School of the Art Institute of Chicago Magazine, Spring 2018

SPRING 2018

A BIANNUAL MAGAZIN E

SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

I N TH I S I SSUE: E U G E NI A CHENG SHOWS HOW ART A N D M AT H AD D UP

SPRING 2018

A BIANNUAL MAGAZIN E

SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO 1

FRO M TH E PRE SID E NT

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MY CHI CAGO

Mika Tosca's Favorite Places in Chicago

5 NEWS 8

O N VI EW

Art and Science 1 6 CO NTI NU I NG S T UD IE S

Designer for a Day 1 7 S TRE E T S T Y LE

At Graduate Open Studio Night 1 8 FI E L D TRI P

An Artist’s Life 20 CA RE E R CONVE RSATIONS

Expert Advice from Jason Gillette 21 WH E RE I WORK

In the Studio with Tiffany Holmes 22 ABO U T A WORK

In the Museum with Peggy Macnamara 23 MY O B S E S S IONS

Lisa Wainwright on Her Obsessions

School of the Art Institute of Chicago magazine Published by the Office of Institutional Advancement 116 S. Michigan Ave., 6th floor Chicago, IL 60603 communications@saic.edu Vice President Institutional Advancement Cheryl Jessogne (MA 1999) Executive Director Marketing and Communications Scott J. Hendrickson

24 TH E PRO C E S S

Eduardo Kac on His Process

26 PA INTING BY NUMB ERS

How Art and Math Add Up

30 RE NA IS SANC E MAN

Walter Massey Connects Art and Science at SAIC

36 FA S HION ING THE FU T URE

At the Annual Runway Show 4 2 D IME NS I O NS O F CITI Z E NSHIP

SAIC at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale 4 4 ME E T THE GR ADUATING CL A S S 4 5 E ME RGING AR TIS T

Adela Goldbard 4 6 WHY I GIVE

Erina Shibata 4 7 TH E CA MPAIGN FO R SA IC UPDATE

Trevor Paglen (MFA 2002), “Beckett” (Even the Dead Are Not Safe) Eigenface, 2017, dye sublimation metal print 48 × 48 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York

4 9 A R T SCENE 5 0 CL A S S NOTE S 5 3 EVE NTS 5 7 F ROM THE ARCHIVE S

Elizabeth Buchsbaum Newhall

Director of Marketing Sarah Gardner Director of Public Relations Bree Witt Editor Bridget Esangga besang@saic.edu Contributing Editors Doug Kubek Ana Sekler (MA 2016) Design Studio Blue

Contributing Designers Riley Brady Jenny Halpern Jeffrey Sanchez Illustrator Patrick Jenkins (MFA 2013) Contributing Writers Zoya Brumberg (MA 2015) Micco Caporale (MA 2018) Jason Foumberg (MA 2006) Adrienne Samuels Gibbs Doug Kubek Liz Logan J. Howard Rosier (MFA 2018) Ana Sekler (MA 2016) Bree Witt

Photographers Fara Alhaidar (MA 2019) Sara Condo (BFA 2009) Grace DuVal (MDes 2015) Stephanie Murano James Prinz (MFA 1988) Mary Rafferty Todd Rosenberg (cover) Production Ethan G. Brown Printing The Graphic Arts Studio Inc.

From the President

I F YOU ate a bagel for breakfast this morning, you probably sliced it into two pieces. But, mathematician Eugenia Cheng’s bagel-cutting technique turns the bagel into a Möbius strip, exposing a fully schmear-able interior plane without separating the bread into separate top and bottom halves. With her unusual approach, Cheng makes a novel, playful, technical, and tangible model of a mathematical principle.

Those qualities of newness, delight, and a thoughtful and concrete realization of abstract ideas are also attributes we value in art and design.

This issue of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago magazine highlights our art and science initiatives. Though we may associate science with empirical fact and art with intuitive sensation, the articles in this issue underscore the mutually beneficial ways these fields overlap. For example, Cheng, a perennially popular teacher who originally came to the School as scientistin-residence, is this issue’s cover story. Her teaching and practice expose the synergies between math and art, building the conditions for interdisciplinary learning and innovative thinking.

Many of our art and science initiatives were championed

by Chancellor and former President Walter Massey. A theoretical physicist with a career as a leader in science and higher education, Massey says he quickly felt at home when he came to SAIC almost eight years ago. He attributed this, in part, to the overlap between how artists and scientists see their work and the world. Walter, featured in this issue during his last semester at SAIC, maintains that artists and scientists can engage in mutually beneficial work, leading to new solutions to persistent problems. I agree with Chancellor Massey, and this collective push toward futurity can also be seen in this issue’s other articles.

In a piece on the intensely prepared for and always beloved annual fashion show, students, faculty, and alumni exemplify how they boldly use garment design to exceed the limits of our bodies, shape our identities, and imagine the future of fashion.

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as a framework for understanding our complex, fluid, and contested notions about citizenship: who it includes and which rights and responsibilities are conferred with that status.

When it opens in May, Dimensions of Citizenship will be yet another example of the thinking across disciplines that has long been at the forefront of SAIC’s curriculum.

I hope you will enjoy this issue of the magazine, the most recent example of SAIC’s art and science tradition.

EL IS SA TENNY PRE SID ENT, SCHO OL O F THE AR T INS TIT U TE OF CHICAGO

Follow President Tenny on Instagram at instagram.com/saicpres.

Finally, the drive to explore and exceed boundaries can also be seen in the coverage of the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, for which SAIC and the University of Chicago have been named commissioners of the US Pavilion. The proposed exhibition, Dimensions of Citizenship, uses architecture SPRIN G 2 01 8

For SAIC students, the Art Institute of Chicago museum is an extension of their classroom, informing their creative and scholarly practices.

Encompassing 5,000 years of human expression from cultures around the world, the museum contains more than 300,000 works of art. Students can experience firsthand artwork from iconic artists, like SAIC alum Georgia O’Keeffe’s (SAIC 1905–06, HON 1967) monumental Sky above Clouds IV. With access to the museum collection, students can discover work that speaks to their current practice, inspiring them to move in new directions.

Photo: Grace DuVal (MDes 2015)

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Mika Tosca’s Chicago

MY CHI CAGO

Montrose Beach

After 12 years in Los Angeles, Mika Tosca made the cross-country leap to Chicago and SAIC last January.

Now a full-time professor in Liberal Arts, Tosca uses her background as a NASA scientist to teach climate science to students at SAIC. She also runs a weather blog documenting the effects of climate change.

This is her Chicago.

CHICAG O L AK EF RONT TR AIL

K ATHY OS TE RMA N B E ACH

M US E U M O F SC I E NC E A N D I N D US TRY ( M S I )

I’m a runner. There are all kinds of trails to run along the lakeshore, and I love running down from my neighborhood to Montrose Beach along the waterfront. It’s refreshing to be under the foliage, and I really like that a lot of people use that park, even during the winter. There’s something magical about seeing other people running and seeing their breath. It’s like humans and nature as one.

Over the summer I frequently went to one specific beach informally called Hollywood Beach. It’s primarily known as a queer beach, and being a trans person who recently started transitioning, I had never actually been on a beach in a bathing suit. It was the first beach I went to [after transitioning], and I was overwhelmed with how affirming and freeing it felt to be able to be on a beach wearing the right clothes.

MSI finds that happy medium of being accessible and also interesting, even to someone like me who literally studied the weather. As a scientist, I like doing crazy math and modeling and calculations, but I also like to just see a tornado—and they have that at MSI! As an educator, I can take some of those lessons and apply them to the way that I communicate science with people who aren’t trained scientists.

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D IA MANTE A ZU L It’s a really small restaurant, but it transports me back to LA in a way. Los Angeles has a really big Latinx influence, and every neighborhood has a good taco joint. I was surprised Chicago offers that, too. The people [at Diamante Azul] are amazingly friendly, and a lot of people speak Spanish.

The food is delicious, and it’s not expensive. It reminds me of good times, fun times. ▪ Visit Tosca’s weather blog at mikatosca.com.

News

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Alum Trevor Paglen Receives 2017 MacArthur “Genius” Grant The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation named artist and SAIC alum Trevor Paglen (MFA 2002) as one of its 24 MacArthur fellows for 2017. Paglen is a conceptual artist and geographer whose work makes the invisible operations of military and corporate power visible to everyday citizens. The MacArthur Fellowship is a “no strings attached” award in support of people, not projects.

Each fellowship comes with a stipend of $625,000 over five years. “Trevor Paglen is one of the most insightful artists I have ever met, a true ‘genius,’” said SAIC President Elissa Tenny. “Through his audacious practice, he creates images of the invisible that cloak the machinations of power. In this way, Trevor embodies two vital roles of democratic citizenship: the skeptic, who needs to see; and the artist, who reveals for us all to see.”

Anita K. Sinha Becomes Chair of SAIC’s Board of Governors

SAIC’s Board of Governors elected Anita K. Sinha to serve as its new chair. Sinha and her husband, Prabhakant Sinha, are longtime supporters of SAIC and its museum, the Art Institute of Chicago. She is the first woman to occupy the position and succeeded Cary D. McMillan as the leader of SAIC’s Board of Governors.

Trevor Paglen (MFA 2002) was named a 2017 MacArthur fellow. Photo courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation SPRIN G 2 01 8

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Institute for Curatorial Research and Practice Names Faculty Fellows

Magdalena Moskalewicz Receives the 2017 Jean Goldman Book Prize

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SAIC named Daniel Eisenberg, professor in the Film, Video, New Media, and Animation and Visual and Critical Studies departments, and Ellen Rothenberg, adjunct professor in Fiber and Material Studies, as the inaugural joint faculty research fellows of its Institute for Curatorial Research and Practice.

SAIC Named Commissioner of US Pavilion at Venice Architecture Biennale SAIC and the University of Chicago were selected to serve as commissioners of the US Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. As commissioners, the two institutions will organize Dimensions of Citizenship, the exhibition they proposed as the official US contribution to the 16th International Architecture Exhibition, on view from May 26 through November 25.

Columbus Drive Building Renovation Complete

Four years ago, SAIC began a modernization of the entire 142,000 square-foot Columbus Drive Building.

Renovations completed this fall include new educational spaces converted from the School’s former auditorium, restoration of the first floor stairwell to its original 1976 design, a new atrium traversing the second and third floors, and environmentally significant changes throughout the building.

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The recipient of this year’s Jean Goldman Book Prize is SAIC faculty member Magdalena Moskalewicz for her work editing the book, Halka/Haiti 18°48'05"N 72°23'01"W. The annual prize is awarded to the most outstanding publication by a faculty member teaching in SAIC’s Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism and was presented by SAIC President Elissa Tenny and James Rondeau, President and Eloise W. Martin Director of the Art Institute of Chicago, at the annual Literary Lions Luncheon on October 11 at the Casino Club in Chicago.

HEED Award Recognizes SAIC’s Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion For the fourth year in a row, SAIC received the 2017 Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award from INSIGHT into Diversity magazine, a national honor recognizing US colleges and universities that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion. As a recipient, the School was featured in the November 2017 issue of the magazine.

