SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS MAGA ZINE
SP R ING 2019 FROM THE PRESIDENT | 2 M Y SVA | 3
An alumnus re-imagines the SVA logo SVA CLOSE UP | 4
News and events from around the College WHAT’S IN STORE | 10
Products and services by SVA artists and entrepreneurs Antonio Pulgarin | 20 An artist uses his family photos to question masculinity and heritage
PORTFOLIO:
SPOTLIGHT: Seoul | 28 Six alumni who are living and working in South Korea’s capital THE GENIUS OF GELATO | 36
A revered gelato maker shares her favorite recipe THE MUSIC ISSUE | 40 BEHIND THE SCREENS | 42
Designing immersive, immediate experiences for streaming services Q+A: Chris Stein | 48 Writer and musician Johanna Fateman talks with the photographer and Blondie co-founder
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“I think design for music should always be about the artist.”
FOR THE RECORD | 52
A music label dedicated to physical formats HIGH TECH | 53
Wyatt Stevens and New York City’s resurgent techno scene PATTERNMAKER | 54
Katherine Bernhardt’s riotous, repetitive art ART AFTER HOURS | 62
Art education for the underserved at MoMA ALUMNI AFFAIRS | 66
For Your Benefit A Message from the Director Alumni Scholarship Awards | Donors Alumni Notes & Exhibitions In Memoriam FROM THE ARCHIVES | 80
Avant-garde composer—and former faculty member—Steve Reich
“There should be humor in art. You should laugh or think it’s stupid.”
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VISUAL ARTS JOURNAL Spring 2019 Volume 27, Number 1
FROM THE PR ESIDENT
EDITORIAL STAFF
Joyce Rutter Kaye, editorial director Greg Herbowy, editor Tricia Tisak, copy editor Joanna Citrinbaum, copy editor Michelle Mackin, editorial assistant
VISUAL ARTS PRESS, LTD.
Anthony P. Rhodes, executive creative director Gail Anderson, creative director Brian E. Smith, senior art director Ryan Durinick, senior designer Carli Malec, designer Sabrina Tseng, designer
COVER
FRONT Sign painter Kurt McRobert at work in his Brooklyn studio. Photo by Brittany Bartley (BFA 2008 Photography). See page 8. BACK Jeongmee Yoon, Lauren and Carolyn and Their Pink and Purple Things, NY, USA, 2009, from "The Pink Project II," light jet print. See page 32.
ADVERTISING SALES 212.592.2207
CONTRIBUTORS
Brittany Bartley Jeremy Cohen Johanna Fateman Dan Halm Jacqueline Iannacone Beth Kleber Gene Lu Vanessa Machir Kurt McRobert Jane Nuzzo Folake Ologunja Miranda Pierce Charles Snyder Kate Styer Natelegé Whaley Briana Younger © 2019, Visual Arts Press, Ltd. Visual Arts Journal is published twice a year by SVA External Relations. School of Visual Arts 209 East 23rd Street New York, NY 10010-3994 Milton Glaser ACTING CHAIRMAN
David Rhodes PRESIDENT
Anthony P. Rhodes EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT
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few issues back, I wrote that a group of SVA administrators and academic chairs was hard at work on the College’s latest strategic plan, which would outline our institutional priorities for the next five years. I am now pleased to announce that, at the close of last year, the plan was approved by the SVA Board of Trustees. SVA has grown remarkably over its seven decades, which speaks to the value of our mission, the strength of our faculty and alumni, and the benefits of our New York City location. That growth, however, poses pedagogical, logistical and ethical challenges. Our new strategic plan, in effect through 2023, proposes increased diversification of our teaching body and curricula; more robust student services, with a focus on inclusivity and support; and continued investment in our learning resources and campus expansion. These goals are ambitious. But if we are to continue providing the educational experience that our students deserve, they are necessary. You can read the strategic plan at sva.edu/about/ strategic-plan. I hope you enjoy this issue of the Visual Arts Journal.
facebook.com/schoolofvisualarts instagram.com/svanyc schoolofvisualarts.tumblr.com twitter.com/sva_news youtube.com/user/svanewyorkcity TO READ THE VISUAL ARTS JOURNAL ONLINE, VISIT: ISSUU.COM/SVAVISUALARTSJOURNAL
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pr esi den t school of v isua l a rts PHOTO BY NIR ARIELI
V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
MYSVA An alumnus re-imagines the SVA logo Gene Lu, creative director for experience design at ad giant R/GA, has an odd hobby: using GPS technology and distance runs to create mass-scale “drawings.” Not long ago, over three runs totaling 22 miles, he traced the SVA letters across Manhattan and Brooklyn, for this issue’s MySVA.
Gene Lu MFA 2011 Interaction Design genelu.com
PHOTO BY SUSAN CHO
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CLOSE UP
News and events from around the College
Master Satirist
S
teve Brodner, the inimitable illustrator, political satirist and longtime SVA faculty member, will be honored this fall with the 31st annual Masters Series Award and Exhibition, to be held at the SVA Chelsea Gallery. Over a career spanning five decades to date, Brodner’s caricatures, art, visual essays and original reporting have appeared in innumerable publications, including Esquire, Harper’s Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Playboy and Rolling Stone. He has published eight books featuring his writing or illustrations, and in 2011 edited Artists Against the War, a collection of graphic work protesting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Among his many honors, in 2008 he became the first living illustrator to receive a career retrospective at the Norman Rockwell Museum, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
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Started by SVA founder Silas H. Rhodes in 1988, the Masters Series honors the great visual communicators of our time, with an exhibition and award ceremony held every fall at the College. As such, this will be the second consecutive year in which Brodner figures in one of the College’s major exhibitions: Last fall, he co-curated “Art as Witness: Political Graphics 2016-18,” which featured more than 200 politically motivated works from 53 artists. “The Masters Series: Steve Brodner” will be on view from October 5 through November 2 at the SVA Chelsea Gallery, 601 West 26th Street, 15th floor; the reception and award ceremony will be held at the gallery on Thursday, October 10, 6:00 – 8:00pm. Brodner will give an artist’s talk on Wednesday, October 30, 7:00 – 9:00pm, at the SVA Theatre, 333 West 23rd Street. For more information, visit sva.edu/events. [Folake Ologunja]
V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
OPPOSITE Steve Brodner teaching at SVA, 2018; photo by Rafael Vasquez. CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT Steve Brodner, Bushanos, 2007, for The Nation, watercolor and digital; The Unraveling, 2018, for The Nation; 100 Days, 2017, for The Washington Post; A Cartoon History of Trumps, 1869-2018 (Manhattan Is Mine), 2018, for The Village Voice, art directed by Ashley SmestedVelez; Obamaloon, 2012, for National Journal, watercolor and gouache; Bushspeak, 1989, for The New York Times, pen and ink on scratchboard. All works courtesy the artist.
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CLOSE UP
A Wilde Success
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H E A R D AT SVA
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“Life is an art, and the way you live your life is artful.” —BARBARA NESSIM,
artist, illustrator and former SVA faculty member, during a conversation with writer and activist Gloria Steinem, hosted by SVA Career Development
ichard Wilde, chair of BFA Advertising and BFA Design at SVA—and one of the design discipline’s most influential and honored educators—is retiring this spring after 50 years with the College. Wilde joined the SVA faculty in 1969 and was appointed cochair of Media Arts, with current MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Chair Marshall Arisman, the following year. In 1991 Media Arts was split into several, more specialized departments and Wilde continued as the advertising and design chair. Under his leadership, the programs have attracted wide renown. Each year for the past decade, both BFA Advertising and BFA Design have won more than twice the awards for student work than the awards won by all other design programs in the U.S., combined. Wilde himself is the recipient of more than 250 professional awards, and a member of both the Art Directors Hall of Fame and the One Club Hall of Fame. His book Visual Literacy (2000), based on the second-year course he taught to all advertising and design students and co-authored with his wife and fellow SVA faculty member, Judith Wilde, has sold more than 100,000 copies and is taught in design classes all over the world; the pair published another book, The Process, in 2015. In 2009 SVA honored Wilde’s achievements with “The Wilde Years,” an exhibition and companion book presenting notable work by his programs’ alumni and faculty. Another commemorative exhibition, covering his life and career, is scheduled for fall 2020. [GH]
ABOVE Richard Wilde portrait by Nigel Parry. TOP RIGHT The Process (2015), written by Richard and Judith Wilde. RIGHT Through his second-year Visual Literacy course, Wilde taught every
student in BFA Advertising and BFA Design.
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V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
Patti Smith portrait by Edward Mapplethorpe.
A Legend Speaks
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Celebrated musician, writer and artist Patti Smith will be the keynote speaker at SVA’s 44th annual commencement exercises, to be held Wednesday, May 15, 1:00pm, at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan. Raised in small-town New Jersey, Smith moved to New York City in the late ’60s to pursue a life as a poet and soon found her place as a writer and performer within the artists’ community of that era. In 1975 she and her band released their debut album, Horses, regarded today as a landmark in the history of popular music for its combination of energetic rock and roll with Smith’s incantatory, freeform lyrics. She has gone on to release 10 more studio albums and perform for audiences all over the world. Smith has published more than seven books of poetry and prose, including the memoirs
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Just Kids—a chronicle of her early New York City years and relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, which won the 2010 National Book Award—and 2015’s M Train. She has exhibited her drawings, paintings, photographs and sculptures internationally. Her many awards and distinctions include her 2007 induction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, three honorary doctorates and the title of Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres from the French Ministry of Culture. “I just do my work, and I work every day, and my ambition is just to do something better than what I last did,” she once told The New York Times. “I’d like to write a book that everyone loves.… I’d like to do a painting that would astonish people.” The 2019 SVA commencement will celebrate the achievements of 1,218 bachelor’s and master’s degree candidates enrolled in the College’s 32 degree programs. [GH]
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H E A R D AT SVA
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“When you do animation, especially character animation, you are not representing reality. You are eliminating several things from reality, and then turning up the volume on several other things.” —BRAD BIRD, director, screenwriter and animator, during a talk with composer Michael Giacchino (BFA 1990 Film and Video), hosted by BFA Animation and BFA Film
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CLOSE UP
Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign
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H E A R D AT SVA
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“There are certain kinds of writing that actually say, ‘I’m opening this door, and this work is incomplete until you enter.’ … The work that does that for us, we bind to our hearts.” —TEJU COLE, writer and photographer, during a talk with writer and SVA faculty member Emmanuel Iduma (MFA 2015 Art Writing and Criticism), hosted by MFA Art Writing
JACQUELINE IANNACONE
f you live or work in New York City, chances are you’ve seen the work of this issue’s cover artist, Kurt McRobert (BFA 2009 Illustration). McRobert’s hand-painted signs, windows and murals adorn the facades and interiors of dozens of shops and offices in New York City and the greater metropolitan area, including such popular spots as Pick A Bagel and The Meatball Shop. (And those Christmas tree street-vendor signs you see around the holiday season? He’s made many of those, too.) McRobert’s work can also now be seen on the SVA campus. In February, he painted Manhattan-inspired names on the glass doors of the Admissions office’s six meeting rooms: the Chelsea, Flatiron, Gramercy, Highline, Kips Bay and Madison Square Park. For more on McRobert’s work, visit veryfinesigns.com. [GH]
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V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
Banner Years
Coming Attractions
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wo SVA graduate programs are celebrating milestone anniversaries. Last fall, MFA Photography, Video and Related Media welcomed its 30th incoming class, and over the course of the academic year the department hosted a series of commemorative events, including an evening of performances in January by alumni Murray Hill (1997) and Darlene, a.k.a. Nick Alciati (2016). MFA Design, meanwhile, begins its 20th year in September. The department is marking the occasion with a new website, design.sva.edu, developed by alumnus Nigel Sielegar (2009), and a special “inspiration manual” and new department logo, designed by alumni and faculty Jennifer Kinon and Bobby Martin (both 2003). Both departments are still led by their founding chairs: for MFA Design, Steven Heller and Lita Talarico; for MFA Photography, Video and Related Media, Charles H. Traub. [Michelle Mackin]
For more information on SVA events, visit sva.edu/events. SVA Talent Shows 2019 Featuring students’ end-of-year work. Through September Various locations Full schedule at sva.edu/talentshows
University Council for Art Education Conference: Global Perspectives on Art Education Featuring artists Claudia Alvarez and Luis Camnitzer, hosted by MAT Art Education. Saturday, May 18 SVA Theatre, 333 West 23rd Street For tickets, visit ucae.org
Queers & Comics Conference Hosted by BFA Cartooning and BFA Illustration. Friday, May 17, and Saturday, May 18 209 East 23rd Street
A Site to Cite ✭
MFA Art Writing has relaunched its department publication, Degree Critical, at degreecritical.com. Founded in 2007, the online journal was formerly published on the department website. Updated regularly, Degree Critical features essays and reviews by program alumni, faculty and students.
MFA Fine Arts x The Trust for Governors Island A series of department-hosted exhibitions, workshops and events. May – July Governors Island, New York
Look Both Ways Typographic work by some 60 artists, curated by MPS Branding Chair Debbie Millman. August 24 – September 21 SVA Chelsea Gallery, 601 West 26th Street 15th floor
After School Special Screenings and talks with SVA alumni working in animation, film and television. Week of September 16 SVA Theatre, 333 West 23rd Street
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WHAT’S IN STORE
The latest from SVA entrepreneurs: books, movies, products and more
Mizuki
Jewelry, $500 – $50,000 mizukijewels.com
M
izuki Goltz (BFA 1993 Fine Arts) started her award-winning jewelry line in the late 1990s. Using pearls as her primary gem, her pieces incorporate classically round specimens as well as more freeform varieties. “I find the pearl so special because of its naturalism in look, but also because it is made by a living thing,” she says. “For me, pearls are close to what it means to be a woman.”
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Goltz embraces asymmetry in her designs and uses pearls’ organic appearance as a contrast to her otherwise minimal, refined aesthetic. Mizuki is sold in high-end jewelry and department stores throughout the world, including Bergorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue and Dover Street Market. Her husband, fellow alumnus Alan Goltz (BFA 1993 Illustration), is also involved in the business. [Greg Herbowy]
V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
Untold Rebel
Sock sets, $28 and up untoldrebel.com
U
ntold Rebel, co-founded by Chu Chi Lin (MFA 2009 Computer Art) and Wen-Yan King, sells deliberately mismatched socks billed as “the world’s most comfortable.” Each is made with antimicrobial fiber and has arch compression, padded soles and seamless toes. Ten percent of all proceeds in 2019 will go to Donors Choose, which raises money for materials and field-trip experiences at underfunded public schools. [GH]
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WHAT’S IN STORE
Seven Gardens Residency
Ten-day residencies in Iran, $825 – $950 sevengardensresidency.com
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worked as a security guard at a gallery in Ontario for 10 years,” MFA Fine Arts student Sarah Malekzadeh says. “I only ever noticed one Iranian artist. I think they’re pretty isolated.” By founding the Seven Gardens Residency in Kerman, Iran, Malekzadeh is working to put those artists in the spotlight. The residency is named after the nearby Haft Bagh-e Alavi (“haft bagh” is “seven gardens” in English)—a highway lined with sculptures and other attractions. Kerman, a city in Iran’s southeastern region, is known for its handicrafts and textiles, so most of the attendees’ structured days are spent meeting artists and artisans and learning about the local culture. Built on land owned by Malekzadeh’s Iranian father, Seven Gardens had its first
sessions in 2018. This year, she is offering five 10-day guided sessions, each with spots for three people, as well as selfdirected residencies. Food, lodging, studio space, planned excursions, an overnight trip and airport pickup and drop-off are all covered by the program fee. When reviewing applications, Malekzadeh looks for creative types “who know what they want to get out of this trip and have a specific interest they want to research in Iran.” In the future, Malekzadeh hopes to offer a scholarship supporting female Iranian artists. “I want to connect Iranian artists with international artists and have a cultural exchange.” [Vanessa Machir]
Chedda
Online marketplace, free makechedda.com
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elling your old stuff isn’t always easy—or safe. That’s why BFA Advertising faculty Sungkwon Ha (BFA 2009 Advertising) and Jamie Rome founded Chedda, an online marketplace where College students can post and browse listings and use a chat function to arrange times and places for transactions. The app is meant to replace more outdated methods of selling, such as posters and flyers on campus. Because it’s only available to college students, users can expect to avoid the “no-shows and spam robots” that plague users of sites like Craigslist. Now available at SVA and NYU, Ha and Rome plan to expand to more schools and add a payment function soon. And though you’ll see standard college items listed (books, blenders), the most popular listings are not what Ha and Rome anticipated. “What seems to sell the most is fashion,” Ha says. “That’s the hilarious part—people are selling Gucci.” [VM]
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V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
KAWS in Effect
KAWS x Sesame Street collection $9.90 and up uniqlo.com Dior x KAWS collection $250 and up dior.com
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The ever-prolific artist KAWS (BFA 1996 Illustration) is now in stores via two of fashion’s biggest brands. Last fall, Uniqlo introduced a Sesame Street–themed line created by the artist, with T-shirts, sweatshirts and hoodies featuring favorite characters from the show, their pupils replaced with KAWS’ signature Xs. And on the more rarefied end of things, there is designer Kim Jones’ Dior Men summer 2019 capsule collection, for which KAWS reimaged the label’s logo and decorated several of the items with jeweled or embroidered cartoon bees. These limited-edition collections won’t be available much longer; interested parties should hasten to their local outlets or default web browser. [Michelle Mackin]
To submit a product for What’s in Store, send information to
NEWS@SVA.EDU SPR ING 20 19
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WHAT’S IN STORE
THIS SPREAD Maayan Zilberman portrait by Jason
Lewis; sculpture photo by Ilan Rubin for Furth Yashar &; cassette tapes exclusive to Neiman Marcus. All images courtesy Sweet Saba.
Sweet Saba
Candy sculptures, pricing varies sweetsaba.com
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rtist and Sweet Saba founder Maayan Zilberman (BFA 2001 Fine Arts) has worked with some of the most desirable names in art and fashion: Art Basel Miami, Delpozo, the Whitney Museum of American Art and Versace (this last one for the Met Ball, no less). But her chosen medium isn’t quite what
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you’d expect. A high-concept candy maker, Zilberman sculpts with sugar. Why sugar? After working in the lingerie business for many years, “I wanted to be making things with my hands,” she says, but she had no studio. So, inspired by childhood food experiments with her grandfather and her love of candy, she turned to her kitchen. Mastering the process, however, wasn’t easy. “I ended up learning how to do all of this on YouTube, watching videos over and over again.” After she put her work on social media and started getting orders, Sweet Saba (“saba” is Hebrew for “grandpa”) was established.
Success soon followed: Her first pop-up was in Manhattan in 2015; a week later, she was filling an order for W magazine’s Golden Globes after-party, and her candy is now sold at Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus. One of her latest collaborations was with nail-polish company Orly, to create Sweet Saba Red, a shade inspired by Zilberman’s own signature crimson nails. At first, Zilberman focused on re-creating items that had nostalgia value for her, like wristwatches and cassette tapes. “This ephemeral thing would melt away, and it would become a part of you,” she says. She aims for realism. Crystals, pickles, lipsticks or, for the Versace project, gold jewelry— if it exists, it’s likely Zilberman can make a candy version. But what you see isn’t always what you get; she has also made donut-flavored pizzas and popcorn-flavored flowers. No matter where her work takes her, Zilberman says she tries to stay true to why she started Sweet Saba. “I have to constantly remind myself of how I want the business to make me feel.” [VM] V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
Fold-byNumber Napkins
WHAT’S IN STORE
Set of six cloth napkins, $42 store.moma.org
The hurdle for hosting a formal dinner party is now a little bit lower. These napkins, created by designer Julia Lindpaintner (MFA 2017 Products of Design), come with their fancy folding instructions printed right on the fabric.
