SVA Visual Arts Journal Fall/Winter 2019

jou rna l VISUAL ARTS

SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS MAGA ZINE FALL/WINTER 2019

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“It’s about how ideas intersect between one medium and another.”

FALL/WINTER 2019 FROM THE PRESIDENT | 2 M Y SVA | 3

An alumnus re-imagines the SVA logo SVA CLOSE UP | 4

News and events from around the College WHAT’S IN STORE | 12

Products and services by SVA artists and entrepreneurs CREATIVE LIFE | 20

Tips for your next negotiation PORTFOLIO: Trish Tillman | 22 A sculptor whose work balances beauty and power IN A BIND | 31

How to make your own hardcover book SPOTLIGHT: Mexico City | 34 Three alumni who are living and working in Mexico’s capital

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“The West seems open to possibility.”

THE CALIFORNIA ISSUE | 40 GOLDEN STATE STORIES | 42

Art and photography are front-and-center in the award-winning California Sunday Magazine SEEING CALIFORNIA | 49

A special mini-magazine featuring 10 SVA photographers’ work CROSSOVER ARTISTS | 50

Two L.A.-based alumni whose work with brands helps them build their own “LIFE” FORCE | 52

The in-house team creating Griffith Observatory’s new planetarium show ALUMNI AFFAIRS | 60

For Your Benefit A Message from the Director Spring 2019 SVA Alumni Society Awards Donors Alumni Notes and Exhibitions In Memoriam FROM THE ARCHIVES | 72

Milton Glaser’s “California” cover for Time, 50 years later

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“We’re staying as true to the science as possible while creating an emotional, cinematic experience.”

VISUAL ARTS JOURNAL Fall/Winter 2019 Volume 27, Number 2

FROM THE PR ESIDENT

EDITORIAL STAFF Joyce Rutter Kaye, editorial director Greg Herbowy, editor Tricia Tisak, copy editor Michelle Mackin, editorial assistant

VISUAL ARTS PRESS, LTD. Anthony P. Rhodes, executive creative director Gail Anderson, creative director Brian E. Smith, design director Marco Accardo, designer

COVER FRONT Trish Tillman, Conductor, 2019, vinyl, vegan leather, hardware, chain, wood and foam. See page 22.

BACK Carlos Álvarez-Montero, photograph from “Vanitas,” 2018, a series documenting everyday life and objects in the Mexico City neighborhood of Tepito. See page 38.

ADVERTISING SALES 212.592.2207

CONTRIBUTORS Jacqueline Bates Wesley Bedrosian Steve Birnbaum Emma Drew Maeri Ferguson Alexander Gelfand Dan Halm Beth Kleber Vanessa Machir Jane Nuzzo Miranda Pierce Patricia Romeu Kim Sielbeck Charles Snyder Kate Styer © 2019, Visual Arts Press, Ltd. Visual Arts Journal is published twice a year by SVA External Relations.

School of Visual Arts 209 East 23rd Street New York, NY 10010-3994 Milton Glaser ACTING CHAIRMAN

David Rhodes PRESIDENT

Anthony P. Rhodes EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT

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his fall, SVA welcomed a number of new department chairs, for three BFA programs, two graduate programs, and our non-degree Humanities and Sciences program and new Writing and Literacy program. You can read more about these appointments on page 6. I am happy to write that some, or perhaps all, of our new chairs’ names may be familiar to you—all began their positions as existing members of our community, whether as administrators, faculty, alumni or some combination of the three. While new members are critical to any institution’s success, so is the perspective and ability that can only come with experience. I look forward to all that our latest academic leaders have to offer.

We are celebrating another longtime—and pioneering—SVA community member in this issue: Abby Kreh, whose tenure at SVA passed the 60-year mark this September. Among other roles, Kreh served as the College’s dean of the school and first Title IX coordinator. You can read about her SVA career, which continues today, on page 11.

I hope you enjoy this issue of the Visual Arts Journal.

facebook.com/schoolofvisualarts instagram.com/svanyc schoolofvisualarts.tumblr.com twitter.com/sva_news PHOTO BY NIR ARIELI

youtube.com/user/svanewyorkcity TO READ THE VISUAL ARTS JOURNAL ONLINE, VISIT ISSUU.COM/SVAVISUALARTSJOURNAL

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pr e si de n t school of v isua l a rts

V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L

MYSVA An alumnus re-imagines the SVA logo Illustrator, painter, surface designer and occasional surfrock guitarist Kim Sielbeck recently returned to her childhood home of Hawaii (which, as part of a U.S. Coast Guard family, was one of many) after 11 years in New York City. As is evident in her art for this issue’s MySVA, her work is heavily influenced by her beachy locale, filled with bright colors, flora and positive energy.

Kim Sielbeck BFA 2009 Illustration kimsielbeck.com

PHOTO BY JEN MAY PASTORES

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CLOSE UP

News and events from around the College

“Truth” Tellers T

his fall, SVA’s biennial alumni exhibition will return to the SVA Chelsea Gallery with “American Truth,”* a multicentric survey of contemporary America featuring lens-based work by 20 alumni artists. The exhibition was conceived and curated by MFA Fine Arts faculty member Jasmine Wahi, co-founder and director of Project for Empty Space, a nonprofit arts organization in Newark, New Jersey.

The artists in “American Truth” explore the meanings that this phrase has for communities across the country—be it their own community or that of another. The work on view, Wahi says, will be “a pastiche of events, lives, landscapes; of heartaches and joys; of grave and grotesque violence; of the utterly mundane and quotidian; of the filthy, visceral and pungent truths that make this country—the land of the imprisoned, the land of the slain, the land of the free—the multilayered place that it is.”

The exhibition’s participating artists include Lissa Rivera (MFA 2009 Photography, Video and Related Media), whose

work examines the medium’s connection with identity; Kathy Shorr (BFA 1988 Photography), whose photo series “Shot” captures the scars of gun-violence victims posing for portraits at the location of their shooting; Thomas Holton (MFA 2005 Photography, Video and Related Media), who for many years has documented the life of a Chinese American family living in a small apartment in the Lower East Side; and Zackary Drucker (BFA 2005 Photography), who works to break down how we think about gender, sexuality and seeing. BFA Photography graduates Amy Elkins (2007), Star Montana (2013) and Ilona Szwarc (2013), all featured in this issue’s special photography feature (see page 49), will also be showing work.

“American Truth” will be on view from Saturday, November 16, through Saturday, December 14, 2019, at the SVA Chelsea Gallery, 601 West 26th Street, 15th floor. A reception for the exhibition will be held on Thursday, November 21, 6:00 – 8:00pm. For more information, visit sva.edu/exhibitions.

[Michelle Mackin]

* This exhibition has no affiliation or connection with the conservative news group The American Truth Project.

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V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L

CLOCKWISE FROM OPPOSITE Works from American Truth,”

the fall 2019 SVA alumni exhibition. Thomas Holton, Black Mirror Gang, 2019; Anna Beeke, American Nights #15 – Nashville, TN, 2015; Hector René MembrenoCanales, LEGO 4 (Al-Qaeda), 2017; Kathy Shorr, Chris, New Castle, Delaware, 2015.

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CLOSE UP Six SVA administrators and faculty began new roles as chairs this fall. Top, from left: BFA Advertising and BFA Design Chair Gail Anderson, Humanities and Sciences Acting Chair Kyoko Miyabe and Writing and Literacy Chair Maryhelen Hendricks. Bottom, from left: BFA Animation Chair Hsiang-Chin Moe, MFA Design for Social Innovation Chair Miya Osaki and MPS Digital Photography Chair Tom P. Ashe. Photos by Nir Arieli (BFA 2012 Photography).

New Year, New Leadership I n August, SVA welcomed new chairs in BFA Advertising, BFA Design, BFA Animation, MFA Design for Social Innovation and MPS Digital Photography, as well as in the non-degree Humanities and Sciences Department and the College’s new Writing and Literacy program.

Gail Anderson (BFA 1984 Media Arts), the new chair of the BFA Advertising and BFA Design programs, succeeds Richard Wilde, who retired in May after 50 years with the College. Anderson, a former student of Wilde’s, has been an SVA faculty member for 30 years and since 2015 has directed the Visual Arts Press, the College’s award-winning design studio, a role she will continue. Last fall, Anderson received the National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. She

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has also been awarded the AIGA Medal for Lifetime Achievement and has held top creative positions at Rolling Stone, SpotCo and Anderson Newton Design.

After a successful run as director of operations for SVA’s MFA Computer Arts program, Hsiang Chin Moe (MFA 2008 Computer Art) has become the first-ever chair of BFA Animation, which previously shared its chair with BFA Film. Moe brings some 10 years of teaching experience to her new role, as well as a professional background in advertising, animation and VFX. In addition to organizing and moderating an annual talent panel at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France, she is an accomplished filmmaker and serves as co-lead of the New York City chapter of Women in Animation, a nonprofit supporting women in the field.

Miya Osaki, an MFA Design for Social Innovation faculty member for the past four years, has succeeded the department’s founding chair, Cheryl Heller. Osaki has lectured and taught about design, health care and social impact at institutions such as Art Center College of Design (where she received her MFA), Pratt Institute, Princeton School of Engineering and Applied Science and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She co-hosts Yah, No, a podcast about the intersection of design, business and health care, and is a founding partner of Diagram, a New York City–based, minority- and women-owned design studio whose mission is to create health-care experiences that put people’s needs at the center.

In MPS Digital Photography, Tom P. Ashe, the department’s former associate chair, has succeeded Katrin Eismann (MFA 2002 Design) as chair. Ashe has been an SVA faculty member for more than 15 years, beginning with teaching photography and digital printmaking in BFA Photography and Video. He has also been a guest lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale University and Northeastern University, and has worked for such companies as Polaroid and Eastman Kodak. His own photography practice and research explores family history, process, abstraction and the LGBTQIA+ community.

The new Writing and Literacy program, which offers both creative and critical writing courses, is led by Dr. Maryhelen Hendricks. Hendricks previously served as acting chair of Humanities and Sciences, and is a longtime faculty member. Her contributions to SVA are many; among other accomplishments, she helped to create the College’s learning disabilities, honors and ESL programs, as well as the Writing Resource Center. Dr. Kyoko Miyabe, a practicing artist and Humanities and Sciences faculty member, is now that department’s acting chair. She holds a PhD in English from Cambridge University, master’s degrees from the University of York and New York University, and a BA from Brown University. [Maeri Ferguson] V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L

✶ HEARD

AT SVA ✶

“Whether you’re a photographer/biologist, photographer/activist or photographer/mother, you are compelling in your multiplicity. … Being multiple things doesn’t make you less of a photographer.”

—HARUKA SAKAGUCHI, photographer, from

a talk hosted by MPS Digital Photography

Wanted Posters

✶

Earlier this year, SVA presented Poster House—a new museum in Manhattan dedicated to presenting the history and artistry of poster design—with a significant donation from its “Subway Series,” posters promoting the College that have been created by faculty and displayed in New York City’s subway system. The donation currently consists of roughly 100 posters stretching back to 1996, and includes works by Milton Glaser, Louise Fili, Paula Scher and many others. Each subsequent poster in the series—including the latest, by BFA Design faculty member Peter Ahlberg (BFA 2003 Graphic Design)—will also join the museum’s permanent collection.

Poster House is located at 119 West 23rd Street; for more information, visit posterhouse.org. [MM]

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP SVA Subway Series”

posters in the permanent collection of the new Poster House museum in Manhattan include works by faculty Yuko Shimizu (MFA 2003 Illustration as Visual Essay), Louise Fili, Milton Glaser and Stefan Sagmeister.

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CLOSE UP

Parfait 10 ✦

Since 2010, SVA has mounted a fall exhibition in Saint-Rémy de Provence, France, in collaboration with the Valetudo Association, which operates a psychiatric clinic at Saint-Paul de Mausole, a historic monastery in the area. The show, held to coincide with the Journées du Patrimoine—the annual celebration of Europe’s cultural heritage—promotes the therapeutic value of making art, and the joy that comes from experiencing it with others.

