As another semester winds down and another month flies by, we are still finding ways to commune through art and conversation straight through the end of this whirlwind year. Talks with renowned photographers, the third installment of an alumni film festival, a live cartooning demonstration, plus more than half-dozen virtual exhibitions of fine art, illustration, interior design and more are all, literally, at your fingertips. There are also plenty of happenings outside of SVA that feature work from alumni and community members, as we continue to celebrate the legacy of the recently passed Milton Glaser and once again join Miami Art Week for UNTITLED ART.
Virtual Events
December 3, 5:00 - 7:00pm | Art Education Learning Lab: Building Circuits on a Budget in TinkerCAD
Interested in teaching circuits to kids on a budget? You can build circuits and program Arduino microcontrollers in TinkerCAD, and we’ll show you how. This free two-hour workshop will teach you some basics in circuitry and how to simulate it in a 3D environment using TinkerCAD, a free web-based software program. Each participant will create their own interactive circuitry simulator using a variety of components, such as power sources, LEDs, breadboards, microcontrollers, switches, buttons and resistors. Presented by SVA’s Division of Continuing Education and MA/MAT Art Education, this workshop is a great way to show your students how to build interactive projects with Arduino and get immediate results. Soon you’ll be up and running as a teacher in a digital classroom!
In this talk presented by MPS Art Therapy, Renee Obstfeld, PhD, LP, ATR-BC, LCAT, CASAC will explore the dual role of compulsive substance use in alleviating unbearable feelings of isolation, shame, and vulnerability while simultaneously facilitating their embodied expression.
December 8, 7:00 - 8:30pm | MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Alumni Film Fest: Part III
MFA Photography, Video and Related Media celebrates its first Alumni Film Festival, presented as several monthly programs throughout the fall 2020 semester. This series will share the recent work of 30 alumni from the past 28 years. With pieces in formats such as short form narrative, documentary, abstraction, environmental, music videos, installations, and more, this festival highlights the dynamic scope of video work emerging from the department and highlights its global alumni community and commitment to new directions the moving image.
December 8, 7:00 - 8:30pm | Daredoodling with Tom Motley
Join veteran cartooning instructor Tom Motley for a new lesson derived from his three SVA Continuing Education courses: Cartooning Basics, Figure Drawing for Cartoonists, and Thinking in Ink. Motley will demonstrate some key cartooning concepts: curve rhythms, the mighty “swalloop,” and more. We’ll have you draw along and show off your doodles, followed by Q&A. Come play!
December 11, 11:00am - noon | On the Politics of Friendship
In the era of the pandemic, which has foregrounded isolation and technologies of remote nearness, as well as the ongoing crisis of racial injustice, it is all the more important to consider the importance of affiliation and friendship. Join MA Curatorial Practice Chair Steven Henry Madoff in conversation about the topic with London-based artist, writer and curator Céline Condorelli, president of BRIC Arts Media in Downtown Brooklyn Kristina Newman-Scott, and artist, writer and curator Shuddhabrata Sengupta, member of the Delhi-based Raqs Media Collective.
December 11, 7:00 - 8:00pm | Kris Graves: Race and Place in Contemporary American Photography
In this Art & Politics Lecture presented by MPS Digital Photography Honors Program and BFA Visual & Critical Studies, photographer Kris Graves will discuss his recent project photographing scenes that reference the history of racism and police brutality. His camera has captured confederate monuments, sites of police murders, social movement activity, and more. He will discuss how he has approached this work and what the camera might help to say about American reality today.
December 15, 7:00 - 8:30pm | Danna Singer
In this lecture, outstanding portraitist Danna Singer will discuss recent editorial commissions and personal projects as part of the MPS Digital Photography i3: Images, Ideas, Inspiration lecture series. Singer's work focuses on the social ramifications of economic inequality, depicting the struggles of working class Americans. Her photographs were selected for The Best New Yorker Photography of 2019, and The New York Times, Year in Pictures 2019.
VIRTUAL EXHIBITIONS
Through December 12 | “Picture Library”
A virtual exhibition of the BFA Photography and Video class of 2020′s Senior Books and accompanying materials, including the texts and artist books that have inspired their work, organized in collaboration with the SVA Library.