Pellegrino Cutlery
Handmade knives, $300 and up pellegrinocutlery.com
For four years, Steve Pellegrino (BFA 2013 Design) has made high-end Japanese- and Western-style culinary knives in his Philadelphia-area workshop. Check out some sample blades below.
Red Bee Honey
228MM WESTERN HONYAKI GYUTO W2 carbon steel with a dyed maple burl and urethane handle
228MM WESTERN GYUTO 52100 carbon steel with a double-dyed black ash burl handle and copper bolster
Honey products, $8 and up redbee.com
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n 2000, Carla Marina Marchese (BFA 1988 Media Arts) toured a neighbor’s apiary in Connecticut and came away entranced. Soon after, she left her design career to start Red Bee Honey, which sells single-origin honeys, skin care products, beeswax candles and more. She chronicled her path from
hobbyist to entrepreneur in her first book, Honeybee: Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper (2011); her follow-up, The Honey Connoisseur (2013), serves as a com-
prehensive guide to the topic. Marchese has also spoken on honey to organizations and media in the U.S. and abroad. [Charles Snyder]
3" PARING KNIFE 1095 high-carbon steel with a dyed maple burl and fiberglass handle and copper pins
Dripkit 150MM HONYAKI PETTY W2 carbon steel with a dyed maple burl and fiberglass handle
3" PARING KNIFE 1095 high-carbon steel with a curly zebrawood handle and nickel pins PORTR AIT BY DAVID MAIALET TI
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Pour-over coffee kits, $15 and up • dripkit.coffee
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ara Cohen and Ilana Kruger (BFA 2013 Visual & Critical Studies) designed Dripkit for on-the-go coffee lovers striving for the perfect pour-over cup. Roasted in Brooklyn, the coffee comes in single-use paper brewers with built-in filters. Just open the packet, fit it over a mug and slowly pour in hot water. Bonus: the creators have pledged to make the product 100% biodegradable by 2021. [MM] V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
Watch List How do you like to watch movies and TV now? On your tablet? Your phone? Maybe even your TV? Regardless of your preferred device, a number of new and recent projects by SVA alumni are or soon will be available on a variety of streaming services—and good old-fashioned cable.
Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable
Umbrella Academy This adaptation of the comic-book saga created by Gerard Way (BFA 1999 Cartooning) co-stars Ellen Page and Mary J. Blige. Netflix
Having made the festival circuit last year, this documentary on the famous street photographer, directed by Sasha Waters Freyer (BFA 1991 Photography), is now available online. Amazon Video/Google Play/iTunes/Microsoft/ Vudu/YouTube
Desde el Principio
City on a Hill
A Little Wisdom
This award-winning short by Miguel J. Soliman (MPS 2017 Directing) tells the story of two voice actors brought together by a shared tragedy. HBO/HBO Go/HBO Now
Michael Cuesta (BFA 1985 Photography) is an executive producer of this dramatic series about crime and corruption in Boston; he also directed its pilot. Showtime/Showtime Anytime
Directed by Yuqi Kang (MFA 2016 Social Documentary Film), this documentary, featuring cinematography by fellow program alumni Amitabh Joshi (2013) and Paola Ochoa (2015), follows the lives of orphaned boys living in a remote monastery in Nepal. Amazon Video/Google Play/iTunes/YouTube
Fantasy High A cast of comedy writers and performers play a fantasy role-playing game in this show, created and hosted by Brennan Lee Mulligan (BFA 2009 Cartooning) for College Humor’s streaming platform. Dropout.tv
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Liverspots and Astronots
The Owl House
Created by Robert Bohn and Nate Milton (both BFA 2008 Animation), this series about an outer-space nursing home is on Facebook’s video-on-demand service. Facebook Watch
Dana Terrace (BFA 2013 Animation) created this series, to premiere this year, about an ordinary teen in a magical realm; Molly Knox Ostertag (BFA 2014 Cartooning) is a writer. Disney Channel/ DisneyNOW
Tongue and Pencil
Stay Here
Titmouse Studio co-founder Chris Prynoski (BFA 1994 Animation) interviews and draws with fellow animators in this online talk show. YouTube
Genevieve Gorder (BFA 1998 Graphic Design) co-hosts this show about rehabbing shortterm rental properties. Netflix
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WHAT’S IN STORE
Shelf Liners
In the Heat
Arturo Soto (MFA 2008 Photography, Video and Related Media) The Eriskay Connection, $35
Sagmeister & Walsh: Beauty Stefan Sagmeister (faculty, MFA Design) and Jessica Walsh (faculty, BFA Design) Phaidon, $39.95
Infidel
Illustrated by Aaron Campbell (MFA 2003 Illustration as Visual Essay) Image Comics, $16.99
Blackbird
Illustrated by Jen Bartel (BFA 2009 Illustration) Image Comics, $3.99/issue
Dirty Diamonds #9
Khalida and the Most Beautiful Song
Contributors include Jennifer Chan (BFA 2012 Illustration), Noni Garcia (BFA 2012 Illustration), Shauna J. Grant (BFA 2011 Cartooning), Julie Lerche (student, BFA Cartooning), Lorena Reyes (BFA 2015 Cartooning) and Erin Roseberry (student, BFA Cartooning) Dirty Diamonds, $20
Amanda Moeckel (MFA 2015 Illustration as Visual Essay) Page Street Kids, $17.99
Little Women: 150th Anniversary Edition
Illustrated by Shreya Gupta (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) Little, Brown and Company, $24.99
Wallace’s Line
Alexis Rockman (BFA 1985 Fine Arts) Baldwin Gallery, $100
Intangible Heritage
Jesse Chun (MFA 2014 Photography, Video and Related Media) Wendy’s Subway, $10
Cherokee Road Kill
Illustrated by Kyoko Miyabe (faculty, Humanities and Sciences) Dr. Cicero Books, $15
The Untamed Eye
Stephanie Pfriender Stylander (BFA 1983 Photography) MW Editions, $45
Vreugdevuur Scheveningen
Romke Hoogwaerts (BFA 2013 Visual & Critical Studies) Gnomic Book, $48
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V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
Oliver Wasow (faculty, MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) Saint Lucy Books, $30
RELENTLESS 119 WINS AND ANOTHER RED SOX CHAMPIONSHIP
Friends, Enemies and Strangers
Relentless 119 WINS and another Red Sox Championship
Relentless: 119 Wins and Another Red Sox Championship
Designed by Rena Sokolow (BFA 1986 Media Arts) KCI Sports Publishing, $24.95
2018 WORLD SERIES COMMEMORATIVE BOOK
Primer
Matthew Craven (MFA 2010 Fine Arts) Anthology Editions, $45
The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler
John Hendrix (MFA 2003 Illustration as Visual Essay) Amulet Books, $24.99
Re-membrance of the Remembrance Hye-Ryoung Min (MPS 2009 Digital Photography) Datz Press, $60
Born Free and Equal: The Story of Loyal _______-Americans
Joseph Maida (chair, BFA Photography and Video) Convoke, $45
Brand New Art from China: A Generation on the Rise
Barbara Pollack (faculty, BFA Photography and Video) I.B. Tauris, £16.99
New Kid
Jerry Craft (BFA 1984 Media Arts) HarperCollins, $21.99
The latest book by author and illustrator Jerry Craft is a semi-autobiographical graphic novel about Jordan, a young African American attending a private, mostly white school. New Kid highlights the microaggressions that children like Jordan face every day and has received positive notices in Publishers Weekly and elsewhere. [MM]
Sanity & Tallulah
Molly Brooks (MFA 2013 Illustration as Visual Essay) Disney-Hyperion, $21.99
The Intergalactic Design Guide: Harnessing the Creative Power of Social Design Cheryl Heller (chair, MFA Design for Social Innovation) Island Press, $30
Crab Cake: Turning the Tide Together Andrea Tsurumi (MFA 2013 Illustration as Visual Essay) HMH Books for Young Readers, $17.99
Almost Naked
Shen Wei (MFA 2006 Photography, Video and Related Media) Jiazazhi Press, $55
Taradiddle
Charles H. Traub (chair, MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) Damiani, $50
The Umbrella Academy: Hotel Oblivion
Graphic Style: From Victorian to Hipster (fourth edition)
Written by Gerard Way (BFA 1999 Cartooning) Dark Horse, $3.99/issue
Steven Heller (co-chair, MFA Design) Abrams Books, $29.99
Design for Children: Play, Ride, Learn, Eat, Create, Sit, Sleep
The Day the Universe Exploded My Head
Illustrated by Anna Raff (MFA 2009 Illustration as Visual Essay; faculty) Candlewick Press, $17.99
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A Stranger’s Pose
Emmanuel Iduma (MFA 2015 Art Criticism and Writing; faculty, MFA Art Criticism and Writing) Cassava Republic Press, £16.99
Kimberlie Birks (MFA 2011 Design Criticism) Phaidon, $59.95
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PORTFOLIO
Antonio Pulgarin
F
by dan halm
amily photographs are powerful artifacts, connecting the viewer to a personal past and evoking nostalgia, love and memories. Photographer Antonio Pulgarin (BFA 2013 Photography) has spent more than three years digging into his own family’s keepsakes to create a body of work that taps into these qualities. Titled “Fragments of the Masculine,” the ongoing series explores his Colombian heritage, the conflict between stereotypical ideas of masculinity and Pulgarin’s queer identity, and the lives of his late uncle and his estranged biological father.
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V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
Antonio Pulgarin, 1981, 2017, photography, photographic collage and mixed media.
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Antonio Pulgarin, Rebellion, 2017, photography, photographic collage and mixed media.
Pulgarin’s uncle, who was his mother’s older brother, served in the Colombian military before dying in a car accident in 1987. Two years later, Pulgarin was born and given his uncle’s name as a way to honor his memory. Pulgarin’s mother, who lives in New Jersey, and other relatives, many of whom still live in Bogotá, have held onto countless photographs of the elder Antonio. Interested in learning more about the man, Pulgarin began building an informal archive from these collections. Portraits of his uncle, he discovered, had an uncanny effect on him. Often, he would recognize glimmers of himself—whether through physical resemblance or a familiar gesture—but overall the images remained foreign and distant, particularly in how they “exuded a hyper-masculine energy,” he says. Through his research, Pulgarin also came across old photos of and writings by his biological father, who is also Colombian, and a distant figure in his life. “The only time I ever met him, and I didn’t know this as a child, was when he was in prison in New Jersey,” he says. “The Polaroid of him picking me up is the only memory I have.” Many of the photographs exude machismo, “from his body language to the oiled-up muscles and tank tops.” But his father’s handwritten notes on them, addressed to Pulgarin, reveal a more vulnerable and open side. Inspired by his discoveries, Pulgarin decided to use his family’s photographs as the basis for his own art. He reproduced select photos of his uncle and his father and altered them— ripping, deconstructing, adding or removing information. He then embellished the images with patterns, colors and texts 22
that speak to each man’s relationship to Pulgarin and their shared Colombian heritage. For example, he says, “the flower patterns that I use remind me of these patterns that I grew up with, like the table mats that my mom would have at home.” These motifs also serve to counter and “soften” the portraits’ masculine energy. His instincts and emotions often guide the development of the work. Pulgarin is judicious in how he manipulates his late uncle’s image, as a way to show respect for the man and his legacy. He is less protective when it comes photographs of his father, eradicating his eyes and even his face in numerous works. “I wanted to tell my uncle’s story through my eyes,” he says. “With my father it wasn’t so much about his story but more my story and his absence from it.” Beyond Pulgarin’s personal feelings for his two relatives, he says their divergent paths are emblematic of a “machismo” culture that can be found within the Latinx community. “They represent where this ideology can lead you. If you uphold it with the honor and respect associated with the military, you can be celebrated. However, it can also lead you toward a different path. I’ve seen so many friends who I grew up with either arrested, shot or killed because they had to live up to a certain idea of what a man’s supposed to be.” Growing up, Pulgarin understood that identifying as gay contradicted what it meant to be a “masculine Latin man.” By altering the images of two such stereotypically masculine figures, Pulgarin is challenging these conventions, in the hopes V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
Robert Lazzarini, installation view of “Inflorescence,” 2017.
Antonio Pulgarin, He Was Only 25…, 2017, photography, photographic collage and mixed media.
of starting a wider conversation. “We have to start unpacking, dissecting these ideas and really talking about them or else we are never going to evolve and move forward as a community.” “Being an artist can be a narcissistic thing, like I am doing this for me first,” he says. “I have the need to resolve something within myself. But at the end of the process one hopes that the work will speak to others, and it’s been amazing to see that it does speak to the community at large.” SPR ING 20 19
Pulgarin’s work has received several awards and honors, including being selected for the 2019 Bronx Museum of the Arts’ AIM (Artist in the Marketplace) program. It has been shown in numerous exhibitions in the U.S. and is part of the permanent collection of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, Indiana. For more information, visit antoniopulgarin.com. ✽ 23
Antonio Pulgarin, Papasito, 2017, photography, photographic collage and mixed media.
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Antonio Pulgarin, Communion 1972, 2017, photography, photographic collage and mixed media.
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Antonio Pulgarin, A Chest That Bears Honor, 2017, photography, photographic collage and mixed media.
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SEOUL In this issue, Visual Arts Journal presents six SVA graduates who are living and working in South Korea’s capital, which is home to one of the College’s largest and most active alumni communities.
by Joyce Rutter Kaye and Greg Herbowy
JUNGMI CHO BFA 2009 Graphic Design
JI YOUN HONG BFA 2010 Fine Arts
JINA LEE BFA 2010 Fine Arts
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he 2018 project “tangible/ intangible,” comprising home products by the arts collective House of Collections, was inspired by three locations—desert, garden and space—that founders 28
Jungmi Cho, Ji Youn Hong and Jina Lee had either “visited or dreamed of visiting.” Their “tangible” carpets and mirrors, richly layered with vibrant shapes, colors and botanical images, invite people to step into the fantastical “intangible” worlds of HoC’s imagination. The Desert carpet, made with 25 colors (the industry standard is seven or eight) is alive with Memphis-style waves, squiggles and bold geometric shapes, Ben-Day dots, flowers and palm fronds. Their Jewel Garden mirrors likewise incorporate brilliant colors, geometric grids and natural elements to both “reflect reality” and offer viewers new environments to explore.
Displayed in the new retail shop Art in House by HoC, in central Seoul’s Jung district, such “living products” reflect their philosophy that people should “experience art in daily life,” not just within the confines of a gallery, Hong says. The trio have been unbound by convention since meeting at SVA a decade ago and staging a show of their art in an Upper East Side apartment when gallery access proved too difficult. Reconnecting in Seoul a few years after graduation, they formed HoC in 2015 and have since created numerous sponsored installations and gallery exhibitions throughout the city. While they reject the idea of a house
style, nature in all its glory— even when reproduced using artificial materials—is a recurring theme, seen in recent installations like “Blowing Romance in Water Garden,” with luxury salon A. by BOM and “Exotic Garden,” for Lotte department store, among others. “The garden connects human and nature,” Lee says. “In the garden, we always feel relaxed and find beauty,” Hong adds. “Art has the same function.” OPPOSITE A view of “Exotic Garden,” a 2018 installation created by arts collective House of Collections for Lotte department store, Seoul.
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SOONCHOEL BYUN BFA 1999 Photography
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s a newly arrived student at SVA, Soonchoel Byun felt inspired by “everything” around him, he says. At first, he mostly photographed children and the elderly—given his tentative English, “it was easier to engage with them.” Gradually, though, he became more outgoing, and ambitious. His New York City work culminated with a series of portraits of interracial couples that has been widely shown. In 2010, a photograph from the project was included with work by Henri Cartier-Bresson and Irving Penn as part of the London exhibition and charity auction “A Positive View,” and he credits the series with securing his representation some five years ago with Arario, one of Seoul’s preeminent galleries.
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Since returning to South Korea in the early 2000s, Byun has pursued projects that capture aspects of the country’s society. Last year, Arario presented his “Eternal Family” series, which features North Korean refugees and their photographs of the family they left behind. Using computer technology, Byun aged the subjects of these family photos, to suggest what the long-unseen relatives might look like today. Also in 2018, Byun received a midcareer retrospective, “Don’t Move,” at the GoEun Museum of Photography in the South Korean city of Busan; the exhibition catalog is his sixth monograph to date. Byun is currently at work on a new series, taking portraits of highly sophisticated humanoid robots that are being developed for the South Korean government. “The robots are like real children,” he says. “They are ‘adult’ robots, but from my point of view, they are children.”
CLOCKWISE FROM OPPOSITE Soonchoel Byun, Gangwon-do Sokcho-si, 2013, from “National Song Contest,” archival pigment print; spread from Byun’s book Eternal Family (2015), based on the series of the same name; Interracial Couple, 2001, archival pigment print.
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JEONGMEE YOON MFA 2006 Photography, Video and Related Media
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hotographer JeongMee Yoon’s fascination with typologies and what they reveal about societies has been a thread woven throughout her work over the past two decades. “The Pink and Blue Project”— begun as her MFA thesis, shot in New York and Seoul and exhibited around the world—shows girls and boys dwarfed by their collections of color-coded,
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gender-specific toys, clothes and other objects. The meticulously staged, brightly hued photos are powerful statements about gender-based marketing and rampant consumerism. They also exemplify Yoon’s ability to leverage an image’s framework to tell a story, as seen from her early black-andwhite “Zoo” series (1999) to the more recent “Animal Companions,” a 2015 project showing the connection between animal ownership and a person’s identity and social status. In that series’ catalog, critic Hyeyoung Shin observes, “Unlike portrait photography, which focuses only on a person, she provides environmental information surrounding the subject to contribute not only to the visual content but also its form.” As she was taking visitors through her solo show “Human-Space-Relationship”
at Space Imsi Gallery in Incheon, South Korea, last October, Yoon paused before another series, “SpaceMan-Space,” which features shop clerks surrounded by their tightly organized wares in Seoul’s Insadong neighborhood, first shot in 2000 and 2002, then again in 2017. Yoon observed that the shopkeepers’ personal appearances seemed to be dictated by the goods— or perceptions—they were trying to sell. One man, for example, dressed in a suit to peddle “authentic” Korean ceramics that were actually cheap knockoffs. “When people have a certain job, they dress to serve their job. Their appearance is very related to their stuff,” she says. And that “stuff ” speaks volumes. “I think about small tiny things symbolizing our society’s systems. I’m very interested in this kind of structure.”
THIS PAGE Photographs from JeongMee Yoon’s “Zoo” series, 1998. Clockwise from above left: Gorilla, Monkey's Cage, Elephant, Empty Monkey’s Cage. All works selenium toned gelatin silver prints. JeongMee Yoon portrait by Jay Park. OPPOSITE, LEFT COLUMN Photographs from Yoon’s ongoing series “The Pink and Blue Project.” From top: Hojune and His Blue Things, Seoul, South Korea, 2007, from “The Blue Project I”; Maia and Her Pink and Blue Things, NY, USA, 2009, from “The Pink Project II”; SeoWoo and Her Pink Things, Queens, NYC, USA, 2005, from “The Pink Project I.” All works light jet prints. OPPOSITE, RIGHT COLUMN Photographs
from Yoon’s “Space-Man-Space” series, 2017. From top: Yeonhwasa, Gyeonji-dong, Seoul, South Korea; Jinmun Mount Gallery, Insa-dong, Seoul, South Korea; Samwoo Bolt Store, Euljiro, Seoul, South Korea. All works C-prints.