This year’s exhibition at Saint-Rémy, “Art and Revelry,” marks the 10th since SVA Executive Vice President Anthony P. Rhodes and Dr. Jean-Marc Boulon, director of Valetudo, originated their respective institutions’ transatlantic partnership. It is on view through October 31 and features SVA alumni work in a variety of disciplines. [MM]

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V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L

CLOCKWISE FROM OPPOSITE, TOP Works from Art and Revelry,” an SVA alumni exhibition on view through October in SaintRémy de Provence, France. Karli Cadel (MPS 2011 Digital Photography), Moving Meditation, 2011; Gabriella Lincoln (BFA 2019 Photography and Video), Sœurs, 2019; Bobby Cao (BFA 2018 Design), Twisted Volume, 2017, electric guitars, metal wires, metal panels and telephone; Rachel Papo (MFA 2005 Photography, Video and Related Media), Alexander, St. Petersburg, Russia, 2007.

✶ HEARD

AT SVA ✶

“A lot of gay people or lesbians are on the search for their own history. ...

We were left out of history a lot, so it’s up to us to write our own histories.”

—CAROLINE BERLER, (MFA 2017 Social Documentary Film), filmmaker, at “Let’s Talk: Queer Identity and Creativity,” a talk hosted by SVA Alumni Affairs and Development

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CLOSE UP

A Fulbright First I

© AIGA

n 2017, SVA Career Development began offering assistance to students and recent alumni interested in applying to the U.S. Fulbright Student Program, which offers oneyear grants for research projects around the world. All who work with the office on their application receive personalized guidance through the process; satisfactorily completed and reviewed applications receive the College’s official endorsement.

Earlier this year, Julia Volonts (MPS 2017 Art Therapy) became SVA’s first institutionally endorsed Fulbright recipient. Volonts is using the award to study art therapy practices in Latvia, working out of the country’s Rīga Stradiņš University through May 2020.

For more information on Career Development’s Fulbright assistance and other offerings, visit sva.edu/careerdevelopment. [MM]

IN APRIL, MPS BRANDING CHAIR DEBBIE MILLMAN received an AIGA Medal—one of the design world’s highest honors—at AIGA’s annual conference in Pasadena.

Millman was recognized for her work as an author, designer, educator, illustrator and host of Design Matters, her longrunning, award-winning podcast.

✶

HEARD AT SVA ✶

“When you had a show in Soho, that was one of the most amazing experiences ever. ...

You knew that everybody important was in this space, the ghosts of everybody.”

—GARY SIMMONS, (BFA 1988 Fine Arts), artist, from a talk hosted by MFA Art Practice

Julia Volonts, Grey Areas, 2016, collage. Volonts is studying in Latvia on a Fulbright Scholarship.

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V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L

Abby’s Road

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mong the many veteran members of the SVA community, few can claim a tenure as lengthy, varied and influential as Abby Kreh’s (1962 Illustration). A graduate, former administrator and faculty member and current special consultant to President David Rhodes, Kreh began her 60th year with the College this fall.

Kreh enrolled at SVA in the fall of 1959—one of three female students out of a class of 90—having already completed an undergraduate degree at Middlebury College, in Vermont, and worked for over five years in Life magazine’s Picture Collection department. Upon graduating, “I realized I wasn’t going to make bags of gold from my paintings and would need to return to full-time work,” she says. Impressed with the College’s philosophy and commitment to students, she joined SVA’s staff as an assistant to founder Silas H. Rhodes.

Two years later, she took on the newly created (and ultimately shortlived) position of dean of women. She went on to serve as SVA’s first Title IX coordinator and vice president, and as dean of the school. In 1975 she resigned as dean, continuing on at the College as special consultant to the president. Kreh characterizes her work in all of these

high-ranking appointments as, simply, advocating for and championing all SVA students, trying to ensure their equitable treatment regardless of gender, area of study or personal circumstances.

“Each student’s creativity is absolutely unique, you’re just trying to help get that part of them out,” she says. “It’s very hard when you’re 18 to believe in what you’re going to be, because your work isn’t what you want it to be yet.”

For 20 years, beginning in 1974, Kreh taught courses on opera as a member of the SVA Humanities and Sciences faculty. “Opera is oxygen to me,” she says, and that devotion played a large role in her 1995 move to central New York, near Cooperstown. There, she volunteers for the world-famous Glimmerglass Opera, now known as the Glimmerglass Festival, which puts on new productions each summer. But she still serves as special consultant to President Rhodes and edits various College publications, including the undergraduate and graduate catalogs and the SVA Handbook.

“I never thought I would be a college administrator and I never thought I would teach,” she says. “But I believed and continue to believe in SVA’s mission and its constant support and advocacy for individual rights.” [Greg Herbowy]

C O MI NG AT TR AC TI ONS For more information on SVA events, visit sva.edu/events.

Mesmeric Featuring thesis work

by MPS Digital Photography students.

Through November 2 SVA Gramercy Gallery 209 East 23rd Street ✳ Model Minority and Model Majorities: Furen Dai, Christopher K Ho and Friends A talk presented by MA Curatorial Practice and Asia Art Archive in America.

Thursday, November 7 7:00pm 132 West 21st Street 10th floor ✳ Becoming Featuring Walker Evans-inspired work by BFA Photography and Video alumni and students.

November 9 – 27 SVA Gramercy Gallery 209 East 23rd Street ✳ SVA @ Untitled Featuring work by nine 2019 alumni from six undergraduate and graduate SVA programs.

December 3 – 8 Untitled, Art Miami Beach Ocean Drive at 12th Street Miami Beach ✳ Truth and Reconciliation An alumni panel discussion held in conjunction with “American Truth” (see page 4).

Wednesday, December 11 6:30pm SVA Chelsea Gallery 601 West 26th Street 15th floor

Former SVA Dean of the School Abby Kreh at her desk, circa early 1970s. Courtesy Abby Kreh.

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WHAT’S IN STORE Cheema’s Travel

Private and group trips, pricing varies cheemastravel.com

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fter working as a junior art director at Food Network right out of SVA, Rani Cheema (BFA 2007 Graphic Design) started picking up design jobs around the world and realized quickly that travel was her true love.

Following some time spent as an assistant to consultants in the industry, she opened her own luxury travel agency in September 2016.

Cheema’s Travel specializes in culinary-centered experiences. “I base my own trips

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on what I want to eat, not what I want to see,” she says, and she noticed that many of her clients felt similarly. So in addition to planning trips for clients for honeymoons, birthdays and other occasions, Cheema organizes—and, when she can, leads—group trips to places that people are less likely to visit independently.

One of Cheema’s favorite destinations is South Korea, where she arranges an annual retreat during cherry blossom season. Last year, attendees

The latest from SVA entrepreneurs: books, movies, products and more

included Sarah Henke, the owner and chef of the Michelin-starred YOSO restaurant, in Germany; photos from the trip appear in her cookbook, Korea.

There was also a cooking class with Buddhist nun Jeong Kwan, who’s been featured on Netflix’s Chef’s Table. “My group trips always include at least one awe-inspiring moment that hopefully will move the travelers and inspire them to do something back home,” Cheema says.

In October, Cheema took an all-female-identifying group to Iran, where travelers visited woman-run restaurants. In the future, she hopes to lead retreats in Cuba, Scandinavia and Punjab, India.

“I want to break down walls and stereotypes,” she says.

“There is so much magic on this great big planet.”

[Michelle Mackin]

2020 Cheema’s Travel Retreats ✦ MARCH

Taiwan Singapore APRIL

Korea Japan M AY

Portugal Galicia, Spain India JUNE

Italy

OCTOBER

Iran

NOVEMBER

South Africa

V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L

See Hear Draw

To submit a product for What’s in Store, send information to

NEWS@SVA.EDU

Illustrated event documentation Pricing varies seeheardraw.com

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llustrator Tracey Berglund (1981 Media Arts) contributes cartoons to The New Yorker’s Daily Shouts section and is available for assignments through the Sullivan Moore (commercial and editorial) and Jennifer de Chiara (literary) agencies, but she is also the talent behind See Hear Draw, a business she runs with her son that offers “graphic recordings”—i.e., real-time drawings and notes—of conferences, corporate retreats and other events.

See Hear Draw’s clients include IBM, NASA, NBC and the United Nations; the work has taken Berglund to Singapore, for a job with Credit Suisse, and to the SVA Theatre, where she recorded SVA Career Development’s January 2019 event with Blondie’s Debbie Harry and Chris Stein (1973 Fine Arts). [Greg Herbowy]

Carol Cao

Kasinator Visuals

Women’s apparel, $99.99 and up carolcao.org

Apparel, accessories, prints and zines, $10 and up kasinatorvisuals.bigcartel.com

Current BFA Fine Arts student Carol Cao sells her “fun, colorful” clothes online and at SoHo store DREEMS, located at 120 Wooster Street.

Own clothes, totes, books and more featuring the work of Kasinator, a.k.a. Bronx-based photographer Kasey Rodriguez (BFA 2016 Photography and Video).

Rowdy Cowlick

Custom embroidery, pricing varies rowdycowlick.com Using a vintage Singer, Hilary Corts (BFA 2010 Photography) creates custom embroidered clothes, patches and wall hangings in her Glendale, California, studio; contact her for a quote.

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WHAT’S IN STORE

Shelf Liners 14

Theorizing Transgender Identity for Clinical Practice: A New Model for Understanding Gender S.J. Langer (BFA 1997 Film and Video; faculty, Humanities and Sciences) Jessica Kingsley Publishers Softcover, £24.99

Harmattan

Adaeze Elechi (MFA 2012 Social Documentary Film) Bottlecap Press Softcover, $10

Last Days at Hot Slit: The Radical Feminism of Andrea Dworkin Co-edited by Johanna Fateman (BFA 1997 Fine Arts) Semiotext(e)/Native Agents Softcover, $17.95

Away with Words: The Daring Story of Isabella Bird

Illustrated by Kristy Caldwell (MFA 2010 Illustration as Visual Essay) Peachtree Publishing Hardcover, $17.95

Good Night, Wind: A Yiddish Folktale

Illustrated by Maëlle Doliveux (MFA 2013 Illustration as Visual Essay) Holiday House Hardcover, $17.99

A Rose by Any Other Name

Eric Weeks (BFA 1987 Photography; faculty, BFA Photography and Video) Softcover, $30

In Dreams Awake

Kathy Ruttenberg (BFA 1982 Fine Arts) Pointed Leaf Press Hardcover, $65

Utopia Centerfolds at Play Brandon Isralsky (BFA 2013 Photography) and Ina Jang (BFA 2010 Photography) Convoke Softcover, $40

Feck Perfunction: Dangerous Ideas on the Business of Life

James Victore (1985 Graphic Design) Chronicle Books Softcover/e-book, $19.95/$13.99

How to Disappear: Notes on Invisibility in a Time of Transparency

Akiko Busch (faculty, MA Design Research, Writing and Criticism) Penguin Press Hardcover/e-book, $26/$12.99

Eat, Drink, Animate: An Animator’s Cookbook Tom Sito (BFA 1977 Animation) CRC Press Softcover/e-book, $31.96 both formats

ANIMATION IS A MAGICAL MEDIUM, but it’s created by flesh-and-blood people who get hungry just like the rest of us. Industry veteran Tom Sito gathered the favorite dishes and drinks of some of the field’s biggest names, past and present, for this one-of-a-kind cookbook. Eat, Drink, Animate includes the recipe for Walt Disney’s chili as well as contributions from fellow alumni Michael Giacchino (BFA 1990 Film and Video), Yvette Kaplan (BFA 1976 Animation) and Bill Plympton (1969 Cartooning).

Clue: Candlestick

Dash Shaw (BFA 2005 Illustration) IDW Publishing Softcover/e-book, $4.99/$1.99 per issue

The Giant from the Fire Sea

John Himmelman (BFA 1981 Media Arts), illustrated by Jeff Himmelman (BFA 2006 Illustration) Henry Holt and Co. Hardcover/e-book, $16.99/$9.99

Lawrence in the Fall

Matthew Farina (MFA 2014 Art Writing and Criticism; director, SVA Admissions), illustrated by Doug Salati (MFA 2014 Illustration as Visual Essay; faculty, Pre-College and English and the Visual Arts) Disney-Hyperion Hardcover/e-book, $16.99/$10.99

TWO NEW COLLABORATIONS BETWEEN SVA ALUMNI ARE IN LIBRARIES AND STORES. The Giant from

the Fire Sea, by father-and-son duo John and Jeff Himmelman, is a fantasy for young readers about the friendship between a boy and a giant. John, a children’s book author since his last year at SVA, wrote the text; Jeff, moonlighting from his job as vice president of creative at tech company Game Closure, illustrated.

