, interactive design, motion graphics and photography, with over 3,200 entrants from around the world. Katrin Eismann (MPS Digital Photography Department), John McIntosh (BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects Department) and Alice Twemlow (MFA Design Criticism Department) were at the ADAA exhibition and ceremony in Bejing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts in support of SVA’s two competition finalists, alumnus Daniel Bolliger (MPS 2009 Digital Photography) and current student James Kyungmo Yang (MFA Design Department). In addition, two SVA students were ADAA semifinalists: Juhee Cho (BFA Advertising and Graphic Design Department) and Nathan Friese (MFA Computer Art Department).

According to Eismann, “This was the first time that the ADAA was held outside of North America. The high point of the event was the opening ceremony of the Icograda World Design Congress, which featured many high-profile speakers (including Twemlow) and of course the ADAA announcements. All of this took place in the fabulous National Centre for the Performing Arts—a truly stunning building in the center of Beijing.” As is fitting for the chair of a graduate photography program, Eismann had her camera with her in Beijing and shared several of her photos with the Briefs:

Images: Katrin Eismann, 2009: (top to bottom) the 2009 ADAA ceremony; the award finalists in Beijing; alumnus Daniel Bolliger and his work at the ADAA exhibition; the National Centre for the Performing Arts.

This week, the MPS Digital Photography Department is opening “Surface Tension,” an exhibition of thesis work from the program’s 2009 graduating class, curated by alumnus and faculty member Dan Halm (MFA 2001 Illustration as Visual Essay; BFA 1994 Illustration). The show has already been getting favorable notices in the press, including pieces in the Daily News, Double Exposure and Visura.

The images in “Surface Tension”—on view at the SVA Gallery, 209 East 23rd Street, October 21 – November 14 (there is an opening reception on Wednesday, October 21, 6 – 8pm)—are an amalgam of responses to national events, private fears, hidden desires and personal epiphanies, taken from bodies of work completed on a digital platform. Department Chair Katrin Eismann spoke to the Briefs about the show:

The students and visual approaches are fairly diverse—how do you stitch them into a coherent show?
The diversity of the show reflects the student body. That group of 16 ranges in age from 22 – 60, comes from 5 continents, and is made up of many different types of photographers—photojournalists, landscape photographers, fine artists, etc. The program brought them together through the emphasis on quality, and there’s no weak work in the show.

You’ve taught all of the students whose work is in the show. Does the work in the show grow directly from work in class?
Some of it does. All of this work was developed in faculty member Amy Stein’s (MFA 2006 Photography, Video and Related Media) Thesis Development course. All of the images went through that class, but there are also specific projects that had already been started in the fall, such as Michaela Dazell’s project, which began in Harvey Stein’s course, The Art of Editorial Photography.

What are some of the aesthetic concerns specific to this work as digital photography?
The importance of not using clichés. There are certain digital image-processing clichés that lead to hyper- or overcooked images. You can spot them a mile away, such as high-dynamic-range imaging, a look where people overprocess so the colors get oversaturated and the images get cartoony and gritty. We don’t have that problem, because we encourage students to create their own look and style. There has to be a balance between concept and implementation using digital technology.

Image: Michaela Dalzell, Finding Love in New york City, 2009.

Following the award-winning revamp of SVA’s undergraduate catalog, the Visual Arts Press has unveiled a full redesign of the graduate catalog. Bearing the title On Any Given Day…, the catalog mixes facts about the College’s faculty and alumni, with photo essays, in-depth interviews and daily snapshots to immerse prospective students in the experience of SVA’s masters programs. “We wanted to give students the chance to peek into the doors and around the corners of what goes on in our graduate programs,” says Michael J. Walsh, the art director of the Press. “There are so many opportunities offered by these departments, so we thought this sampling of the lives and activities of alumni, faculty and current students might give our audience something to relate, and maybe aspire, to.”

On Any Given Day… spotlights more than a dozen MAT, MFA and MPS departments at SVA, and includes a critique by students in the MFA Design Criticism Department of the new TKTS booth in Times Square, a behind-the-scenes look at Circus, an upcoming PBS documentary series by MFA Social Documentary Film Department faculty member Matthew Akers, and a studio visit with photographer Brendan Austin, a recent graduate of the MPS Digital Photography Department.

Images: Pages from the MFA Design Criticism Department section of On Any Given Day…; ©Visual Arts Press, Ltd.