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YANGSOOK CHOI MFA 1995 Illustration as Visual Essay
A
fter 25 years of living in Manhattan, children’s book writer and illustrator Yangsook Choi moved back to her hometown of Seoul in 2015 and found that, like her, the city had changed. “Before, it was almost 100 percent monoculture,” she says. “Now it’s very international.” Inclusivity and respect for different cultural traditions are themes that can be found in all of the 12 books Choi has illustrated or authored. New Cat (1999) takes place in a Bronx tofu factory. Behind the Mask (2006) merges the customs of an American Halloween with those of Korean mask dance. The Name Jar (2001), perhaps Choi’s bestknown work to date, tells the story of a young Korean immigrant’s anxiety over sharing her given name with her American classmates; later this year, the Emerald City Theatre in Chicago will premiere a live adaptation. A frequent traveler, Choi has visited more than 10 countries to speak at schools, libraries and conferences, where she often talks about the importance of keeping
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reading lists that speak to a variety of experiences and heritages. She also visits orphanages and shelters, often in remote locations, to make art with the children and paint on-site murals. “If you go to these places and open a package of colored pencils or paper, kids flock to you,” she says. When in Seoul, Choi volunteers with a local NGO that delivers vegetable seeds to farmers in North Korea, whose people suffer from chronic food shortages. North Korea also figures in her latest project, a youngadult graphic novel about children in the country; Choi spent several years interviewing North Korean defectors about their experiences living under the repressive regime. Tentatively called Double Thunder, it features her own blackand-white drawings; her agent is currently showing it to publishers. Meanwhile, Choi is thinking about a more illustration-focused project. “I can draw or paint for nine hours, and it’s effortless,” she says. “But I can’t possibly write more than four hours a day. Writing is the biggest monster.” ❋
BELOW AND OPPOSITE Books written and illustrated by Yangsook Choi include Peach Heaven (2005) and The Name Jar (2001), the latter of which is being adapted by the Emerald City Theatre in Chicago. Choi recently completed a YA graphic novel, tentatively titled Double Thunder. BOTTOM A mural by Choi and fi ve other artists at a long-term shelter in Thailand, for victims of sex trafficking. Choi often travels to do philanthropic work.
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The
GENIUS
Meredith Kurtzman (1971 Illustration) is always one step ahead of herself in the kitchen, setting up the next part of her recipe while still working on the previous one. Her career path, on the other hand, has not been so meticulously laid out. The daughter of the late acclaimed cartoonist and former SVA faculty member Harvey Kurtzman, she grew up drawing but “just not working hard enough to get good,” she says. After jumping around majors at SVA—“I was in advertising for half a year. Ha! That was ridiculous”— she ended up freelancing in textile design, then fabric printing. She enjoyed the work, but by the mid-1990s, opportunities were scarce, so she enrolled in culinary school—“not a fancy one”— and found an internship at Verbena, a praised, but now closed, restaurant near Union Square. “One thing led to another,” she says, and in 2003 Kurtzman landed at the acclaimed Otto Enoteca e Pizzeria, near Washington Square. After some training in Italy, she went on to lead the gelato-focused dessert
program there until 2015 and became known within the industry, according to Eater, as “the greatest gelato maker in New York.” The Wall Street Journal has called her a master. Semi-retired, Kurtzman now consults and develops recipes for restaurants and brands while working on new endeavors in her decidedly diffident way. Not long ago, she welcomed us into her parents’ 1920s home in Mount Vernon, New York, to demonstrate how anyone with an ice-cream maker—or just two metal bowls and a lot of ice—can make one quart of her favorite gelato, salted caramel, in their own kitchen.
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Gelato by MICHELLE MACKIN
PHOTOGR APHS BY JACQUELINE IANNACONE (BFA 2012 PHOTOGR APHY )
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Meredith Kurtzman’s Salted Caramel Gelato Put the inner container of an ice-cream maker in the freezer for at least 24 hours until it’s “frozen stiff.” Meanwhile, take a medium-sized, heavy-bottomed pot, add ½ cup sugar and, bit by bit, just enough water to form a texture like wet sand, brushing down any errant crystals into the mix with a damp brush or paper towel. Place the pot over medium heat and do not stir the sugar. “You want to be ready with 2½ cups of whole milk when the sugar starts to burn,” Kurtzman says. “It can go from ready to burnt in a few seconds, and over-burnt does not taste good.” While this process seems daunting, she assures that anyone can do it. “My first boss told me, ‘Don’t be scared of caramel, of cooking it too much.’ If you don’t cook it enough it’ll have no flavor.” Plus, the “perfect doneness” can be a personal preference. “I like a teeny taste of burnt,” she admits.
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When the sugar turns a deep mahogany, just barely starting to smoke, remove the pot from the stove and carefully pour in the milk. The temperature of the melted sugar at this point is around 385°F, and “caramel burn hurts,” Kurtzman says. Whisk the mixture. Once everything has settled, return the pot to the burner, heating the milk slowly over medium heat and allowing any bits of sugar that hardened at the sudden addition of cold fluid to melt again.
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As the milk heats, set up a strainer and an ice bath in the sink for later. Separate 9 egg yolks, discarding the whites. In a heatproof bowl, whisk the yolks and 3 tablespoons of sugar together. Once the milk is steaming, temper the eggs by gradually ladling a bit more than half of the hot milk into the heatproof bowl, 38
so they slowly heat up without curdling. Next, pour the egg mixture into the pot and gently stir it over low heat until it is a slightly thickened custard at about 185°F, using a kitchen thermometer to take the temperature.
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Remove the pot from the heat, strain the mixture into a metal bowl and put the bowl in the ice bath. “In pastry, you always want to strain everything,” she says. “You don’t want any stray yolks—too much of that, and it will taste like scrambled eggs.” Stir in the remaining ingredients: 1 cup of heavy cream, ½ teaspoon of kosher salt, ½ cup of condensed milk and either ½ of a vanilla bean, split and scraped, or ½ teaspoon vanilla extract or paste. “They always say that pastry is really precise, and it is, but there’s a little leeway.” On this occasion, she reluctantly uses measuring spoons rather than eyeballing it. “It’s just one more thing I have to wash.”
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Once everything is mixed, cover the fi nished base and leave it in the refrigerator to chill overnight (or for up to a week). After it has chilled, fit the ice-cream maker with the now-frozen inner container, pour in the base and let it churn for about 30 minutes, until it thickens and loses its shine. It is possible, yet much more difficult, to do this part by hand. “Some guys that I worked with used to make sorbet—they’d put a bowl [with the base in it] inside a big bowl of ice and they’d spin it really fast,” Kurtzman says. “It takes a long time to do it that way.” She notes that the crew at La Newyorkina, a beloved Mexican sweets company in New York City, also uses this technique. As the machine works, check frequently to make sure the base does not over-churn. If that were to happen, the fats would separate
from the water-based ingredients and harden into clumps of what is, essentially, butter. At that point, “it’s garbage,” Kurtzman says. Texture has always been the most important thing to her; she wants her gelato not just to taste good, but to feel good in the eater’s mouth. “That’s why I don’t put chunks of stuff in my ice cream. I just like that smooth feeling.” That said, she is not wholly opposed to crunch. At Otto, she created a sort of sundae, which she called a coppetta (Italian for “cup”), featuring a couple of flavors of gelato topped with brittle or some other contrasting ingredient. She is also not a strict traditionalist when it comes to flavors—diners “went nuts,” she says, for her olive-oil gelato topped with sea salt. But Kurtzman does have her maxims. She prefers that gelato not be too cold. “When something is less cold, you can taste it better. The colder it is, the more it freezes your tongue.” She is also leery of health-conscious options. Recently, she tested some recipes for a new ice-cream brand, one of many that sell low-calorie pints that allow eaters to finish the whole thing in one sitting, guiltfree. “I’m always dubious about that—if you’re having a reasonable serving, I say go to hell and have good ice cream.”
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When the gelato has thickened, chill it again in the freezer for about an hour, until it sets. When that last hour of waiting is up, use a rubber spatula or flat-edged utensil to scoop it out and serve, ideally at about 38°F. “If it’s hard, let it sit out and soften,” she says. Kurtzman likes to scrape the spatula across the side of the dish, creating a perfect gelato wave. “I like that look instead of a boring little scoop,” she says, but the technique takes some practice. “I used to try and teach my assistants to get it right. Some of them got it, but some of them….”
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The finished gelato is delightfully sweet, balanced with the caramel’s slightly burnt edge and hint of contrasting salt, making for a beautiful overall flavor. “This is so much better than an eggless version I tried recently,” she says. “I should stick with what I know.” Lately Kurtzman has been experimenting with patternmaking again, but this time independently. She has taken up photography and, using her photos of pasta, vegetables and plants, she creates designs and transfers them onto pillows and plates that she hopes to sell one day. “When I go to craft shows, I feel like everything looks alike,” she says. “Everyone is learning the same
technology. I just have to find a way to keep a unique point of view.” She also hosts the occasional sold-out pop-up dinner at Archestratus Books + Foods, in Brooklyn, taking multiple subway trips from her Soho apartment, where she has lived since the 1970s, to bring her supplies to the store. Though she misses some of the people that she met in the business, she is glad to have left the daily grind of a professional kitchen behind. “I started to learn all this stuff in my 40s. Restaurants are a young person’s game, with all that craziness. It’s not in my personality, really.” She laughs. “I don’t know how I ended up doing that.” ◆
The cover for the first issue of Mad, illustrated by Harvey Kurtzman; courtesy the Harvey Awards.
HARVEY KURTZMAN
Mad Dad
RIGHT Kurtzman likes her gelato served with a wave, "instead of a boring little scoop." BELOW Lately Kurtzman has been creating designs based on her photos of vegetables and transfering them onto pillows and plates.
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Meredith Kurtzman’s father, the late Harvey Kurtzman, began his illustrious cartooning career in 1942 and worked until just a few years before his death in 1993. In the Kurtzmans’ Mount Vernon, New York, home, his attic studio remains largely untouched, containing many of his tools and published works. Kurtzman is remembered today for creating Mad magazine, begun as a comic book in 1952 with publisher Bill Gaines, and Little Annie Fanny, Playboy’s first comic strip, which debuted in 1962. His daughter, however, prefers other works: “Help! [magazine, which he edited], his Goodman Beaver comics, the Jungle Book.... That was probably the best stuff he did,” she says. (Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book, a collection of four original comics published in 1959, is considered a forebear of the modern graphic novel.) Since 1988, the Harvey Awards, named in his honor, have recognized outstanding achievements in the comics and illustrated storytelling fields. The elder Kurtzman taught at SVA from the early 1970s until the early ’90s, and published some of his students’ work in a magazine called Kar-Tünz. “I don’t know that he loved teaching, but he had some good students,” she says, naming Punk magazine founder John Holmstrom (1974 Cartooning) and cartoonists Batton Lash (BFA 1977 Media Arts) and Mark Newgarden (BFA 1982 Media Arts) as a few. “He was a mentor—I think that was his gift, being a mentor.” [MM] 39
MUSIC
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V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
SPACE PEOPLE - WET SUS019
ISSUE VISUAL ARTISTS
have long influenced the way we listen to and think about music. Sometimes, that influence is obvious. Artists become musicians themselves, or they capture performers and performances in illustrations, paintings, photographs and films. Or, as shown here, they create album covers that spark imaginations before even one note of the record has been played. Other times, that influence is less visible: Think of the interaction designers at apps like Amazon Music and Spotify, working to create intuitive, seemingly tailor-made experiences for each of their millions of users.
AND DESIGNERS
TOP LEFT Madonna, Like a Virgin (1984); Paula Greif (BFA 1976 Media Arts), art director; courtesy Rhino Records • Various artists, Dark Was the Night (2009); Ryan Feerer (MFA 2007 Design), designer • Eminent Pulse, Girl Like Me (2017); Darren Melchiorre (MFA 2007 Design), art director/ designer • Phish, Hoist (1994); JoDee Stringham (BFA 1984 Media Arts), art director/designer • Johnny Cash, Murder (2000); Angela Skouras (BFA 1987 Media Arts), art director • De La Soul, Stakes Is High (1996); Michelle Willems (BFA 1989 Media Arts), art director/designer
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In this issue of the Visual Arts Journal, we cover some of the many ways that SVA alumni and faculty have had an impact on—and continue to change—the world of music. On the following pages, you will read about traditionalists and innovators, established stars and up-and-coming talents, an iconic past and a very near future. As contributor Briana Younger writes in her feature on design for streaming services (next page), the last 20 years alone have seen enormous changes in how music is made, distributed and consumed—and more changes surely lie ahead. But no matter where the art form goes, the SVA community will be there, helping to create, inspire and connect.
BOTTOM LEFT Busta Rhymes, The Big Bang (2006);
Alli Truch (faculty, BFA Design), art director/ designer/logo designer • Various artists, Blues Roots (1969); Milton Glaser (faculty, MFA Design; acting chairman, SVA Board of Directors), designer • Wu-Tang Clan, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (1993); Jackie Murphy (BFA 1984 Media Arts), art director • The Glands, The Glands (2000); Frank Gargiulo (BFA 1986 Media Arts), creative director; courtesy New West Records • Gucci Mane, Everybody Looking (2016); Virgilio Tzaj (BFA 2013 Design), art director • The B-52’s, Bouncing Off the Satellites (1986); Kenny Scharf (BFA 1981 Fine Arts), artist; courtesy Rhino Records • Deee-Lite,
World Clique (1990); Michael Halsband (BFA 1981 Fine Arts), photographer; courtesy Rhino Records. TOP RIGHT David Bowie, Earthling (1997);
Frank Ockenfels 3 (BFA 1983 Photography), photographer • Billy Joel, The Stranger (1977); Paula Scher (faculty, BFA Design), art director. • EMEFE, EMEFE (2015); Justin Colt and Jose Fresneda (both MFA 2013 Design), creative directors/designers • They Might Be Giants, They Might Be Giants (1986); Rodney Alan Greenblat (BFA 1982 Fine Arts), illustrator • Space People, Wet (2017); Santiago Carrasquilla (BFA 2012 Graphic Design), designer.
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BE HIND
The visual aspects of the music world have always been powerful tools for establishing performers’ identities and monetizing an art form that is, fundamentally, meant to be heard rather than seen. Dynamic album covers, innovative videos, ambitious stage setups and eye-catching merchandise have been staples of popular music for decades.
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Design for Music in the Streaming Age SPR ING 20 19
In recent years, though, nontraditional design has come to the forefront, intersecting with the entertainment industry— and, by extension, the tech industry—in ways that seemed more like science-fiction fodder just 20 years ago. 43
PREVIOUS SPREAD AND BELOW
To help bolster its brand, Spotify’s popular RapCaviar playlist has hosted concerts featuring such performers as ASAP Rocky (below). Courtesy Spotify.
AS THE ST
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CENTURY ARRIVED, peer-to-peer fi le sharing sites like Napster built the “old” music industry’s coffi n; the introduction of the iPod, in 2001, nailed it shut. The idea that thousands of songs could fit in a pocket effectively ended the album’s reign as popular music’s dominant format. Ten years later, the introduction of services like Spotify, which allow consumers to listen on demand without downloading any fi les, gave rise to the streaming era. Now, discussions about how fans access their favorite music are almost as commonplace as discussions about the art itself. Saba Singh (MFA 2017 Interaction Design) is a UX, or user experience, designer at Amazon Music. Many of her day-to-day considerations don’t hinge on how to curate music based on individuals’ tastes, but in finding ways to suggest music that complements a particular time of day, location, activity or even type of weather. “To a large extent, we’re talking about people’s expectations and behaviors when they’re listening. How does music support their activity? How does it enhance it?” she says. “A lot of 44
times, when people are listening, they might have a specific intention or role they want the music to fulfill. So we’re thinking about how, for example, we surface the right kind of music to you because you’re dancing or you’re cooking.” The rising popularity of smart speakers and the virtual assistant—Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa—adds an additional layer of complexity to the work of someone like Singh, for whom the interaction between human, robot and music opens up endless possibilities. “We’re not just looking at an app and selecting what the music is, but we’re doing a lot of conversational stuff because of how people speak to Alexa. They request music,” she says. Sometimes, the requests are specific. Other times, perhaps when a song title isn’t known or the desire is for something broad, it is incumbent on the artificial intelligence to do the guesswork. “So what’s slightly different is that we get to look at conversation as
design, which I think is very interesting and very different from anything I studied.” Singh sees this type of user–service interaction as the plausible next step beyond the current vogue for largely algorithmic mood- and artist-based playlists and programming, which, like radio DJs, cater to listeners who aren’t interested in actively participating in music selection. “I definitely have a pretty strong bias here, but I’m inclined to say [the future] would be all screen and all conversational.” She likens it to how people have become used to customizing their coffee-shop orders, going beyond strict menu options to specify the amount or type
of creamer, or ask for extra shots or halfdecaf. Imagine, instead, a listener requesting a fastpaced song, from the mid-’90s, with no hi-hats and synths. “The ability to be that granular with music is something that voice technology allows,” she says. “I expect
that’s where things are going—people are going to be more demanding about what they want, rather than more passive.” AI that discerning may be a ways off, but another, more immediate challenge for streaming services is how to bridge the gaps between digital and V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
physical platforms, and between artists and fans. Tal Midyan (BFA 2013 Advertising) is a senior art director at Spotify, and one of the brains behind the company’s “RapCaviar Pantheon” exhibition, installed in the Brooklyn Museum in 2017. The show featured lifesized, robot-fabricated statues of the musicians SZA, 21 Savage and Metro Boomin, briefly transforming something that only existed online—Spotify’s RapCaviar playlist, an evolving selection of songs considered to be one of the most influential and popular forces in music today, with the power to break new artists— into a tangible entity. “We were developing branding for SPR ING 20 19
this playlist so that people would know it as an editorial voice,” Midyan says. “The idea was to make something like a year-end list, but in a way that no one else would do.” When Midyan joined Spotify in 2016, his task was to help turn the platform, at that
point known more as a functional medium than a glossy destination, into the powerful brand it is today—that is, to render the power of music visually, and in a way that compelled consumers to not only listen but to use the app to do so. His designs must
TOP, OPPOSITE CENTER AND LEFT
Ads in London and New York City as part of Spotify’s “Thanks 2016, It’s Been Weird” global campaign, its first major branding effort. Courtesy Spotify. ABOVE An Amazon Music display screen. Saba Singh, a UX designer, is one of many working to make the platform as intuitive and targeted as possible. Courtesy Amazon.
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the feeling of holding a record in their hands. And while smart phones and streaming services may have all but relegated physical media to the periphery, for Singh and the team at Amazon, there remains some need to
exist in the real world (like the “Pantheon” statues or on massive billboards) and in the digital sphere (like the interactive website that Spotify created to support 21 Savage’s debut album); they also must reinforce the images of any of the artists they feature. 46
“We’ve created these really good systems,” he says. “But how do you give users that feeling of when you go to a record store? How do you maintain that freedom and expression while still making it suitable for an app that’s easy to use?”
Concrete answers are few, but the creative potential is infinite. The rise of streaming means fans and artists alike have numerous options. The old formats of recorded music still exist, finding audiences among those who still appreciate
have one foot in both realms. “We do have a huge base of people who still purchase music on our platform,” she says, which, much like streaming, still means catering to users’ needs by surfacing the
In 2017, Spotify presented “RapCaviar Pantheon,” a Brooklyn Museum installation of robot-fabricated sculptures depicting the popular musicians SZA, 21 Savage and Metro Boomin. “The idea was to make something like a year-end list, but in a way that no one else would do,” says Tal Midyan, senior art director at Spotify. Center and above photos by Driely Carter, courtesy Spotify.