Topping Newcity’s Art 50 List Several members from SAIC’s community were included on Newcity’s 2017 Art 50 list of Chicago’s “visual vanguard,” artists, curators, educators, and collectors whose work has been instrumental in solidifying the city’s status as a leader in art and design. Among them are President Elissa Tenny, Dean of Graduate Studies Arnold J. Kemp, and several faculty and alumni.

SAIC’s Faculty Sweep Chicago Artadia Awards Artadia announced SAIC Photography Professor Claire Pentecost and Rashayla Marie Brown (BFA 2015), program mentor in SAIC’s Low-Residency MFA program, as recipients of its 2017 Chicago Artadia Awards. The national nonprofit supports visual artists with unrestricted, merit-based awards that include $10,000 along with other ongoing benefits.

Matching Gift to Help Surpass $50 Million Campaign Goal SAIC received a gift that enabled it to launch a matching incentive to help it reach and surpass the $50 million goal for Beautiful/Work: The Campaign for SAIC, the School’s first-ever major public fundraising campaign. The Chair of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Board of Trustees, Robert Levy, and his wife, Diane v.S. Levy, have made a generous gift to SAIC to help match any new contributions made to support student scholarships, fellowships, or the Annual Fund.

SAIC Receives 2017 Higher Education Civic Engagement Award SAIC was honored with the 2017 Higher Education Civic Engagement Award from the Washington Center. The School was selected for its leadership and innovation in civic engagement and was presented with the award during the Washington Center’s annual awards luncheon in Washington, DC, at the National Press Club on October 2.

Chancellor Massey Attends Nobel Prize Ceremony

Chris Bradley (MFA 2010) an SAIC alum currently teaching in the School’s Contemporary Practices and Sculpture departments, is one of four recipients of this year’s Meier Achievement Award, a $40,000 cash prize given to midcareer artists from the Helen Coburn Meier and Tim Meier Charitable Foundation for the Arts.

Walter Massey, chancellor of SAIC, attended the 2017 Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm on December 10, as the guest of Nobel laureate Kip Thorne, one of three scientists whose decisive role in building the first Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) earned a 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Thorne invited Massey in gratitude for his role as director of the National Science Foundation in overcoming hurdles and uncertainty in funding for the project. In October 2017, LIGO recorded gravitational waves formed by two colliding black holes.

Strategic Planning Underway

Hyde Park Art Center Gala Honors SAIC Chancellor and Professor

In spring 2017 SAIC began an ongoing process led by Provost Craig Barton that will culminate with a new strategic plan at the end of the 2017–18 academic year. Next: SAIC Strategic Plan will define the transformative goals that will help SAIC teach artists, designers, and scholars today and in the future. The process began with surveys and focus groups designed to gather input from the entire SAIC community. In December, faculty, staff, and students gathered in the SAIC Ballroom for an event exploring themes on community and belonging, resources and affordability, and the next innovations in SAIC curricula. The Strategic Planning Visioning Committee will integrate this input as it drafts the plan and design future opportunities for community involvement.

About 500 guests gathered at the Hyde Park Art Center on October 14 to celebrate the contributions Walter Massey, chancellor of SAIC, his wife Shirley Massey, and Professor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies Anne Wilson have made to the Chicago arts community. The event raised $380,000 to help the art center stay free and open to the public.

Down with Monuments? On the Making and Remaking of Public Memory The SAIC Ballroom was packed on October 23 as people from SAIC, the University of Chicago, and the wider Chicago community came together for a panel discussion titled “Down with Monuments? On the Making and Remaking of Public Memory.” The presentation, hosted by SAIC and the University of Chicago, investigated how public life is tangled up with the histories of public art. The panelists, professors from SAIC, Princeton University, University of Chicago, and University of Pittsburgh, took a historical and global perspective, presenting multiple examples for how people have responded to the tension between a changing politic and an inanimate symbol.

SAIC and North Lawndale Residents Plant Trees with Repurposed Weapons

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N EWS

Alum and Lecturer Receives Meier Achievement Award

In September SAIC brought artist Pedro Reyes to its Homan Square campus to restage his work Palas por Pistolas (Guns into Shovels) for Oaks of North Lawndale.

Reyes oversaw SAIC students, alumni, and North Lawndale community members in melting down confiscated firearms in SAIC’s mobile foundry. The molten metal was smithed into shovel heads, which were cooled and attached to wooden handles milled from local ash trees felled as a result of the emerald ash borer beetle. The ash handles were prepared by youth involved with Greater West Town Partnerships. Community members used these shovels to dig holes and plant trees. Limestone blocks were placed adjacent to each tree.

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SCIENCE I N SPI RE S SAIC AR TI S TS to create and innovate. MacArthur Fellow Trevor Paglen (MFA 2002) examined image making by machines and artificial intelligence algorithms in his latest exhibition, A Study of Invisible Images at New York’s Metro Pictures last fall. Justus Harris (BA 2013) offers sculptural data visualizations that help people understand

SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

and manage their health. And Adjunct Assistant Professor Lindsey French (MFA 2013, Contemporary Practices and Art and Technology Studies) engages with nature, science, and technology to provide innovative ways of understanding and relating to our world.

Trevor Paglen Over the past decade or so, images have become detached from human eyes.

Most surveillance images are made by machines for other machines, with humans rarely in the loop. The 2017 MacArthur “genius” grant recipient Trevor Paglen (MFA 2002) brought these images

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into view for his exhibition A Study of Invisible Images at New York’s Metro Pictures gallery last fall. Paglen’s exhibition was composed of three loosely defined types of invisible images: machine readable landscapes, training images, and things that we might call “ghosts.” Near Nogales is a machine-readable landscape showing the US/ Mexico border through computer vision algorithms

that continually monitor the border for movements and changes to the landscape.

Paglen’s “ghosts” are images like "Fanon," made inside the computer vision systems that machines use to teach themselves how to see.

Trevor Paglen (MFA 2002), “Fanon” (Even the Dead Are Not Safe) Eigenface, 2017, dye sublimation metal print, 48 × 48 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York

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ON V I EW

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Trevor Paglen (MFA 2002), Near Nogales Maximally Stable Extremal Regions; Good Features to Track, 2017, pigment print, 28 ½ × 40 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York

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Justus Harris

ON V I EW

Justus Harris (BA 2013) is an artist and entrepreneur. He founded MedSculp, a company that produces products to help people with diabetes and chronic conditions understand their experiences creatively. Through data visualization, infographic design, and customized artworks, MedSculp inspires

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and empowers patients to take ownership of their health.

His Diabetes Data Sculptures transform thousands of data points from glucose monitors over a one-month period into concise digital visualizations that can be 3D-printed as objects people can hold in the palm of their hand. Harris received an SAIC MakeWork Challenge award, which offers SAIC students and recent alumni an opportunity to present business pitches for

Diabetes Data Sculptures

a chance to win awards up to $10,000 in start-up funding.

Harris’ award allowed him access to mHUB, a 63,000 square-foot facility that contains 10 fabrication labs and a community of manufacturers, university researchers, and local entrepreneurs.

Justus Harris (BA 2013) holding Diabetes Data Sculptures

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Lindsey French, Adjunct Assistant Professor in Contemporary Practices and Art and Technology Studies

ON V I EW

Artist and educator Lindsey French’s (MFA 2013) work engages in communication with landscapes and other nonhuman entities and is motivated by respectful collaboration with the natural world. Smelling Salts for Dinner Party posed questions

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of passivity and production, photosynthesis and promiscuity, while French guided guests to inhale photoluminescent smelling salts by crushing a quail egg. In seductiveness the which issued by the whole person, the first of a series of novels written by trees, French developed a framework for

conversation between herself and an oak tree, based on a relationship formed between vocal vibration, the tree’s vibration, and the literary text of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando.

Lindsey French (MFA 2013), Smelling Salts for Dinner Party, 2017, quail’s eggshell containing spirits of hartshorn, essence of spinach, silt, violet, bergamot, thyme

Lindsey French (MFA 2013), seductiveness the which issued by the whole person, 2012, paperback novel

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Designer for a Day Preteens design a food-themed final runway show at SAIC’s fashion camp

CON TI N UI N G STUDI ES

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Student designs from SAIC’s 2017 Intro to Fashion middle school summer camp

“I HAVEN’T D ON E A LOT OF SEWING , [but] I do a lot of designing, a lot of sketching; they’re all up on my wall,” explains Bryce Ferrall, one of the middle schoolers in SAIC’s Intro to Fashion summer camp.

After two weeks of cultivating ideas from pencil sketch to finished garment, the students line up eagerly along the SAIC Ballroom staircase, ready to model their designs in a foodthemed capstone fashion show on August 17.

From watermelon gowns to scaly fish pantsuits, the creations of the budding designers present a dazzling array of shapes, colors, and

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textures to an audience of family members who, with cameras ready, anxiously wait for their young designer’s creation to appear.

Guided by instructors Naava Weiner (MFA 2014) and Shonna Pryor (MFA 2012), the campers learn different patternmaking methods, workshop ways that fabric can be manipulated for dramatic effect, and learn to approach fashion conceptually. Students are encouraged to “think about fashion as sculpture

and sculpture as an act of translation,” explains Weiner.

While Ferrall’s muslin highwaisted pant and sleeveless top ensemble do not immediately resemble fish, subtle pleating creates an elegant effect of fish scales on the top and a fish tail at the back of the pant, showing her creative take on the theme.

Raine Williams, who produced a lollipop-inspired final look, says the course gave her a chance to “let [her] creative energy flow.” She’s known for making accessories and trinkets for friends, but now—armed with the basics she’s picked up from camp—she has another outlet for all that creativity, and she’s eager to keep at it on her home sewing machine.

Weiner, who teaches the course year-round, says that she is, “continually, delightfully surprised with how much [students] can put together and how good it truly is.” The students get to try on more than just their own designs as they find out what it’s like to be fashion designer for a day. ▪ Continuing Studies middle school programs for preteens (ages 10–13) offer a rigorous investigation into art and design materials, techniques, and ideas.

See our current offerings for youth (ages 4–13), high school students, and adults at saic.edu/cs.

Street Style At Graduate Open Studio Night

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ON FRI DAY, November 3, graduate students opened their studios to the community and the public for SAIC’s annual Graduate Open Studio Night. As visitors made their way through each building, they saw student work in progress and experienced SAIC’s unique fashion sense. Here are our editors’ picks of some of the best street style from that evening.

Why this outfit?

I bought these pants with the zipper busted, and I repaired them. I like loose clothing.

Favorite part?

The pants.

What is your personal style?

I’m really influenced by the ‘90s.

Sometimes I feel like Jennifer Aniston in Friends.

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MADELINE FELAUER

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Why this outfit?

I knew I would have to be in my studio impressing people tonight, so I wore a nice button down. My bottoms are almost always exactly the same: skinny jeans and Docs.

Favorite part?

My bolo tie.

Why this outfit?

It’s my normal outfit.

EVAN FUSCO

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Favorite part?

The sweater. It’s a Japanese dessert that I like, kind of like a cake.