Lawrence in the Fall, inspired by writer Matthew Farina’s own upbringing as the son of an arborist, is a children’s story about a young fox who collects leaves with his dad for a class show-and-tell, and includes a leaf-identification guide. It is Farina’s first book and illustrator Doug Salati’s second (his first, In a Small Kingdom, came out in 2018); Chinese, Dutch and German editions are forthcoming.

Credo: The Rose Wilder Lane Story Peter Bagge (1977 Cartooning) Drawn & Quarterly Hardcover, $22.95

Vivisectionary

Kate LaCour (MPS 2009 Art Therapy) Fantagraphics Hardcover, $24.99

The Little Green Girl

Flowers

Michael De Feo (BFA 1995 Graphic Design) Abrams Books Hardcover/e-book, $35.00/$26.43

There Was an Old Gator Who Swallowed a Moth

Lisa Anchin (MFA 2011 Illustration as Visual Essay) Dial Books Hardcover/e-book, $17.99/$10.99

Illustrated by David Opie (MFA 2002 Illustration as Visual Essay) Pelican Publishing Hardcover, $16.99

Ridley Scott: A Biography

Vincent LoBrutto (BFA 1974 Film and Video) University Press of Kentucky Hardcover/e-book, $40 both formats

The Happy Book

Andy Rash (MFA 1996 Illustration as Visual Essay) Viking Books for Young Readers Hardcover/e-book, $17.99/$10.99

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Lalani of the Distant Sea

Illustrated by Lian Cho (BFA 2019 Illustration) Greenwillow Books Hardcover/e-book, $16.99/$9.99

Bark in the Park!: Poems for Dog Lovers

Illustrated by Hyewon Yum (MFA 2006 Illustration as Visual Essay) Orchard Books Hardcover/softcover/e-book, $17.99/$11.95/$10.99

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WHAT’S IN STORE

Paulie Gee’s Slice Shop

110 Franklin Street, Brooklyn Pizza slices and pies, $3.50 – $30 pauliegee.com

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MICHELLE MACKIN

hough he spent years cooking big meals for friends and family, Paul Giannone (1974 Photography) knew that if he were to start a restaurant after a long career in IT consulting, he had to hit “a home run,” he says. In 2010 he opened Paulie Gee’s, a Neapolitan-inspired pizzeria in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood. Rave reviews, crowds and licensing agreements with pizza-makers in Baltimore, Chicago and Columbus, Ohio, followed. But Giannone—who spends nearly all of his time at work, greeting diners and fussing over details (“The restaurant is my life,” he says)—resisted expanding on his own until last year, when he opened Paulie Gee’s Slice Shop.

Located around the corner from the original Paulie Gee’s, the Slice Shop sells more traditional New York pizza optimized for takeout—since, as Giannone says, “there is no better smell than the smell of pizza on the cardboard takeout box.” The Slice Shop resembles a small corner spot upon entering, much like the “little half-pizzerias” he recalls from his Brooklyn childhood. But past the counter is an eat-in restaurant with wood paneling, green barstools, orange bench seating and a glass garage-style door that floods the room with light. A shrine to Giannone’s beloved New York Yankees, the space is decked out with vintage team memorabilia. Giannone, an avid music fan, carefully curates the

playlist—no contemporary pop—and plays it audibly to add to the old-school ambiance.

Popular menu items include the Freddy Prince, a square slice that Eater called “required eating for NYC slice connoisseurs”; the Mootz, one of the “best white slices in NYC,” according to Adam Kuban, founder of the pizza blog Slice (now part of Serious Eats); and the Hellboy, topped with pepperoni and Mike’s Hot Honey.

(The widely sold condiment, created by former employee Mike Kurtz, was originally produced in the Paulie Gee’s kitchen.)

Did he hit the home run he’d aimed for? “Yeah,” Giannone says.

“Grand slam!” [MM] V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L

Comb Rugs

Limited-edition kilim rugs £435 and up knotcollective.com MFA Design faculty member Stefan Sagmeister designed this flat-weave rug, which comes in five different sizes; a portion of the proceeds goes to GoodWeave, which supports the fight against child labor.

Celebrating Lunar New Year Commemorative Box Set

By Name

Limited-edition set of stamps and folios, $114.95 store.usps.com

324 Bowery Gallery and café, menu items $4.25 and up byname.nyc

This year, the U.S. Postal Service issued the 12th and final stamp in its Celebrating Lunar New Year series, created by artist Kam Mak (BFA 1984 Illustration), with one stamp for each year in the Chinese zodiac.

The service is now selling a deluxe set of the works, with illustrated backstories for each of Mak’s designs and a signed, numbered certificate of authenticity.

Junyan Hou (MFA 2019 Photography, Video and Related Media) is a co-owner of this new space, which offers contemporary art and a health-conscious menu of teas, sandwiches and snacks.

Bolioli Surfboards

Surfboards, $800 – $4,000 eduardobolioli.com Artist and illustrator Eduardo Bolioli (1984 Cartooning) makes a variety of fine art and commercial work inspired by his adopted home state of Hawaii.

He recently unveiled a line of original surfboards, available to buy on his website.

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HAMMERHEADS

HIDE AND SEEK

MALIA AND THE FLOATING AMA AMA

LET ME BE YOUR SEA, DIVE INTO ME

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WHAT’S IN STORE

The Good Advice Cupcake

Apparel, gift book and phone holders, $13 and up @thegoodadvicecupcake

to turn it into a brand. Nearly two years and 2.4 million Instagram followers later, Cuppy is an Internet celebrity and the biggest star of BuzzFeed’s Media Labs, with new content posted every day—including comics, videos and fan Q&As—all with messages of self-love, life lessons and social justice. The Cupcake team has also grown to include yet another alumnus, animator Kyra Kupetsky (BFA 2015 Animation). The three of them lead a staff of animators and fellow creators to keep the project growing. Cuppy now has her own merchandise, which can be found at Hot Topic and BuzzFeed’s online store, and this fall Running Press rolls out the character’s first book, Grab Life by the Balls.

With The Good Advice Cupcake, the goal was always “to create something people would love, and let [young people] know it’s okay to mess up,” Myers says. Her advice for women who want to follow a similar path and explore the world of animation: “This is a time where you don’t have to hide or pretend you’re one of the boys. Be true to yourself. Be proud of you who are.”

[Maeri Ferguson]

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hen Zee Myers (BFA 2004 Computer Art) started at BuzzFeed as the head of media labs in 2017, she knew there was unrealized potential for the journalism and entertainment company in online animation. That summer was the first time she encountered The Good Advice Cupcake, a cartoon created for a different project by fellow BuzzFeed employee and SVA alumnus Loryn Brantz (BFA 2007 Animation), featuring a loveable, cussing, wide-eyed treat with plenty of sass.

The introverted, self-deprecating dessert, known as “Cuppy,” stuck with Myers until early 2018, when she and Brantz decided

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V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L

Watch List

Screen time with SVA alumni and faculty

Losers Deadwood: The Movie

Learn about some of history’s unsung athletes in this documentary series created by Mickey Duzyj (BFA 2004 Illustration), with storyboards by faculty member Nick Bertozzi and editing by Andrew Romero (BFA 2004 Film and Video). Netflix

The interwoven stories from HBO’s acclaimed Western series continue in this two-hour film, directed by Dan Minahan (BFA 1987 Film and Video). HBO

Steven Universe: The Movie Black Monday This comedy series from writer/producer David Caspe (BFA 2005 Fine Arts) offers a fictionalized account of the 1987 stock market crash; its second season premieres in 2020.

Showtime

Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists This documentary celebrates the lives and careers of legendary New York City journalists Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill (1954 Illustration). HBO

This TV-movie musical, which premiered this fall, is just the latest spinoff of the popular animated series Steven Universe, created by Rebecca Sugar (BFA 2009 Animation).

Cartoon Network

My Life Is Still Just a First Draft Sword of Trust

Street artist Morley (BFA 2004 Film and Video) directed this autobiographical documentary short.

Ovation/Amazon

Lynn Shelton (MFA 1995 Photography and Related Media) co-wrote and directed this comedy about an oddball group’s effort to sell a questionable Civil War relic.

Amazon/Google Play/iTunes/Vudu/ Xbox/YouTube

Back to the Fatherland Wish Weasel A sci-fi comedy series by motion-graphics artist Dan McNamara (BFA 2006 Computer Art), Wish Weasel has been screening at festivals and events this year, with five-minute episodes also streaming online. YouTube

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Kat Rohrer (BFA 2004 Film and Video) and Gil Levanon (BFA 2006 Film and Video) produced and directed this documentary about descendants of Holocaust survivors who have moved to Austria and Germany, available to stream in 2020.

Amazon/iTunes

Little Fires Everywhere Lynn Shelton is also executive producer— and director for several episodes—of this 2020 series based on the bestselling novel about two suburban Ohio families. Hulu

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CREATIVE LIFE

Navigating the great wide world of work

Negotiation Basics TIPS AND TACTICS FOR DISCUSSING YOUR NEXT SALARY, RATE OR FEE by greg herbowy and patricia romeu

HIT the

BOOKS Five titles that take on negotiation in depth

Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In

by Roger Fisher and William Ury (Penguin, 1981)

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s much as we might wish it otherwise, career advancement in any field depends on not just the quality of your work, but a range of professional and interpersonal skills. Of these skills, negotiation may be the most consequential.

At the start of your career—or any new job, for that matter—effective negotiating helps determine your beginning pay and benefits, as well as your reputation, with an employer; all subsequent negotiations will proceed from there. And when you are discussing the terms of a new position within an organization or a larger project with a client, negotiation can determine how rewarding that step forward will be.

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Because of its importance, and because of the confidence and selfadvocacy it requires, negotiation can be intimidating. But it is a learnable practice that can be improved upon through study and application—and one in which you likely have more experience than you think. Everyday life, after all, is fi lled with bargaining, whether it’s making plans with friends or dividing household chores among family members.

Last year, SVA Career Development Associate Director Patricia Romeu gave a talk, Negotiating Salaries and Rates, that presented an overview of best practices. What follows are some negotiation basics adapted from her presentation, as well as recommended resources for more information. ❉

Getting to Yes with Yourself: How to Get What You Truly Want

by William Ury (HarperCollins, 2015)

Negotiation Genius: How to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Brilliant Results at the Bargaining Table and Beyond

by Deepak Malhotra and Max H. Bazerman (Bantam, 2008)

Negotiating at Work: Turn Small Wins into Big Gains

by Deborah M. Kolb and Jessica L. Porter (Jossey-Bass, 2015)

Women Don’t Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation

by Linda Babcock (Bantam, 2007)

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BE PATIENT K NOW THE NUMBERS AT THE OUTSET OF ANY PAY NEGOTIATION, you should be

ready with a realistic idea of how you would like to be compensated. Research what you should expect to earn, given the position, employer and industry in question, as well as your own level of applicable experience. Salary or rate guides and articles, whether online or in print, can also provide parameters of what you should aim for, but take these numbers with a grain of salt and consider the source. Industry-specific sites (such as coroflot.com for designers), professional associations or guilds and trade publications are generally more useful than job-search websites.

Keep in mind that your own network—faculty, mentors, colleagues and trusted friends or family members who know the field—may also have some insight about salary, so it is worth overcoming any reluctance you may have about discussing money matters.

See: Alison Green, “What Salary Should I Ask For? How to Figure Out Your Worth,” The Cut, March 5, 2019.

BE STRAIGHTFORWARD when it is time to respond to an offer, be sure that your proposal is comprehensive—and one that you will be happy with—should the employer agree to your terms. Tacking on additional requests after your counteroffer needlessly drags out the process and can mark you as untrustworthy.