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Ads for Spotify’s popular RapCaviar playlist, featuring several of its most-streamed artists. Courtesy Spotify.
music they might want to buy via algorithm. But the limitations fall away when the focus changes from commerce to experience. “The physicality of music is being given less value...so we’re dealing with interaction with a screen most of the time. It’s allowed us to enhance certain experiences— for example, playing music on any device in your house. What’s been given is a feature set that allows flexibility with how you want to listen.” With the help of designers like Singh, music becomes an immersive and immediate experience, available at any time and place. Listening habits SPR ING 20 19
become the concern of companies from front to back, as platforms, like the artists themselves, race to keep up with consumers who are now accustomed to soundtracking their everyday lives. The goal is no longer to just sell music but also to sell convenience and seamless integration, which means apps that are as intuitive and nimble as they are aesthetically pleasing. “I’d like to believe that what the user sees, at the end of the day, is the [visual] design. What they’re
not able to see is all the engineering and back-end effort that makes what they’re seeing possible,” Singh says. “A lot of the work designers end up doing is working around and enhancing the behaviors that consumers already have.” Streaming has created well-publicized dilemmas for the industry. Diminished profits make it harder for musicians to support themselves through their art, while listeners have become ever more insatiable in their
desire to have instant access to all of it. But designers like Midyan face a unique quandary of their own: balancing the interests of user, platform and artist all at once. That is, how can musicians use an app like Spotify, which is inherently an audio-oriented experience, to support their releases in a manner that appeals to fans both visually and experientially? “I think design for music should always be about the artist or an extension of the artist’s expression,” he
says. “I also feel like our role is to kind of get out of the way as a brand. That’s always the challenge, because people don’t want Spotify—they want music.” ✸ BRIANA YOUNGER
is an arts and culture writer. Her last article for the magazine, “Spotlight: Washington, DC,” appeared in the fall 2017 issue.
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Q+A CHRIS STEIN
SHEPARD FAIRE Y
by johanna fateman
B
londie guitarist Chris Stein (1973 Fine Arts) not only co-wrote, with singer Debbie Harry, enduring, infectious pop songs—such as the shimmering “Heart of Glass” and the New Wave–funk classic “Rapture”—he also documented the band’s vibrant downtown milieu. In iconic portraits, candid shots and video, Stein captured everyone from performers like The Ramones, Richard Hell and Jayne County, to artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, as well as, of course, the astonishingly photogenic Harry—backstage, on set and in hotel rooms around the world. His new monograph Point of View: Me, New York City, and the Punk Scene (Rizzoli) is a love letter to his city, focusing on the urban backdrop to his life through wry, poignant, mostly black-and-white street photography. A series of self-portraits around the abandoned buildings at Sheepshead Bay from 1969 to 1970 and images of the smoking Twin Towers and
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stunned crowds on 9/11 bookend the moody collection. (An earlier collection of Stein’s photos, Chris Stein/ Negative: Me, Blondie, and the Advent of Punk was published by Rizzoli in 2014.) I graduated from SVA a couple of decades after Stein, during the reign of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, whose embrace of broken-windows policing and crackdown on so-called “quality of life” crimes scrubbed the city of graffiti and kneecapped underground nightlife. As I look back, it makes sense that the turn-of-the-century dance-rock and electroclash music scenes in New York—which my own post–riot grrrl band, Le Tigre, floated between—would find inspiration in the aesthetics of the bygone demimonde Stein chronicled. He and I spoke a few days before Christmas 2018 (and a month before his public talk, with Harry, at the SVA Theatre, hosted by SVA Career Development) about art school, Instagram, Brooklyn’s Midwood neighborhood and his new book. V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
ABOVE Chris Stein, Anya Philips and Debbie Harry on the Staten Island ferry
(Punk magazine photo shoot outtake), 1976.
Yeah, sure, John Lennon and Talking Heads, all these people came from art-school backgrounds.
So what do you think about your time in art school now?
Well, being in a band and performing is visual in the obvious ways. But I think in Le Tigre we were really interested in appropriation, the ideas and politics around it, and we were influenced by the conceptual and photography-based work of the ’80s and beyond. In music, that interest translated into digital sampling. I guess what I’m getting at is: Do you feel like there is a relationship between how you approached photography and music?
It was great. I have really fond memories of it. It was probably considerably different back then. We used to sit around and smoke pot in the hall behind the cafeteria.1 My friend [Henry Frick], who was very close with Vito Acconci,2 did really crazy pieces. You know, he called them “pieces.” He set up a galvanized tub in the lobby and for a week he just came and lay in the water naked. Stuff like that was going on regularly. Yeah, I graduated in 1997 and it wasn’t really like that. At least I don’t think so. I don’t even remember a cafeteria! Who were your teachers?
I had great people, like Alex Hay and Malcolm Morley.3 I had a lady named Irene Stern4 as a photo teacher who was great, very inspiring. Bill Tapley5 and Al Brunelle,6 who was really into the occult; he was kind of a magician. And I had Mel Bochner,7 who is still out there in the art world. Oh! And Steve Reich!8 I had a synthesizer class with him. Wow. I would have been into that. So my bandmates9 went to art school, too—they studied photography and film—and I do think our backgrounds in visual art really formed what we did as a band. 1 The SVA cafeteria was on the second floor at 209 East 23rd Street, in the space currently occupied by Moe’s Café. 2 Acconci, the late performance and video artist, taught at SVA on and off between from 1969 to 1983. 3 Hay, a dancer and artist, and Morley, a painter noted for his facility with various styles, both briefl y taught at SVA in the late 1960s. 4 Stern taught photography at SVA in the 1970s and ’80s. 5 Tapley, a former faculty member, is an artist and color consultant. 6 Brunelle taught and ran the printmaking studio at SVA for many years. 7 A renowned conceptual artist, Bochner also taught at SVA. 8 See page 80. 9 In 1998, Fateman co-founded Le Tigre with Kathleen Hanna, singer for the pioneering “riot grrrl” band Bikini Kill; bandmate JD Samson joined three years later.
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I think music and visual stuff use different parts of my brain. I don’t know. When I was in SVA it was really the kickoff of the conceptual-art period. Which was great, but I was much more of a romantic. So though I was a fi ne-arts major, I drifted into photography. And I was always aware how much photography influenced music. You know, when I saw pictures of bands I admired as a kid, I knew the image was a major component. And then I started seeing the New York Dolls10 perform and I started meeting people in the music scene. My last year, my senior year, the guys from the Magic Tramps,11 who I was then friends with, I got them to play at an SVA party. I don’t know who the hell remembers that. The Magic Tramps are pretty obscure. So you graduated and got more seriously into music. Did you manage to avoid ever getting a real job?
I never had a real job! I painted a bathroom with Bill Tapley, who is still a working artist, very into color theory. He was a great teacher. I actually emailed him a few years ago—he’s a 10 Early ’70s rockers the New York Dolls, often credited as progenitors of the punk and glam rock movements, were renowned for their gender-bending image and rowdy live performances. 11 Fronted by Eric Emerson, a member of Andy Warhol’s Factory scene, the Magic Tramps regularly performed at legendary downtown venue Max’s Kansas City. Stein occasionally played guitar for the group.
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Or set up that unwieldy video rig!
The video stuff was really heavy, kind of insane. I guess I did it for fun. I didn’t think about it too much. I don’t know if I was emulating Andy [Warhol], who I always saw recording everything all the time. But that was probably in the mix. The question I always get is: How aware was I of the significance of what I was recording? There were a couple of moments that were over the top, and I recognized the historical implications a little bit. Like when Blondie did an appearance in London at a record store and the traffic stopped and thousands of kids showed up. Mostly, I was just in the moment. I still have about eight hours of footage I haven’t done anything with. While looking for you on Instagram,13 I could see that Blondie-mania is going strong. People would love to see the video you shot!
Yeah, we get a lot of love as the elder statesman. And we’re figuring out what to do with that video stuff. With Instagram, did that feel like an easy thing, to go totally digital and to use this new platform?
ABOVE Chris Stein, Snuky Tate, Fab 5 Freddy, and kid punk band the Brattles, 1981. OPPOSITE Chris Stein, Debbie Harry and David Bowie (backstage during Iggy
Pop's “Idiot” tour), 1977.
very inspiring guy. Anyway, he was working on Bert Stern’s12 little clubhouse uptown—whatever you want to call it—and I painted the bathroom up there. Bill was all about color effects, gradations and complementary colors and stuff like that. So the bathroom was really bright orange and the rest of the place was blue. Apparently I didn’t do a good job and he had to touch it up. That’s probably the closest I ever had to a job. Looking though your two books, it seems like you must have always had a camera with you. My dad grew up in Midwood, Brooklyn, too, and as a kid in the ’70s and ’80s, I visited some of the neighborhoods in your images. It’s kind of shocking how much everything has changed.
Really? Where did your dad live? The Avenue N stop on the F line.
Yeah I lived on Avenue K, J, right around there. Do you still go out there?
It’s very different—all Orthodox and Hasidic now.
Yeah, you know, fi lm is like vinyl. It’s kind of a fetish. And I don’t care about that. Digital stuff is so much easier to deal with, for photography especially. So I love Instagram. There are so many great street photographers posting there. That was part of the impetus of the book, you know, seeing all this really great work by people like Clay Benskin 14—he’s been written up in the Times and stuff. Another guy named Matt Weber.15 I’ve hung out with them. I think your street photography might be a surprise to some people. You’re so associated with punk and Blondie, et cetera. But I love how all the material is united by the storytelling element. It makes it so much richer to have the text recollections, in your own voice, accompanying the images.
All of the photos trigger memories. People come up to me frequently and tell me about some event or something that I was a part of that I don’t remember at all. But when I have the image in front of me it’s a whole different thing; I remember. Both Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell have told me that I auditioned for Television,16 which I don’t remember at all, but I’m polite and I tell them I remember it. They, like, bring it up decades later just to reiterate that you didn’t make the cut?
Well, Richard—he’s a great writer—in his books, just says I was too nice. They wanted someone who was crankier. You don’t seem very cranky. It was really nice talking to you.
You, too!
This conversation has been condensed and edited. Yeah, I know. My grandparents were Jewish, but, you know, secular, socialist.
Yeah, my parents, same thing. I went to the same school as Woody Allen. He went to Midwood High School. It’s difficult with him, because I’m sympathetic to the movies. It’s a bummer. Getting back to your photography, I wanted to ask how it worked for you to have this equipment and to shoot on tour. I think touring can be exhausting socially, meeting people all the time. I imagine it might be easier to have something to do—like take pictures. 12 A celebrity and commercial photographer who died in 2013, Stern is best known for his Marilyn Monroe portraits, taken just weeks before the actress’ 1962 death.
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Johanna Fateman (BFA 1997 Fine Arts) is a writer, musician and owner of the Seagull Salon in New York City. She regularly contributes to Artforum and The New Yorker.
13 Follow Stein at @christein. 14 Benskin, a Manhattan building superintendent, posts at @clay_benskin. 15 A former taxi driver, Weber (@matt.weber.photos) has been taking candid photographs of New York City street life since the 1970s. 16 Founded in the early 1970s, Television was less commercially successful than Blondie but is considered one of the best and most influential bands of the era. Singer and guitarist Verlaine went on to play solo and with artists like Patti Smith (see page 7); bassist Hell went on to front other noted acts and publish a number of works of poetry and prose.
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PHOTO BY KEITH MARLOWE
F O R
T H E
RECORD Albums as objets d’art
“WE’RE IN THE AGE OF INVISIBLE MUSIC,” says Johnathan Swafford (MFA 2005 Design). “I grew up being really influenced by album cover art—you would stare at it and listen to the 52
music. Even when it was CDs, you’d look at those cool booklets.” Aqualamb, started five years ago by Swafford and Eric Palmerlee, two moonlighting creative directors and part-time musicians, is among a number of small record labels today that are dedicated to music fans who still prize the physical. Every release can be fairly described as deluxe, with CD and colored vinyl formats and 100-plus-page companion books produced
in collaboration with noted designers, editors and illustrators. Though the bulk of their 22 records to date are on the heavier, noisier end of the rock spectrum, Swafford says that the label’s roster is best described as “quirky and art-driven,” encompassing folk, garage and prog acts. Aqualamb releases can be found in select record stores in New York City and online at aqualamb.org. [Greg Herbowy]
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT Eric Palmerlee (left) and Johnathan
Swafford, co-founders of the Aqualamb record label; cover art for HAAN's By the Grace of Blood and Guts, a 2018 Aqualamb release; views of the companion book for Nathaniel Shannon and the Vanishing Twin's Trespasses, a 2016 Aqualamb release; front and back covers and sample spreads from the companion book for The Space Merchants' Kiss the Dirt, a 2018 Aqualamb release.
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PHOTOS BY ABIB ASCENCIO
as he and other up-and-coming producer–DJs, like friend AceMo, have driven a resurgence of interest in New York City’s techno subWyatt Stevens and culture. Though House Music’s it has an international profile and New is connected with Vanguard similar scenes in Berlin, London, Los Angeles and Mexico City, the “ don’t want to hear any excuses about community is still relatively small—on a lack of gear keeping someone a good night, a lineup might draw 250— from making music,” says MoMa but it’s passionate and growing. Earlier Ready, a.k.a. Gallery S., a.k.a. Wyatt this year, Vice singled out Stevens as Stevens (BFA 2017 Film). “I wrote the one of its major figures, someone who opening and closing songs for my fi rst is both “deeply in tune with the new enalbum on my phone with GarageBand ergy coursing through the city” and “the while I was on train rides into the city.” source of a fair amount of it.” That album, Soft, Hard, Body, released “I think Brooklyn has the best, most digitally this year under Stevens’ own progressive scene in the world right Haus of Altr label, is just one of many now,” he says. “It’s maintaining the muprojects the artist and musician has sic’s roots in Afrofuturism but pursuing undertaken in the past three years, new sounds, new ideas. And it’s brown
I
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people, people on the [LGBTQ] spectrum and women who are leading the charge.” Stevens performs about three nights a week at any of a handful of venues in Brooklyn’s Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhoods, as well as in Ridgewood, Queens. Through Haus of Altr, he releases his music and other projects, including skate videos made with friends on the Lower East Side. There’s also “Youth Report,” a series of impressionistic shorts, which incorporate stop-motion and video and document the everyday lives of people in his circle. And then there’s Halfmoon BK, the online radio station for which he is a programmer and house DJ, and which produces local events as well. If all this sounds sprawling and unpremeditated, that’s because it is. Stevens’ exposure to the filmmaking and art worlds as a student left him dissatisfied; each, in his view, is too driven by careerism and commerce to allow for unfiltered expression. “Art should be about creating the zeitgeist, not being subject to it,” he says. “That’s what I want to do.” [GH] 53
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THE WILD, RECURSIVE ART OF
K ATHERINE BERNHARDT by Greg Herbowy
Last fall,
to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Mickey Mouse’s debut, in the animated short Steamboat Willie, the Walt Disney Company presented “Mickey: The True Original Exhibition” in Manhattan, which showed Mickey Mouse–inspired work by well-known artists, including SVA alumni Keith Haring (1979 Fine Arts), James Jean (BFA 2001 Illustration) and Kenny Scharf (BFA 1980 Fine Arts). Also on view was a gigantic mural by Katherine Bernhardt (MFA 2000 Fine Arts). Called 99 Cent Hot Dog, the piece featured multiple simplistic renderings of Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and hot dogs with mustard. It was the latest of what Bernhardt calls her “pattern paintings,” which she has been making, to great acclaim, for the last six or so years. Inspired by image-based graffiti and textiles, the pattern paintings feature varied objects that are selected, repeated and arranged seemingly at random. Usually, they are drawn out in spray paint and then colored in with heavily watered-down yet vibrant acrylics.
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PREVIOUS SPREAD Artist Katherine Bernhardt in her Brooklyn studio, photo by Jeremy Cohen (BFA 2014 Photography). CLOCKWISE FROM OPPOSITE 99 Cent Hot Dog, 2018, spray paint and acrylic, for “Mickey: The True Original Exhibition”; Untitled and Pink Flamingo, 2009, acrylic on canvas; Bernhardt at work on a mural at the No Aloha cafe, in Dallas, photo by Katy Shayne; Untitled, 2018, spray paint and acrylic on canvas.
Pop-culture icons have figured in Bernhardt’s art before: Babar, Garfield, Pac-Man, Lisa Simpson, the Smurfs. This was her fi rst shot at Mickey and Minnie, though, and she neither hid her newness to the subject nor modified her typically fast, irreverent approach. On the mural, the characters looked proudly off-brand— misshapen and slightly seedy. Bernhardt later estimated that the 36-by-10 foot SPR ING 20 19
work took her four to five days to make. This was, for her, a long time. By Bernhardt’s own account, she is an art factory. “I always make lots of stuff. I never feel like I have enough paintings.… I like to be busy,” she once said, in an Art This Week interview. “I don’t think about it when I make them—I just make them.… I make stuff constantly,” she said in a talk at the Modern Art Museum at Fort Worth, Texas.
“I’ll make five paintings a day,” she said to me late last year in her studio, a former car-detailing shop in Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood. At that time, she was anticipating the end of construction on her new storage, exhibition and work space in a 17,000-square-foot former car dealership in St. Louis, Missouri, where she grew up and her parents still live. A model of the building on a nearby table showed a large room for some, but not all, of the backlog of work she has generated over her 20-year career, which then occupied, among other places, the rear of her Flatbush studio and several Bronx storage units. There would also be a lofted living space and an exhibition area big enough to fit XXL Superflat Pancake, a huge mural she made in 2017 for an installation at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. Eventually, she hopes to add a swimming pool. Against one wall of her studio was an enormous, in-progress pattern painting. In various shades of spray paint she had outlined several MetroCards, Nike swoosh symbols and cups of soft serve from Cha Cha Matcha, a tea and ice cream shop with locations in Manhattan and
Los Angeles, and a favorite spot of Bernhardt’s. (At one point, she dug through her purse to show off her lifetime supply card, given in appreciation of her portrayals of the brand.) On the opposite wall was another enormous painting, this one finished and featuring cigarettes, Xanax pills and Scotch tape dispensers. It leaned against an even more enormous blank canvas and next to midsize paintings of the Pink Panther (with bananas) and Darth Vader (on his own), as well as maybe a dozen smaller, square paintings, each depicting a single object—R2D2, the Instagram and What’s App icons, sneakers, Scotch tape again, Darth Vader again. On the floor was another enormous painting, finished earlier that morning and drying under the breeze of two box fans. This one had cigarettes, Newport cigarette packs and Cha Cha Matcha soft serve. 57
Critics have interpreted Bernhardt’s pattern paintings as critiques of globalism and consumer culture, scenes of a ruined and litter-strewn world. But like other canny artists, she doesn’t discourage or endorse any one reading of her work, and whenever she herself talks about it, she tends to focus on its surfaces. Looking at the canvas on her studio floor, she pointed out the puddles and drips of the stillwet acrylic, and one area in particular where a color had bloomed into the field of another. “I’m really into what the water does,” she said. “That’s more interesting to me than what I can do, now.” Bernhardt first got serious about making art in high school, but she knew little about the practice or its history beyond the Renaissance works that her father would take her to see in museums. “I would set up still lifes of Nike shoes,” she said. “I made this papier-mâché stuff, like a cake, different objects, and I painted from that.” She also painted E.T. She went on to study at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and at a landscape-painting exchange program in Italy, where she learned various traditional techniques. But through it all, in her telling, she remained largely self-educated, picking up her direction outside of
Bernhardt in her Brooklyn studio, a former car detailing shop in the Flatbush neighborhood. Photo by Jeremy Cohen.