Through December 14 | “Arm’s Reach”
This juried exhibition of multidisciplinary works by SVA students and recent alumni explores familiarity through close proximity. When one thinks of feelings and memories close to home, the narrative is typically warm, positive and nostalgic. These works, however, illustrate a broader scope of intimate experience, as familiarity is much more complex. They tell intimate stories that span the full spectrum of human emotion, from pastel scenes of ceramic dining ware and bright photos of cluttered bedrooms to sobering accounts of the loss of a loved one and the everyday fear experienced by Black Americans.
Through early 2021 | “SVA Murals of Hope”
The class of 2020 was affected like no other in the history of SVA. Among other adversities, many of these students were deprived of the opportunity to have a gallery exhibition of their work this past spring. SVA Galleries invited all class of 2020 graduates to submit art about or inspired by this unprecedented year. Juried by five notable SVA alumni—José Carlos Casado (MFA 2001 Computer Art), Dana Davenport (BFA 2015 Photography and Video), Chioma Ebinama (MFA 2016 Illustration as Visual Essay), Nadia Haji Omar (MFA 2014 Fine Arts) and Jocelyn Tsaih (BFA 2015 Graphic Design)—these 60 selected artworks reference our current time.
A new exhibition in the colonnade windows of Cooper Union’s Foundation Building celebrates the work of one of the most influential graphic designers of the 20th century. Glaser, a 1951 graduate of The School of Art and a Bronx native, had an outsized impact on the visual landscape of New York, the city he loved with both its energy and eclecticism informing his renowned body of work.
Through January 16, 2021 | “2020 Visions”
The class of 2020 was affected like no other in the history of SVA. Among other adversities, many of these students were deprived of the opportunity to have a gallery exhibition of their work this past spring. SVA Galleries invited all class of 2020 graduates to submit art about or inspired by this unprecedented year. Juried by five notable SVA alumni—José Carlos Casado (MFA 2001 Computer Art), Dana Davenport (BFA 2015 Photography and Video), Chioma Ebinama (MFA 2016 Illustration as Visual Essay), Nadia Haji Omar (MFA 2014 Fine Arts) and Jocelyn Tsaih (BFA 2015 Graphic Design)—these 60 selected artworks reference our current time.
Through January 9, 2021| “Buildings Transformed by Interior Design”
An exhibition of thesis projects by the BFA Interior Design: Built Environments (ID:BE) class of 2020, the works will be on view in the SVA Flatiron Windows, 133/141 West 21st Street, New York City, and online at svaidbethesis2020.com. “The themes that dominate the work are relevant to the issues of our planet,” says BFA ID:BE Chair Dr. Carol Bentel, FAIA, FIIDA, ASID. “The graduates′ projects focus on such topics as sustainability, the environment, recycling, spiritual values, well-being, the restoration of dying arts, energy renewal, the revival of local cultural values, helping sidelined communities be included, the nurturing of children and adaptively reusing abandoned buildings.”
December 2 - 6 | UNTITLED, ART Miami Beach
SVA returns to one of Miami Art Week’s most interesting fairs, this year virtually. The College joins 60 other exhibiting galleries from 30 cities in 18 countries for the UNTITLED, ART Miami Beach Online Viewing Room which will be open continuously from Wednesday, December 2, through Sunday, December 6. Entry to the fair is free with registration on their website.
December 12, 2020 - January 16, 2021| “The Book Show”
A group exhibition of book projects from the students in the MFA Illustration as Visual Essay program, curated by Marshall Arisman and Anna Raff.
ALUMNI HAPPENINGS
Through December 10, you can find Elizabeth Castaldo (BFA 2007 Fine Arts)'s solo exhibition, “Proximate Magic,” Saint Joseph’s College, Patchogue, NY. Another solo exhibition, “Toy Drive,” from Kenny Scharf (BFA 1981 Fine Arts) is on view now through February 1, 2021 at the Honor Fraser Gallery in Los Angeles. And through April 11, 2021 you can see “Spaghetti Blockchain,” a solo exhibition from Mika Rottenberg (BFA 2001 Fine Arts) at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Toronto, Canada.