You greatly improve your chances of getting what you want if you can make a convincing case that your skills and experience merit it. Keep your points succinct and, whenever possible, specific to the job at hand. If you are new to the field or recently graduated, you could note particularly successful projects or academic or professional distinctions and say you look forward to producing similarly distinctive work with this opportunity.

See: Kristen Hamilton, “The Careful Art of Negotiating Your First Salary,” Payscale.com, 2016; Laura Shin, “New Grads, Here’s How To Negotiate Your Salary,” Forbes, June 26, 2013.

✶ SVA CAREER DEVELOPMENT WILL OFFER

its Negotiating Salaries and Rates workshop again in 2020. For more information on this and other Career Development resources and events, visit sva.edu/careerdevelopment.

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at some point in a negotiation, the time may come for you to make your “ask”—that is, to clearly state what your desired compensation is. Often, it is better to wait until an employer has made their offer.

But if you are compelled to state a salary or rate up front, be sure to do so in a way that doesn’t close the door on additional negotiating. Cite a broad pay range, rather than an exact figure, which gives you an opening to make a later counter-proposal if the employer offers a salary or rate on the lower end of that range.

Once you have an offer, avoid accepting it immediately. Instead, express thanks, reiterate your excitement about the opportunity and ask for some time to consider the specifics. The thrill of having an offer in hand can lead you to commit to terms that, on closer inspection, are not as favorable as they first seemed. Even if the proposed pay is as much as you could reasonably hope for, there may be additional benefits you can request, like a better title, more vacation days or flexible hours.

Depending on the circumstances, you should be able to ask for anywhere from 24 hours to several days (or possibly longer) to review an employer’s suggested terms.

See: Julia Carpenter and Alex Laughlin, “How can I make more?,” The Washington Post, April 4, 2017; Lelia Gowland, "Before You Accept a Job Offer, Try Saying This," Forbes, April 13, 2017; Robin Madell, “The Exact Words to Use When Negotiating Salary,” U.S. News & World Report, July 10, 2017.

TAKE IT EASY BEING FORTHRIGHT AND CONFIDENT throughout a negotiation is critical; being combative and stubborn is not. Think again about your everyday negotiations. Pay attention to how you conduct yourself during these, and how they tend to work out.

It’s likely that you or the other party are rarely left feeling hurt or shortchanged.

Though workplace negotiations often have higher stakes, they needn’t be adversarial. Maintain a friendly tone in your communications. Understand the circumstances of the person making the offer. Be respectful throughout the process and be prepared to give some ground so that both of you can be satisfied with its conclusion.

Ultimately, as Deepak Malhotra, a professor at Harvard Business School, writes, you want to make it clear that you are genuinely interested in the opportunity, deserving of the compensation you want and, crucially, likable.

“People are going to fight for you only if they like you.

Anything you do in a negotiation that makes you less likable reduces the chances that the other side will work to get you a better offer.”

See: Deepak Malhotra, “15 Rules for Negotiating a Job Offer,” Harvard Business Review, April 2014; Liz Ryan, “Ten Things Never, Ever to Say in a Salary Negotiation,” Forbes, February 11, 2018.

PORTFOLIO

Trish Tillman

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by dan halm

he sculptural work of Trish Tillman (MFA 2009 Fine Arts) balances beauty and power. This is most immediately evident in the materials she uses— from opulent leather and vinyl, to sterile and shiny chrome, to soft and refined household items. The work’s inspiration, too, is a balance: between masculine and feminine decorative tropes, the private and the public, happy memories and personal traumas.

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Trish Tillman, Double Down, 2018, vinyl, hardware, tassels and wood.

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Trish Tillman, Double Foxhole, 2018, hand-printed denim, wood, tassels, hardware and foam.

“Tillman’s work vacillates between the wonderment and ‘simpler times’ of childhood and the harsh realities of growing up,” art professional Melissa Messina wrote in a catalog essay for “Remains (to be Seen),” Tillman’s 2018 exhibition at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond, Virginia. “She presents these works from the precipice of reflection, a place of looking back in order to cope with life-changing moments and determining how to best move forward productively.”

Tillman herself describes her art in a number of different but related ways. She begins a sculpture by sketching out shapes, then determining a color palette and the overall mood she wants to evoke. When her works are in their early stages, she views them as vacant houses—to be occupied and then 24

invested with all the ups, downs, dramas and safeties of home life—or as “personal altars,” with each added material or detail functioning as an offering that builds and complicates meaning. Once completed, the pieces are “icons,” she says, or “memorabilia that represents something else in a distilled manner. … They become symbols for our human condition that explore family and personal dynamics and how we relate to one another.”

Inspiration for Tillman’s recent work has come from her extensive travel in Asia over the past few years—in particular, her appreciation for the region’s rich architectural and decorative traditions—and her love of the “lush interiors” of bars and cafés, as well as the luxe materials and V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L

Installation view of Trish Tillman’s Stage Diver, 2017, at Asya Geisberg Gallery, New York City.

construction of handbags. The visual and tactile appeal of these surfaces, ornaments and details—with all their implications of the unattainable or the ideal—act as her sculptures’ “flashy outer presence, like a mask or a shield, [or] as a way that we present ourselves,” she says. “Almost like applying makeup.”

Conversely, hand-me-down fabrics—such as dish towels once owned by her grandmother and held on to for nearly 20 years following her death, or secondhand sheets—have added a more inward-looking, domestic and personal aspect to her art. Other, non-fabric objects used in her constructions include horsehair, metal studs and buckles, toothbrushes and candy dishes. Depending on the object, it might reference Tillman’s own biography or just exist to add a winking, “flirty and fetish” element.

“For a while, I felt bad for having fun while I worked,” she says, “but I go back and forth between making serious work and wanting to express something genuine.”

Tillman grew up as a self-described tomboy in Washington, DC, where she was drawn to the area’s punk and metal music scene. She earned her BFA from James Madison University, in Virginia, before enrolling at SVA. As a young child, she was a victim of sexual assault, and this experience has influenced her work, especially as of late.

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“I’ve always been soft-spoken about my history of sexual violence, but I think the work is bringing that out more these days.” Recent pieces enact a sort of reclamation, she says, by “taking back the idea of who gets to impose power on another person.” With their visual allusions to armor and in their immaculate construction, her sculptures exude confidence, poise and strength. But they also are the product of personal upheaval and self-inquiry.

“I started to think about how I am sewing up all this stuff into a beautiful façade,” she says, the physical labor mirroring the mental process of confronting the darker episodes of her past. “It’s been really healing for me to make this work. The work, to me, is not about just exposing a bunch of stuff, it’s about getting past that and figuring out how to forgive.”

“Growing and changing is really uncomfortable,” she adds.

“So the work, I think, has to really have both of those things in order to explore the dichotomy of humanity.”

Tillman’s work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States. She is represented by the Asya Geisberg Gallery in New York City. She is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation 2009 MFA Grant and has participated in the Visual Arts Center of Richmond residency program, as well as the Kala Chaupal residency in Jaipur, India. For more information, visit trishtillman.com. ✱ 25

Trish Tillman, Afterschool Locker, 2017, hand-printed vinyl, wood, metal, horsehair and resin.

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Trish Tillman, Hot Mustang II, 2018, fabric, vegan leather, chain, hardware, wood and foam.

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OPPOSITE Trish Tillman, Bitchin’ Betty, 2018, vinyl, vegan leather,

fabric, glass and wood.

ABOVE, FROM LEFT Trish Tillman, Marquee, 2015, rope, chrome

fi tting, horsehair and trim; Nightglow, 2019, vinyl, vegan leather, motorcycle muffler, hardware, horsehair, wood and foam.

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Trish Tillman, Tits Up, 2018, handprinted fabric, hand-me-down sheets, vinyl, metal brackets, rope, wood and foam.

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S

TLIGH

T

PO

MEXICO CITY

by Vanessa Machir

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ast and subtropical, Mexico City is home to progressive galleries, eclectic architecture and museums that address a spectrum of interests (art, toys, animal pathology). It plays host to ZONAMACO, the biggest contemporary art fair in Latin America, and a number of the creative world’s biggest luminaries—Frida Kahlo, Miguel Covarrubias and Octavio Paz, to name a few—have called it home.

The world has started to notice. Mexico City took the top spot in both Harper’s Bazaar’s 2018 “Art-Lover’s Guide to Traveling the World” and National Geographic’s 2019 “Best Trips” lists. But the city’s residents aren’t surprised. “We’ve always had a lot of culture,” photographer Carlos Álvarez-Montero (MFA 2010 Photography, Video and Related Media) says. Artist and writer Lucía Hinojosa (BFA 2013 Visual & Critical Studies) likens the upswing in attention to a veil being lifted. “We need to look back more and see all the things that were already happening,” she says.

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As with any other major metropolis, the city does have its drawbacks—of which size can be one. “Every week there’s a new collective, a new press,” Hinojosa says, “but it’s hard to get around.” And when it comes to advertising and commercial work, “it’s very limited,” says entrepreneur Jennifer Emmons (MFA 2015 Design for Social Innovation). “Clients ... don’t really allow creatives to go big.” Álvarez-Montero agrees, saying, “Mexico is not the market that will experiment.”

But Mexico City has a bigger problem: the perception that it’s dangerous. And it

can be, just like any other big city, such as New York City, London or San Diego (the only cities our interviewees have ever been mugged in). But “it’s never been as dangerous as people think, like coming to a war zone,” Álvarez-Montero says.

So then why the sudden attention?

What’s changed? Technically, nothing, Álvarez-Montero says. “It’s not like anything happened.” The Internet has helped spread the word, but more importantly, “someone decided to come without prejudice.” Here are three SVA alumni contributing to the city's culture and cool.

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Verde Permuta, co-founded by SVA alumnus Jennifer Emmons, offers high-quality secondhand clothes at its store in Mexico City's Juarez neighborhood.

JENNIFER EMMONS MFA 2015 Design for Social Innovation

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econdhand stores are a staple in New York, but not so in Mexico City.

Pre-owned clothes are often sold at flea markets, and “people have this idea that these clothes are old, they have holes,” Emmons says.

“We want to kill that stigma.”

That’s why she and business partner Melissa Veytia are giving used clothing a second life through their venture, FA L L / W IN T ER 20 19

Verde Permuta (Spanish for “green exchange”).

While Emmons wants to change perceptions, Verde Permuta addresses a much larger problem—waste created by the fashion industry.

“You don’t normally see clothes lying on the street on your way to work,” she says, “so the average person doesn’t think about it.”

Dissatisfied with her experiences working in advertising and education in Mexico City, Emmons decided to enroll in MFA Design for Social Innovation.

Soon after, she was inspired by a clothing exchange

between her and some of her high-school friends. (Born to an American father and a Mexican mother, she grew up in the Polanco neighborhood, near central Mexico City.)

Emmons and Veytia started inviting more and more people to their swap parties, then graduated to putting on pop-ups. In April of last year, Emmons and Veytia opened their fixed location in the Juarez neighborhood’s Bazar Fusión, a space that promotes Mexican artists and designers, and they’re hoping to expand to an online presence soon. At the store, you can either buy clothing outright or

donate your own lightly used garments for store credit. To keep standards high, they’re strict about what they accept—only about 40 percent makes the cut.

The shop’s neighborhood is special to Emmons, who lived there for four years. She describes it as the heart of the city, in part because of its iconic monument, El Ángel de la Independencia. It’s a place where people celebrate things they love and protest things they don’t, she says.

“You have happy moments, sad moments, everything.”

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LUCÍA HINOJOSA BFA 2013 Visual & Critical Studies

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ucía Hinojosa’s publication diSONARE is hard to define—and that’s the way she likes it. It’s bilingual (Spanish and English), features work by established artists and writers (Paul Chan) alongside emerging ones (Eugenio Camarillo, a writer and translator of Triqui origin from Oaxaca) and brings together a variety of disciplines.

Case in point: Though it’s printed, the sixth issue’s theme was sound and it was launched at Fonoteca Nacional de Mexico, the national library of sound. “It’s about how ideas intersect between one medium and another,” Hinojosa says. “It’s a photograph, it’s a performance, maybe it’s both.”

It’s fitting that we meet at Juarez’s Café La Habana, long a favorite of creative minds.