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the classroom. She found impressionism through visiting the Art Institute of Chicago’s noted collection. A friend showed her a book of artist Mary Heilmann’s colorful and abstract works. “I didn’t know anything,” she said. “I remember coming to New York once, and my friend was, like, ‘Don’t go in that gallery, that’s a bad art gallery,’ and I didn’t understand what she was talking about. I didn’t know anything about contemporary art anywhere.” At SVA, she spent much of her free time visiting museums and galleries, a habit she continues today—any free space in her studio is filled with work by artists who she admires. As a student she interned at the Team gallery, in the Lower East Side, which added her to their roster after she graduated. In 2005, she began showing at Canada, which recently relocated from the Lower East Side to Tribeca, and which still represents her. Earlier in her career, Bernhardt primarily made deliberately messy, brusque paintings of models and celebrities, based on photographs that she found in fashion magazines. She later made paintings of Swatch watches, and of the Moroccan rugs that she imports and sells as a sporadic, wholly unnecessary side business that she calls Magic Flying Carpets.
Then, as now, she was remarkably productive. One writer noted that the quick strokes of Bernhardt’s model paintings made their source photographs look painstakingly slow. Then, as now, her heedless execution was sometimes read—incorrectly, she has insisted—as a negative commentary on her subject matter. Rather, the speed with which her work is made evinces her love for the work. Bernhardt paints fast so that she can move on to her next painting. “People ask if I hate the models I paint,” she once told Interview. “I don’t hate them. I’m obsessed with them.” “Obsessed” is a key word for Bernhardt. She is “obsessed” with the rappers Juice WRLD and Lil Skies, the latter of whom she has seen perform in back-to-back concerts. She is obsessed with Moroccan rugs, which fill her home and are piled high in the front of her studio. She is obsessed with the work of architect Luis Barragán and painter Morris
Louis, obsessed with Cha Cha Matcha. In interviews, she has compared herself to John Laroche, the single-minded horticulturist in Spike Jonze’s Adaptation. If she is obsessed with something, she will collect it, or paint it, or collect it and paint it. With the pattern paintings, her criteria for imagery is a bit looser. Any new item added to that iconography— a partial inventory includes emoji; tropical birds, fish, fruit and plants; bottles of Windex or Coca-Cola; rolls of toilet paper; Mr. Coffee coffee makers; cans of Modelo beer; pouches of Capri Sun; slices of pizza; Sharpies; sweat socks; Doritos; computers; tacos; blenders; popsicles; fried eggs; tubes of Chapstick; telephones; hamburgers; French fries; Rubik’s Cubes; basketballs; Duracell batteries; and old TVs—meets one of two general qualifications. Do the colors or shape of the object appeal to her? Or, she said to me, is it a good answer to the question, “What is the dumbest thing I can paint?” 59
By Bernhardt’s own account, you shouldn’t take her art too seriously. From an interview with Artspace Magazine: “The best painters don’t intellectualize their work. They just make stuff.” From an interview with White Hot: “I was trying to
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make the dumbest or funniest painting that I could make.... I like putting things in that don’t make sense.” From her interview with me: “I like humor in art. You should laugh or think that it’s stupid.” While people may find her art funny, few if any seem to
consider it dumb. A semiexhaustive search of reviews dating back to the start of her career turned up only two that offered anything like disapproval, calling the work “complacent” (Hyperallergic) and “merely retinal” (Flash Art). On the other hand, Roberta Smith of The New York Times has labeled her “fearless.” New York’s Jerry Saltz, who advised Bernhardt at SVA and is one of her most vocal champions, has called her “one of the most exuberant, almost feral, slashing painters around”; in another article, he wrote, “I can’t think of another painter whose paintings are more fun to look at.” Wayne Koestenbaum, in Artforum, wrote, “I fell in love with Bernhardt’s paintings at first sight.” There is lots more like this. Moreover, various designers and brands have come calling for collaborations, raising her profile beyond art-world circles. Interested parties may now own a reproduction of Bernhardt’s art via home decor, accessories and totes, among other things
TOP Installation view of Bernhardt’s spray-painted mural XXL Superflat Pancake, 2017, at The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. LEFT Green Suit 2, 2018, spray paint and acrylic on canvas.
(see opposite). Last summer, she visited Cerámica Suro, a ceramics company in Guadalajara, Mexico, to paint a series of tiles, vases and plates. She also created the interiors and plateware for No Aloha, a café that opened last fall in the Forty Five Ten boutique in Dallas. And coming soon: T-shirts for Nike and streetwear label Clot. Toward the end of our conversation, I asked Bernhardt if she could recall any unfavorable reactions to her work. Yes, she said, when she was at SVA. “One visiting critic came into my studio and he just went off,” she said. “I was, like, ‘Okay.’” She paused for a few seconds, thinking. “I think it was only that one.”✸ V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
Emerald Jungle Wallpaper
Textile company Maharam introduced this wallpaper, based on one of Bernhardt’s tropicalthemed pattern paintings, last year. Price based on installation area; visit maharam.com.
THE
Bernhardt Brand
Art is big business, and as the reputation of painter Katherine Bernhardt (MFA 2000 Fine Arts) grows, so too does the selection of Bernhardt-related products. Here are a few of the many collaborations and collectibles that have been rolled out to date.
CAM Bag and Pin
In conjunction with Bernhardt’s 2017 installation there, The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAM) produced a shoulder bag ($150) and an enamel pin ($10) bearing the artist’s rendering of a toucan. Both are available in the museum’s gift shop and at camstl.org/shop.
Fruit Salad Bean Bag
Fashion designer Cynthia Rowley’s art-edition company Exhibition A produced this limitededition $500 chair (now sold out) in 2015.
Books Katherine Bernhardt x Maria Brito
Also from 2015 (and also sold out): these Bernhardt-inspired scarves and clutches from designer Maria Brito, part of a series of collaborations with three women artists. SPR ING 20 19
Four monographs of Bernhardt’s work have been published so far: The Magnificent Excess of Snoop Dogg (2008), Katherine Bernhardt (2017), Swatches (2018) and Houses (2018), shown above, which can be had for $40, or as a $250 special edition, at karmakarma.org.
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After Hours by Natelegé Whaley
Shellyne Rodriguez democratizes art education with MoMA’s Night Studio
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T
his past fall, during a model drawing session at The Museum of Modern Art’s Night Studio—a program for New York City students working toward their high school equivalency diplomas—artist, instructor and Night Studio founder Shellyne Rodriguez (BFA 2011 Visual & Critical Studies) was calming a student’s distress. V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
FROM TOP Night Studio students at work; Shellyne Rodriguez (center, in red hat) poses with Night Studio students. Photos by Kaitlyn Stubbs.
The participant didn’t have glasses, due to a health insurance issue, and thought she could not complete the activity. “She’s crying, she’s upset, and she’s drawing really small because that’s the best that she can see,” Rodriguez says. After the lesson, Rodriguez showed her students works by Swiss surrealist Alberto Giacometti, and the group read from James Lord’s A Giacometti Portrait (1965), which documents the famous artist’s neurotic creative process. “I said, ‘If we can read about someone who’s one of the greats…and learn this person also had self-doubt, then you’re in good company.’” Having imperfect vision wasn’t a barrier to creating, Rodriguez explained to the class, but an alternate and valid starting point to expression. In other words, she says, “How do we take what you have with you right now and turn that into something?” This is an important ethos for her students, young people of color, who are part of the population underserved by museums. A widely reported 2015 Mellon Institute study found that more than 80 percent of leadership positions at American museums are held by white, non-Hispanic people, though they only claim about a 61 percent share of the overall U.S. population, and attendance surveys show similarly SPR ING 20 19
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lopsided demographics among museumgoers. Since 2013, in addition to her own art practice, Rodriguez has run community-partnership programming at MoMA in an effort to make the institution more inclusive. Organizations she works with include Passages Academy, a school for students in juvenile detention, and the Ali Forney Center, which serves homeless LGBT youth. With an eye toward bypassing art-world gatekeepers and, she says, “pumping out a bunch of young people who are making art on their own,” 64
she developed Night Studio, which launched in 2017. Rodriguez’s experiences taught her that traditional paths to a career in the arts— attending a competitive arts high school and prestigious art college and then landing a job at an esteemed museum— aren’t equally available to everyone. As an Afro–Puerto Rican teen growing up in the South Bronx in the 1980s, her introduction to art was through graffiti, an element of the burgeoning hip-hop culture around her. “When we say graffiti, it should be thought of in a broad way,”
she says. “Not just spray painting your name on walls, but also little black sketchbooks and drawing.” Her own drawings were colorful, illustrative characters inspired by people in her neighborhood: “Grandmothers, dudes on the block, kids playing at the fire hydrant.” But when she sought opportunities to further her art education, she came up empty-handed. “I didn’t get into the High School of Art and Design because my grades were so bad. The high school that I went to sort of shoved me into
business [studies].…I had one art class while I was in high school, for a half-semester, but there wasn’t that attempt to shape the education of students individually.” Rodriguez dropped out at 19 and earned her GED in 1996. In 1998, with the help of her girlfriend at the time, she enrolled in the evening illustration program at SVA. But the tuition was costly and after two years, she took a 10-year break. During that time she continued making art, and in 2009 she returned to SVA, graduating with her BFA two years later. In 2014, V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
she received her MFA from Hunter College. She has exhibited and lectured on her work frequently since then, and is currently working on a permanent public sculpture commissioned by New York City, to be installed in the Bronx in 2020. Having taken the longer path, Rodriguez now wants to provide an art education for those with a similar background. “You’re 22 years old. You consider yourself an artist, but you don’t have access,” she says. “We needed to create a program for these people who are being overlooked.” Night Studio takes place over 10 consecutive Wednesday evenings in the fall. The most recent cohort comprised eight African American and Caribbean American students, ages 16 to 22, who traveled each week from the Bronx, Brooklyn, Harlem and Staten Island to meet at MoMA’s Cullman Education Center, after the museum had closed to the public. “We treat it like the first semester of art school,” Rodriguez says. Everyone receives a portfolio, a large drawing board, a spiral sketch pad, newsprint paper, a sketchpad for homework and a pouch with an eraser and a pencil. The first 30 minutes of each session consists of
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dinner and a group-led discussion of topics, such as gentrification and income inequality, affecting the students’ lives and their art. Over the course of the program, the group uses MoMA’s galleries as their classroom and explore a multidisciplinary syllabus: model and still-life drawing, painting, performance art, printmaking and sculpture. They also study color theory, make value scales and write poetry. One moving moment of the 2018 course, Rodriguez recalls, was when a student invoked mental-health struggles through a performance piece. Rodriguez had asked the students to act out their day from 6:00 am on. “They’re getting up,” she says. “They’re brushing their teeth. They’re improvising. And this kid is on the floor—he’s laying, he’s still sleeping. And he’s scrolling on his phone, he’s still in the bed. At one point he gets up, goes to the bathroom, goes back to the bed.” In a later conversation, he told her he was depressed. “Our lived experiences inevitably show up in the work,” Rodriguez says. Rodriguez also invites guest instructors. Past participants include painter Alvaro Barrington, performance artist Zachary Fabri and sculptor Abigail DeVille. Last fall, the final class was a portfolio review led by Shani
Peters, a multidisciplinary artist, and Nectar Knuckles, a curatorial fellow at MoMA. “The artists and the curators I invite are people of color,” she says. “Mostly black women, because that’s who my crew is, that’s who our audience is, and I want us to see us.” As of publication time, Rodriguez was still waiting for confirmation that the program would be renewed for 2019. Regardless, she is confident that the experience has enriched the lives and work of those who have taken part so far. The 2018 cohort has kept in touch and even started an art collective, called H.O.O.D. (Hearing Our Obstacles Differentiated).
“Whatever grows out of this 10 weeks, plus what you already know, plus what your peers know, plus what you learned on the street, plus what you’re not hearing— because what we don’t know also teaches us something— that’s going to be amazing,” she says. “That's going to be something.” ✮ is a culture journalist from Brooklyn. She has written for NBCNews, Pitchfork, Eater and other outlets.
NATELEGÉ WHALEY
THIS SPREAD Through MoMA’s Night Studio, students working toward their
high school equivalency diplomas engage in a variety of artmaking practices, including performance, sculpture and drawing. They also have exclusive access to museum galleries. Photos by Kaitlyn Stubbs.
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! FOR YO UR BENEF I T CONNECT
BENEFITS
Update your contact information sva.edu/alumni
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Tell us about your projects, exhibitions and accomplishments sva.edu/alumni Join us for mixers and networking events sva.edu/alumni-events
Subscriptions to the and the Visual Arts Journal Career Development workshops and access to the job board Access to the SVA Library
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FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA @svaalumni
% discount on SVA’s Summer Residency Program % tuition discount on SVA Continuing Education courses
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Lifetime access to SVA email
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For complete details visit sva.edu/alumni at
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ALUMNI AFFAIRS PHOTOS BY NIR ARIELI
There’s No Place Like Home A message from Jane Nuzzo, director of alumni affairs and development at SVA
✣
Having a nurturing place to live is essential to the success of any student. And in New York City, finding good, affordable housing for anyone—let alone young artists—is a challenge. With this in mind, the Alumni Society established in 2006 the Housing Scholarship Fund, so that an incoming first-year undergraduate from the New York metro area with limited finances could live on campus for all four years of their studies. The scholarship would provide a welcoming home and the opportunity to fully participate in the SVA experience with classmates and friends. In 2011 the Corporate Partners for the Arts program was conceived as a means to support the Housing Scholarship Fund. What began modestly with five member companies has grown exponentially to include 21 committed organizations that are now part of the extended SVA community (see page 75). Because of their generosity, as of last year the Alumni Society has been able to annually provide two new incoming students with fouryear Housing Scholarships. All recipients—15 to date— have had to overcome difficult SPR ING 20 19
circumstances in order to attend SVA. Of receiving the award, second-year BFA Photography and Video student Jan Morales says, “I am honored to have received the Housing Scholarship. It has relieved an immense financial burden and opened my world to new possibilities. The award has undoubtedly made my experience at SVA one I cherish and take full advantage of.” First-year BFA Illustration student Jornelle Saint-Val says, “The Housing Scholarship gives hope to students like me who are in financial need. When I received the award, I was overwhelmed with positive emotions for days. I am truly humbled by this opportunity and hope that this scholarship can continue to provide help for other creative minds who struggle to afford doing what they love.” And Nelson Mai, first-year BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects student, says, “When I received the Housing Scholarship I was so overjoyed that words could not express how happy I felt. I have been
given the ability to be in a loving environment where I can embrace who I truly am. Receiving this award pushes me to become a better artist and a better version of myself.” But after four years of attending SVA and living in the city, perhaps fourth-year BFA Illustration student Make Wen best sums up the spirit and impact of the scholarship: “It means having a close and nice place to go after a tiring day of work!” As the saying goes, there’s no place like home. And for our students—and alumni—SVA is, and always will be, home.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP Housing
Scholarship recipients Chelsea Pitti Fernandez, Make Wen and Bella Miller; Nelson Mai; Jan Morales; and Jornelle Saint-Val.
✳ Established as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofi t in 1972, the SVA Alumni Society’s primary mission is to raise money in support of various student scholarship programs. Because all administrative and overhead expenses are covered by the College, 100% of the donations received by the Alumni Society go directly to student scholarship and award funds. For more information about the SVA Alumni Society or the Corporate Partners for the Arts program, to make a donation and to stay connected, visit sva.edu/alumni. Questions? Call 212.592.2300 or email alumni@sva.edu.
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SVA ALUMNI SOCIETY AWARDS 2019 Thanks to generous contributions from alumni and supporters, the SVA Alumni Society was able to grant a total of $62,000 in awards to these students in support of their thesis projects.
ALUMNI SCHOLARSHIP AWARDS
Hannah Rudin, MFA Products of Design
Ryker Allen, BFA Photography and Video
Maria Alejandra Saenz, MA Curatorial Practice
Ferguson Amo, MFA Fine Arts
William Sawikin, BFA Animation
Nina Arena, BFA Illustration
Dustin Senovic, BFA Visual & Critical Studies
Rachel Balma, MFA Interaction Design
Taylor Sokolowski with thesis partner Catalina Cipri, MFA Design for Social Innovation
Juan Leonardo Bravo, MFA Fine Arts Holly Brennan, MPS Art Therapy Hunny Lav Dastur, MFA Computer Arts Maggie Dunlap, BFA Visual & Critical Studies Xin Fang, MFA Social Documentary Film Yuan Fang, BFA Visual & Critical Studies Joann Fernandes with thesis partner Elizaveta Gaevaya, BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects
Jenna Spurlock, BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects Hannah Stephens, BFA Animation Sumeja Tulic, MFA Art Writing Crystal Wang, MFA Interaction Design Isa Wang, MFA Art Practice Lin Zhang with thesis partners Liukaidi Peng, Chao Wang, Zhengyu Wang and Linda Zhou, MFA Computer Arts
Jesse B. Firestone, MA Curatorial Practice Olivia Garzon, MFA Social Documentary Film Rutvika Gupta, MFA Design for Social Innovation Daun Han, BFA Animation Brett Henrikson, MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Addi Hou, MFA Interaction Design Katy-May Hudson, MPS Directing John P. Kazior, MA Design Research, Writing and Criticism Owen Keogh, MFA Fine Arts Rodrigo Larenas, BFA Illustration Ruxin Liang with thesis partners Michael Davin and Changjiang Wang, BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects Sherry Liu, MFA Computer Arts Sage Love, BFA Film Ana Lozada, MFA Visual Narrative Mateo Mรกrquez, MPS Directing Julia Marsh, MFA Design Casey McDonald, BFA Animation Wanki Min, MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Kylie Mitchell, BFA Visual & Critical Studies Anthony Muscarella with thesis partners Lilly Chin-Hong, Winnie Feng and Emily Mai, BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects Francena Ottley, BFA Photography and Video Marianna Peragallo, MFA Fine Arts Xinyi Ren, MA Curatorial Practice Paul Rho, BFA Photography and Video Dana Robinson, MFA Fine Arts
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V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
NAMED FUND AWARDS 727 Award Karen Barrett, BFA Illustration Jiwon Kim, BFA Cartooning
Amelia Geocos Memorial Award Christie Yerin Kim, BFA Fine Arts Bethany Robinson, BFA Fine Arts BFA Illustration and Cartooning Award Baoying Huang, BFA Illustration Angel Ramos, BFA Illustration Bob Guglielmo Memorial Award Allee Errico, BFA Cartooning Edward Zutrau Award Michelle Girardello, MFA Fine Arts Jack Endewelt Memorial Award Lian Cho, BFA Illustration James Richard Janowsky Award Chad Murdock, BFA Film MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Award Nan Cao, MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Courtney Menard, MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Christina Rycz, MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Mojo Wang, MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Michael Halsband Award Hailey Heaton, BFA Photography and Video Robert I. Blumenthal Memorial Award Jonathan Kao, BFA Design Sylvia Lipson Allen Memorial Award Jacee Cappelli, BFA Fine Arts Lala Lee, BFA Fine Arts Jiajia Li, BFA Fine Arts Thomas Reiss Memorial Award Hanwen Zhang, MFA Photography, Video and Related Media William C. Arkell Memorial Award Iona Gordon, BFA Film
THIS SPREAD, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP Sage Love, “The Genesis,” from Ayiti: The
Awakening, 2018, film; Joann Fernandes, still from The Lost Bird, 2019, VFX/ short film; Ruxin Liang, Michael Davin and Changjiang Wang, Unsurpassed Team promotional image, 2019; Ferguson Amo, (Dual Self), 2018, pen and goldleaf on watercolor paper; Yuan Fang, Our Roots Were Burned to Ash Once, 2018, acrylic on unstretched canvas; Lian Cho, Inside the Closet, 2018, watercolor, gouache, color pencils and digital.
