Exhibition

School of Visual Arts presents the MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Thesis Exhibition, an exhibition of work by members of the MFA Photography, Video and Related Media class of 2015. Curated by faculty member Bonnie Yochelson, the exhibition is on view Saturday, June 13, through Saturday, June 27, at the SVA Chelsea Gallery, 601 West 26th Street, 15th floor, New York City.

Statement from the curator: “With the tradition of documentary photography in eclipse, many students developed innovative conceptual strategies to tackle political topics. Júlia Standovár comments on the woeful state of Hungarian politics by creating a cookbook that combines traditional recipes with interviews and portraits of Hungarian women émigrés. Jonathan Schoonover uses the language of commercial photography to reveal the American fascination with the depiction of violence. Christina Arza investigates her Cuban American heritage with fictive self-portraits and recitations by her American and Cuban grandparents. In a site-specific installation, Taner Besen explores the nature of social control by forcing an audience to participate in an exercise of authoritarian power.

“Other students focus on the omnipresence of the Internet. Quinn Tivey creates abstract sculptures from selfies. Alison Tyne combines haul videos, in which teens display the fruits of shopping sprees, with a performance of Miserere Nostri, a liturgical choral work. Annie Malamet presents a website exploring the perilous experience of teenage girls discovering their sexuality online.

“Some students found original ways to explore powerful emotions. June Korea invents an imaginary world in which a sex doll becomes his companion. Caryn Coyle combines performance videos and precariously arranged furniture to describe psychological instability. And Steven Rico’s narrative film explores a teenage boy’s loss of his father to cancer.”

Participating artists include Christina Arza, Anushya Badrinath, Hui Bai, Taner Besen, Caryn Coyle, Oliver David, Matt Herrmann, Minki Hong, Brandon Isralsky, Stephan Jahanshahi, Jungmin Kim, June Korea, Minyu Vincent Lin, Zhangbolong Liu, Annie Malamet, Gustavo Murillo, Shannon Phipps, Steven Rico, Jonathan Schoonover, Ashley Catharine Smith, Tiffany Smith, Júlia Standovár, Ksenia Tavrina, Quinn Tivey, Wangmo Tsangsey, Alison Tyne and Liyue Zhu.

One of the first graduate programs to incorporate digital practice, MFA Photography, Video and Related Media is dedicated to the creative practice of both traditional and digital lens-based arts and to the integration of new theories, contexts and techniques of these ever-evolving media. Emphasizing the expansion of the photographic vocabulary, the department encourages students to challenge the current boundaries of their media and to look at the impact of design, video, hyper-media, and telecommunications and other electronic components on contemporary work in the field.