While she sips suero, a combination of lime, soda water and salt that’s said to be good for a hangover (though she doesn’t have one), she briefs me on

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the café’s history. Chilean author Roberto Bolaño wrote here, and it is said to be the inspiration for Café Quito in his novel Savage Detectives.

Rocker (and Bolaño fan, and 2019 SVA commencement speaker) Patti Smith performed here in 2017.

Hinojosa—also a writer and multidisciplinary artist—grew up in the south of the city and moved to New York City in 2009. She came up with the idea for diSONARE while at SVA, and launched it in 2013 in Mexico City with co-founders and partners Diego Gerard Morrison and Rodrigo Quintero. “There wasn’t a literary magazine with that kind of slant in Mexico,” she says. It’s now available at Mexico City institutions like Museo Jumex and Museo Tamayo, and Artbook @ MoMA PS1 and Printed Matter in the States.

DiSONARE ’s eighth issue, coming out later this year, explores the theme of the moving image and Mexican imagination through magic, shamanism, experimental film and more. And the ninth issue’s theme? A familiar source of inspiration: Savage Detectives.

CLOCKWISE FROM OPPOSITE Lucía Hinojosa performing at Terraza

Monstruo, Colonia Centro, Mexico City, photo by Lorena Tabares; Variations on Language, Hinojosa’s performance at Centro Cultural del Bosque, Mexico City, photo by Lorena Tabares; Acción Fertil (Fertile Action), 2018, performance, poem, ice and time-based work; diSONARE 07 launch at Bucardón, Colonia Centro, photo by Lorena Tabares. Hinojosa portrait by Joshua Faudem.

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CARLOS ÁLVAREZMONTERO MFA 2010 Photography, Video and Related Media

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n his 2018 series “Vanitas,” Carlos Álvarez-Montero photographed regular household objects: tchotchkes, flowers, a betta fish in a bowl. But the households in question are in Tepito, a Mexico City neighborhood notorious for its black market and crime rate.

“Vanitas” is somewhat of a departure for Álvarez-Montero, who has shot portraits of Michoacán gang members and militia groups in Guerrero. “People would think, ‘Carlos is going to shoot tough people, drugs, guns,’” he says. Instead, he put familiar items in the spotlight to upend people’s assumptions about Tepito.

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He often focuses on how people construct their own identities (also the subject of his SVA thesis), and his work in this vein has appeared in The Fader and Vice (he has a column, “Ojo, Mucho Ojo,” on the latter’s Spanish-language website). He has also shot editorials for Esquire and GQ, done commercial work for brands like El Jimador tequila and Kenco coffee and is planning on opening a photography management agency/production studio.

While he likes to photograph people who stand out, he’s also interested in underdogs—and there’s often overlap. “I see myself as that,” Álvarez-Montero says. Sitting in the Roma neighborhood’s bar-cummovie-theater Cine Tonalá, sporting a full beard and tattoos, he appears to be the quintessential modern-day artist. However, “people would think twice about the way I look.”

And when it comes to Mexico City’s own underdog, Tepito, “more than the bad, there’s the good,” he says.

“There’s a lot of hard-working people.” For “Vanitas,” he collaborated with CICLO, a project that uses art and culture to re-appropriate urban spaces. Works from the series were displayed at ZONAMACO Foto last summer, and will be shown this summer at ArtBase, a cultural space in Puebla. Álvarez-Montero did shoot one portrait for “Vanitas”— a confident young girl wearing elaborate braids and a bright printed track jacket.

“She’s strong, she’s tough, she’s cool,” he says.

“This is Tepito.” ✰

VANESSA MACHIR (MPS

2016 Branding) is a regular contributor to the Visual Arts Journal. She lives in New York City.

Photographs by Carlos ÁlvarezMontero from his series “Vanitas” (2018), which celebrates Tepito, a Mexico City neighborhood renowned for its contributions to Mexican culture but stigmatized for its “highly commercial activity, legal and illegal,” he says. Álvarez-Montero portrait by José Luis González.

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A selection of publications written or edited by Mignon Nixon, professor of modern and contemporary art at Bloomsbury's University College London.

A preparatory sketch for a California-themed 1969 Time magazine cover by designer and Acting Chairman of the SVA Board Milton Glaser (see page 72). Courtesy Milton Glaser, Inc., and the Milton Glaser Design Study Center and Archives.

THE SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS WILL ALWAYS BE A NEW YORK CITY INSTITUTION,

but outside of the greater metropolitan area, there is nowhere more SVA alumni call home than California. This is only natural. The state has long had a reputation as a destination for dreamers and visionaries, and its well-known entertainment and tech fields have a boundless need for artists, designers and filmmakers.

In this issue of the Visual Arts Journal, we cover some of the unexpected ways that the SVA community is helping to shape California’s industry, culture and image: Visual storytellers working in print, performance, animation and visual effects.

Artists painting canvases one day, then designing apparel or skate decks the next. And photographers who have chosen California as a source of inspiration, exploring the facets of an endlessly complicated and mythologized place.

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Golden State Stories by

EMMA DREW

The California Sunday Magazine focuses on deep reporting, stunning visuals and the element of surprise.

Layouts art-directed by Annie Jen and illustrated by Kyu-Tae Lee, from the February 2017 issue of The California Sunday Magazine.

Courtesy The California Sunday Magazine.

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There is, undoubtedly, something about California. The land, the climate, the people, even— especially—the light.

“It has this golden quality to it,” says Jacqueline Bates (MFA 2009 Photography, Video and Related Media; BFA 2004 Photography), photography director for The California Sunday Magazine. “We’ve always said, from the very beginning, that when you get off the plane in California the light feels different.”

Bates, a fine-art photographer herself, is part of the award-winning team responsible for capturing and making meaning out of such phenomena—that is, the who, what, where and why of the West—for the five-year-old magazine, a publication decidedly of California but with broad appeal and big ambitions.

“So much American journalism comes from New York, yet the West Coast is the center of so much of American culture.”

Launched in 2014, California Sunday produces wide-ranging features about California, the American West, Asia and Latin America for an international audience. It’s stories for your nights and weekends; it’s long-form journalism and diligently sourced images that go beyond the editorial; it’s cinematic.

“We’re inspired by California and by our view of the world from here. So much American journalism comes from New York, yet the West Coast is the center of so much of American culture, politics, technology and the economy,” executive 44

editor Raha Naddaf says. “We’re dedicated to telling stories first and foremost, and those stories should feel relevant and compelling to people beyond the territories we cover.”

Rising housing costs, worsening wildfires, immigration crises—the stories coming out of the West are those of extraordinary circumstances and everyday existence. Recent issues of California Sunday have included pieces on the demise of a glacier in Yosemite, a cheerleading team in Venezuela fighting to make ends meet, Rohingya women in refugee camps, dispatches from recent college grads on the job market, U.S.–born children deported to Mexico with their undocumented parents and the affecting comedy of animated adult TV series. This year, a feature about a Central Valley agricultural tycoon and California’s history of water usage won a James Beard Foundation Award. Across issues, the reporting remains topical and eclectic, but intimately framed and told.

Art and photography are fundamental to the magazine’s storytelling. “We like the stories to unfold like movies,” Bates says. A photo editor at publications like W and Elle in New York before she moved to San Francisco, where California Sunday is produced, Bates was the second hire at the magazine and, with creative director Leo Jung, was given the role of shaping the magazine’s aesthetic. This has meant, in her words, letting images breathe. Commissioned photographers—always a mix of emerging and established, fine art and editorial—rarely shoot in the studio, instead keeping the focus on the people and the places they inhabit, together, in their environment, in context. Each feature looks different, and the goal is to have each issue be surprising for the reader. (For a special photo feature Bates edited for the Visual Arts Journal, see page 49.)

OPPOSITE Layouts photo-directed by Jacqueline Bates, featuring photography

by Andrew Miksys and Erica Deeman (top), and Carlos Chavarría (bottom), from the December 2018 issue of The California Sunday Magazine.

Courtesy The California Sunday Magazine.

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A layout photo-directed by Jacqueline Bates and featuring photography by Katy Grannan, from the December 2018 issue of The California Sunday Magazine. Courtesy The California Sunday Magazine.

Each feature looks different, and the goal is to have each issue be surprising for the reader.

Bates and her art department colleagues, including art director Annie Jen (BFA 2013 Design), have been nationally recognized more than once already. The magazine won a National Magazine Award for design in 2017 and is the first title in 25 years to win for photography in consecutive years, in 2016 and 2017. (California Sunday has also been a finalist for several other National Magazine Awards, including General Excellence and Magazine of the Year.) The Society of Publication Designers named it Magazine of the Year two years in a row, 2018 and 2019. Jen adopts a similar approach to art direction as Bates does to photography: finding the right artist for the story by seeking out underrepresented, even unknown, genre-crossing illustrators. The magazine’s leadership, says Jen, is “very open to different forms of media influencing how they do things—that really reflects how the magazine looks.”

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California Sunday is published every two months in print and online. Contrary to today’s norm, there are no web updates outside out of each issue, no news ticker–style reporting. The circulation model is also unique: the magazine is distributed via Sunday inserts in The Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle. This has given it a print circulation of roughly 350,000 and as such made it attractive to advertisers from the onset. (Copies are also available in bookstores from Seattle to San Diego.) Even the advertising content is novel, with the in-house Brand Studio designing artistic stories, photo essays and short films for corporate clients from MailChimp to Chanel. “None of us see this as a print launch,” co-founder and editor in chief Douglas McCray told the Columbia Journalism Review soon after California Sunday’s debut. “We have a print edition, and it’s beautiful and we got a great response to it. It’s one piece of what we’re doing.”

Another big piece is Pop-Up Magazine, California Sunday’s progenitor and counterpoint, a live storytelling event, a magazine in real-time. If the deeply reported stories and evocative photo essays of California Sunday are meant for spending time, Pop-Up—established in San Francisco in 2009 and now held in theaters across the country—is a dizzily immediate, V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L • THE C ALIFORNIA IS SUE

TOP A layout art-directed by Annie Jen, with photographs by Oriana Koren, for the August 2017 issue of The California Sunday Magazine.

ABOVE, RIGHT The California Sunday Magazine’s photography director Jacqueline Bates (above left) and art director Annie Jen in the magazine’s office, in San Francisco.

Photos by Taylor Kay Johnson.

Courtesy The California Sunday Magazine.

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you-have-to-be-there experience. Nothing is recorded, and audiences, which can now number in the thousands, are encouraged to stay off their phones. Each show runs about 100 minutes and consists of 10 to 15 true stories about a wide variety of subjects from journalists, storytellers and artists; a live score and sound effects by the house orchestra and other musicians; and specially created visuals, from photographs to films to dance performances. There are about seven stops per tour and three tours a year. This year’s spring/summer season kicked off in the Bay Area with stories about domestic workers in Hong Kong, a ride-share in wartime Benghazi and the performative lavishness of many Indian weddings.

While there are separate editorial and production teams for California Sunday and Pop-Up, the same art department supports both endeavors, making for a truly multimedia approach to storytelling.

“It’s a lot,” says Jen, who works with Pop-Up performers to develop original images and animations for their stories.

“But when I saw the show [during the job interview process], I knew it’s what I should be doing.” Her approach to layout design now reflects the time-based work and editing she does for the live shows, and vice versa.

The audacity of McCray’s take on new-media storytelling with Pop-Up, as well as the buzz generated by its sold-out shows, bolstered his and his partners’ ability to start California Sunday. As foil and complement, they have only helped one another. Both venues explore the craft of nonfiction narrative in thoughtful and inventive ways; some stories are for a night out, others for a quiet afternoon or evening in.

An unwavering commitment to experimentation connects the two, under the auspices of Pop-Up Magazine Productions.

Naddaf describes a workplace ethos of constant invention, Bates of openness and a sense of trust from the top down. In a media landscape in flux, Jen stresses the embrace of different ways of reporting and making a story with media. “This is more about storytelling than fixating on whether this is a website or not, for example,” she says.