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DONORS The SVA Alumni Society gratefully acknowledges these alumni, who gave to the society from July 1, 2018 – December 31, 2018. Kim Ablondi BFA 1984 Photography
Michael Brennan BFA 1994 Graphic Design
Brooks DeRyder BFA 1999 Illustration
Suzanne C. Giovanetti BFA 1981 Graphic Design
Noelle King MFA 2013 Art Practice
Alexandra Alcantara BFA 2010 Graphic Design
Gary Brinson BFA 1985 Media Arts
Haydee Diaz BFA 1986 Graphic Design
Chloe Giroux BFA 2018 Illustration
John Klammer 1979 Illustration
Andrew Alexander BFA 2016 Cartooning
Barbara Browne 1970
Catherine K. Gura BFA 1998 Illustration
Sardi Klein 1970 Photography
Evelyn Alfaro BFA 1985 Advertising
Andrea Caballero BFA 2017 Illustration
Rael Jean DiDomenicoSchwab BFA 1990 Advertising
Ruth Harris 1974
Robert Kohr BFA 2003 Animation
Tom Alonzo BFA 1984 Illustration
Brian Callaghan BFA 1977 Media Arts
Erica Hauser BFA 2002 Illustration
Abby Kreh 1962 Illustration
Adam P. Ames MFA 1997 Photography and Related Media
Jason Campbell BFA 2005 Advertising
Meghan Day Healey BFA 1993 Graphic Design
Mustapha Lamrabat BFA 1987 Media Arts
Jean Held 1969
Steven Langerman 1972 Photography
Dawn Henning BFA 1991 Fine Arts
Emily Langmade MFA 2013 Fine Arts
David Hollingsworth BFA 2004 Graphic Design
John Paul Lavin BFA 2012 Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects
Jung Yeon An MFA 2018 Illustration as Visual Essay BFA 2015 Illustration Gail Anderson BFA 1984 Graphic Design Michael Angley 1971 Advertising Anonymous (7) Tamisha Anthony MFA 2011 Computer Art Eric Argiro BFA 2004 Graphic Design Penelope Ashman BFA 1981 Media Arts Jason Bakutis BFA 2011 Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects Natalya Balnova MFA 2013 Illustration as Visual Essay
Canio Casale 1972 Kevin J. Casey BFA 1976 Photography Paul K. Caullett BFA 2000 Graphic Design Terese Cavanagh 1968 Media Arts Theresa Cerza Cuddy 1983 Kun-I Chang MFA 2007 Computer Art Lan Cheng BFA 2013 Advertising Jillian Clarke BFA 2004 Graphic Design Florence Cohen 1973 Gregory Condon BFA 2003 Animation Sean Connors BFA 2015 Design
Celeste Barnes BFA 1982 Graphic Design
Alice E. Meyers Corjescu 1974 Fine Arts
James Barry MFA 2004 Illustration as Visual Essay
Julia and Phil Coyne BFA 1988 Media Arts BFA 1986 Media Arts
Paul Basile 1969 Advertising
Cora Cronemeyer 1966 Fine Arts
Laura Beam BFA 1981 Photography
Diane Cuddy BFA 1988 Graphic Design
Alexandra Beguez MFA 2015 Visual Narrative BFA 2006 Computer Art
Therese Curtin BFA 1980 Illustration
Maxwell Beucler BFA 2015 Design Cynthia Bittenfield MFA 2009 Photography, Video and Related Media Eva Bokosky BFA 1978 Illustration James R. Bomeisl BFA 1978 Graphic Design
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Michael Daly BFA 1985 Media Arts Diane Dawson Hearn BFA 1975 Illustration Peter S. Deak BFA 1990 Film and Video Cat Del Buono MFA 2008 Photography, Video and Related Media Michael Delia MFA 1987 Fine Arts
Candace (alumnus) and Jeffrey Dobro MPS 2010 Digital Photography Stephen D. Ellis BFA 1994 Illustration Claire Ensslin BFA 2012 Film and Video E. Mercedes Everett BFA 1986 Media Arts James Ewing 1973 Carol Fabricatore MFA 1992 Illustration as Visual Essay Charles Fazzino BFA 1977 Graphic Design Diane Fienemann BFA 1984 Photography
Alex Hovet MFA 2017 Photography, Video and Related Media Gerald Hull 1968 Vincent Imbrosciano 1969 Graphic Design
Lillian Lee MFA 2011 Design Chi-Fong Lei BFA 1982 Fine Arts Christopher Lentz BFA 1983 Photography
Jeanne Finneran-Millett BFA 1985 Media Arts
Ketta Ioannidou MFA 1999 Illustration as Visual Essay
Brian K. Floca MFA 2001 Illustration as Visual Essay
Walter Jansson 1964
David B. Levy BFA 1995 Animation
Nanette Mahlab Jiji BFA 1981 Illustration
Stephanie Lin Chen BFA 2014 Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects
Lawrence Flood BFA 1980 Fine Arts Jaxon Flores BFA 1997 Fine Arts
Catherine A. Jones BFA 1979 Graphic Design
Pamela Fogg BFA 1989 Graphic Design
Aya Kakeda MFA 2002 Illustration as Visual Essay
Ignacio Font MFA 1993 Fine Arts
Yvette Kaplan BFA 1976 Animation
Penelope Fournier BFA 2017 Illustration
Bonnie Sue Kaplan Valentino 1971 Advertising
Tyler Furey BFA 2018 Illustration Neil M. Gallo BFA 1977 Graphic Design
Melvyn Kay 1979
Gary A. Leogrande BFA 1978 Fine Arts
Sakura Maku BFA 2004 Illustration Laura Maley BFA 1978 Fine Arts Denise Malin-Young BFA 1983 Media Arts Sam Martine BFA 1980 Illustration Menoara Mazid MAT 2017 Art Education BFA 2014 Fine Arts
Peter Geffert BFA 1990 Advertising
Rafaelo Kazakov MFA 1994 Photography and Related Media
Roger Generazzo MFA 2012 Photography, Video and Related Media
Anthony Kieren MFA 2012 Illustration as Visual Essay
Sara McCall Ephron MAT 2010 Art Education BFA 1995 Cartooning
Rita Genet BFA 1974 Fine Arts
Eun Jung Kim BFA 1999 Interior Design
Xiaochan Mei BFA 2018 Illustration
Andrew Gerndt 1971 Fine Arts
Hyun Jin Kim BFA 2014 Design
Isolina Gerona BFA 1991 Fine Arts
Jee Soo Kim BFA 2018 Illustration
Chayanon Milin MPS 2010 Digital Photography
Nancy Mazzone BFA 1982 Fine Arts
Wyatt Mills BFA 2013 Fine Arts V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
Anand Mistry MFA 2015 Computer Art
Robin Rule 1963
Johnathan Swafford MFA 2005 Design
David Moir 1975 Photography
Joseph M. Rutt BFA 1985 Illustration
Normandie Syken BFA 2017 Illustration
Jessica Moral BFA 1999 Cartooning
Linda Saccoccio MFA 1991 Fine Arts
Anthony Morgan BFA 2005 Computer Art
Mahala Sacra MPS 2017 Art Therapy
Retsu Takahashi MFA 2002 Illustration as Visual Essay
Laurie Mosco BFA 2002 Graphic Design
Kaori Sakai BFA 2009 Graphic Design
Bethanie Deeney Murguia MFA 1998 Illustration as Visual Essay
Maria Sanoja MPS 2016 Branding BFA 2014 Design
Emmanuel Nakpodia MFA 2001 Design Brittany Neff BFA 2012 Film and Video Lauren Nelson Drost MAT 2005 Art Education Janice O’Brien 1967 Graphic Design Susan Koliadko O’Brien BFA 1984 Graphic Design Morenike Olabunmi BFA 1983 Film and Video Amber Palecek MAT 2007 Art Education Searfino Patti BFA 1992 Fine Arts Anne Peck-Davis 1972 Mr. and Mrs. Kevin Petrilak (alumnus) BFA 1976 Animation Gary Petrini 1979 Media Arts Bernard Putter 1970 Rita Quintas BFA 1980 Photography Todd L. Radom BFA 1986 Graphic Design Floyd M. Rappy BFA 1985 Illustration Robert Ratynski BFA 1984 Photography Moriah Ray-Britt MFA 2003 Illustration as Visual Essay
Colony Pest Management, Inc.
Lynn and Jim McNulty
Lynn McCarthy
Janet Cozza
Meridian Building Services, Inc.
Creative Team Interiors
Lori Minasi
Pamela Cushing
S.A. Modenstein
Christopher Cyphers
The Family of Lily Ni
DaVinci Artist Supply
Elizabeth and Coleman O’Donoghue
Sue Epstein
Marilyn Palmeri
Gini Santos MFA 1996 Computer Art
Rosemarie Turk BFA 1980 Graphic Design
Steven Etzler
Patricia Perez
Exclusive Contracting
The Piazza Family
Laura Scarola 1973
Astrida Valigorsky MFA 1996 Photography and Related Media
The Family of Jennifer Fahey
Kelly Piccione
Gabriel Falsetta
Ned and Ellin Purdom
Ms. Elizabeth Fama and Mr. John Cochrane
Andrew Ras
Joel Scharf BFA 1983 Graphic Design Phil Scheuer 1981 Illustration JoAnne Seador BFA 1977 Photography Jackie Seow and Rick Pracher BFA 1984 Graphic Design BFA 1987 Media Arts
Barbara Vasquez BFA 1998 Graphic Design Arthur Vidrine MFA 2014 Fine Arts Jo Ann Wadler BFA 1984 Graphic Design
James Farek Yoseph Feit Fred Alger Fair Fund
Proskauer
August Ray RSM US, LLP Bill Rusitzky
Wynter WagnerCarnevale BFA 2001 Illustration
General Plumbing
The Russell J. Efros Foundation, Inc.
Susan Ginsburg
David Sager
Ganer + Ganer, PLLC
Jerold Siegel BFA 1975 Fine Arts
Tom Wai-Shek 1970 Advertising
Barbara Salander
John and Helen Guglielmo
Joel Sarta
Mimi Silverman BFA 1989 Fine Arts
Kevin “Gig” Wailgum MFA 1991 Illustration as Visual Essay
James Hellman
SCS Agency Insurance
Ms. Maryhelen Hendricks and Mr. Robert Lewis
Edward Seksay and Patricia Dandrow
Beatriz Hernandez
Taylor Simmons
Carolyn Hinkson-Jenkins
Tracey Skelton
Hodgson Russ
Dennis Wierl BFA 1996 Photography
Debra Solowey
Julie Hodorowski
Steadfast Productions NYC
Mark Willis BFA 1998 Illustration
Elizabeth Hogan
Robert Sylvor
Francisco E. Homs Quiroga
Hiroko Tanaka
Yunah Hong
Louise H. Taylor
John Hotaling
Jeffrey Teets, Sr.
Dr. J. Isenberg
The Thomas Group
Aaron Itzkowitz
Lynn Umlauf
Jane Johnston
Irra Verbitsky
Michael Kahn / Benefits Unlimited, Inc.
Charles R. Vermilyea, Jr.
Robert Sinram 1971 Stewart Siskind BFA 1977 Media Arts Ellen Small MFA 1997 Photography and Related Media Patrick Smith BFA 2016 Cartooning Ryan Snelson BFA 2004 Graphic Design Deana So’Oteh MFA 2018 Illustration Rena Sokolow / one2tree BFA 1986 Graphic Design Lauren Solomon-O’Leary BFA 2004 Illustration Skip Sorvino BFA 1994 Graphic Design
Vernon C. Riddick 1973
Vesper Stamper MFA 2016 Illustration as Visual Essay Art Stiefel BFA 1987 Advertising
Donna Rubin BFA 1984 Photography
Ellen Su BFA 2013 Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects
Marc Rubin BFA 1982 Advertising
Sherman Sussman BFA 1976 Film and Video
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William McAllister
Pauline de Laszlo
William Sponn BFA 1985 Media Arts
Jaime Cody Rosman MPS 2014 Digital Photography
Eugene J. Thompson 1957 Illustration
Sally Mason
Century Elevator Maintenance Corp.
Lorraine Trovato BFA 1987 Fine Arts
Lisa Rettig-Falcone BFA 1983 Advertising
Barbara Rietschel BFA 1976 Media Arts
Sarah Tamani MFA 2018 Design
Judith B. Cavalie
Elushika Weerakoon MFA 2017 Interaction Design
Jamilla Wu BFA 2015 Illustration Gary N. Zaccaria BFA 1981 Graphic Design
We also thank these parents and friends of SVA who supported the SVA Alumni Society. Jamie Agatone Alexion Pharmaceuticals Anonymous (3) Backhaul Industries, Inc. Kevin Belbey
Carol Kloss Dale Krevens Lakeland Bank Laurence G. Jones Architects, PLLC LDI Color Toolbox Leeder Furniture
August C. Bering, V
Karen and Michael Lefkowitz
Neil Berman
Bo Lei
Joni Blackburn and David Sandlin
Priscilla Lindenauer
BMS
Lipinski Real Estate Advisors, LLC
Farrell Brickhouse
Joseph Losardo
Richard Buntzen
Magnum Real Estate Group
Thomas and Georgeann Carnevali
Daniel Marsh
Patricia Ann Vigh Matthew Vosburgh W.B. Mason Webster Bank Wells Fargo Middle Market Banking Hilda Werschkul, PhD Ms. Peggy Whitlock Richard Wilde Daniel Windram Jeff and Allison Wipfli Michele Zackheim
Ronnie and Al Martella
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ALUMNI NOTES & EXHIBITIONS
To submit items for consideration for Alumni Notes & Exhibitions, email alumni@sva.edu.
MENGCHIH CHIANG (MFA 2013 Computer Art) designed temporary interiors and exteriors of the New York City Subway’s S train for the Taiwan Tourism Bureau; the
work was on view in fall 2018. In 2018 Chiang also self-published her book Don’t Admit Defeat: From Hometown to NYC.
GROUP EFFORTS
Ezequiel Consoli (BFA 2018 Design), Thomas (Dong Hwi) Shim (BFA 2011 Graphic Design) and Jack Welles (BFA 2018 Advertising) were featured in “Anti-bigotry service posters hit NYC subway stations for Pride Month,” 6sqft, 6/7/18. Dana DeCoursey and Jin Lee (both BFA 2013 Photography) photographed a nationwide campaign for Thinx, NYC, 6/15/18. Dana Stirling (MFA 2016 Photography, Video and Related Media) curated “Place Title Here,” which featured work by fellow MFA Photography, Video and Related Media alumni Adam Cable (2017), Julianne Nash (2018) and Quinn Tivey (2016), Long Island City Artists, NYC, 6/23-6/30/18. Danae Grandison (MPS 2016 Directing) and Inaya Yusuf (MFA 2014 Social Documentary Film) served as judges for the 2018 Brooklyn Women’s Film Festival, where Amanda Alvich (MPS 2017 Directing) screened Out (2017), Jaanelle Yee (MPS 2017 Directing) screened Sell Your Body (2017) and Alexandra Barsky (MFA 2018 Visual Narrative; BFA 2013 Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects) screened Train Man (2018), NYC, 6/24/18. Christy Bencosme (BFA 2017 Fine Arts) curated “Color Talk,” which featured work by Everett Huerta (BFA 2016 Photography and Video), Jessica Pettway (BFA 2016 Photography and Video), Alexandra Romero (BFA 2016 Fine Arts) and Eduardo Solana (BFA 2017 Fine Arts), The Living Gallery, NYC, 6/29/18. Joseph Gardner (BFA 2015 Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects) was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Interactive Digital Program for Coco VR (2018), Rebecca Sugar (BFA 2009 Animation) was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Form Animation Program for Steven Universe (2013- ) and Joel Sevilla (BFA 1999 Computer Art) was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Visual Effects for Stranger Things (2016- ), Television Academy 70th Annual Emmy Awards, 7/16/18. Alon Borten (BFA 2015 Photography) screened A Prayer (2017), Caroline Berler (MFA 2017 Social Documentary Film) screened Dykes, Camera, Action! (2018) and Crystal Moselle (BFA 2002 Film and Video) was awarded a Grand Jury Award Special Mention in the U.S. Narrative Feature category for Skate Kitchen (2018), Outfest Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 7/12-22/18. Shailyn Cotten and Jessica Naftaly (both BFA 2017 Film) were awarded Best Web Series for After Oil (2017), Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema, NYC, 8/13/18.
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Donna Cleary (MFA 2014 Fine Arts) curated “Traces,” which included work by Alexandra Hammond (MFA 2015 Art Practice), Georgia Lale (MFA 2016 Fine Arts), Susan Luss (MFA 2016 Fine Arts) and Kara Rooney (MFA 2008 Art Criticism and Writing), 184 Project Space, NYC, 9/7/18. Ilona Szwarc (BFA 2013 Photography) and Alexa Vachon (BFA 2002 Photography) had work included in the group exhibition “Engaged, Active, Aware—Women’s Perspectives Now,” Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia, 9/10-9/16/18. Katie Cercone (MFA 2011 Fine Arts) curated “I Am My Own Primal Parent,” which included work by Elisa Garcia de la Huerta (MFA 2011 Fine Arts), Rebecca Goyette (MFA 2009 Fine Arts), Faith Holland (MFA 2013 Photography, Video and Related Media) and Jeongryang Lee (MFA 2011 Fine Arts), Karst Gallery, London, UK, 9/29-11/3/18. Curtis Brown (BFA 2013 Design), Shane Csontos Popko (MFA 2015 Computer Art), Michael Pisano (BFA 2007 Graphic Design) and Ai Hsuan Shih (MFA 2016 Computer Art) were nominated for Outstanding Graphic Design and Art Direction for the CNN Digital Short Love in Conflict (2017), 39th Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards, 10/4/18. Amy Finkbeiner (MFA 2001 Fine Arts) and Tanga! art collective members Elizabeth Chick, Andrew Prieto and Alfredo Travieso (all MFA 2014 Art Practice) had work included in the group exhibition “Body: Unseen / Reclaimed,” Art in Odd Places Festival 2018, Westbeth Gallery, NYC, 10/5-10/27/18. Quenell Jones (BFA 2003 Film and Video) and Jenni Morello (MFA 2011 Social Documentary Film) were listed in 40 Under 40, DOC NYC, 10/17/18. Crystal Moselle (BFA 2002 Film and Video) was nominated for the Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award for Skate Kitchen (2018) and Bennett Elliott (BFA 2010 Film and Video) was nominated in the Best Documentary category for Bisbee ’17 (2018), 28th Annual Independent Filmmaker Project Gotham Awards, 10/18/18. Katherine Bernhardt (MFA 2000 Fine Arts), Keith Haring (1979 Fine Arts), James Jean (BFA 2001 Illustration) and Kenny Scharf (BFA 1981 Fine Arts) had work included in the group exhibition “Mickey: The True Original Exhibition,” Sixty Tenth, NYC, 11/8/18-2/10/19. Scott Bakal (BFA 1993 Illustration) and Jenny Brown (MFA 2005 Fine Arts) had work included in the group exhibition “Plenty 2018,” 13 Forest Gallery, Arlington, MA, 11/17/18-1/11/19.
