BFA Visual & Critical Studies and MFA Art Writing, in partnership with AICA-USA, present a panel discussion featuring Yasi Alipour (BFA 2015 Photography), Katy Diamond Hamer, Will Fenstermaker (MFA 2016 Art Writing) and Jasmine Weber. The moderator will be Jamie Keesling (MFA 2013 Critical Theory and the Arts).

This talk gathers four art writers who began their careers in the 21st century, having entered the field during or shortly after the 2008 economic collapse in the United States. Panelists will discuss the particular challenges contemporary art writers face, including student debt, material precariousness, an oversaturated job market, a general lack of editorial attention or guidance, the prevalence of online publishing, and more. Along with these challenges, panelists will consider what possibilities exist for criticism in our moment. Additional topics include paid and unpaid opportunities available for art writers and how writers new to the field might find unique platforms for their work.

Join us for a conversation among professionals who have experienced the first years of their writing careers in this particular moment, reflecting on how this has been and what can be done.

Yasi Alipour is an artist, writer, educator, curator and a politically concerned folder. Officially institutionalized by Columbia University (MFA 2018) and implicated as a faculty of School of Visual Arts, she is based in Brooklyn and happens to be Iranian. She currently marvels on “counter-history” as an oxymoron and the power of forgotten bureaucratic letters. Wondering about her relationship to politics as a non-citizen — robbed of agency, she reminisces on the potentiality of prosecuted, and as such temporary, spaces.

Will Fenstermaker is an editor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and an associate editor at the Brooklyn Rail. Fenstermaker is also a board member of AICA-USA. He holds an MFA in Art Criticism and Writing from SVA. His work is available at willfenstermaker.com.

Katy Diamond Hamer is a New York-based arts writer with a focus on contemporary art and culture and has been actively engaged in the arts community on a global level for over ten years. Beyond writing, she speaks at universities including New York University and Sotheby's Institute and has been a panelist on several occasions both as a participant and moderator at the New York Academy of Art and Art Basel Miami, amongst others. A graduate of NYU, Hamer has written for magazines including Galerie, Flash Art International, New York (Vulture/SEEN), The Creative Independent, Cultured, Brooklyn Rail, and many others. Interview subjects of note include, Robert Storr, Courtney Love, Helmut Lang, Cecilia Alemani and Brett Gorvy.

Jasmine Weber is an associate editor at Hyperallergic. She is an arts writer based in Brooklyn, particularly interested in Black art histories and visual culture, and a visual artist working in portraiture, conceptual photography and collage. She received her BA in Ethnicity & Race Studies and Visual Arts from Columbia University in May 2018.

Talk

Art Criticism in the 21st Century: Challenges and Prospects

Room 101C