Innovative in both form and content, California Sunday follows in Pop-Up’s footsteps by taking the magazine beyond its usual presentation, and in the process changing the way it is experienced. One issue was dedicated to the sounds of

California Sunday takes the magazine beyond its usual presentation, and in the process changes the way it is experienced. the West and featured online audio footnotes for each story; last December, a photography-based issue centered on the idea of home was turned into a Bates-curated gallery exhibition at the Aperture Foundation in New York, also with audio clips from interviewed subjects. The resulting multisensory stroll through the pages of a magazine come to life was one of Bates’s favorite accomplishments thus far.

“We’re so invested in telling stories that you’ve never heard before,” she says, “and doing it in a way that you’ve never seen before.” ✸ EMMA DREW (MFA 2017 Art Writing) is a regular contributor to the Visual Arts Journal. She lives in San Francisco.

BELOW A Pop-Up Magazine performance at The Theater at Ace Hotel,

Los Angeles, photographed by Jon Snyder. Courtesy Pop-Up Magazine.

Seeing California

VISUAL ARTS JOURNAL

SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS MAGA ZINE

For this special photo book, part of the fall/ winter 2019 edition of the Visual Arts Journal,

we asked 10 photographers in the School of Visual Arts community—nine alumni and one faculty member—to contribute images they have created over the past several years, all of them capturing aspects of California, one of America’s most diverse and populous states. Jacqueline Bates (MFA 2009 Photography, Video and Related Media; BFA 2004 Photography), the award-winning photography director of The California Sunday Magazine, served as our guest editor.

“As a native New Yorker getting off the plane for the first time in California, I was struck by one thing immediately: how different the light is,” she says.

“It feels and looks different out here—the West seems open to possibility. The climate is diverse and so are the stories that we tell.

“This portfolio of work shows firsthand the wide array of stories that are set here: from the deserts to the oceans, from small and personal anecdotes about what it means to be a Californian to larger stories that impact our criminal justice system, the environment and the way we live.”

COVER Kevin Cooley, Screen time, Opera Fire (detail), 2017. California is

plagued by wildfires, and artist Kevin Cooley (MFA 2000 Photography and Related Media) has photographed several since moving to Los Angeles. The boy in this photograph is his son, captured playing with an iPhone while Cooley went about his work. Cooley’s work has appeared in many solo and group exhibitions, and is in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, among other institutions.

OPPOSITE Sarina Finkelstein, photographs from The New Forty-Niners (Kehrer Verlag, 2013). Sarina Finkelstein (MFA 2004 Photography, Video and Related Media) spent five years visiting and photographing modern-day prospectors and historical gold-mining towns in California for her book The New Forty-Niners. The work, which won a PDN Photo Annual Award, showcases the enduring natural beauty of California’s wilderness, as well as the undying dreams of discovery and instant fortune, more than 160 years after the original gold rush brought waves of hopefuls to the area.

ABOVE John Francis Peters, People hang out and swim in what’s

left of the Kings River, Central Valley, CA, from the series “California Drought,” 2015. Photographer John Francis Peters (BFA 2002 Graphic Design) moved to Southern California in 2012 and his work often takes as its subject regional issues of international significance: the itinerant community in San Diego, California’s historic drought, the U.S./Mexico border.

Peters’ work has appeared in such publications as The California Sunday Magazine, The New Yorker and Time, and in numerous group exhibitions.

RIGHT Maureen Drennan, Ben Climbs (detail), from the series “Meet

Me in the Green Glen,” 2008 – 2017. When Maureen Drennan (MFA 2009 Photography, Video and Related Media) began work on “Green Glen,” her nine-year project documenting life on a Northern California marijuana farm, the substance was still illegal in the state. Even following its legalization, the business of growing and selling the crop continues to be murky, full of isolation and financial precariousness. Drennan, who lives in New York City, is currently working on a monograph of the series, among other projects.

Isaac Diggs, photograph from Middle Distance, or The Anxiety of Influence: Photographs from Los Angeles (Kris Graves Projects, 2019). The work of BFA and MFA photography faculty member Isaac Diggs explores architecture and urban landscapes, with a special focus on what he calls “port cities that are frayed around the edges, cities where the cultural landscape refracts our anxieties around race, sex or class.”

Star Montana, Frankie, from the series “By the rivers, I stood and stared into the Sun,” 2019. Star Montana (BFA 2013 Photography) grew up in Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights neighborhood, and its predominantly Mexican American community has served as inspiration for much of her work. Her projects have included the ongoing “I Dream of Los Angeles,” featuring portraits of Boyle Heights residents, and 2019’s “By the rivers, I stood and stared into the Sun,” which combined original photos with archival images to create a visual narrative of her family history. In 2020, Montana will be an artist-inresidence at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.

Star Montana, Ruby, from the series “I Dream of Los Angeles,” 2017 – present.

Sarina Finkelstein, photograph from The New Forty-Niners (Kehrer Verlag, 2013).

Ilona Szwarc, Female beekeeper standing in an orchard north of Fresno, California, from “The Super Bowl of Beekeeping,” The New York Times Magazine, August 15, 2018.

John Francis Peters, Luis and his stepson Melquis, both migrants from Honduras, stand in the courtyard of a migrant shelter in Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico, from the series “The Border,” 2019.

Ilona Szwarc, Will Nissen’s queenless beehives north of Bakersfield, California, from “The Super Bowl of Beekeeping,” The New York Times Magazine, August 15, 2018. The work of Los Angeles-based artist and photographer Ilona Szwarc (BFA 2013 Photography) has appeared in such publications as National Geographic, The New York Times, The New Yorker and Vogue. Szwarc’s art explores female identity construction and cultural dysphoria; her editorial assignments in California have taken her from the almond orchards of Bakersfield to a Santa Barbara location shoot for MTV’s The Hills. Her most recent solo exhibition, “Unsex me here,” was on view at the Make Room gallery in Los Angeles this past spring.

Dina Litovsky, Surfers at Maverick’s, one of the world’s two most important big-wave breaks, in Northern California, from “The Fight for Gender Equality in One of the Most Dangerous Sports on Earth,” The New York Times Magazine, February 7, 2019. The photographs of Dina Litovsky (MFA 2010 Photography, Video and Related Media) document group interactions in a variety of public and private settings, from political conventions to the Westminster Dog Show to the nightlife of Manhattan’s Meatpacking District.

Amy Elkins, images from the series “The Golden State,” 2017. “The Golden State” project by Amy Elkins (BFA 2007 Photography) consists of 26 composite images— one for each letter of the alphabet—comprising all the mug shots of California’s death row inmates, who at the time numbered 746. California has the largest death-row population in America, and though its current governor, Gavin Newsom, suspended executions earlier this year the fate of these men is still unknown: capital punishment can only be abolished in the state via popular vote. Elkins’ project aims to illustrate the racial bias of the justice system, and the ways in which imprisonment negates individual identity.

BACK COVER Zsolt Kadar, Demolition Beaudry Ave., Los Angeles, Ca., 2019. Zsolt Kadar (BFA 1990 Photography) moved to Los Angeles in 2001, and much of his recent work has dealt with the renewal and regeneration of the city’s buildings, infrastructure and landscapes—a metaphor, he says, for California’s reputation as a place of “constant reinvention and transience.”

Special thanks to: Jacqueline Bates, The California Sunday Magazine, Kevin Cooley, Isaac Diggs, Maureen Drennan, Amy Elkins, Sarina Finkelstein, Zsolt Kadar, Dina Litovsky, Star Montana, John Francis Peters, and Ilona Szwarc.

SVA .EDU

Recent covers for The California Sunday Magazine. Top, from left: photography by Livia Corona Benjamin, Nicholas Albrecht and Esther Black. Middle, from left: photography by Rose Marie Cromwell, Matt Black and Ricardo Nagaoka. Bottom, from left: photography by Trent Davis Bailey, Carlos Chavarría and Joshua David Greer. Courtesy The California Sunday Magazine.

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CROSSOVE PHOTOS BY K ARL & KRISTOF FOR AG JE ANS

Blanda BFA 2010 Graphic Design blandablanda.com @blahblahblanda

B

orn in Switzerland, educated in Zurich and New York City, and now living in Los Angeles, Blanda has built a career as enviably cool and cosmopolitan as her background. Her work, which combines elements of illustration, fi ne art and design, has appeared on shirts for Topshop, coffee sleeves for hip California coffee chain Alfred and a customized car for the 2013 Volvo Art Session series.

During a visit to her studio earlier this year, she was working on pieces for an upcoming gallery show and preparing for a collaboration with Soho House in LA. “While I like to think that my personal work informs the commercial work,” she says, “I know that it is all in constant flux, and I will have new ideas and inspiration for personal work after wrapping a commercial project.”

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After graduating from SVA, Blanda was hired as an art director at The New York Times, a job she found rewarding but limiting. “It launched a rocket of desire for creative freedom,” she says.

Not long after, she got her work in front of the head of Obey Clothing’s women’s department, which led to a commission designing T-shirt graphics and jewelry. “The process of working with a brand, seeing this collaboration come to life and the freedom I was given was a huge eye-opener for me,” she says.

She soon decided to pursue brand collaborations full-time, and has since worked with Kiehl’s, DC Shoes, Barbara Bui, Elena Ghisellini and other international labels. Recent projects include a limited-edition capsule collection with AG Jeans—featuring black-and-white graphics of simple, sinuous drawings of almost-intertwined female bodies—and a mural for the Beverly Hills location of HANRO, a Swiss luxury intimate clothing and loungewear brand, that made use of three walls and a skylight to create an immersive installation.

To maintain her artistic identity, Blanda imposes certain criteria for collaborations. Creative freedom is key; for each project, she listens to the client’s needs and desires first, but afterward “they have to trust me,” she says. Any brand she works with must sell or represent something that aligns with her own tastes and values—for instance, her collaboration with AG Jeans promoted the label’s sustainability efforts.

Seeking more space both physically and mentally, Blanda moved to LA from New York in early 2015. After working out of her living room for several years, she got her studio, in the city’s historic Lincoln Heights neighborhood, in 2018, which has enabled her to expand her personal art practice and work in bigger scale. In both her commercial and personal work, she often makes female figures a focal point, and she says her aim is to encourage “collaboration instead of competition with other women.

“I would like for us all to realize that we can uplift each other, rather than take each other down.”

[Michelle Mackin] V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L • THE C ALIFORNIA IS SUE

R ARTISTS TWO L.A.-BASED ALUMNI WHOSE WORK WITH BRANDS HELPS THEM BUILD THEIR OWN

KaNO Kid BFA 1999 Animation kanokid.com @kanokid

K

aNO Kid, a.k.a. Danny Kimanyen, can point to two childhood epiphanies that made him want to be an artist. First was a TV news segment on Jim Davis, creator of the inescapable Garfield comic strip, that showed the cartoonist living and working “in this big estate,” KaNO

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says. Second was fi nding out about Keith Haring (1979 Fine Arts), and in particular his Pop Shop, the Manhattan store that sold Haring-branded merchandise.

“I realized that artists don’t have to do just one thing,” he says. “You can make T-shirts and you can show in galleries—it’s all valid.”

Accordingly, KaNO—whose name is derived from his teenage graffiti tag, a nod to legendary rapper Big Daddy Kane—has built a diverse career. He has shown his original street-culture-inspired art in galleries, most recently in a group show in Brooklyn, curated by fellow SVA graduate Toofly, a.k.a. Maria Castillo (BFA 1999 Illustration). He has painted large-scale outdoor murals everywhere from Tokyo to Miami to the

Lower East Side. As an animator, he has worked on such shows as MTV’s Daria and Cartoon Network’s The Venture Bros.; he’s currently a character designer for the latter channel’s Ben 10. As a commercial artist, his projects include a limited-edition Jurassic Park–themed skate deck for Universal Pictures and apparel for Nike’s Jordan brand (a personal “artist’s bucket list” item, he says, though an Air Jordan sneaker collab would be the real “dream come true”).

Then there are the toys. KaNO’s Burbank studio is lined with the many figurines and collectibles he has created in collaboration with such high-end toy companies as Medicom, Kidrobot, Tokyo Plastic and Dead Zebra, Inc. Among his original characters are Money Grip, a figurine in a padded coat, with a fist in place of its head; Bodega, a spray-paint can with translucent, wing-like arms; and the Bruce Lee-inspired Dragon King, which has been blessed by the late movie star’s foundation.