V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
INDIVIDUAL NOTES 1966
LeRoy Henderson (Photography) was featured in “Photographing Ordinary Life in Passing,” The New York Times, 6/19/18.
1968
Richard Rutner (Media Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Biblical Inspirations,” Shalom Austin, Austin, 9/4-10/22/18.
1969
Bill Plympton (Cartooning) was featured in “Bill Plympton Takes A Bite Out of Trump with New Web Series,” Animation World Network, 6/25/18.
1972
Kathleen McSherry (BFA Graphic Design) had work in the group exhibition “The Nor’Easter,” New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT, 6/23-7/15/18. Linda Stillman (Graphic Design) had work in “Garment District Arts Festival,” Cecile Brunswick Art Studio, NYC, 10/18-10/20/18.
1973
Marilyn Church (Illustration) had work in the group exhibition “This Must Be the Place,” 55 Walker, NYC, 11/9-12/8/18. Tim Maul (Fine Arts) was featured in “Tim Maul,” Artforum, 10/25/18. Christopher Stein (Fine Arts) was featured in “See Blondie Guitarist Chris Stein’s Love Letter to Seventies New York,” Rolling Stone, 10/20/18. Mark Strodl (Fine Arts) curated “Glimpses of Surrealism,” Mills Pond Gallery, NYC, 7/7-8/4/18.
1974
Walter O’Neill (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “I Am...,” 1310 Gallery, Fort Lauderdale, FL, 10/19/18.
1976
Theresa DeSalvio (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Small Works/Big Hearts,” Atlantic Gallery, NYC, 11/26-12/22/18.
Keith Goldstein (BFA Photography) was featured in “Looking On, Watching the Building of the Freedom Tower,” Olympus Passion Magazine, 11/2/18.
1983
Jorge Rodriguez (BFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Immigrant Stories Dock at Governors Island in Two Exhibitions,” Hyperallergic, 7/2/18.
Tracey Kleinman-Berglund (Media Arts) illustrated “Artspeak: Your Favorite Sculptures in Conversation,” The New Yorker, 10/21/18.
1977
Barbara Kolo (BFA Media Arts) had work in the group exhibition “All Art +,” Van Der Plas Gallery, NYC, 8/27-9/4/18.
Tony Khawam (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Local Artist Series VII Exhibition: Truth and Reconciliation,” Little Haiti Cultural Complex Gallery, Miami, FL, 10/15-11/18/17.
Dawoud Bey (Photography) had work in the group exhibition “Front International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art,” St. John’s Episcopal Church, Cleveland, OH, 7/14-9/30/18.
1978
Kenny Scharf (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Kenny Scharf,” David Klein Gallery, Detroit, MI, 9/6-10/27/18.
Serge Small (BFA Photography) had a solo exhibition, “A View from the Streets and Elsewhere,” Good Karma Cafe, Philadelphia, PA, 6/27-9/30/18.
Cynthia Vogt (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “National Juried Art Show,” 440 Gallery, NYC, 7/5-7/29/18.
Wolfgang Staehle (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Carte Blanche,” Kunstverein Schwäbisch Hall, Schwäbisch Hall, Germany, 9/16-11/4/18.
Steve Dininno (BFA Illustration) was featured in “Meet Steve Dininno of Steve Dininno Fine Art in Marietta,” Voyage ATL, 6/27/18.
1979
John Michael Pelech (BFA Media Arts) had work in the group exhibition “2018 Salmagundi Annual Photography & Graphics Exhibition for Non-Members,” Salmagundi Club, NYC, 7/23-8/3/18.
1982
Susan Leopold (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Connections III: Artists Selecting Artists,” Atlantic Gallery, NYC, 6/26-7/14/18. Connie Manna (BFA Illustration) had a solo exhibition, “Growing Up Bronx,” Harrison Public Library, NYC, 6/3-6/29/18.
1980
James Meyer (Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “SculptureNow,” The Mount, Lenox, MA, 6/1-10/31/18.
Arthur Bonanno (BFA Illustration) had work in the group exhibition “Energy,” VW Contemporary Gallery, Greenwich, CT, 10/11-10/24/18.
Lorna Simpson (BFA Photography) was featured in “Hair Is a Vibrant Source of Power in Lorna Simpson’s Fantastical Collages,” Artsy, 6/8/18.
William Abranowicz (BFA Photography) published American Originals (Vendome, 2018).
1981
Ron Barbagallo (BFA Graphic Design) wrote “Brad Bird’s Amazing Story, from Leaving Disney onto Fixing The Iron Giant, and the Road Less Traveled,” Animation Art Conservation, 9/27/18.
Joey Skaggs (BFA Advertising) wrote “When Pranks Become Works of Art,” Artsy, 9/19/18.
Andrea Fraser (Fine Arts) gave a talk, “Andrea Fraser: UCLA Department of Art Lecture,” Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, 6/7/18.
Calvin Seibert (BFA Fine Arts) was featured in the documentary A Train to Rockaway (2018), released 9/15/18.
1984
Gail Anderson (BFA Graphic Design) was featured in “Design Legend Gail Anderson Answers Your Questions About Where Designers Should Live, Racism in the Workplace + Creating Social Impact,” AIGA Eye on Design, 8/2/18. Eduardo Bolioli (Cartooning) was featured in “Eduardo Bolioli Is Four Seasons O’ahu’s New Artist-In-Residence,” Forbes, 10/31/18.
1985
Alexis Rockman (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “New Mexico Field Drawings,” Sperone Westwater, NYC, 6/21-8/3/18. Collier Schorr (BFA Communication Arts) was featured in “Artist Collier Schorr on the Medium and the Message,” AnOther Magazine, 7/2/18.
1987
Mamie Holst (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Strange Attractors: The Anthology of Interplanetary Folk Art Vol. 2: The Rings of Saturn,” Kerry Schuss, NYC, 10/4-11/10/18. Melanie Kozol (MFA Fine Arts) participated in “Gowanus Open Studios,” Strong Rope Brewery, NYC, 10/20-10/21/18.
ALEXIS ROCKMAN (BFA 1985 Fine Arts), installation view of “New Mexico Field Drawings,” Rockman’s solo exhibition at Sperone Westwater, NYC, 6/21-8/3/18. © Alexis Rockman, courtesy Sperone Westwater, New York. Photo: Robert Vinas, Jr.
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73
Amy Jenkins (MFA Photography and Related Media) was featured in “Summer Issue Feature: Amy Jenkins,” Bomb, 7/25/18.
Corinne Jones (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Chamber of the Lost Sea,” Situations Gallery, NYC, 9/8-10/14/18.
1992
KAWS (BFA Illustration) had a solo exhibition, “Gone,” Skarstedt Gallery, NYC, 11/8-12/19/18.
Lili Almog (BFA Photography) had work in the group exhibition “Watershed Moments,” Luz Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 11/1-11/25/18. Kirsten Aune (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Alison Aune + Kirsten Aune: Colors from the North,” American Swedish Institute, Minneapolis, MN, 9/21-10/28/18. Johan Grimonprez (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Every Day Words Disappear,” Kristof De Clercq Gallery, Ghent, Belgium, 11/11-12/16/18. Christine Romanell (BFA Graphic Design) had a solo exhibition, “Everything Is Connected,” 1978 Maplewood Arts Center, Maplewood, NJ, 8/11-8/31/18. Myoung Duck Seo (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) had a solo exhibition, “Myoung Duck Seo,” Chung Jark Gallery, Seoul, South Korea, 10/25/18-11/6/18. Ray Villafane (BFA Illustration) was featured in “Pumpkin-Carving Sensation! 3-D Sculptures Draw Plenty of Attention,” Sahuarita Sun, AZ, 10/2/18.
1993
Alan Goldstein (BFA Illustration) was featured in “The Nun Collectors Poster Drenches Valak in Blood Red Shades of Terror,” T: The New York Times Style Magazine, 9/5/18. Miles Ladin (MFA Photography and Related Media) had work in the group exhibition “As the Sea Is Wide,” Setra Artes Gallery, Stonington Borough, CT, 7/1-7/22/18.
“Brian Belott,” the artist’s solo exhibition at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, NYC, 11/15/18-1/13/19.
1988
Kelynn Alder (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) had work in the group exhibition “Merging Cultures,” Mills Pond Gallery, St. James, NY, 9/15-10/7/18. Chenhung Chen-Bolton (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “The Robot Show,” Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA, 8/4-9/26/18. Christopher Neyen (BFA Illustration) had a solo exhibition, “Arboreal,” Scenic Hudson River Center, Beacon, NY, 10/29-11/12/18. Catya Plate (Fine Arts) was featured in “Meeting MacGuffin Comes to the 14th Annual LaFemme International Film Festival,” Broadway World, 10/3/18.
1989
Seth Michael Forman (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Remember to Recognize the Woods,” Frosch & Portmann, NYC, 10/1811/25/18. Joan Mellon (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Forming Identities,” Sculpture Space NYC, NYC, 11/30-1/12/18. John Simon (MFA Computer Art) had work in the group exhibition “Programmed: Rules, Codes, and Choreographies in Art, 1965-2018,” Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC, 9/28/18-4/14/19.
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1990
Tal Danai (BFA Film and Video) was featured in “Seabourn Ovation: A New Luxury Ship Doubles as An Art Gallery,” Forbes, 7/19/18. Michael Giacchino (BFA Film and Video) released his short film Monster Challenge (2018). Stephanie Ingrassia (BFA Graphic Design) was featured in “Empty Nesters Downsize, but There’s Always Room for Art,” The New York Times, 11/27/18. Robert Lazzarini (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “The Flowering,” Mint Museum Uptown, Charlotte, NC, 11/16-12/30/18. Gina Minichino (BFA Cartooning) had work in the group exhibition “Summer Group Show,” George Billis Gallery, NYC, 7/10-8/4/18. Patricia Spergel (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Allusions: Recent Paintings and Monotypes,” The Painting Center, NYC, 10/210/27/18. Emma Tapley (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Intimate Immensity and Other Daydreams,” AC Institute, NYC, 11/28/18-1/5/19.
1991
Lisa Deloria Weinblatt (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) had a solo exhibition, “School Lunch,” Delaplaine Arts Center, Frederick, MD, 9/1/18.
Andrew Rash (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) authored and illustrated Unstinky (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2018). Riccardo Vecchio (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) was featured in “Riccardo Vecchio Paints Certain Women,” Criterion Collection blog, 6/4/18.
1997
Raul Manzano (BFA Illustration) curated “Many Voices,” SUNY Empire State College, NYC, 10/11-11/29/18. Kathleen Murray (BFA Photography) self-published Ordinary Matter (ASMR4, 2018). Sarah Sze (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Images in Debris,” Victoria Miro Gallery, London, UK, 6/8/18. George Towne (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay; BFA 1990 Media Arts) was featured in “George Towne—Of Men and Art,” Amida Care LGBTQIAA Innovators of Change, 6/8/18.
1998
Christopher Bors (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) was awarded the Eileen S. Kaminsky Family Foundation Residency, Eileen S. Kaminsky Family Foundation, Jersey City, NJ, 6/25/18.
Shawn Martinbrough (BFA Illustration) illustrated Femme Magnifique (IDW, 2018).
Ryan Turek (BFA Film and Video) was featured in “From Blogger to Halloween Producer: How Ryan Turek Got a Stab at This Year’s Biggest Horror Hit,” The Wrap, 10/23/18.
James Toia (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “30 + 3,” Kim Foster Gallery, NYC, 11/10-12/22/18.
Banks Violette (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Banks Violette,” Gladstone Gallery, NYC, 9/15-10/27/18.
1994 BRIAN BELOTT (BFA 1996 Fine Arts), Doorknobs Wet 3 Transparent, 2018. From
Justine Kurland (BFA Photography) was featured in “Three Generations of Creative Women Under a Century-Old Country Roof,” W, 9/24/18.
Tina La Porta (MFA Photography and Related Media) had a solo exhibition, “Side Effects,” Far Gallery, Fort Lauderdale, FL, 9/29-11/16/18. Leemour Pelli (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Art of Collecting,” Hodge Gallery, Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, MI, 11/24/18-1/6/19. Chris Prynoski (BFA Animation) was featured in “Titmouse Founder Chris Prynoski to Be Honored at Los Angeles Animation Festival,” Variety, 6/25/18. Nona Simmons (BFA Photography) had a solo exhibition, “Ye Are My Witness,” Higher Pictures, NYC, 11/3-12/8/18.
1995
Michael De Feo (BFA Graphic Design) was featured in “Artist Michael De Feo on Becoming Part of the New York Landscape,” Forbes, 8/6/18. Kyungah Ham (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in “An Artist Unites North and South Korea, Stitch by Stitch,” The New York Times, 7/26/18. Jalal Pleasant (Fine Arts) self-published Moped Magazine (2018). Erwin Redl (MFA Computer Art) had a solo exhibition, “Light Matters,” Fondation Groupe EDF, Paris, France, 11/30/18-2/3/19. Kevin Sudeith (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Kevin Sudeith,” Project: ARTspace, NYC, 9/12/18.
1996
Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Shoplifter to Represent Iceland at 2019 Venice Biennale,” Artforum, 6/5/18.
1999
Soonchoel Byun (BFA Photography) had a solo exhibition, “Eternal Family,” Arario Gallery, Seoul, South Korea, 11/22/18-1/13/19. Trish Gianakis (MFA Computer Art) was named artisan-in-residence, Ocean House, Watch Hill, RI, 7/12/18. Elizabeth Goldwyn (BFA Photography) was featured in “This Social Platform for Sexual Wellness Is Shaking Up Intimacy in the Digital Age,” Vogue, 10/30/18. Irys Schenker (MFA Fine Arts) was awarded a residency at the Cité Internationale Des Arts, Paris, France, 7/26/18.
2000
Paul Amenta (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Eminent Domain,” Open Source Gallery, NYC, 7/28-8/30/18. Gustave Blache (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay; BFA 1998 Illustration) was featured in “Nell Nolan: Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, Magic in Melpomenia, Jewish Family Service, Gray Matters,” The Advocate, 6/26/18. Peter Buchanan-Smith (MFA Design) was featured in “Wilco Are Selling an Axe (Yes, an OFFICE Axe) and a $1,200 Box Set,” Pitchfork, 10/15/18.
CELL Johanna Ewald-St. Michaels (BFA Photog- FAX raphy) released her documentary The Inertia EMAIL Variations (2017). ADDRESS Gonzalo Fuenmayor (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Gonzalo Fuenmayor,” Galería el Museo, Bogota, Colombia, 7/7/18. Eric Rhein (MFA Fine Arts; BFA 1985 Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Garden of Skin,” Angus Hughes Gallery, London, UK, 9/4-9/29/18. V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
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To submit items for consideration for Alumni Notes & Exhibitions, email
alumni@sva.edu 2001
Kris Campbell (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Kris Campbell,” 95 1/2 Main Gallery, Nyack, NY, 10/19/18. José Casado (MFA Computer Art) had his interactive sculpture I Don’t Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Ah Me... installed, Marcus Garvey Park, NYC, 10/21/18-9/30/19. Daina Higgins (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Ridge Avenue,” Chromedge Gallery, Columbus, OH, 10/12-11/2/18.
bining Creative Education with Experiential Academics,” Study International, 10/10/18.
Zackary Drucker (BFA Photography) screened Mother Comes to Venus (2018), OutCinema, NYC, 7/18-7/20/18.
Nancy Hollinghurst (BFA Illustration) had work in the group exhibition “Reclamation,” Helen Day Art Center, Stowe, VT, 6/15-9/8/18.
Mary O’Malley (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Check Out Mary O’Malley’s Artwork,” Boston Voyager, 7/23/18.
Alex Smith (BFA Photography) was selected for the Delaware Water Gap National Park Artist in Residence Program, National Parks Department, 10/20/18.
2003
2006
Ronald Amato (BFA Photography) had a solo exhibition, “Gay in Trumpland,” Cusp Gallery, Provincetown, MA, 7/5-7/16/18. Kim Badawi (BFA Fine Arts) self-published No Honey No Money (2018).
2002
Jade Kuei (BFA Animation) had work in the group exhibition “Cult of Meow II,” Gristle Art Gallery, NYC, 9/8-10/13/18.
Nathan Fox (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) was featured in “Leading Art Schools Com-
Katherine Moffett (BFA Graphic Design) was featured in “The Perfect Gift for Hot Duck Fans,” The Cut, 11/26/18. Mu Wen Pan (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay; BFA 2001 Illustration) had a solo exhibition, “Bright Moon Shines on the River,” Joshua Liner Gallery, NYC, 6/7-7/6/18.
John Hendrix (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) was featured in “Five Comics to Read This September, Full of Monsters and Romance,” Entertainment Weekly, 9/5/18.
Marlena Buczek Smith (BFA Graphic Design) had work in the group exhibition “Design Showcase: Sights Unseen,” Montclair Design Week, Montclair, NJ, 10/20/18.
Anne Peabody (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Anne Peabody,” Main Window Dumbo, NYC, 10/31-12/4/18.
2005
Mika Rottenberg (BFA Fine Arts) was awarded the 2019 Kurt Schwitters Prize, Niedersächsische Sparkassenstiftung, Hannover, Germany, 8/13/18. Michael Alan (BFA Fine Arts) participated in “Bushwick Open Studios 2018,” The Active Space, NYC, 9/29-9/30/18.
2004
Jessica Lauretti (BFA Film and Video) was featured in “Marie Kondo, in Reverse: How to Fill a Space,” The New York Times, 8/20/18. Yuko Shimizu (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) was featured in “The Best Online Art Classes in 2018,” Creative Bloq, 9/28/18.
Andrea Burgay (BFA Fine Arts) published Cut Me Up (Specious Arts, 2018).
Negar Ahkami (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Negar Ahkami: The Taking,” Cody Gallery, Marymount University, Arlington, VA, 11/1-12/15/18. Teddy Hose (BFA Animation) was featured in “What Far Cry 5 Gets Right About Cults in America,” Uproxx, 10/17/18.
2007
Elizabeth Castaldo (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Windows On Main Street,” A Lucky Cut, Beacon, NY, 8/11-9/8/18. Amy Elkins (BFA Photography) had a solo exhibition, “Amy Elkins: Photographs of Contemporary Masculinity,” Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion, Orange Coast College, Costa Mesa, CA, 9/20-12/1/18.
2008
Cat Del Buono (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) was named Visiting Artist and Scholar by the American Academy in Rome, Italy, 6/12/18. Jade Doskow (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) had a solo exhibition, “Lost Utopias,” Tracey Morgan Gallery, Asheville, NC, 6/1-7/29/18. Jessica Ennis (MFA Computer Art) was the art director for The Endings (Chronicle Books, 2018). Lynn Herring (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Art Walk 2018,” The Lace Mill Gallery, Kingston, NY, 9/22-9/23/18. Jordan Winter (BFA Film and Video) co-produced I Am Rappaport: Stereo Podcast (2018), with actor/director Michael Rappaport, 8/2/18.
Timothy Goodman (BFA Graphic Design) was featured in “Timothy Goodman’s NYC Home is Giving Us ALL the Feels,” Domino, 8/18/18.
KATSUMI HAYAKAWA (MFA 1999 Fine Arts), Grid and Blue Bars (detail), 2018. From “Reflection—Blue,” Hayakawa’s solo exhibition at Dillon + Lee, NYC, 10/10-10/22/18.