What is your personal style?

Random, mix and match. ▪

What is your personal style?

Minimal, goth cowpoke.

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A student sketches from a photograph of the Roger Brown Study Collection.

Lecturer Tim Nickodemus (right) and a student study objects in the living room.

Student kneels in front of a Japanese tea box in the living room.

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Students study objects in the dining room.

A GRO U P O F S T U D E NTS ascend a staircase into an eclectic world of objects and art, both high and low, set among the trappings of every day life at SAIC’s Roger Brown Study Collection in Lincoln Park. Each year Lecturer Tim Nickodemus takes his Research Studio for Transfer Students class here to illustrate the connections between their art and their lives.

An essential aspect of Roger Brown’s artistic path was the creation of home, studio, and garden settings that integrated his collection of art and objects. As the end of his life neared in the late 90s, Brown donated the collection, two of his homes, and many of his own paintings to SAIC, entrusting the School with his legacy and providing a unique and invaluable resource for students, especially new undergraduate students.

About half an hour before the class ends, students return to the first-floor studio to integrate their research into an in-class assignment. They have to create a replica of a room and the objects related to their obsession using only white paper, tape, and scissors.

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F I EL D TRI P

An Artist’s Life Students examine the intersections of art and life at the Roger Brown Study Collection.

In between cutting and taping, Nicolas Foyer (BFA) says of the project, “I never really noticed my process, and now I’m keying into why I do things.”

Roger Brown Study Collection Curator Lisa Stone says Brown believed perceptions of an artist’s work are amplified through the lens of the artist’s life. ▪

“Being in a house makes them think about how they set up their home studio and home environment to reflect their artistic interests and be very intentional about the way one lives as an artist,” says Nickodemus.

Nickodemus asked students to use the collection for research on a project dealing with obsessions. In class, the students reveal a range of ideas from the obsessive organization of fine design to looking at the world through the eyes of a cat.

They observe, photograph, and sketch as they wind their way through the living room, bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen, considering how the objects Brown collected relate to each other, to his work, and ultimately their own practice.

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Expert Advice from Jason Gillette (BFA 2010)

CA R EER CON V ERSATI ON S

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A S O N E O F SA I C ’s Career and Professional Experience (CAPX) initiatives, Nexus Career Conversations gives students a chance to interact with alumni and creative professionals about their career journeys. Spring 2018 speakers include Jason Gillette (BFA 2010). Gillette transforms everyday life through design for people working in contemporary open-office spaces.

The entrepreneurial alum saw a business opportunity in his own frustration with working in a noisy and distracting environment. In 2016 he founded TURF, a design company that fights noise and echo with sculptural acoustic ceiling and wall installations. Gillette’s sales pitch: They’re beautiful, made of recycled plastics, and allow people to focus on their work. Here’s an excerpt from our conversation with him.

What future did you envision as a student?

When I started, I wanted to be a practicing fine artist, maybe do art installations or activations that could somehow be used for commercial purposes. Toward the end of [my] time at SAIC, I knew that I wanted to use space as a tool to change something.

What was your biggest challenge, and how did you overcome it?

The biggest challenge I faced was building a pop-up solar-power car charging station for a major global automaker.

Because of things outside of my control, we were running behind on that project. I asked for an extension, and they told me “no.” We shipped it incomplete knowing that I’d have to fix it. It arrived at the Italian border and was hung up in customs for four days. I had five days’ worth of work, and

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now I only had one day to complete it before its official launch.

When the structure arrived, it didn’t fit in the facility. We sequestered a nearby abandoned auto body shop. We were able to get a clean floor and start working, but the shop didn’t have electricity. I knocked on the neighbor’s door and ran an extension to have power to work through the night. I also had to figure out a way to convert the US electrical system to a European electrical system in an abandoned auto body shop outside of Milan, running off of extension cords.

You made it?

It wasn’t the most beautiful execution, but we made it. Because of that, we won a couple awards. That experience taught me how to navigate incredible stress. That’s a really profound thing to learn.

Advice to new entrepreneurs?

The practical advice is to live radically below your means. If you make $500 a month, figure out a way to live on $100 a month. It will make you feel comfortable taking risks.

What’s your five-year plan?

I think the expectation is that I have a very clear vision of my future. The reality: I don’t. I actually think it’s a liability to have a clear picture of what you want in life. I take every opportunity that presents itself to implement good design with critical thought and rigor. I let it shape my future. ▪ Visit saic.edu/careers to learn more about SAIC’s career programs and find out how to become one of our experts.

In the Studio with Tiffany Holmes

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“Being able to make my work alongside my family allows me to feel present in their lives and imaginatively active.”

WHERE I WORK

“I am an artist, a teacher, a dean, and a mother of a nine-year-old boy and six-year-old girl.

TI F FA NY H O LM E S makes art in a 100-year-old frame house in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood.

She bought the building in 2007 and integrates her family life and art making on every level.

Holmes, whose work focuses on sustainability, recently collected unwanted toys from fellow parents overwhelmed by the volume of plastic in their homes. Using the discarded toys, she created a data visualization based on real-world plant and animal ratios. Holmes chose her

workspace depending on the day’s task. Her children helped her color-sort the toys in the kitchen. To measure the space the toys would require in the exhibition, Holmes used the large dining table on the main floor. When she needed to concentrate, she retreated to the upstairs office. There is a practicality to the set-up, an economy she impresses upon her own children. “Think about what you actually need,” she tells them. ▪

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In the Museum with Peggy Macnamara Winslow Homer, The End of Day, Adirondacks

A B OUT A WORK

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Winslow Homer, The End of the Day, Adirondacks, 1890, watercolor on paper, 354 × 508 mm

GHOS TS OF GR APHITE LI N E S and half-erased blots of unsure color surround the pensive canoer as he floats upon the water. Echoes of redacted marks tell a story beyond that which is painted—a story of landscape, light, and contemplative image-making. Every mark upon the paper discloses Winslow Homer’s arduous process of capturing a scene from life and all the uncertainties behind it.

For Professor Peggy Macnamara (Visual Communication Design), the apparent traces visible beyond the forefront of End of the Day, Adirondacks (1890) are far more than marks of character; they are exemplary tools for teaching the underrated art of watercolor painting. Macnamara’s students often come to her Scientific Illustration course believing “the myth of watercolor is that once you lay it down, you can’t change anything.” Guiding her students through Adirondacks and other Homer originals is one of the ways that Macnamara challenges her students’ preconceived notions of the limits of watercolor painting. The visibility of Homer’s layers and edits of the painting can be broken down and emulated, giving

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students the opportunity to study the craft of watercolor through seeing and doing simultaneously.

Homer was a master of the watercolor painting, but his Adirondacks is anything but immaculate. It shows the necessity for process—the core of what Macnamara aims to teach her students through her classes. She says her courses are about “observing reality, laying down what’s in front of you, not thinking so much about the result as the experience of making the painting.”

Students at SAIC can become so overwhelmed by developing their concepts that they cannot find the time to simply make.

Macnamara’s courses offer a respite from the intellectual labor of art making by giving students a space to focus purely on their craft, which proves to be invaluable for them as they continue to develop their bodies of work. While some students do go on to work in scientific illustration, others—including a sizable contingent of Art Therapy graduate students—are able to develop their technical skills while experiencing the therapeutic effects of drawing from life. “They get to have a moment of peace where they’re not thinking the whole time, and then through this process, they’ll come to some better understanding of what they want to do,” says Macnamara. ▪

Lisa Wainwright on Her Obsessions

Rauschenberg

The Crown A F TER 2 0 YE ARS in SAIC’s administration, Dean of Faculty Lisa Wainwright is hanging up her hat— figuratively, of course—as dean and returning to the faculty to teach art history. As the point person for faculty development and curricular changes, Wainwright uses her eclectic hat and shoe collection to “be semioutrageous without being thrown out of the room.”

Wainwright came to SAIC on the heels of finishing her PhD at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. She started her career teaching in the

Art History, Theory, and Criticism department, where she’ll return next year following a sabbatical.

This return to her first love— art history—excites her. Here are some other things that are thrilling to this decorated art historian.

ACC E S SORI E S Early in my single life, I discovered this famous milliner and alum—Raymond Hudd—who had a store near my home. I wandered into his shop after a bad breakup, and he was amazing. I would have these therapy sessions with him, then walk out with a breakup hat. Now I’ve been happily married for five years, so I have only staying-in-love hats.

MY OB SESSI ON S

Raymond Hudd

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Ann Patchett A R TI S T I’m from Miami, and Robert Rauschenberg was also a Southerner.

It’s weird because here’s this gay, male Texan, but I felt like I totally related to him. I understood his awe around what it meant to be an American and the optimism he had. I also am completely smitten with the breadth of art history. Rauschenberg and I both have eclectic art interests, so in a way, I got to study the whole history of art through him and his appropriations.

T V S H OW Television was forbidden growing up, so now I’m obsessed with it.

I especially love The Crown because monarchies are so anathema to my politics.

They seem so anachronistic, and I’m fascinated. So, The Crown—and anything about Princess Diana, who would have been my age.

BO O K S My love is fiction.

Ann Patchett is my favorite.

With nonfiction, I meander.

I look at a footnote, and I go, “Oo, that sounds good . . . ” So the way I talk about art history is in bed at night. Oh, that sounds terrible! ▪

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Eduardo Kac on His Process (MFA 1990)

Thomas Pesquet (left) and Eduardo Kac (MFA 1990) at the Paris Air Show in 2015. Photo: Perrine Gamot/CNES

THE PROCESS

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A R T I S T A N D P RO F E S S O R of Art and Technology Studies Eduardo Kac (MFA 1990) recently completed the launch of the world’s first zerogravity artwork in outer space. Called Inner Telescope, it took Kac nearly 10 years to research, plan, and execute the event that he describes as “a performance for one astronaut, two sheets of paper, and a pair of scissors”—a coy oversimplification for the elaborate interdisciplinary project completed with the French Space Agency’s Culture Lab (L’Observatoire de l’Espace) and the European Space Agency.

Astronaut Thomas Pesquet agreed to enact Kac’s instructions for making Inner Telescope during his February 2017 mission aboard the International

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Space Station. “He understood my idea right away,” recalls Kac of their initial meeting. Still, the artwork would require the artist to navigate the protocols of aeronautic and space exploration through a multiyear planning process before Inner Telescope could be fully realized.

Kac is a long-time innovator of technology art and digital poetry. He made his first digital artwork in 1982, programmed early interactive Internet art, and has written poetry using DNA, satellites, and holograms. He also coined the term “BioArt,” which has grown into a new field of investigation for artists.

THE PROCESS

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Above Top to bottom: Eduardo Kac’s (MFA 1990) Inner Telescope floating in the International Space Station, in orbit around the Earth. Photo: Thomas Pesquet/ESA/CNES. Courtesy Henrique Faria Fine Art, New York Eduardo Kac’s (MFA 1990) Inner Telescope floating with astronaut Thomas Pesquet in the Columbus Module of the International Space Station. Photo: Thomas Pesquet/ESA/CNES Right Eduardo Kac (MFA 1990), Inner Telescope Protocol, 2014. Courtesy Henrique Faria Fine Art, New York

For Inner Telescope, Kac’s goal was to again break new ground by making the first alien artwork, fabricated and displayed entirely beyond Earth. Using materials available aboard the International Space Station, Pesquet cut, folded, and steered the weightless paper sculpture, which resembles a miniature International Space Station, through the spacecraft.

Kac used the astronaut’s recording of the space choreography to craft a 12-minute video artwork.

Since all of an astronaut’s time is accounted for onboard, even an artwork would require a research dossier submitted in advance, including the performance’s exact duration. Kac produced a storyboard showing how the astronaut would make the artwork in space. The artist also created a

series of black pen drawings, colorful embroideries, photographs, and artist’s books, among other works.

These pieces were widely exhibited in 2017 and they’ll be shown throughout 2018 in New York and London, among other cities. In January 2018, the Louvre in Paris showcased Inner Telescope with a screening and a debate.

Kac believes that when humans someday inhabit a planet beyond Earth, we will make art there.

“We have to express ourselves. We can’t help it,” he says.

“This project was a first step.” ▪

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Eugenia Cheng shows how art and math add up.

by Liz Logan

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Previous page: Eugenia Cheng uses a Slinky toy and a bagel to demonstrate the concept of a torus, the geometric shape of a bagel. A torus can be cut into a Möbius strip.

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PA I N TI N G BY N UMB ERS

This page: Eugenia Cheng looks at a math-inspired self portrait by student Jordan Vela (BFA 2020).

S T U D ENTS SE T TLE I NTO TH E I R SE ATS in Professor Eugenia Cheng’s classroom, and in a moment she has their full attention. She shares a funny story about the look a cashier gave her when she asked for bagels with the biggest possible hole. Her students laugh and watch intently as Cheng cuts a bagel into a Möbius strip, a one-sided surface discovered by two German mathematicians in 1858. Cheng uses bagels, Slinkies, and Play-Doh to illustrate key principles of topology, advanced mathematical concepts that can be difficult to grasp.

“She really cares about her students and cares about teaching,” says Paola Santos-De Soto (BFA 2020), an architecture student who studied with Cheng in the fall. “When she gives examples, she connects them to a part

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of our lives so we understand how [math] plays a role in everyday life.”

Infinity: An Expedition to the Outer Limits of Mathematics.

A theoretical mathematician and author of two books on popular mathematics, Cheng joined SAIC as scientist-inresidence in the spring of 2015. Since then, her class The Elegance of Abstraction has unleashed a contagious enthusiasm for math among SAIC undergraduates.

Every semester, there’s a waiting list for her class.

Cheng was born in Sussex, England, and earned her PhD in mathematics from Cambridge University. She held postdoctoral positions around the world— including at the University of Chicago— and received tenure at the University of Sheffield in northern England. But after several years at the job, “I wasn’t happy, and it dawned on me that I wasn’t using all of my abilities,” she recalls.

Teaching art students also fits perfectly Just as she planned to resign from her with Cheng’s mission to make math tenured position for good, she heard about accessible. Her first book, How to Bake Pi: SAIC’s Scientist-in-Residence program An Edible Exploration of the Mathematics and applied. of Mathematics, cleverly married baking with her expertise in category theory, “I was so excited about the idea of a highly abstract field concerned with how investigating math from an art student’s math works. After its debut in 2015, point of view,” she says. “I knew that the book sold tens of thousands of copies a lot of these students probably didn’t like and was translated into eight languages. math in high school because of how it Cheng was featured in the New York was taught, and I wanted to help them find Times and appeared as a guest on The a new way to get back into it.”

Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Last year, she published a second book, Beyond

“When she gives examples, she connects them to a part of our lives so we understand how [math] plays a role in everyday life.”

In her course The Elegance of Abstraction, class projects are open-ended, guided by a concept but with no right answers. They open students’ minds and make them think deeply about the meaning of math.

“The whole idea is that you can make your own math, like making your own recipe in the kitchen,” Cheng says. “The projects lead my students to have profound discussions of concepts such as symmetry.”

Tiffany Holmes, dean of undergraduate studies, notes that while many students are eager to take science classes related to nature and the environment, strong interest in math classes is unusual. She observes, “Eugenia’s course deals with tough stuff, math concepts that are hard to visualize, but she makes them concrete using fun props like pies and biscuits.”

The Scientist-in-Residence program was initiated in 2014 to bring in top international thinkers in science,

technology, engineering, and math to share their knowledge with art students.

David Gondek, a mathematician who helped develop the Watson artificial intelligence system at IBM, first held the position. Holmes says, “A major part of our curriculum is teaching artists to embrace curiosity, think beyond their discipline, and engage with risky concepts that they don’t understand.”

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Unlike other scientists-in-residence, whose engagements have been one semester, Cheng has been teaching at SAIC for two years now. This spring she is teaching a new course, Mathematical Secrets of Music, which combines her interest in math and her passion for music.

Holmes says SAIC is committed to engaging Cheng as a teacher “for as long as she wants to be here.” ▪

Eugenia Cheng, Emmy Noether: Struggle—Freedom, 2017, chalk on chalkboard photographed and printed. Cheng created this piece in honor of the German Jewish mathematician Emmy Noether (1882–1935), who was recognized as one of the most creative mathematicians in modern times. The six-pointed star is also the first stage of fractalization of the Koch snowflake, the mathematical structure depicted around it.

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RENAISSANCE MAN 30

TH EORE TICA L PHYS I C IS T WA LTE R MA S SE Y CO NNEC TS A R T, SCIE NCE , A ND THE CIT Y OF CHICAGO AT SAIC .

by Adrienne Samuels Gibbs

I F YO U A S K the outgoing chancellor and former president of SAIC about the legacy he is leaving behind after more than a half decade of groundbreaking service, he gives an unexpected response. His legacy is a journey of collaborating with faculty and staff, says Walter Massey.

A large part of Massey’s impact stems from his teambuilding mindset and ability to read a situation and make use of everyone’s talents.

“I think we did a lot these past seven years,” says Massey, sitting in his corner office overlooking a rainy Monroe Street in downtown Chicago. He shifts in his chair and adjusts a crisply starched shirt that has somehow remained untouched by even a dewdrop. “I do! And, it is we.”

The president can start programs and allocate resources, says Massey, but the faculty make the programs work. A prominent physicist himself, Massey supported faculty who were already working with Argonne Labs, and he led the way to an even deeper engagement between artists and scientists by launching the Conversations on Art and Science lecture series and inspiring a Scientist-in-Residence program.

“I feel pleased about the attention we brought to the overlap between art and science,” says Massey. “The world needs scientists and artists and, by extension, they need each other.

My view is that there is a lot of commonality between the way the people in the two fields think about themselves and think about the whole world. They benefit from knowing each other better and working together.” ▶

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“The world needs scientists and artists and, by extension, they need each other.�

Massey is able to support these intersections and increase access to higher education among diverse communities because of his unique history as a theoretical physicist, long-standing leadership in higher education, and his tenure as a lead scientist at Argonne National Laboratories, where he worked twice: in the 1960s, during the heart of the civil rights movement, and again in the 1980s. As an African American physicist, Massey’s experience collaborating with diverse populations at places such as Argonne and at the University of Illinois revealed that exposing more students to math and science careers could also provide a workaround for the kinds of prejudice experienced in many fields.

“You have to understand the world of theoretical physics,” says Massey. “There probably were career obstacles, but they were not that prominent. The most difficult thing in doing physics is just to do physics.”

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He chuckles. Not to downplay the racism, because it did exist. But his experiences helping students navigate racial issues is partly why he enjoys ushering diverse minds into higher education.

“One of the things I have always felt passionate about is improving access, especially into fields where there’s obvious underrepresentation,” says Massey. “When I came here I found that is also true in art and design. So we created an office of community engagement to bring together a number of things that the School and faculty had already been doing.”

Massey was first offered the job as president of SAIC on an interim basis. When deciding whether to accept, Massey leaned on the expertise of wife, Shirley Massey, who has a desk right outside of the chancellor’s office. “I talked it over with Shirley,” says Walter Massey, adding that she enjoys hosting events and supporting students. And it doesn’t hurt that she’s “a really good fundraiser.” Walter Massey was named full-time president, and then chancellor for a total of eight years of service to the School. ▶

Opposite: Walter Massey cutting the ribbon at the opening of Nichols Tower at Homan Square with (to his right) Alderman Michael Scott Jr. and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and

(to his left) John and Alexandra Nichols and Executive Director of North Lawndale Employment Network Brenda Palms Barber

This page, left: Walter Massey in Antarctica during his time as the director of the National Science Foundation, ca. 1992 This page, right: Walter Massey speaking to a graduate student during the installation of the MFA Show

REN A I SSA N CE MA N

Access and diversity are also high points of Massey’s tenure.

Under his leadership, SAIC opened a classroom in the West Side community of Homan Square and began offering free art classes to area residents in addition to opportunities for SAIC students. The College Arts Access Program and the Walter and Shirley Massey Chicago Scholarship fund were created to bring more Chicago Public Schools graduates to SAIC.

REN A I SSA N CE MA N

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“Looking back at my career, it may look like it all fits together, but SAIC President Elissa Tenny continues to build on the work that she and Massey started together. Tenny served as SAIC’s provost I can tell you from living it that there was no plan,” he says.

“I can say that you have to be willing to take some risk. Not crazy for six years before taking the School’s helm, working with risks. But some.”

Massey to strengthen the School’s financial position, increase fiscal transparency, and steward strategic initiatives, including A prominent physicist taking a job at a school of art and design efforts to support diversity among students and faculty. was a risk until the Masseys began to feel, almost immediately, at home. And now Walter Massey hopes his legacy makes this “Given the breadth of Shirley and Walter’s lives in service to the home even more accessible to more people and disciplines. Art public good, their biggest contribution is how they bring all their worlds together,” says Tenny. “That’s certainly their lasting really could be the cure for some of society’s ailments, he says. legacy to SAIC: bringing the life of the School and the life of “Through their work [artists] can educate, arouse, motivate the city closer together. They can make a room full of strangers people in certain directions,” says Massey. “Artists can and do friends and teammates; they unify disparate communities.” make a big difference in the world.” ▪ As he prepares to retire in May, Walter Massey already has his next steps in place. He is working with the University of Chicago on a super telescope that will be built in Chile. He also has accepted an assignment, at the request of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, to chair the board of trustees for the City Colleges of Chicago.

Left: Walter Massey engages students in a science classroom at SAIC.

Right: Shirley and Walter Massey in their Hyde Park home

“They can make a room full of strangers friends and teammates.�

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Y E AR-END FA SHI ON SH OW PROVI D E S A VISION OF TH E F U T URE TO S T UD E NTS A ND AU DIENC E S ALI K E .

By Ana Sekler (MA 2016)

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Previous spread: Oscar Chen (BFA 2017), No Homo collection, Fashion 2017 runway show Top: Ching Yeh (BFA 2018), Fashion 2017 runway show

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Left: Michel‘Le Forrest (BFA 2018), Strands collection, Fashion 2017 runway show Right: Oscar Chen (BFA 2017), No Homo collection, Fashion 2017 runway show

“Watching my collection go down the runway and the models telling me how they felt in my garments . . . made the entire year worth it,” says Michel’Le Forrest (BFA 2018), whose senior collection, Strands, used knit, wool, and hair to illustrate the relationship between hair and the identity of the Black woman.

Forrest’s collection had an impact on alum and fashion designer Maria Pinto (BFA 1990, HON 2017), who posted a runway shot of Forrest’s work on her Instagram account during the show with the caption “Brave new world.” To Pinto the annual event “tells you a lot about this next generation: what’s coming, and what do they see?” she says.

Pinto herself was once one of these visionary students.

Long before she was designing clothes for former First Lady Michelle Obama, she studied sculpture, painting, and fashion at SAIC. She was drawn to the School for its balance of studying fashion within an art school. “Sculpture and architecture really play into how I develop my designs. Having that day to day [as a student] of walking through the museum and seeing beautiful art played a significant role and still does,” says Pinto.

SAIC’s interdisciplinary approach to fashion is intentional. “It enlarges how students can work through their ideas and figure out their potential on the body,” explains Katrin Schnabl, Sage Foundation Chair of the Department of Fashion Design.

Before the five-look collections created by SAIC seniors sashay down the runway, they undergo months of research, conceptualization, and development. Alex Ulichny (BFA 2012), who dressed Lady Gaga for the 59th Annual Grammy Awards in an embellished leather crop jacket from his Breed collection, relies on the research and conceptual skills that he developed at SAIC in designing for his eponymous fashion label today.

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FASHI ONI N G THE F UTURE

GARMENTS ON A MODEL walking down the runway perform as they move, activating the space and revealing a part of the designer along the way. Each spring since its inception in 1934, the Department of Fashion Design at SAIC celebrates its students and their designs at an annual runway show and exhibition that blurs the lines between fashion and art, pushing the boundaries of what fashion is and preparing students for life after school.

Research is also important to New-York based designer Gary Graham (BFA 1992), whose collections have become known for their casual luxury and sense of history. His student collection was based on Jean Genet’s novel Our Lady of the Flowers, ▶

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FASHI ONI N G THE F UTURE

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and later collections for his eponymous label have been inspired by Dust Bowl era portraits and antique engravings of botanical specimen. “The way I conceive and do research is exactly the same as when I was studying at SAIC. It’s working as an artist, a designer, and researcher,” he says.

From research to development, the preparation leading up to the fashion show is intense, but the support and camaraderie in the Fashion program counterbalances the pressure. Pinto remembers the experience of preparing for the show as one that resembles her life in the fashion world today. “SAIC put us through the paces in a good way that made us understand. You go home tonight, and you need to come up with 20 more designs for tomorrow morning. That’s how it really is,” she says.

Ulichny’s long hours of sewing, cutting, and almost living in the studio at SAIC taught him something important. “I realized that I could do something that I didn’t think I could do. I didn’t know how much I could produce by myself,” he says.

This spring semester, today’s Fashion Design students are learning the same lessons as they prepare their visions of the future of fashion for the 2018 runway show and exhibition. See their garments come to life on the runway on May 4, at Venue Six10 at the Spertus Institute in Chicago. ▪

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Associate Professor Anke Loh (left) and Sage Foundation Fashion Chair Katrin Schnabl (right) review senior Oscar Chen‘s (BFA 2017) collection in preparation for the year-end runway show.

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Michel‘Le Forrest (BFA 2018), Strands collection, Fashion 2017 runway show

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DIMENSIONS OF CITIZENSHIP

BY JA SO N F O U M BE RG ( MA 2 0 0 6 )

US Pavilion will presentArchitecture the US contribution to the 2018 Venice Biennale Venice Architecture 2018 Biennale.

SAIC and the University of Chicago

“At the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, we are always engaging with how artists, designers, and scholars enact their citizenship,” says SAIC President Elissa Tenny. “This means recognizing the responsibility artists and designers have to explore pressing issues, like the politics of belonging, and generate new ideas, which help us better share our common humanity.”

The curatorial team is lead by Ann Lui, Assistant Professor in Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects (AIADO) at SAIC; Niall Atkinson, Associate Professor of Architectural History at the University of Chicago; and Mimi Zeiger, an independent critic based in Los Angeles, who spearheaded the pavilion’s winning theme, Dimensions of Citizenship. The exhibit opens May 26, and runs through November 25.

“The issue of citizenship is incredibly urgent today,” says Lui, who acknowledges its complexity in today’s cultural and political climate. “We are defining citizenship not just as a national or legal affiliation, but also asking what it means to belong to a region or a city, what it means to participate on a Reddit board, to protest in a city park, to be a fan of a football team, or drink from a certain watershed.” The expansive contexts

give greater breadth to the meaning of citizenship today.

Lui and her co-curators selected seven participating architect teams to enact the theme. They include Chicago’s Studio Gang, which is led by Jeanne Gang (HON 2013), and New York’s Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Artists and thinkers from nontraditional backgrounds round out the list, including Amanda Williams with Andres L. Hernandez (MA 2004), and historian Keller Easterling. “We’re treating everyone as a designer, whatever their backgrounds, to see what it means for them to bring their work to the table,” says Lui. By steering the theme of the US Pavilion, SAIC is engaging in a global conversation about how the communities of tomorrow may be designed. The architect teams exhibit proposals, models, sketches, and speculative gestures in the context of the world’s most prominent academic architecture showcase, amidst an ancient city steeped in history.

With Associate Curator and faculty member Iker Gil, Lui will bring a group of SAIC students to Venice for a study trip to install an exhibition in response to the pavilion’s main theme. It will be the final project of their spring semester course called Designer, Artist, Citizen, Site: Exploring Belonging.

“SAIC is a unique place to have an architecture program,” says Lui. Situated within the art school, AIADO blurs the edges of the architectural discipline by overlapping with artistic and theoretical ways of thinking. At the biennale, says Lui, “SAIC is going to be a leader in changing the conversations about architecture, and I’m really excited about that.” ▪

COMM IS SIO N E RS School of the Art Institute of Chicago: Paul Coffey (BFA 1989), Vice Provost and Dean of Community Engagement Jonathan Solomon, Director, AIADO The University of Chicago: Bill Brown, Senior Advisor to the Provost for Arts Bill Michel, Executive Director of Arts and the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts

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C UR ATO RS Niall Atkinson, Associate Professor, UChicago Ann Lui, Assistant Professor, SAIC Mimi Zeiger, independent critic, editor, curator, and educator A S SO C IATE C UR ATOR Iker Gil, Lecturer, SAIC, and Director of MAS Studio COMM IS SIO N E D E X HI B ITORS Amanda Williams & SAIC Associate Professor Andres L. Hernandez (Chicago) Design Earth (Cambridge, MA) Diller Scofidio + Renfro (New York) Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman (San Diego) Keller Easterling (New Haven, CT) SCAPE (New York) Studio Gang, led by SAIC 2013 Honorary Doctorate recipient Jeanne Gang (Chicago) C UR ATO RIAL A DVI SORY B OA RD Bill Brown, Senior Advisor to the Provost for Arts and Karla Scherer Distinguished Service Professor in American Culture, UChicago Theaster Gates (SAIC HON 2014), Professor and Director of Arts + Public Life, UChicago Sarah Herda, Director, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts Mary Jane Jacob, Professor, Executive Director of Exhibitions and Exhibitions Studies, and Director of the Institute for Curatorial Research and Practice, SAIC Oliver Palmer, independent artist and designer Zoë Ryan, John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design, Art Institute of Chicago Jonathan Solomon, Director, AIADO, SAIC Jessica Stockholder, Chair of the Department of Visual Arts and Raymond W. & Martha Hilpert Gruner Distinguished Service Professor, UChicago Yesomi Umolu, Exhibitions Curator at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts and Lecturer, UChicago

DI MEN SI ON S OF CI TI ZEN SHI P

SAIC IS P OISE D TO MAK E A G R AND S TATE ME NT on the future of architecture as commissioner of the US Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, which includes an international exhibition in addition to exhibitions representing participating countries.

Awarded to both SAIC and the University of Chicago, the prestigious commission for the US Pavilion allows the two Chicago institutions to represent the United States on a world stage.

Left: US Pavilion curatorial team. From left: Associate Curator Iker Gil with Curators Mimi Zeiger, Niall Atkinson, and Ann Lui Right: US pavillion, as seen during the 2007 Venice Biennale

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MEET THE GRA DUATI N G CL ASS

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Meet the Graduating Class

A SHLE Y FRE E BY (MFA 2 018 )

K EVI N D E M E RY (MFA 20 18 )

FA L A K VA SA (BFA 2 0 18 )

DA PHNE E DG RE N (BFA 201 8)

Hometown: Topton, Pennsylvania

Hometown: Oakland, California

Hometown: Kolkata, India

Hometown: Greeley, Colorado

Three words that describe you: Steadfast, contemplative, visionary

Three words that describe you: Spontaneous, thoughtful, loving

Three words that describe you: Fire-emoji, sexy, rulebreaker

Three words that describe you: Audacious, aberrant, ebullient

Favorite class or teacher: Letterpress Bookworks—not for the look/quality of printing, but the act of setting type, manually printing for endless hours, and the history.

Favorite class or teacher: Arnold Kemp was my favorite teacher. He had the patience to teach as well as mentor me.

Favorite class or teacher: Sitting Photography. Dawit Petros opened up my practice to decolonizing institutional spaces from within.

Favorite class or teacher: Giovanni Aloi.

Most memorable moment at SAIC: Graduation will be most memorable. I am a firstgeneration college student.

One thing you learned at SAIC: My resilience.

What inspires you: Black writers, pastors, scholars, and activists who came before me.

One sentence that describes your work: My work builds a critical examination of society and culture by recontextualizing pre-existing documentation and objects to reveal how the history of injustices against people of color informs our understanding of America.

Dream job: Whatever career lets me teach, make art, be a scholar, and break boundaries.

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Most memorable moment at SAIC: Giving advice to advanced painting students.

Many of them are my friends today.

One thing you learned at SAIC: Your art doesn’t need to have answers; it needs only to have questions.

What inspires you: Friendship and community.

One sentence that describes your work: A mélange of cultural/spiritual signifiers of the African American community coupled with formal traits of high modernism.

Dream job: An artist. I already am one, and I don’t plan on turning back.

Most memorable moment at SAIC: All the times I went to an event and there were chips and guacamole.

One thing you learned at SAIC: I don’t need one single container practice, there is no hierarchy, and my work is inseparable from my lived experience and identity.

What inspires you: Owls, my beard, clip-on earrings, video chats with mumma, making out, not making, Monet (lol jk).

One sentence that describes your work: Check out my website: falakvasa.com.

Dream job: I don’t want to choose. My work exists in multiple worlds/contexts, and I want to stay true to that.

