Exhibition

School of Visual Arts presents “BUBBLEWRAP,” a senior thesis exhibition presented by the BFA Visual & Critical Studies Department. Curated by faculty member Suzanne Joelson along with Storm Ascher and Alexa Cabrera, “BUBBLEWRAP” will be on view Saturday, January 13, through Saturday, February 3, at the SVA Flatiron Gallery, 133/141 West 21st Street, New York City.

In the BFA Visual & Critical Studies senior studios, each artist is their own ecosystem. They convene to present and discuss work and then slip back into their practice. Thus it is not surprising that many of the works in this show have isolation and expansion as their subject matter.

For their thesis show, these independent “ecosystems” come together to make something strong and protective. “BUBBLEWRAP” is a show of closets, corner pockets and the spaces in between. Reimagined histories cross paths with immediate feelings and unnamed sensations.

The works on view include installation, sculpture, painting, video, performance, publications and interactive spaces. They deal with how history and memory inform the present and how one might recalibrate what has been. They examine family lineage and biological history. Organisms are imagined and microorganisms are seen. While some of the artists create chambers, others examine spaces on the periphery of use. There is sculpture about books, building and coming into being. Some artists deal with who they are, others with what they know and a few with how they know.

“BUBBLEWRAP” addresses fragility and strength, the way we work and the plastic in which we wrap that work when it goes into the world.

If literacy means the ability to read and write, then BFA Visual & Critical Studies teaches cultural literacy. And that involves the ability to “read”—to understand and interpret art, philosophy and visual thinking of the past and present; and to “write”—to make art. BFA Visual & Critical Studies at the School of Visual Arts is a program where students can immerse themselves in both of these projects, as intellectual curiosity and the drive to make art are not mutually exclusive; rather, they enhance and invigorate one another. The distinctive curriculum, a mix of studio practice and academic study, is taught by a range of distinguished professionals and scholars, and designed to prepare students for the competitive postgraduate arenas where an academic and practical facility with visual media is crucial.