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V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
DONGJUN KIM MFA 2018 COMPUTER ARTS ALMIGHTYDJ.COM
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Alumni Society 2009
Amy Adams (BFA Photography) was awarded Best Drinks Blog in both Editors’ and Readers’ Choice Categories, Saveur Blog Awards, 11/8/18. Amber Boardman (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Laughing at Our Inadequacies: A Social Media Feed in Paint,” Kudos Gallery, University of New South Wales, Australia, 9/12-9/29/18.
Questions?
Edwin Vazquez (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay; BFA 2007 Cartooning) was the interior book designer for Last Shot (Star Wars): A Han and Lando Novel (Del Rey; Reprint, Media Tie-In Edition, 2018).
2010
Wesley Benson (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) was featured in “How One Artist Discovered His Life Goal,” 435 Magazine, 8/1/18.
Hai-Hsin Huang (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Catastrophe and the Power of Art,” Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan, 10/6/18-1/20/19.
Matthew Craven (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in “The Wiley and May Louise Jones Gallery presents ‘Collector’ by Matthew Craven,” The Renegade Rip, 11/9/18.
Gregg Louis (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Mirage,” Nohra Haime Gallery, NYC, 7/17-8/17/18.
Natan Dvir (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) was awarded the Gold Medal, Prix de la Photographie Paris, France, 10/31/18.
John MacConnell (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) self-published Draw You Draw Me (2018).
Silvia Flores (MFA Fine Arts) gave a talk, “Manos al Arte. Su Realidad, Tu Forma de Expresión,” Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey, Mexico, 11/1/18.
Hye-Ryoung Min (MPS Digital Photography) had a solo exhibition, “Re-membrance of the Remembrance,” Center for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock, NY, 8/25-10/14/18. Marilyn Montufar (BFA Photography) was selected for the Centrum Emerging Artist Residency, Centrum, Port Townsend, WA, 6/30/18. Lev Polyakov (BFA Animation) had a solo exhibition, “The Art of Alexander Polyakov,” The Rise Gallery, NYC, 6/12/18. Lissa Rivera (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) curated “Leonor Fini: Theatre of Desire, 1930-1990,” Museum of Sex, NYC, 9/28/18-3/4/19. Rebecca Sugar (BFA Animation) was featured in “Steven Universe Creator Has Done More for LGBTQ Visibility Than You Might Know,” Entertainment Weekly, 8/13/18.
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Dina Litovsky (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) had work featured in “How the Anti-Trump Resistance Is Organizing Its Outrage,” Time, 10/18/18.
2011
sva.edu/give
212.592.2300 or alumnisociety@sva.edu Anthony Toscani (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Summertime Sadness,” Massey Klein Gallery, NYC, 7/27-8/26/18.
2012
Deanna Donegan (BFA Illustration) was featured in “The New Yorker’s Senior Designer on What She Looks Out for in Commissioning New Illustration,” Eye On Design, 9/5/18. Ina Jang (MPS Fashion Photography) had a solo exhibition, “Radiator Theatre,” Gallery One Four, Seoul, South Korea, 10/18-12/20/18. Sang Joon Kim (BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects)’s animated film The Wheel Turns (2018) was awarded Best Short Animation (Oscar Qualified), Sitges Film Festival, Spain, 10/4/18. Laura Murray (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Close to Home: Christie’s Staff Art Show,” Christie’s, NYC, 7/25-8/1/18. Jonny Ruzzo (BFA Illustration) illustrated Sometime After Midnight (Penguin Random House, 2018). Heewon Seo (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Suspicious Beings,” Mibbo Art Center, Busan, South Korea, 9/1-9/30/18.
Cynthia Hinant (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Remedios the Beauty,” Granite City and Design District, Granite City, IL, 10/29-12/7/18.
Miryana Todorova (MFA Fine Arts; BFA 2009 Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Performative,” Baahng Gallery, NYC, 7/178/17/18.
Gene Lu (MFA Interaction Design) was featured in “How GPS Can Make You a Better Runner,” Vox, 10/11/18.
James Williams (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Resist/Release,” Code and Canvas, San Francisco, CA, 10/8-10/13/18.
Julie Schenkelberg (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Expo Chicago,” Asya Geisberg Gallery, Chicago, IL, 9/27-9/30/18.
Catherine Young (MFA Interaction Design) had work in the group exhibition “An Olfactory Portrait of the Amazon Rainforest,” Science Gallery, Dublin, Ireland, 10/26-2/11/18.
Charlie Schultz (MFA Art Criticism and Writing) wrote “Liz Lou with Charlie Schultz,” The Brooklyn Rail, 9/4/18.
2013 Faith Holland (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) had work in the group exhibition “Pendoran Vinci,” NRW Forum, Dusseldorf, Germany, 6/9-8/19/18. Jessica Holmes (MFA Art Criticism and Writing) wrote “Marilyn Lerner: Walking Backward Running Forward,” The Brooklyn Rail, 10/3/18. Che Min Hsiao (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay; BFA 2011 Animation) was awarded a Kingsbrae International Residence for the Arts, Kingsbrae Garden, New Brunswick, Canada, 7/1/18. Renyi Hu (MFA 2013 Art Practice) had work in the group exhibition “Immortal City,” Tianjin Binhai Museum, Tianjin, China, 9/15-9/24/18. Eunjin Kim (BFA Advertising) had work in the group exhibition “Zoom In, Zoom Out,” The Cluster Gallery, NYC, 6/27/18. Candy Koh (MFA Art Criticism and Writing) had a solo exhibition, “Candy Koh x Beakers Coffee Lab,” Beakers Coffee Lab, NYC, 7/29/18. Sara Kriendler (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “In Back of Beyond,” Guild Hall, East Hampton, NY, 10/20-12/16/18. Naomi Lev (MFA Art Criticism and Writing) curated “Escape Room,” FLUCA – Austrian Cultural Pavilion, Plovdiv, Bulgaria, 9/13-10/4/18. Maya Meissner (BFA Photography) was awarded the COSMOS PDF Award, Arles Photo Festival, Arles, France, 7/1/18. Lily Padula (BFA Illustration) illustrated “Donald Trump Is Lyin’ Up a Storm,” The New York Times, 10/22/18. Antonio Pulgarin (BFA Photography) was featured in “Antonio Pulgarin’s Meditations on Latino Masculinity,” BESE, 6/26/18.
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Jamie Sneider (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Artist Jamie Sneider Launches Fundraiser to Start Residency Program in Italy,” Art News, 8/17/18. Ilona Szwarc (BFA Photography) had a solo exhibition, “Some Women Can Take Their Eyes Out,” AA|LA Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 9/15-10/27/18. Dana Terrace (BFA Animation) was featured in “Disney Announces Vikingskool, Shares Exclusive First Images of The Rocketeer, Owl House,” Variety, 6/12/18. Patricia Voulgaris (BFA Photography) was featured in “Fragmented Bodies and Disjointed Space,” Lens Culture, 7/20/18. Brian Andrew Whiteley (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Political Suicide,” Duet Gallery, St. Louis, MO, 6/1-7/31/18.
2014
Graciela Cassel (MFA Fine Arts) was awarded the Bronze Award, International Independent Film Awards, 10/6/18. Gowun Lee (BFA Photography) had work in the group exhibition “2018 Aperture Summer Open: The Way We Live Now,” Aperture Gallery, NYC, 6/28-8/24/18. Andrea McGinty (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Pockets for Losers,” East Hampton Shed, East Hampton, NY, 8/25-9/16/18. Todd McGrain (MFA Social Documentary Film) was featured in “The Forest Elephants of the Central African Republic Are in Peril,” The New Yorker, 11/14/18. Molly Knox Ostertag (BFA Cartooning) published The Hidden Witch (Scholastic, 2018). Jose Maximiliano Paredes Sanchez (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Coriandoli Oro Color Fest,” Era Aurora, Torino, Italy, 10/29-11/4/18. Brenda Perry (MFA Art Practice) had a solo exhibition, “Omnipresence: Seasons in a Time of Climate Change,” Praxis Gallery, NYC, 11/8/18-1/5/19. Eric Sutphin (MFA Art Criticism and Writing) wrote “Melissa Brown,” Art in America, 9/1/18.
Tatiane Schilaro (MFA Art Criticism and Writing) co-curated Open Studio, Raphaela Melsohn – AnnexB, NYC, 6/2/18. Gerald Sheffield (BFA Fine Arts) was awarded a Fulbright scholarship, 7/3/18. Zhe Zhu (BFA Photography) was awarded the ADC Young Guns 16, The One Club for Creativity, 11/18/18.
2016
Ashley Benston (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Why This Is the Beauty Brand All People of Colour Have Been Waiting for,” Glamour UK, 8/16/18. Shannon Broder (MFA Fine Arts; BFA 2011 Visual & Critical Studies) was featured in “We Cat Not Believe These Custom Pet Pillows,” House Beautiful, 8/1/18. Luiz Felipe d’Orey (BFA Illustration) had a solo exhibition, “Recent Ruins,” Gitler &_____, NYC, 8/29-9/2/18. Delano Dunn (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Kitschy Iconography Pulled from the Depths of Pop Culture,” Hyperallergic, 8/1/18. Chidozie Kanu (BFA Film) was awarded the Hublot Design Prize 2018, 9/5/18. Jisoo Kim (BFA Advertising) was featured in “The Drum’s 50 Under 30 U.S., Part 2: Introducing the Creative Leaders of Tomorrow,” The Drum, 10/23/18. Katelyn Kopenhaver (BFA Photography and Video) was featured in “Who Do They Think She Is? And Who Is She, Actually? A Guessing Game in Union Square Park,” The Cut, 8/23/18. Georgia Lale (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Empathy,” Smack Mellon, NYC, 11/17-12/30/18. Netta Laufer (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) had work in the group exhibition “Defense Lines: Maginot, Bar-Lev and Beyond,” The Genia Schreiber University Art Gallery, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, 11/28/18-6/16/19. Susan Luss (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Susan Luss: Art After Hours,” Lowe Mill Arts & Entertainment, Huntsville, AL, 11/16/18.
2015
Sophie Parker (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Sophie Parker’s Hand-Painted Arrangements Are Giving Us Life,” Architectural Digest, 8/27/18.
Cynthia Cruz (MFA Art Criticism and Writing) published Dregs (Four Way, 2018).
Kasey Lynn Rodriguez (BFA Photography and Video) photographed “‘Bronx Faces’ Showcases Borough’s Diversity,” Bronx Times, NYC, 6/15/18.
Alon Borten (BFA Photography) screened A Prayer (2017) at NewFest, New York’s LGBT Film and Media Arts Organization, NYC, 10/29/18.
Quinn Dukes (MFA Art Practice) participated in the panel “When the Artist is the Art,” ATOA Critical Dialogues in the Visual Arts, NYC, 11/27/18. Nicasio Fernandez (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Nicasio Fernandez: Working Through It,” Harper’s Apartment, NYC, 10/2411/24/18. Kaitlyn Kramer (MFA Art Criticism and Writing) was featured in “I Want You to Know That I am Hiding Something from You,” Bomb, 10/25/18. Natalya Margolin (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Home Is Where...,” Hastings Village Hall, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, 7/9-8/25/18. Michelle Poler (MPS Branding) was featured in “Fox Buys Drama 100 Days Without Fear from Akiva Goldsman Based On Michelle Poler Blog,” Deadline, 9/20/18. Amelia Rina (MFA Art Criticism and Writing) wrote “Putting Interiors on Exteriors: Chip Thomas Interviewed by Amelia Rina,” Bomb, 7/19/18. Julia Santoli (BFA Visual & Critical Studies) had work in the group exhibition “Oneiric receiver (((night throat))),” Issue Project Room, NYC, 11/8/18.
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2017
WYATT MILLS (BFA 2013 Fine Arts), Brown Eyed Girl, 2018, oil and mixed media on canvas. From “Pareidolia,” Mills’ solo exhibition at Mugello Gallery, Los Angeles, 9/15-10/26/18.
“Ransom: Exploring the Edges of Appropriation,” Chases Garage, York, ME, 10/20-12/12/18. Sangeun Hwang (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Zip,” Korean Cultural Center, NYC, 7/25/18. Patrick Jaojoco (MA Curatorial Practice) moderated “Decolonial & Third World Studies: Discussion & Tour with Antonio Serna,” Losaida Center, NYC, 10/25/18. Ninaad Kulkarni (MFA Computer Arts) was awarded Best CGI/Animated Short for his documentary KCLOC (2017), AT&T Film Awards, 6/3/18.
Amanda Alvich (MPS Directing) was featured in “Getting to Know Amanda Alvich; A Rising Filmmaker in the Industry,” Medium, 9/12/18.
Zi Lin (MFA Art Writing) curated “In the Black Box,” Novado Gallery, Jersey City, NJ, 7/27-8/5/18.
Minju An (BFA Illustration) was featured in “The School of Visual Arts Graduate Transplanting Her Abstract Illustrative Style to Motion Graphics,” Intern Magazine, 8/20/18.
Ikechukwu Onyewuenyi (MA Curatorial Practice) was featured in “Lawrence Abu Hamdan Discusses Working with a Threshold of Perception,” Artforum, 11/27/18.
Christy Bencosme (BFA Fine Arts) was awarded an ARTWorks, Inc., Artist Residency, Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, NYC, 11/4/18.
Aya Rodriguez-Izumi (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “TC-1,” A.I.R., NYC, 6/287/29/18.
Caroline Berler (MFA Social Documentary Film) was awarded the Emerging Talent Award, Outfest Los Angeles, 7/22/18.
Sinjun Bergen Strom (BFA Photography and Video) was featured in “12 Emerging Photographers You Should Know,” The New York Times, 9/14/18.
Hakim Bishara (MFA Art Writing) wrote “An Exquisite Nail in the Coffin for La Maison Rouge Art Gallery,” Hyperallergic, 9/4/18. Alejandro Cortes Sanchez (BFA Film) was nominated for a Haskell Wexler Student Documentary Award, ASC 2018 Student Heritage Awards, 10/2/18. Alex Hovet (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) had work in the group exhibition
Tianshi Xiao (BFA Visual & Critical Studies) curated “The Map and the Territory,” Nars Foundation, NYC, 10/5-10/12/18.
2018
Rose Brock (BFA Photography and Video) had work in the group exhibition “Know South / No South,” Atlanta Photography Group, Atlanta, GA, 6/8-7/14/18. Jasa Brockel (MA Curatorial Practice) curated “Absences,” Apex Art, Nagoya, Japan, 7/1-7/22/18. Annelise Capossela (MFA Illustration) illustrated “The Gift of Menopause,” The New York Times, 8/5/18. Kenneth Castaneda (BFA Photography and Video) received an honorable mention in the Annual Juried Competition of the Baxter Street Camera Club of New York, NYC, 8/29/18. Kaitlyn Danielson (BFA Photography and Video) was awarded the Curator’s Abstract/ Mixed Media Award, PDN, 7/20/18. Mina Elwell (BFA Film) published Hellicious (Starburns Industries, 2018). Han Jun Kim (BFA Design) won the Red Dot Award: Communication Design, 7/30/18. Hailun Ma (MPS Fashion Photography) had work in the group exhibition “Into the Light,” Daniel Cooney Gallery, NYC, 6/21-8/3/18. Nour Malaeb (MFA Interaction Design) was featured in “What If Your Coffee Table Was Also a Robot?” Fast Company, 7/11/18. Christopher Thixton (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Strangers,” New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, NYC, 11/9/18.
Razan Alsarraf (BFA Fine Arts) curated “Young Arab Artists Exhibition,” ArtX, NYC, 10/17-12/15/18. Ariana Ascher (BFA Visual & Critical Studies) had work included in the group exhibition “Defining Form,” Untitled Space, NYC, 7/11-8/1/18. V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
CHRISTINE ROMANELL (BFA 1992 Graphic Design), Prismatic Motion, 2018, acrylic on laser-cut wood panels. From “Everything Is Connected,” Romanell’s solo
exhibition at 1978 Maplewood Arts Center, Maplewood, NJ, 8/11-8/31/18.
IN MEMORIAM
Christopher Darling (MFA 2010 Illustration as Visual Essay) passed away on June 17, 2018. Christopher was born in Chicago and grew up in Minneapolis and Kalamazoo, Michigan. He was an illustrator and educator whose work was published and exhibited internationally. He was recognized by the Society of Illustrators, American Illustration, 3x3, Creative Quarterly, the Pixie Awards and the Association of Illustrators. His clients included the American SPR ING 20 19
Museum of Natural History, Sony Music Entertainment and the United Nations Refugee Agency. As a graduate student at SVA, he was one of the founding members of Carrier Pigeon magazine; as an alumnus, he contributed writing to the Visual Arts Journal. He is survived by his wife, Elaine, and his parents, Craig and Deborah, as well as six brothers and sisters. Russell J. Efros (BFA 2014 Film and Video) passed away in June 2018.
He was born and raised in Roslyn, New York, and was a passionate and talented filmmaker and musician from a young age. After studying film at SVA, he dedicated his time to making narrative-based short films and music videos, as well as writing, recording and performing music with his band, Plain Dog. Following his death, his family established the Russell J. Efros Foundation, which began raising money for a special fund in his name at the SVA Alumni Society.
Ira Rosenbaum (1959 Cartooning) passed away on November 9, 2018. He was born in Cumberland, Maryland, and grew up in Pittsburgh. He moved to New York to study at SVA and focus on his art. He is survived by his children Jeffery and Susan, as well as grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
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FROM THE ARCHIVES
To learn more, visit archives.sva.edu.
T
he late 1960s were an exciting time to be at SVA. New York’s art scene was percolating, and major figures like Vito Acconci, Carl Andre, Jo Baer, Eva Hesse, Sol LeWitt (1953 Illustration), Lucy Lippard, Robert Ryman and Richard Serra taught at the College. Another notable instructor from that time: acclaimed avant-garde composer and performer Steve Reich, who joined the Humanities faculty in 1969 and led an electronic music workshop for several semesters. Prior to his appointment, Reich premiered his works Violin Phase and My Name Is at SVA, as part of the College’s 1967 Fall Gallery Concert Series. Held in the amphitheater at 209 East 23rd Street over the course of six November nights, the series also included works by Robert Rauschenberg (Urban Round), Simone Whitman (Cloths, Face Tunes, Two at Once), Steve Paxton (excerpts from Earth Interiors, Somebody Else), John Giorno (Chromosome), Deborah Hay (Group I), Les Levine (White Noise) and Elaine Sturtevant (Relâche). Performers included Brice Marden, Dorothea Rockburne, Mel Bochner and Trisha Brown. Violin Phase, which followed Piano Phase, one of Reich’s earliest “phasing” works, involved a violinist and sound engineer creating a tape loop prior to the live staging. In the performance, a live violinist (at SVA, it was Burt Kaplan), played along with the recording, gradually and slightly slipping out of sync. My Name Is is a similar tape-based phasing work, in which names of people in the audience were recorded, remixed, looped and played out of sync. Legend has it that Marcel Duchamp attended its premiere at SVA; the famous artist attended the performance of Elaine Sturtevant’s Relâche the following week. Violin Phase premiered on November 10; My Name Is premiered the next night. Both works were performed a second time on November 12. Several years later, Reich returned to the amphitheater for a performance, lecture, demo and discussion. Posters for both the Fall Gallery Concert Series and this later engagement, the latter of which is reproduced here, are held as part of the SVA Archives. [Beth Kleber]
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V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L
External Relations · School of Visual Arts 209 East 23rd Street, New York, NY 10010-3994 sva.edu
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