Most memorable moment at SAIC: I began my first semester hospitalized with Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Faculty member Brian Sikes (BFA 1981) visited me in the intensive care unit and assured me that I could continue my dreams at SAIC. One thing you learned at SAIC: SAIC taught me to make valuable and lasting connections in art and apply them to science.

What inspires you: Stephen Gammel’s work inspires me not to be afraid of drawing what I’m thinking, even if it comes out a bit strange and disturbing.

One sentence that describes your work: A lot of lung transplants.

Dream job: A pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon.

As a doctor, an artist can visualize scenarios and operations that help them solve situations quickly and effectively. My art practice is a necessary tool in becoming a successful doctor.

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EMERGI N G A RTI ST

Emerging Artist Adela Goldbard (MFA 2017)

Portrait: Adela Goldbard (MFA 2017). Photo: Emilio Rojas (MFA 2017) Bottom left: Adela Goldbard (MFA 2017), La Quemada Pública/The Public Burning, 2012, video still Top right: Adela Goldbard (MFA 2017), Now we resumed the road to Monterrey. The great mountains rose snow-capped before us.../ Tomamos la carretera a Monterrey.

Las grandes montañas coronadas de nieve se alzaban delante de nosotros... (On the Road), 2010, analog photography and Lightjet print, 55 × 70 inches

A D EL A G OLDBARD (MFA 201 7), an artist and filmmaker from Mexico City, received the 2017 Claire Rosen and Samuel Edes Foundation Prize for Emerging Artists. She is the final recipient of the Edes prize, a one-year, $30,000 award given to a recent alum from one of four Chicago-area institutions.

For almost a decade, this highly competitive award recognized artists’ creative potential and enabled them to substantially advance their practice.

Goldbard’s work draws from the political possibilities of art to enact and engage with social change, weaves the conflicts and uncertainties of history with those of the present, and engages with borderlands, immigration, and Latin American hybrid cultural identities. With the Edes Foundation award, Goldbard plans to further develop her project The Final Judgement, which is the title of a play that was performed in Mexico during the Spanish colonial time, created as a tactic to convert indigenous people to Catholicism.

“I want to talk about the border, and I want to talk about migration through the adaptation of this play. The project will involve the use of a vertical stage and special effects similar to the ones used in medieval times in Europe and in the Spanish colonies in America,” she explains.

Goldbard is excited to finish The Final Judgement and other projects that she began while at SAIC with the help of the Edes prize. “The Final Judgement is a project that has been in my mind for many, many years, and I’m very excited to have the resources to finally make it happen,” she says.

Past recipients of the Edes Foundation prize from SAIC include Nadav Assor (MFA 2010), Meghan Moe Beitiks (MFA 2013), Catherine Pancake (MFA 2012), Sarah Sohn (MFA 2011), Spencer Stucky (MFA 2014), Leonard Suryajaya (MFA 2015), and Norman Teague (MFA 2016). ▪ SPRIN G 2 01 8

WHY I GIVE

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Erina Shibata HAU LING PAI NTI NGS up the stairs of the Columbus Drive Building, preparing for critiques, the solitude of studio work mixed with the camaraderie of classmates who are in the same boat. Alum Erina Shibata (Post-Bac 2014, MFA 2016) reflects on these memories fondly when discussing her time at SAIC. Shibata, who was born in San Francisco, grew up in Tokyo, and attended school in New England, came to SAIC because of its reputation and interdisciplinary education. Living in Chicago— which she calls “a whole new world”—was almost equally enticing. By the time she graduated, Shibata found a community of artists who challenged the status quo and provoked new ideas.

They were, and still are, a support system as she navigates her career as a painter.

SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

Shibata, who is a 2016 Luminarts Fellowship recipient and whose monoprints are featured in Entropy: Chaos & Order at Brown University, attributes that bond with the community in helping her find success at SAIC and as an artist today.

“There’s a lot of self-examination, self-investigation, finding your own voice,” she says. “It was not something I found on my own.

It was every encounter, every conversation, every faculty or peer critique [that] really helped me develop my voice as an artist.”

This profound experience at SAIC drives Shibata to stay connected to the School, serving as an alumni leader for the New York community, staying engaged with her former classmates, and giving to SAIC’s Annual Fund as part of Beautiful Work: The Campaign for SAIC. “[Giving back] is one way to support the School, support its values, and stay connected; I see it more as giving back my gratitude,” says Shibata. “It feels natural for me to continue to extend that sense of community, and it’s also now part of my art practice.” ▪

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THE CAMPAIGN F OR SAI C UPDATE The generosity of alumni, parents, faculty, staff, friends, foundations, and corporations supports the artists, designers, and scholars who transform the world with their Beautiful/Work.

TOTAL CAMPAIGN RESULTS $49.9 MILLION

PERCENT OF GOAL COMPLETE 99%

TOTAL DONORS 1,886

CA M PA I G N G IVI NG BY D ONOR GROUP

ALUMNI $10.8 MILLION

BOARD MEMBERS $22.7 MILLION

FRIENDS $12.5 MILLION

PARENTS $3.9 MILLION

PROGRAMS AND DEPARTMENTS $7.2 MILLION

ANNUAL FUND $4.4 MILLION

THE CA MPA I GN F OR SA I C UPDATE

D EC E M BE R 3 1 , 2 0 1 7

CA M PA I G N G IVI NG BY F UND ING PRIORIT Y

STUDENT SCHOLARSHIPS AND FELLOWSHIPS $28 MILLION

FACULTY PROFESSORSHIPS AND AWARDS $10.3 MILLION

CA M PA I G N G IVI NG BY F UND ING T Y PE

ENDOWMENT $34.1 MILLION

RESTRICTED $11.3 MILLION

UNRESTRICTED $4.5 MILLION

ANNUAL GIVING

PLANNED GIVING

SAIC’s Annual Fund provides students with financial aid, academic programming, facility enhancements, technology acquisitions and upgrades, and many other initiatives crucial to their education.

Planned gifts today will sustain SAIC well into the future.

From gifts of real estate to proceeds from bequests and trusts, there are many giving options that allow you to give during your lifetime and beyond.

WAYS TO G I V E

CASH AND SECURITIES Outright gifts of cash and appreciated securities (stocks, bonds, and mutual funds) can easily be donated to fund student scholarships and fellowships, faculty professorships, departments, and programs, all of which support the campaign.

Learn more at campaign.saic.edu.

1866 FOUNDER’S CIRCLE The 1866 Founder’s Circle honors SAIC friends and alumni who have generously included the School in their estate plans.

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Friday, March 2, 2018 Mana Contemporary 2233 South Throop Street, Chicago 7:00–11:00 p.m.

You are invited to Beautiful/Night, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s (SAIC) first alumni and faculty art auction and benefit supporting student scholarships through Beautiful/Work: The Campaign for SAIC. • 30+ pieces auctioned • Cocktail party and food stations • Artist activations and interactive ambiance

by SAIC alumni and faculty • Limited-edition pins and bow ties for sale by SAIC alumni and faculty • Dancing with DJ Matt Roan Net proceeds from Beautiful/Night benefit the Beautiful/Work Scholarship Fund.

To purchase tickets, visit saic.edu/beautifulnight or call 312.499.4190.

Persons with disabilities requesting accommodations should visit saic.edu/access.

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Art Scene

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1

2

3

4 1. GARETH PUGH VISITING ARTISTS PROGRAM LECTURE

2. SAIC MIAMI ALUMNI RECEPTION DURING ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH 2017

November 1 / Rubloff Auditorium

December 8 / Marseilles Hotel

3. APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL: THE SERENITY OF MADNESS CURATOR TOUR AND CLASS VISIT

September 20 / Sullivan Galleries

4. EXPO CHICAGO /DIALOGUES AND BOOTH

September 13–17 / Navy Pier SPRIN G 2 01 8

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Class Notes

2010s

CL ASS N OTES

Chris Bradley (MFA 2010) is one of four recipients of this year’s Meier Achievement Award.

Rashayla Marie Brown (BFA 2015) received the 2017 Chicago Artadia Award.

Ruth Buentello (BFA 2011), Ana Fernandez (BFA 2000, MFA 2005), Jonathan Paul Gillette (Post-Bac 2003, MFA 2005), and Riva Lehrer (SAIC 1993–95) received 2017 Painters & Sculptors Grants from the Joan Mitchell Foundation.

Robert Burnier’s (MFA 2016) installation, Of No Particular King, is on view at the Arts Club of Chicago through March.

Assaf Evron (MFA 2013) and Martine Syms (BFA 2007) received 2017 grants from the Graham Foundation.

Vanessa Dion Fletcher (MFA 2016) was awarded the 2017 Melissa Levin Emerging Artist Award from the Textile Museum of Canada. The award is in memory of Melissa Levin (MFA 1998).

Allison Glenn (MA 2012) will guest curate the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, 2018 open-call exhibition.

Shruti Kirti (BFA 2010) was featured in Chicago Woman among “The New Guard of Chicago Fashion.”

Hee Ran Lee (MFA 2012) and Keijuan Thomas (MFA 2014) were awarded Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art grants.

Meredith Leich (MFA 2017) won second prize at the Deutsche Bank Macht Kunst competition in Berlin, and was artist-in-residence at the Wrangell Mountain Center.

The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University named Tony Lewis (MFA 2012) its 2017–18 Ruth Ann and Nathan Perlmutter Artist-inResidence.

Yvette Mayorga (MFA 2016), Cheryl Pope (BFA 2003, MDes 2010), and Dread Scott (BFA 1989) were featured in Teen Vogue for their group show Bold Disobedience.

Ann Meisinger (Dual MA 2016) was appointed Assistant Educator of Public Programs and Creative Practice at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Jeffly Gabriela Molina (BFA 2013) and Matthew Schlagbaum (MFA 2011) were two of four artists in the exhibition Wasteland Dream at LVL3 Gallery.

Milad Mozari’s (MFA 2013) short film Standing Nymph and Man was screened as part of the Chicago International Film Festival’s program Shorts 8— These Walls Talk: Architecture.

SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

Zuqiang Peng (MFA 2017) and Felipe Steinberg (MFA 2016) were announced as two of seven fellows with the Core Residency Program at the Glassell School of Art in Houston.

Ricardo Phillips (BFA 2013, MA 2015) was selected for the program Connecting Collections: Integrating Modern and Contemporary Art into the Classroom at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Pearl Salas (MFA 2016) screened her film Susto at imagineNATIVE, where it received a special mention from the Kent Monkman Best Experimental Award, and performed a new work at [in]SITES in Canada.

Aram Han Sifuentes’ (MFA 2013) Protest Banner Lending Library was featured in the Chicago Tribune.

Elisabeth Smith (Dual MA 2015) has been named collections coordinator at the Seattle Art Museum.

Claire Sullivan (BFA 2016) and her New York-based collective Vaquera are finalists for the 2017 Council of Fashion Designers of America/ Vogue Fashion Fund.

Darryl Terrell (MFA 2017) was profiled in an article for i-D magazine that details four of his latest photo series, #Project20.

Darryl Terrell (MFA 2017), #Project20, collection of 11 × 14 Cyanotype portraits, toned or stoned with black tea or coffee, 2017

Olivia Valentine’s (MFA 2010) collaborative performance Between Systems and Grounds was shown at ACRE Projects.

