Artist and Educator Joseph Maida Named Chair of BFA Photography and Video at School of Visual Arts

August 2018—New York, NY—School of Visual Arts President David Rhodes has announced the appointment of Joseph Maida as chair of the College’s BFA Photography and Video program, effective August 1, 2018. Maida, a longtime SVA faculty member, succeeds Stephen Frailey. He will lead a department comprising approximately 404 students and 71 faculty.

As an artist and educator, Joseph Maida brings years of professional and teaching experience to his new role. He will take the helm of the department as he begins his 17th year at the College, where he has taught a broad range of courses—from pre-college classes to advanced contemporary critique and theory. In 2016 he co-organized “Untitled,” a BFA Photography and Video symposium on gender featuring Guggenheim curator Jennifer Blessing; artist, activist and SVA graduate Zackary Drucker; and photographer Zanele Muholi. He has previously taught at Yale University, Parsons School of Design and Purchase College, State University of New York. 

Maida is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist and writer working primarily in photography and video. He has exhibited widely in the United States and abroad, including solo exhibitions at venues such as Daniel Cooney Fine Art and Wallspace in New York, Nikon Salons in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, and 403 International Art Center in Wuhan, China. He has also participated in group exhibitions at the International Center of Photography, Queens Museum, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Performance Space New York (formerly PS122), Yancey Richardson Gallery, and Art in General, and internationally at the Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; Pro Arte Foundation, St. Petersburg, Russia; Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, Netherlands; and Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria. 

Maida’s photographs have appeared in such publications as GQ, The London Telegraph Sunday Magazine, New York, The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek and W. His work has also been the subject of two monographs: New Natives (L’Artiere, 2015) and Born Free and Equal (Convoke, 2018). His recent series “Things R Queer” is featured in Feast for the Eyes: The Story of Food in Photography (Aperture, 2017), by Susan Bright, as well as in the traveling exhibition of the same name. His recent essay “Pictures Without Words,” on gender, language and photography, is featured in Charlotte Cotton’s Public, Private, Secret: On Photography and the Configuration of Self (Aperture, 2018).

“Having contributed to my department’s curriculum as a faculty member for 17 years, I’m honored to now serve as chair of BFA

Photography and Video,” Maida says. “SVA’s ability to adapt to the times while maintaining an ethical core distinguishes our world-class institution. As a department that explores the influence of photographic media in our image-based culture, we will ensure that our students achieve fluency in visual language so they can activate their voices with equity, responsibility and leadership in both digital and physical spaces.”

Established in 1986, the BFA Photography and Video program at the School of Visual Arts grounds students in the creative, conceptual and technological skills of the mediums as well as in the job opportunities available in the field. Students learn how to process and print both black-and-white and color material, how to light a studio, how to use medium- and large-format cameras, how to work with digital materials and how to shoot and edit video. They have the opportunity to pursue all genres and aspects of the mediums, including art, fashion, portraiture, photojournalism, landscape, still-life, narrative, and experimental. They gain the skills to think and speak about photographic media and the moving image, while forming strong connections to the professional world. Their education provides both the practical and strategic knowledge to land a position where they can put their valuable skills to work.

Maida earned his MFA in photography from Yale University, and a BA summa cum laude in architecture and art history from Columbia University. He has been awarded fellowships by the National Endowment for the Arts, Japan–U.S. Friendship Commission, Joan Mitchell Foundation and National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts.