The new semester continues with various exhibitions and events featuring guest artists, panelists, writers, filmmakers and educators.
Bryan Northup, Red Tide, 2017, plastic and foam on canvas, 30 x 40 inches. On view at “Plasticulture: The Rise of Sustainable Practices with Polymers.”
Bryan Northup, Red Tide, 2017, plastic and foam on canvas, 30 x 40 inches. On view at “Plasticulture: The Rise of Sustainable Practices with Polymers.”
Exhibitions and events fill the calendar this month, with artists exploring everything from sustainability to 3D printing, historical context, and identity. With works that span decades, from the 1950s and ’60s through this very semester, the gallery spaces, theatre and classrooms will be full of guest artists, panelists, writers, and educators. Hear from curators about how they get creative with physical spaces, and learn from filmmakers known for their groundbreaking documentaries.
EXHIBITIONS
SVA Archives presents a collection of nearly 50 rarely seen collage works by the late Ivan Chermayeff, following a significant donation of hundreds of the design legend's works by his family to the Milton Glaser Design Study Center and Archives in 2020. While Chermayeff is best known for revolutionizing the field of visual communication and designing hundreds of recognizable corporate and institutional logos as one-half of Chermayeff & Geismar—the design firm he co-founded with Tom Geismar in the late 1950s—the pieces on view are largely personal works. His collages were his own form of drawing, by which he could both exploit the meaning held by the items and create new, unexpected associations.
Through Saturday, October 12 | “The Masters Series: Stefan Sagmeister” | SVA Chelsea Gallery
An award and exhibition honoring design giant Stefan Sagmeister, who has also taught at SVA, the 2024 Masters Series is a career retrospective that includes elements of Sagmeister’s past exhibitions, published books, design and film work, incorporating multiple “eras” of the artist’s long and storied career. More than three decades of sketchbooks, many posters—including ones commissioned by SVA as part of the College’s “subway poster” series—and design work dating back to the late 1980s will be on view. The show will include a miniature theater where Sagmeister’s film will screen on a loop, interactive installations, and even special take-home posters for visitors to the gallery.
Irwin Rubin, detail of Untitled Construction, painted wood, 1966. On view at “Irwin Rubin: ’60s Polychrome.”
Irwin Rubin, detail of Untitled Construction, painted wood, 1966. On view at “Irwin Rubin: ’60s Polychrome.”
BFA Visual & Critical Studies presents “Irwin Rubin: ’60s Polychrome,” an exhibition of painted wood constructions and collages by Brooklyn-born artist and educator Irwin Rubin (1930-2006), curated by faculty member Carmelle Safdie. The exhibition focuses on work Rubin produced between 1960 and 1966, including his boxed constructions made up of cropped pegs and bisected rods assembled into lollipop gardens, alien alphabets, and kaleidoscopic architectural structures atop which Rubin conducts planar explorations of color harmony and optical phenomenon. Contrasting these works in relief are intimate compositions made with cut paper, printed fabric, lace, and pressed leaves. Both the constructions and collages celebrate play, craft, material transformation and movement, establishing practices that became foundational to Rubin’s pedagogical approach to Color Theory. In addition to the historic works on view within the gallery, the exhibition includes Ben DuVall’s HTML/CSS Painting (after Rubin), 2024, on a monitor facing West 21st Street.
Wednesday, October 2 – Thursday, October 31 | “Support/Surface Redux” | SVA Flatiron Gallery
An exhibition of 3D works by students from the SVA BFA Fine Arts program, as well as students from Brno University of Technology, curated by SVA faculty member Luis Navarro and Brno University doctorate student Petr Mucha, taking place simultaneously in Prague at Bubec Gallery. Drawing parallels to the French art movement also known as “Support/Surface” during the late ’60s and early ’70s which deconstructed the material components of painting, “Support/Surface Redux” redefines this idea in the use of computer-generated 3D works. The exhibition reflects on the dual nature of support, both as a conceptual foundation and as a technical necessity in 3D printing. Employing plastic and resin, the pieces on view showcase the importance of support as an unseen partner necessary for the realization of the work, hence underscoring a symbiotic relationship between concept and material in contemporary art.
Wednesday, October 9 – Saturday, October 26 | “In Flux” | SVA Gramercy Gallery
An exhibition of thesis work by the MPS Digital Photography class of 2024, curated by New York City gallerist and SVA faculty member Debra Klomp Ching. “In their thesis projects, our students have explored our ever-changing and evolving neighborhoods, views of ourselves and our lifestyles, our relationships to our families, the divine and nature, and even our dreams,” says department chair Tom P. Ashe. “This pervasive flux in our world, and shown in these artists’ images, has the power to give us both the unease and hope that come from change.”
An exhibition of works by 15 artists from Project Vortex, an artist collective innovating with plastic debris, curated by founding artist Aurora Robson. By combining artistic expression with scientific exploration, “Plasticulture” aspires to encourage individuals and communities to embrace more sustainable practices and play a part in fostering a healthier planet. Operating at the intersection of art and science, the 45 works in “Plasticulture” inspire a rethinking and reinvention of the possibilities of plastic debris.
Quan Yuan, Drowning on the Road, 2024. On view at “In Flux.”
Quan Yuan, Drowning on the Road, 2024. On view at “In Flux.”
EVENTS
MFA Photography, Video and Related Media presents a discussion with acclaimed director, editor, and producer Sam Pollard (Atlanta’s Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children; MLK/FBI; South to Black Power; Bill Russell: Legend; Biography: Ol’ Dirty Bastard) and faculty member, artist, editor, and filmmaker Grahame Weinbren.
Wednesday, October 2, 9:00 – 10:00am | The Curatorial Roundtable: Katerina Gregos (Athens) | Online
MA Curatorial Practice presents a talk with Katerina Gregos, artistic director of the National Museum of Contemporary, Athens. Gregos will consider democracy, human rights, economy, ecology, crisis, and changing global production circuits in addressing her recent exhibitions “Modern Love (or Love in the Age of Cold Intimacies),” “Statecraft (and Beyond),” and the 1st Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art.
Tuesday, October 8, 3:00 – 5:00pm | Uri Aran | 133/141 W 21st St., room 101C
MFA Fine Arts presents a talk by the New York-based artist and program faculty member Uri Aran, part of the Talks lecture series. Aran has exhibited internationally with both group and solo exhibitions.
Tuesday, October 8, 7:00 – 8:30pm | i3 Photo Lecture: Meryl Meisler | 136 W 21st St, room 418F
MPS Digital Photography presents a talk with CLAMP, NYC and Polka, Paris representing the work of Meryl Meiser, part of the i3: Images, Ideas, Inspiration lecture series. Inspired by Dian Arbus, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Brassaï, and her dad Jack, Meisler, born in 1951, moved to NYC in 1975 to study with Lisette Model while documenting her own life with a queer, quirky eye. After retiring from 31 years as an NYC Public School Art Teacher, Meryl began releasing her archives in exhibits and monographs. Her photographs are a simultaneous celebration of discos and strip clubs, her Jewish family and Long Island suburb, school life in one of Brooklyn’s toughest neighborhoods, and more. Impertinent and comical, Meryl captures moments of pure joy at the center of daily hardships.
Wednesday, October 9, 5:00 – 6:00pm | The Curatorial Roundtable: Daisy Nam (San Francisco) | Online
MA Curatorial Practice presents a talk with Daisy Nam, director and curator of CCA Wattis Institute of Contemporary Art in San Francisco. Nam will talk about what she calls “curating for places and spaces,” discussing her work at Harvard University’s Carpenter Center, Ballroom Marfa, and the Wattis. She’ll discuss the ways she’s worked with artists she has exhibited in terms of physical space, historical context, and audience.
Tuesday, October 15, 3:00 – 5:00pm | Kris Grey: “Tension & Tethers” | 133/141 W 21st St, room 101C
MFA Fine Arts presents a lecture by the artist, curator, and educator Kris Grey, part of the Talks lecture series. Through individual and collaborative performances that display extreme vulnerability, Grey uses transness as a radical laboratory for building communities of affinity across identity and embodiment to interrogate the effects those systems have on access to life chances. Code switching between professional roles as an artist, educator, and activist, Grey’s social practice takes many forms. This lecture traces their unique, process-based approach to interrupting inherited systemic violence through different avenues of cultural and social engagement.
Wednesday, October 16, 9:00 – 10:00am | The Curatorial Roundtable: Hou Hanru (Paris) | Online
MA Curatorial Practice presents a talk with curator Hou Hanru, independent curator, former artistic director of MAXXI (National Museum of 21st Century Arts), Rome, and one of the most prolific international curators of the last three decades. Hanru will discuss some of his early biennales that have led to more recent projects.
Tuesday, October 22, 3:00 – 5:00pm | Alice Wang |133/141 W 21st St., room 101C
MFA Fine Arts presents a discussion with the artist Alice Wang, part of the Talks lecture series. Wang makes sculptures and experimental films that interrogate medium-specificity as both a conceptual schema and in the exploration of forms. Taking a phenomenological approach where the body is the site of knowledge production situated within a non-geocentric universe, Wang ventures to the Arctic, Biosphere 2, the Mayan Pyramids, and other geological, technological, and archaeological sites to investigate the uncanny dimensions of the natural world. Using metamorphic substances such as fossils, meteorites, electrons, plants, and heat, Wang engages the medium of sculpture as a critical framework to examine metaphysical questions about the nature of reality.
Tuesday, October 22, 7:00 – 8:30pm | i3 Photo Lecture: Owen Davies | 136 W 21st St, room 418F
MPS Digital Photography presents a talk with British architectural and still life photographer Owen Davies, part of its i3: Images, Ideas, Inspiration lecture series. Exploring the eccentricities of the American psyche and its relationship to the built environment, Owen seeks out the strange, surreal and often overlooked landscapes within the spaces we inhabit. Owen’s work has been shown in exhibitions in Paris (2021), London (2019, 2022, 2023), and Berlin (2023) and his work has been published in Designboom, BROAD Magazine and Grand Designs Magazine.
Stefan Sagmeister, Chaumont, 2004, lithograph, 69 x 46 ¾ inches. On view at “The Masters Series: Stefan Sagmeister.”
Stefan Sagmeister, Chaumont, 2004, lithograph, 69 x 46 ¾ inches. On view at “The Masters Series: Stefan Sagmeister.”
On the occasion of the publication of Is Art History?, a definitive volume of writings by one of the most renowned art historians of the past half century Svetlana Alpers, BFA Visual & Critical Studies and Honors Program will be hosting a panel discussion on the scholarship of this seminal figure in the field. She will be joined by colleagues Evelyn Lincoln (Brown University) and Richard Meyer (Stanford University), both distinguished scholars in their own right and former students of Alpers at UC Berkeley.
Tuesday, October 29, 3:00 – 5:00pm | Joe Fig | 133/141 W 21st St., room 101C
MFA Fine Arts presents a talk by the artist and alumnus, Joe Fig (MFA 2002 Fine Arts; BFA 1991 Fine Arts), part of the Talks lecture series. Fig is an artist known for work that explores the creative process, the spaces where art is made and contemplated. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally with over 30 solo and 50 group exhibitions. He is the author of the acclaimed books Inside the Painter’s Studio and Inside the Artist’s Studio, which share an intimate view inside the studios of today’s leading artists. His work can be found in numerous museums and leading private collections including the Parrish Museum, Norton Museum, New Museum, and the Fogg Museum.
Tuesday, October 29, 5:00 – 6:00pm | The Artists Roundtable: Edgar Arceneaux | Online
The Artists Roundtable, an international forum for leading practitioners, is hosted by Kate Fowle, MA Curatorial Practice faculty member. An artist, director, writer, and organizer, Edgar Arceneaux constructs drawings, installations, video, and film works as complex arrangements of association that examine adjacencies and points of contact between implausible relations. His work is in museum collections at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Museum Ludwig, the Hammer Museum, and Los Angeles Country Museum of Art, among others.