Maya Vardaraj (MDes 2017) was featured in We Make Money Not Art. Vincent Yu (MDes 2017) was one of 16 contestants for the new season of Project Runway.

Yuge Zhou (Post-Bac 2013, MFA 2015) is curating 150 Media Stream, a video wall located in the lobby of the 150 North Riverside building in Chicago.

Linda Tegg (MFA 2016) is co-curator for the Australian pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale.

Darryl Terrell’s (MFA 2017) Brotha: Rehumanizing the Dehumanized was reviewed by KT Hawbaker (MA 2017) for the Chicago Tribune.

Yuge Zhou (Post-Bac 2013, MFA 2015) curates the 150 Media Stream at the 150 North Riverside building in Chicago.

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Halle Butler (BFA 2008) was announced as a 2017 National Book Award Honoree and made Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists List, which is published every 10 years.

Erin Chlaghmo (Post-Bac 2009, MFA 2012) launched a wallpaper collection inspired by the travel ban.

Nia Easley (BFA 2006, MFA 2018) was selected for the Research and Development Lab artist program by Threewalls gallery.

Kristin Hayter (BFA 2008) who performs as Lingua Ignota released a new EP, ALL BITCHES DIE. Ruba Katrib (BA 2004) was named curator at MoMA PS1.

Judith Leemann’s (MFA 2004) exhibition arvensis (of the field) opened at Proof Gallery in Boston.

John McKinnon (MA 2008) was appointed executive director of the Elmhurst Art Museum.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation named Trevor Paglen (MFA 2002) a recipient of the 2017 MacArthur “genius” grant.

Ingrid Parker (MA 2004) was appointed director of corporate and foundation relations at Adler University.

Quilts from LaShawnda Crowe Storm’s (MFA 2004) Lynch Quilts Project are on display at Ivy Tech Fine Art & Design Faculty Exhibition at Gallery 924, Keeper of My Mother’s Dreams at Tube Factory, Meet the Artists XXX at the Central Library in Indianapolis, and Thread and a Story at the Bradley Museum in Mississauga, Ontario.

Nato Thompson (MA 2004) was announced as artistic director at Philadelphia Contemporary.

Carolina Gonzalez Valencia (BFA 2009, MFA 2016) was appointed assistant professor of Art and Visual Culture at Bates College, following her first year as a Mellon Diversity and Faculty Renewal Postdoctoral Fellow.

1990s Founder and Executive Director of the Chicago Mosaic School Karen Ami (MFA 1995) was featured as the Artist Spotlight in October’s Chicago Woman.

Petra Bachmaier (BFA 1999) and Sean Gallero (SAIC 1993–98), collectively known as Luftwerk, recently displayed their work White Wanderer at Riverside Plaza, which involved data collected from seismic recordings of glaciers in Antarctica.

Sanford Biggers (MFA 1999), Elizabeth Catlett (SAIC 1941), Theaster Gates (HON 2014), Rashid Johnson (SAIC 2003–04), and Dread Scott (BFA 1989) are among the artists shown in the Brooklyn Museum’s show The Legacy of Lynching: Confronting Racial Terror in America.

D.H. Chang (MFA 1991) served as chief director of the Gwangju Design Biennale 2017.

Justin Dauer (BFA 1998) released his new book Cultivating a Creative Culture.

Zurich Esposito (MS 1998) and Brian John McCormick were married August 10 at the Arts Club of Chicago.

Thomas C. Gaunt’s (BFA 1999) short film Red Maze recently aired on the El Rey Network on YouTube.

CL ASS N OTES

2000s

Angel Otero (BFA 2007, MFA 2009) exhibited a series of new paintings at the Bronx Museum of the Arts titled Angel Otero: Elegies.

Suzanne Horwitz (BFA 1995), Nautilus, aluminum 7 × 3 ½ × 5 feet

Suzanne Horwitz’s (BFA 1995) sculpture Nautilus was displayed at its seventh venue, in front of the Tourist and Convention Center in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Riva Lehrer (SAIC 1993–95) was a guest columnist for the New York Times’ weekly “Disability” series.

Claudia Navas-Courbon’s (BFA 1997) exhibition Orchidées de Colombie at the Galerie Botanique in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris runs through March 5.

David Standifer (BFA 1990, MFA 1994) was commissioned to sculpt a World War II statue of Donald E. Hurst.

Molly Zuckerman-Hartung (MFA 2007) has her solo exhibition Learning Artist at Rachel Uffner Gallery in New York City.

David Standifer (BFA 1990, MFA 1994) pictured with his sculpture of Donald E. Hurst

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1940s

Chad Bohren (SAIC 1986–87) had a solo exhibition Human Conditions at the Bindery Artist Studios in Lafayette, Indiana.

Gladys Barker Grauer (SAIC 1941–46) had her solo exhibition, Gladys Barker Grauer Speaking Her Mind: Then and Now, at Gallery Aferro in Newark, New Jersey.

CL ASS N OTES

1980s

Chad Bohren (SAIC 1986–87), They, 2016, graphite and acrylic paint on archival paper

Hong Sang-soo’s (MFA 1989) film On the Beach at Night Alone won the prestigious Wilf Family Foundation Award for best international film at the 34th Jerusalem Film Festival.

1970s Ellen Sandor (MFA 1975, HON 2014) was honored by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists as a Chicago innovator at its annual dinner on November 6.

Donald Sultan’s (MFA 1975) show The Disaster Paintings was reviewed by the Washington Post.

1950s Kay Hofmann (DIPLOMA 1955) presented her solo exhibition, Kay Hofmann: Forever Young, at 4th Ward Project Space in Chicago.

SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

Gladys Barker Grauer (SAIC 1941–46): Photo credit: Newark Arts Photo Documentary Project If you would like to be included in Class Notes, send your professional or personal accomplishments such as exhibitions, publications, lectures, new additions to your family, or marriages to alumni@saic.edu. Use the hashtag #SAICalumni on public posts in your own social media channels to be featured on saic.edu/alumni.

Join us at SAIC Alumni Reunion for opportunities to network, see current student work, get back into the classroom, hear from faculty, celebrate, and explore campus.

RSVP now at: saic.edu/alumnireunion

In Memoriam Amy Dewitt (BFA 2003) worked as a senior fashion designer. She was recently employed by DeSL as a Business Development/ Fashion Design Consultant.

She designed women’s apparel for Land’s End, Lilly Pulitzer, Chico’s, and Kohl’s. Dewitt enjoyed traveling and spending time with her family and her two cats, Purl and Penny.

Barbara Jones-Hogu (BFA 1964) was a Chicagobased artist, educator, and filmmaker. As a member of the Visual Artists Workshop of the Organization of Black Culture, she helped paint the Wall of Respect on the city’s South Side in 1967. In 1968, she helped found AfriCOBRA (African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists), a collective that focused on positive, powerful, and uplifting images of Black people. Her work has been featured in major group shows, and in January, her firstever solo exhibition, Barbara Jones-Hogu: Resist, Relate, Unite 1968–1975 opened at the DePaul Art Museum.

Jeanette ( Jay) Hinz (BFA 1968, MFA 1969) was an artist and art educator who spent her life recording the beauty of the world around and inside her for others to enjoy. She taught at the middle school, high school, and college levels in Illinois, Missouri, and Mexico, ending her teaching career at Missouri State University. She inspired generations of students with her boundless creativity and drive to achieve perfection in her work.

Susan Lindstrom (SAIC 1971–72) founded Paper Source in Chicago in 1983 and grew the business to 27 stores before selling it in 2007. It was a trip to Japan for a paper symposium that piqued her interest in fine handmade Japanese papers and led to her vision for opening Paper Source. Lindstrom also taught classes on papermaking, decorating personal note cards, and bookbinding.

Michael D. Peven (MFA 1977) was chair and professor of photography in the Department of Art in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas. He was active as a photographer, book maker, and installation artist since the 1970s and began teaching at the University of Arkansas in 1977, where, with few resources and a lot of energy, he built a photography program. Peven won countless teaching awards, and in 2014 was named the Honored Educator of the Year by the Society for Photographic Education. He also won awards from the Arkansas Arts Council; the Mid-America Arts Alliance/ National Endowment for the Arts; the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences; and the University of Arkansas Teaching Academy.

Ruth L. Reinel (BA 1951) was the loving daughter of the late Walter and Ruth V. Reinel and devoted friend to many. Reinel was a longtime resident of Bensenville, Illinois, and Chicago. She was a passionate educator and well known artist throughout the area and leaves behind her family of Dougal, Willow, Sam, Mandy, and Zachery.

Lectures

Exhibitions at SAIC are a significant resource for the School community and the city at large. The Sullivan Galleries, SITE Galleries, and other pop-up locations on and off campus are engaged as sites of interaction, experimentation, and dialogue among students, faculty, and alumni, as well as places for collaboration with Chicago’s artists and other cultural institutions. Exhibitions are free and open to the public.

VI S ITI NG A R TI S TS PRO G R A M

SU LLIVAN GA LLE RI E S 33 S. State St., 7th floor saic.edu/exhibitions 312.629.6635 Gallery Hours Tuesday–Saturday, 11:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.

Spring Undergraduate Exhibition March 10–30 Reception: Saturday, March 10, 12:00–6:00 p.m.

MFA Show April 28–May 16 Reception: Friday, April 27, 7:00–9:00 p.m.

Low-Residency MFA Show July 13–29

SITE GALLERI E S SAIC’s student-run SITE Galleries (formerly Student Union Galleries) provide the public with experimental exhibitions of student work in two gallery locations on campus: the LeRoy Neiman Center and a newly renovated space in the Columbus Drive Building.

SITE Sharp 37 S. Wabash Ave., suite 106 SITE Columbus 280 S. Columbus Dr., room 103

Formalized in 1951 with the establishment of an endowed fund by Flora Mayer Witkowsky, the Visiting Artists Program (VAP) hosts public presentations by some of today’s most compelling practitioners and thinkers to foster a greater understanding and appreciation of contemporary art and culture. All events are free and open to the public. Learn more at saic.edu/vap or 312.899.5185.

Huma Bhabha Wednesday, February 7, 6:00 p.m.

The Art Institute of Chicago, Rubloff Auditorium, 230 S. Columbus Dr.

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Işıl Eğrikavuk: Distinguished Alumni Lecture Series Tuesday, March 6, 6:00 p.m.

The Art Institute of Chicago, Rubloff Auditorium, 230 S. Columbus Dr. Presented in partnership with SAIC’s Office of Alumni Relations Alok Vaid-Menon Monday, March 12, 6:00 p.m.

The Art Institute of Chicago, Rubloff Auditorium, 230 S. Columbus Dr. Presented in partnership with SAIC’s Office of Multicultural Affairs, Department of Performance, and Writing Program

EV EN TS

Exhibitions

Yuri Suzuki Tuesday, February 13, 6:00 p.m.

The Art Institute of Chicago, Rubloff Auditorium, 230 S. Columbus Dr. Presented in partnership with the William Bronson and Grayce Slovet Mitchell Lecture Series in the Department of Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects and the Art Institute of Chicago’s Department of Learning and Public Engagement and the Architecture & Design Society

Alok Vaid-Menon. Photo: Abhinav Anguria

Yuri Suzuki, OTOTO, 2013–2014. © Dentaku

Simone Leigh Tuesday, March 20, 6:00 p.m.

The Art Institute of Chicago, Rubloff Auditorium, 230 S. Columbus Dr. Presented in partnership with SAIC’s Office of Engagement, Homan Square Nari Ward Wednesday, April 18, 6:00 p.m.

The Art Institute of Chicago, Rubloff Auditorium, 230 S. Columbus Dr.

Gallery Hours Monday–Friday, 11:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.

Saturday, 11:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.

Alternate hours by appointment For a schedule of exhibitions, visit saic.edu/sitegalleries.

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Q&A with Işıl Eğrikavuk (MA 2005, MFA 2008)

F EATURED EV EN T

school enabled me to expand the borders of my creative writing practice and taught me how to bring it together with the visual world.

Photo: Yağız Yeşilkaya

IŞIL EĞRIK AVUK (MA 2005, MFA 2008) blends social and political events with fictional components in her work, often weaving in a fantastical or absurd element that challenges the viewer’s ability to believe it. On March 6, she returns to SAIC as the Distinguished Alumni Lecturer for the Visiting Artists Program.

What were you like at SAIC? I was a hungry student. I was taking and auditing nine classes at a time and going to lectures and talks. Such feeding also turned into a creative practice. At SAIC I started to bring journalism together with creative writing.

Your undergraduate degree is in literature. What inspired your move from liberal to fine arts?

My artistic practice is rooted in writing. I am a storyteller first, in my heart. The stories I write sometimes turn into performances or videos, or sometimes I keep them as pieces of writing. I don’t see much of a gap between literature and art, but art

SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

How does absurdity figure into your work?

Art opens a space for imagination where we can split from the seriousness of our daily experiences. I like to take it further. I like humor, fantasy, magic, witchcraft, and children’s stories. These influences show in my work.

What is the role of art in politics?

Although I am inspired by political events, I keep my sanity by not getting attached to hard politics. I don’t know if I can directly link art into politics, but I can say that the more we include art in our daily experiences, whether it be an action or a way of looking at the world, the more possibility we create to make this harshness go away.

Having been censored by the Turkish government, what lessons can you offer other artists?

My advice, and where I feel myself much more empowered, is giving a response through art. Artists can use their power to respond with new strategies to power hierarchies, to confuse them, to teach them, and to grow out of these experiences by sharing them. ▪ Attend Işıl Eğrikavuk’s Distinguished Alumni Lecture presented by the Visiting Artists Program and the Office of Alumni Relations on Tuesday, March 6, 6:00 p.m., at the Art Institute of Chicago, Rubloff Auditorium, 230 South Columbus Drive. Visit saic.edu/vap to learn more.

Maggie Nelson Monday, April 30, 6:00 p.m.

The Art Institute of Chicago, Rubloff Auditorium, 230 S. Columbus Dr. Presented in partnership with the Poetry Foundation and SAIC’s Writing Program

TH E G R AYC E SLOVE T A ND WI L L IA M BRONSO N M ITCHE LL L EC T U RE S E RIE S Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects (AIADO) The Mitchell Lecture Series bring leaders and emerging voices in architecture, design, and other disciplines from around the world to SAIC for lectures, workshops, and studio visits. For more info, visit saic.edu/aiado.

People’s Architecture Office Thursday, March 1, 6:00 p.m.

The LeRoy Neiman Center 37 S. Wabash Ave. Shona Kitchen Monday, April 16, 6:00 p.m.

The LeRoy Neiman Center 37 S. Wabash Ave.

Screenings

CONVERSATI ON S ON AR T AND SCIENC E Under the leadership of former SAIC President and current Chancellor Walter Massey, the Conversations on Art and Science series launched in 2011 as a forum for exploring interdisciplinary and critical perspectives on art, science, design, and technology. Lectures and panel discussions bring noted artists, designers, and scholars to campus to discuss myriad perspectives on art, science, design, and technology and sustain the diverse conversations within the work of SAIC students and faculty.

All events are free and open to the public.

Learn more at saic.edu/artandscience.

Quantum Unlearning Symposium: Charles Gaines, Gabriela Barreto Lemos, Kyle Bellucci Johanson, and Kathryn Schaffer Thursday, March 1, 1:30–5:30 p.m.

SAIC Ballroom 112 S. Michigan Ave. Presented in partnership with SAIC’s Department of Liberal Arts

CO N VE RSATI O N S AT TH E E DG E Organized by the Department of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation in collaboration with SAIC’s Gene Siskel Film Center and SAIC’s Video Data Bank, Conversations at the Edge is a dynamic weekly series of screenings, performances, and talks by groundbreaking media artists. For more information, visit saic.edu/cate.

Apocalypse Then: The Vietnam War on Film Through May 8 Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St. 28th Annual Festival of Films from Iran February 3–March 1 Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St.

Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St. 312.846.2800 siskelfilmcenter.org

24 Frames February 9–15 Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St.

Admission $11 general public $7 students $6 members $5 SAIC faculty, staff, and the Art Institute of Chicago staff Free for SAIC students

Tales of Mexico February 9–15 Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St.

Season highlights include Latham Zearfoss Home Movies Thursday, February 15, 6:00 p.m.

Edward Owens: A Portrait Study Introduced by Ed Halter Thursday, March 22, 6:00 p.m.

Hayoun Kwon: Films and Virtual Realities Thursday, April 5, 6:00 p.m.

An Evening with Joan Jonas Thursday, April 19, 6:00 p.m.

Photo: Anita Evans

OTH E R SC RE E N I NGS

EV EN TS

John Kurtich Lecture in Interior Architecture: Vishaan Chakrabarti Thursday, April 26, 6:00 p.m.

The LeRoy Neiman Center 37 S. Wabash Ave.

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Have a Nice Day February 16–22 Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St. Bob le Flambeur February 23–March 1 Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St. Tehran Taboo February 23–March 1 Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St. The Animation Show of Shows March 2–8 Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St.

Joan Jonas, still from stream or river flight, or pattern, 2016–17. Image courtesy of the artist

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Other Events

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OTHER SC RE E N I NGS

EV EN TS

American Socialist March 2–8 Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St. Hollywood on State: Where You’re the Star!

Sunday, March 4, 6:00 p.m.

90th Academy Awards® HD Telecast, begins at 7:00 p.m.

Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St. 21st Annual Chicago European Union Film Festival March 9–April 5 Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St. 23rd Annual Asian American Showcase April 6–19 Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St. 48.24.12 Video Premiere Saturday, April 7, 12:00–2:00 p.m.

Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St. 17th Annual Chicago Palestine Film Festival April 21–May 3 Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St. Gene Siskel Film Center Annual Gala Spring 2018

Friday, March 2 Mana Contemporary 2233 S. Throop St. For more info, visit saic.edu/beautifulnight.

Spring Art Sale Friday, April 6, 11:00 a.m.–7:00 p.m.

Saturday, April 7, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

SAIC Ballroom 112 S. Michigan Ave. ArtBash 2018 April 6–20 Reception: Friday, April 6, 4:30–7:00 p.m.

The LeRoy Neiman Center 37 S. Wabash Ave. INTER-ACTION Friday, April 6, 6:00–7:00 p.m.

The LeRoy Neiman Center 37 S. Wabash Ave. MA VCS Symposium April 6–May 5 Opening reception: Friday, April 6, 6:00–9:00 p.m.

Weinberg/Newton Gallery 300 W. Superior St., suite 203

Art Education Graduate Symposium Wednesday, May 9, 9:15 a.m.–4:00 p.m.

Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St. Post-Baccalaureate Studio Salon May 12–14 Reception: Saturday, May 12, 4:00–7:00 p.m.

MacLean Center 112 S. Michigan Ave. BFA Writing Program Reading Saturday, May 12, 5:00–8:00 p.m.

The LeRoy Neiman Center 37 S. Wabash Ave. Design Show May 12–July 29 Reception: Saturday, May 12, 6:00–8:00 p.m.

Chicago Cultural Center 78 E. Washington St.

Undergraduate Performance Festival Saturday, April 7 SAIC Performance Space 280 S. Columbus Dr. IMPACT Graduate Performance Festival Saturday, April 28 and Sunday, April 29 SAIC Performance Space 280 S. Columbus Dr. Fashion 2018 Friday, May 4 Venue Six10 610 S. Michigan Ave.

SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

Apprentice Teaching Art Education Presentations and Celebrations Tuesday, May 8, 5:30–8:00 p.m.

Thursday, May 10, 5:30–8:00 p.m.

Sharp Building 37 S. Wabash Ave., rooms 402, 403, and 404

Film, Video, New Media, Animation, and Sound Festival May 9–12 Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State St.

2017 Design Show

MFA Writing Program Reading Tuesday, May 15, 4:30–7:30 p.m.

SAIC Ballroom 112 S. Michigan Ave. For all SAIC events, persons with disabilities requesting accomodations should visit saic.edu/access.

From the Archives

FR O M THE A RCHI V ES

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AN ARTIST ’S PORTFOLIO usually features a diverse array of projects, but few include a classic biology textbook among their works. Alum Elizabeth Buchsbaum Newhall’s (DIPLOMA 1932) whimsical blackand-white illustrations of worms, parasites, insects, crustaceans, jellies, and other invertebrates are featured throughout Animals Without Backbones (the University of Chicago Press, first published in 1938), written by her brother, Ralph Buchsbaum.

The textbook is an introduction to invertebrate animals, the largest group in the animal kingdom (97 percent of animals are invertebrates).

More than 80 colleges, including Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Chicago, use the book, which continues to be printed after almost 80 years. The University of Chicago Press is currently updating Animals Without Backbones for a fourth edition, and it is expected to be published in the coming years.

Elizabeth Buchsbaum Newhall’s (DIPLOMA 1932) illustration of a hydractinia, a polyp colony that shows polymorphism and reduced medusa buds.

(Modified after G. J. Allman.)

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ON SAIC.EDU/MAGAZINE The School of the Art Institute of Chicago magazine explores the intersections of art and science at SAIC in this issue. Professor Eugenia Cheng leads art students in profound discussions of mathematical concepts and teaches them to make their own math in her courses.

Prominent physicist and SAIC Chancellor Walter Massey talks about art and science initiatives at the School and how artists and scientists can work together to solve problems. We take an inside look at SAIC’s annual fashion runway show and exhibition and meet the people behind the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale US Pavilion commissioned by SAIC and the University of Chicago. Learn more about the people and stories featured in this issue, view slideshows of additional photos, and access previous issues on saic.edu/magazine.

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Still from Dark Fiber (2015), David Rueter (MFA 2013) and Marissa Lee Benedict (MFA 2011). © David Rueter and Marissa Lee Benedict.

Image: Paul Germanos. This video will be part of the Transit Screening Lounge in the US Pavilion commissioned by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale.

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