Although he moved to California in 2010, KaNO still keeps an apartment in his native Queens, and several of his remaining artistic goals are New York– centric. “I’d like to do a Poetry in Motion illustration for the MTA,” he says. “I’d love to do an SVA subway poster. And it would be dope to be on [cable news channel] NY1 as their New Yorker of the Week!” [Greg Herbowy]

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“L

Life”

Force by ALEX ANDER GELFAND

and

GREG HERBOW Y

The team and tech behind Griffith Observatory’s new planetarium show 53

In a corner of Los Angeles’ Griffith Park,

in a small and anonymous-looking storage building, in a tentlike dome furnished with a half-dozen or so beach chairs, Dawn Fidrick (MFA 2010 Computer Art) boots up a laptop and projector. A series of brief computer animations play on the mini-dome’s ceiling, showing everything from multiplying bacteria to a girl playing in a backyard to the ice that makes up Saturn’s rings. Some sequences are skeletal outlines; others are impressively photorealistic. Nearly all of them, at this stage, Fidrick says, are “what we call CBB: Could Be Better.”

For the past three years, Fidrick, a former production and stage manager, has worked as the producer at Griffith Observatory. Set high on Griffith Park’s Mount Hollywood, the observatory—owned and operated by the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, with support from the nonprofit Friends Of The Observatory—is as famous for its role in popularizing astronomy as it is for its expansive views; the institution claims 1.7 million visitors each year. Fidrick has been working on the project she is reviewing now, in one form or another, more or less since she started her job. In a matter of months, the animations will be completed. Set to an original score and accompanied by live narration and star projections, they will make up Signs of Life, the new show at Griffith’s Samuel Oschin Planetarium, premiering in May 2020.

Signs of Life, Griffith’s first marquee production in 14 years, has grand ambitions. Using a script developed by observatory director Dr. E.C. Krupp, observatory curator Dr. Laura Danly and staff astronomers, in consultation with scientists from NASA, Harvard Medical School and the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, it examines the current science in the search for life in the universe. Only recently, for example, did scientists discover that there likely are billions of earth-like planets orbiting other stars—and that the cosmos is awash in water, a key ingredient in the recipe for life.

PREVIOUS SPREAD The Zeiss Universarium Mark IX star projector in the Samuel Oschin Planetarium at

Griffi th Observatory, in Los Angeles. © Griffi th Observatory.

OPPOSITE Griffi th Observatory is as famous for popularizing astronomy as it is for its expansive views.

© Griffi th Observatory.

ABOVE SVA alumni Dawn Fidrick (top) and Ruel Smith are part of the team behind Griffi th’s forthcoming planetarium show, Signs of Life. Photos by Steve Birnbaum (BFA 2004 Film and Video).

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Members of the team behind Signs of Life, the forthcoming show at Griffi th Observatory’s Samuel Oschin Planetarium, in their production studio this past spring. Photo by Steve Birnbaum.

Signs of Life aims to be a technical and creative marvel, featuring painstakingly detailed computer-generated animations. To achieve these, Fidrick, along with Signs of Life’s director Don Dixon, co-producer and co-director Bob Niemack and VFX supervisor Gee Yeung, put together a team of some 25 artists and production personnel of varied backgrounds. Some, like Fidrick and Ruel Smith (BFA 2004 Computer Art), have a background in film. Before joining Griffith, Fidrick worked on blockbusters like Star Trek: Into Darkness, and Smith’s resume includes effects for Captain Marvel and Black Panther; other team members have worked at such outfits as Bad Robot and DreamWorks. Still others have a more typical astronomical animation background. Two are former observatory museum guides.

The team’s work is “a careful balance between the art of storytelling and the science of the real,” Niemack says. Using data sets taken from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Fidrick and her colleagues mapped out the surface of the Red Planet. The team consulted with Dr. Gael McGill, director of 56

The Signs of Life team’s work “is a careful balance between the art of storytelling and the science of the real.”

molecular visualization at Harvard Medical School, on the accuracy of animations showing microbes and strands of DNA. Scenes with human characters use motion-capture shot inhouse and transferred to animation using a complex workflow specially developed for the show by Smith.

But imagination came to the fore when developing ways of illustrating concepts and moving from scene to scene. Given the immersive nature of a planetarium show, with the visuals extending to the limits of the audience’s peripheral vision, traditional filmmaking cuts and fades can be jarring, Smith V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L • THE C ALIFORNIA IS SUE

ABOVE An image from Signs of Life, featuring

Enceladus, the icy moon of Saturn, in the foreground. © Griffi th Observatory.

RIGHT A sequence from Signs of Life, which incorporates Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night, as seen in the mini-dome of the Griffi th Observatory Satellite studio. Photo by Steve Birnbaum.

says. And excessive movement in the animation can induce motion sickness in more susceptible viewers: “There’s a fine line between being making it fun and making someone throw up,” Fidrick says.

“We have to produce really long sequences,” says Smith, who as animation supervisor not only creates animations but develops and oversees the overall animation process and pipeline. “Sometimes they’re over 4,000 frames, with multiple characters—realistic humans, animals and insects—interacting all around the viewer.”

The team also developed a number of inventive segues, some of which required weeks of work. At one juncture, for instance, the audience gazes into the spherical camera lens of a Mars rover, only to have that lens transform into a planet.

And transitions from one part of the universe to another involve what Fidrick calls a “starpass,” in which viewers travel through a field of streaming stars, like a ship jumping to hyperspace in a sci-fi film. Here, though, the positions of the stars correspond to those of real stellar objects drawn from an astronomical database.

“We’re staying as true to the science as possible while creating an emotional, cinematic experience,” Fidrick says.

Then of course there is the gear. The 290-seat Samuel Oschin Planetarium is equipped with a top-of-the-line star projector, the Zeiss Universarium Mark IX, which sits in the center of the room, and six digital projectors are arrayed along the perimeter; these beam 24 channels’ worth of imagery on FA L L / W IN T ER 20 19

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“You are trying to produce these extraordinarily advanced productions, but with a far smaller budget and far fewer people than in a commercial venture like the movies.”

the 76-foot-diameter planetarium dome at 8,192-by-8,192pixel resolution.

Depending on its complexity, a single frame of this size and fidelity can take up to a day for a computer hard drive to calculate. At approximately 34 minutes, Signs of Life will feature some 122,400 frames of animation—60 per second of runtime. That adds up to a tremendous amount of work for both people and processors. With all of the animation being done on site, the Signs of Life team transformed the aforementioned storage building, known as the Satellite, into a constantly humming studio and render farm—something well beyond the capabilities of most public observatories, and a remarkable achievement even for one with the Griffith’s resources.

“You are trying to produce these rather extraordinarily advanced productions, but with a far smaller budget and far fewer people than in a commercial venture like the movies,” Krupp says.

Workers dug a trench to bring in additional electricity to the building. Planetarium screen specialists Astro-Tec

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manufactured the studio’s mini-dome, which is used for daily footage review, and software developer Autodesk joined as a technology partner, donating access to its 3D, production and rendering programs. Next door to the Satellite studio, the team created a heavily air-conditioned room housing 130 hard drives, or “blades,” including a continually updated backup set of drives, kept on a wheeled cart for quick evacuation in the event of a fire, flood or other emergency. The farm’s blades work around the clock, as do any idle studio workstations, and while a dedicated “render wrangler,” Oneal Douglin, oversees this churn during regular hours, Fidrick will remotely log in in the middle of the night, to ensure against any glitches.

This past summer, two more SVA alumni joined Fidrick and Smith in the studio. Sean Golding (BFA 2010 Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects) and Carl Vazquez (BFA 2009 Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects), both brought on as CG generalists, will help fast-track production as the show enters its final stages.

When Signs of Life goes live next year, each performance will be narrated by one of the observatory’s staff presenters. This is increasingly rare for planetarium shows, which typically employ recorded narration, and requires an unusual combination of filmmaking and staging techniques. In this way, Signs of Life is both a professional homecoming and synthesis for Fidrick, who among other theater jobs worked as stage manager for The Blue Man Group in New York City before enrolling at SVA. “Doing VFX for films, so often I felt like a cog in a wheel,” she says. “I missed the excitement and the collaboration of theater. Being able to combine what I’ve learned in both fields, being able to help build a nurturing environment where people from all backgrounds can make a creative contribution, and to do all of this in the service of a truly public-minded project …

I can’t imagine anything better.” ✸ ALEXANDER GELFAND has written for The Economist, The New York

Times and Wired, among other publications.

V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L • THE C ALIFORNIA IS SUE

OPPOSITE Griffi th Observatory producer Dawn Fidrick reviews workin-progress on Signs of Life. Photo

by Steve Birnbaum.

THIS PAGE An image of exoplanet Trappist-1e for Signs of Life, formatted for projection onto the 76-foot dome of Griffi th’s Samuel Oschin Planetarium. © Griffi th Observatory.

! FOR YO UR BENEF I T CONNECT

BENEFITS

Update your contact information sva.edu/alumni

Alumni mixers and networking events

Tell us about your projects, exhibitions and accomplishments sva.edu/alumni Join us for mixers and networking events sva.edu/alumni-events

Subscriptions to the and the Visual Arts Journal Career Development workshops and access to the job board Access to the SVA Library

Showcase your work on SVA Portfolios portfolios.sva.edu

Education pricing on all Apple products and 10% discount on SVA-branded products at the SVA Campus Store

FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA @svaalumni

% discount on SVA’s Summer Residency Program % tuition discount on SVA Continuing Education courses

@svaalumni @schoolofvisualartsalumni SVA Alumni

{

Lifetime access to SVA email

Access to the SVA-curated Kickstarter and Indiegogo pages

For complete details visit sva.edu/alumni at

.

.

or alumni@sva.edu

}

ALUMNI AFFAIRS DOMINIQUE MARCHINI

✳ To stay current and connected, and for a complete list of alumni benefi ts, visit sva.edu/ alumni. Questions?

Call 212.592.2300 or email alumni@sva.edu.

Announcing the New SVA Alumni ID A message from Jane Nuzzo, director of alumni affairs and development at SVA

✴

With the class of 2019 added to the ranks, SVA alumni now number some 38,000 people living in 75 countries, comprising one of the most influential and widespread artistic communities in the world.

Through our programs, publications and events, Alumni Affairs and Development works to celebrate and serve all of you who make up this diverse and ever-expanding group, while also facilitating your

FA L L / W IN T ER 20 19

support of future generations of creative professionals as well as your continued connection with the College.

This fall, I am excited to announce that all SVA alumni are eligible for the College’s new alumni ID. The ID represents your status as a graduate of the School of Visual Arts and valued member of the College’s community, and signifies your eligibility for alumni benefits. You can request the new ID by visiting sva.edu/alumni-id and completing the online form.

To remain in good standing, you must maintain current contact information with Alumni Affairs and Development. To update your information—and for complete details about alumni benefits, resources and events—visit sva.edu/alumni.

I hope you will take this opportunity to sign up for a card and learn more about what our office has to offer, and that my colleagues and I might see you at our alumni exhibition at the SVA Chelsea Gallery (see page 4) in November, our reception during Miami Art Week in December, or at one of our events in the new year. ✦

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SPRING 2019 SVA ALUMNI SOCIETY AWARDS

Thanks to generous contributions from alumni and friends of the College, each spring the SVA Alumni Society distributes several awards honoring current and graduating students. The accolades include the Alumni Society Merit Award, for a BFA candidate who demonstrated community building and leadership excellence while at SVA; the Brian Weil Memorial Award, for graduating BFA Photography and Video students; the Lila Eva Lewental Memorial Award and Rodman Family Scholarship, merit-based awards for second- or third-year students; the Richard Wilde Award, given to third-year BFA Advertising and BFA Design students; the Russell J. Efros Memorial Award, for graduating BFA Film students; the Silas H. Rhodes Memorial Award, established in memory of SVA’s founder, given to third-year BFA Visual & Critical Studies students who demonstrate excellence in writing; and the Will Eisner Sequential Art Scholarship, for third-year and graduating BFA Cartooning students.

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Alumni Society Merit Award Annah Shipman, BFA 2019 Animation Brian Weil Memorial Award Delilah Anaya, BFA 2019 Photography and Video Lila Eva Lewental Memorial Award Niaya DeLisio, BFA Photography and Video Richard Wilde Award Chi Hao Chang, BFA Design Rodman Family Scholarship Farwah Rizvi, BFA Fine Arts Russell J. Efros Memorial Award Sage Love, BFA 2019 Film and Video Silas H. Rhodes Memorial Award Louis Joey Gonnella, BFA Visual & Critical Studies Will Eisner Sequential Art Scholarship Matthew Francis Bustamonte BFA Cartooning You can help support the next generation of creative professionals by donating to the SVA Alumni Society at sva.edu/give. Be assured that 100% of your contribution will go to future award recipients.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT

Farwah Rizvi, American Kestrel, 2019, oil on paper; Matthew Francis Bustamonte, excerpt from an adaptation of William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, 2019, Risograph print; Chi Hao Chang, cover and spreads from Dangerous Innocence – The Zombie Magazine, 2019, digital print; Louis Joey Gonnella, Fergus Rules the Brazen Cars, 2019, color pencil on paper; Delilah Anaya, Wetback, 2018, digital photograph; Sage Love, Ayiti: The Awakening, 2019, film still; Annah Shipman, Thesis Still 02, 2019; Niaya DeLisio, Tessa, 2018, digital C print.

V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L

DONORS The SVA Alumni Society gratefully acknowledges these SVA alumni who gave to the society from January 1 – June 30, 2019.

Joan Addabbo-Valerio BFA 1977 Graphic Design

Joanne Honigman 1981 Graphic Design

Donald Shanley BFA 1981 Fine Arts

Anonymous (2)

Lynda M. Hughes BFA 1981 Photography

Linda Siris 1969

Dionisios Kavvadias BFA 1997 Computer Art

John and Nomi Stadler 1979 Illustration

Noelle King MFA 2013 Art Practice

Vesper Stamper MFA 2016 Illustration as Visual Essay

George Arthur 1967 Gary Brinson BFA 1985 Media Arts Marguerita Brinton 1976 Julianna Bruce BFA 1986 Fine Arts Carol Caputo 1960 Graphic Design Jeffrey Chabot MFA 1997 Photography and Related Media

J.P. Lee MFA 1991 Computer Art Michael Lee 1968 Missy Longo-Lewis BFA 1984 Illustration Roxanne Lorch Lipman 1984

Yu-Nien Chien MFA 2015 Computer Art

Patrick F. Loughran BFA 1980 Fine Arts

Roseann Consolo BFA 1979 Advertising

Ronald Lucas 1966

Charles Curcio BFA 1983 Illustration

Sakura Maku BFA 2004 Illustration

Brooks DeRyder BFA 1999 Illustration Theresa DeSalvio BFA 1976 Fine Arts Anne Drillick BFA 1978 Fine Arts Carmen Dukes MFA 2011 Interaction Design Monika Dyba BFA 1997 Computer Art David Fried BFA 1987 Photography John and Lauren Giuffre BFA 1986 Illustration David Haas 1974 Linda Haase BFA 1987 Graphic Design Joseph Herzfeld BFA 1991 Fine Arts

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Patrick McDonnell (alumnus) and Karen O’Connell BFA 1978 Media Arts Karen Novak 1979 Nancy Boecker Oates 1980 Media Arts

Susan Vlamis 1968 Photography Constance Von Collande 1966 Mark Willis BFA 1998 Illustration

Anonymous (2) Hanna Bennett and Family Michelle Bonime Burnham NY, Inc. Sandi Butchkiss Century Elevator Maintenance Corp.

The Lauren Irene Family Laurence G. Jones Architects, PLLC Edward Lefferman Theodore Marks Novartis Jiro Otsuka Mary Pollack Proskauer Daniel Riccuito James Rudnick

Salomon Sassoon Signature Financial LLC Seaward Corporation Andrew Stanton TD Bank, N.A. The TelCar Group Dolores Washington-Moody Will & Ann Eisner Family Foundation

Wei Cheng Cody Ehlers Group

Esther Regelson BFA 1982 Film and Video

Sue and Paul Cryan

Jorge Luis Rodriguez BFA 1976 Fine Arts

John Dye

Ralph Colucci

The Di Lillo Family

Ada Rodriguez-Blazer BFA 1979 Media Arts

James Farek

Herb Savran BFA 1977 Film and Video

GHP

Jimmy Seo BFA 2000 Graphic Design

Ellen Kramer

Joyce Rutter Kaye We also thank these parents and friends of SVA who supported the SVA Alumni Society.

Peter Papulis BFA 1977 Fine Arts

Jean A. Schapowal BFA 1987 Cartooning

Manfred Kirchheimer

Tom Forscht

Symphony Talent/ Lynn Greenbaum Hudson Square Delivery Raja Jaber

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ALUMNI NOTES & EXHIBITIONS

To submit items for consideration for Alumni Notes & Exhibitions, email alumni@sva.edu.

MAXIMILIANO SIÑANI (BFA 2014 Fine Arts), Sumaq Urqu Sagrado (installation view), 2019, 6,000kg of confetti. From the solo exhibition “Sindicato Comercio,” Museo Nacional de Arte, La Paz, Bolivia, 1/23-3/3/19.

GROUP EFFORTS

During Miami Art Week, Juliet Martin (MFA 1998 Computer Art) had work in Aqua Art Miami.

Christopher Martin (BFA 1992 Fine Arts), Ali Banisadr (BFA 2005 Illustration), Maria Berrio (MFA 2009 Illustration as Visual Essay), Kyungah Ham (MFA 1995 Fine Arts), Vera Lutter (MFA 1995 Photography and Related Media), Elizabeth Peyton (BFA 1987 Fine Arts), Gary Simmons (BFA 1988 Fine Arts), Collier Schorr (BFA 1985 Communication Arts), Lorna Simpson (BFA 1982 Photography) and Steve Smulka (1971 Fine Arts) had work in Art Basel Miami. Ronald Amato (BFA 2003 Photography) and Dan Halm (MFA 2001 Illustration as Visual Essay; BFA 1994 Illustration) had work in Art Gaysel. Steven Bindernagel (MFA 2006 Fine Arts), KAWS (BFA 1996 Illustration) and Kenny Scharf (BFA 1981 Fine Arts) had work in Art Miami. Joseph Grazi (BFA 2006 Animation) and Matthew Pillsbury (MFA 2004 Photography, Video and Related Media) had work in Context Art Miami. Katherine Bernhardt (MFA 2000 Fine Arts), Anna Sew Hoy (BFA 1998 Fine Arts), Anthony Iacono (BFA 2010 Illustration), Corinne Jones (BFA 1996 Fine Arts), Christine Sun Kim (MFA 2006 Fine Arts), Nadia Haji Omar (MFA 2014 Fine Arts) and Bryan Savitz (BFA 1998 Fine Arts) had work in Nada Miami. Dawoud Bey (1977 Photography), Michael De Feo (BFA 1995 Graphic Design), Jade Doskow (MFA 2008 Photography, Video and Related Media), Ruth Freeman (MFA 2016 Fine Arts), Shai Kremer (MFA 2006 Photography, Video and Related Media), Gideon Rubin (BFA 1999 Fine Arts) and Joni Sternbach (BFA 1977 Photography) had work in Pulse Miami Beach; Alicia Smith (MFA 2018 Fine Arts) participated in “PULSE Play”; and Kevin Sudeith (MFA 1995 Fine Arts) participated in “Artspace,” at the fair. Wyatt Mills (BFA 2013 Fine Arts) had work in Scope Art Fair. Quinn Dukes (MFA 2015 Art Practice) curated “Performance Alive,” at Satellite Art Fair, which featured work by Irene Mohedano Roman (MA 2016 Critical Theory and the Arts), Alexandra Sullivan (MFA 2016 Art Practice) and AnnaLiisa Ariosa-Benston (MFA 2016 Fine Arts), Elizabeth Chick (MFA 2014 Art Practice), Dominique Palladino (MFA 2015 Fine Arts), Andrew Prieto (MFA 2014 Art Practice), Sadie Rebecca Starnes (MFA 2017 Fine Arts), Karin Tidemand (MFA 2015 Fine Arts) and Alfredo Travieso (MFA 2014 Art Practice) had work in Satellite Art Fair. Michelle Weinberg (BFA 1983 Fine Arts) participated in “Changing Room,” Untitled Art Fair; Susan Luss (MFA 2016 Fine Arts), Charles McGill (BFA 1986 Me-

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dia Arts) and Penelope Umbrico (MFA 1989 Fine Arts), had work in the fair; and Asya Geisberg (MFA 1999 Fine Arts) curated a booth featuring work by Trish Tillman (MFA 2009 Fine Arts). Leah Dixon (MFA 2014 Fine Arts) had work in “La Bodega y Más,” El Espacio on Ocho. Salih Berk Ilhan (MFA 2015 Products of Design) had work in Raw Pop Up. Lina Jang (BFA 1999 Photography) had work at Red Dot. Michael Halsband (BFA 1980 Photography) had work at Sponder Gallery. Justin Aversano (BFA 2014 Photography) and Travis Rix (BFA 2014 Photography) had work at Superchief Gallery. Rachel Zaretsky (BFA 2015 Visual and Critical Studies) had work at Swampspace.

Eun Young Choi (MFA 2001 Fine Arts) curated the group exhibition “Hypervirtuality,” which included work by Jeremiah Teipen (MFA 2001 Fine Arts), at Radiator Gallery, NYC, 12/14/18-2/1/19.

Alexandra Rutsch-Brock (BFA 1991 Fine Arts) co-curated “Hyperaccumulators,” which included work by Joseph Fucigna (MFA 1988 Fine Arts), Pelham Art Center, Pelham, NY, 1/18-3/23/19.

Molly Matalon (BFA 2014 Photography) and Caroline Tompkins (BFA 2014 Photography) gave a talk, “Emerging Photographers Conversation with Molly Matalon and Caroline Tompkins,” Red Hook Labs, NYC, 1/26/19.

Julia Volonts (MPS 2017 Art Therapy) was awarded a 2019 Fulbright Award, and Courtney Menard (BFA 2014 Illustration) and Nadya Voynovskaya (BFA 2017 Illustration) were selected as 2019 semifinalists, Fulbright Foundation, 1/31/19.

Andres Arias (MFA 2013 Social Documentary), was the associate editor for The Great Hack (2019), which screened at Sundance; Elana Lederman’s (BFA 2016 Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects) film Luce (2019) was nominated in and Casey Brooks’ (BFA 2005 Film and Video) film Brittany Runs a Marathon (2019) won the U.S. Dramatic Competition; and Siyan Liu’s (MFA 2015 Social Documentary), Lulu Men’s (MFA 2016 Social Documentary; BFA 2014 Design) and Danni Wang’s (MFA 2015 Social Documentary) film American Factory (2019) won the U.S. Documentary Competition, 2019 Sundance Film Festival, Park City, UT, 2/6/19.

V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L

Sophia Dawson (BFA 2010 Fine Arts) and Pacifico Silano (MFA 2012 Photography, Video and Related Media) were named AIM 2019 spring residents, and Rehan Miskci (MFA 2014 Photography, Video and Related Media) and Antonio Pulgarin (BFA 2013 Photography) were named AIM 39 spring fellows, Bronx Museum of the Arts, NYC, 2/14/19.

David Bleich (BFA 1992 Illustration), David Han (BFA 2008 Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects), Chris Hung (BFA 2001 Computer Art), Gyuhyun Kim (MFA 2012 Computer Art) and Tatchapon Lertwirojkul (MFA 2007 Computer Art) worked on Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (2018), which was awarded Best Animated Feature Film; Nancy Kato and Ivo Kos (MFA 1991 Computer Art) were awarded Best Animated Short for Bao (2018); andGong Myung Lee (MFA 2004 Computer Art), Eugen Sasu (BFA 2004 Computer Art), Ruel Smith (BFA 2004 Computer Art) and Wendi Wu (MFA 2014 Computer Art) worked on Black Panther (2019), which was awarded Best Original Music Score, Best Costume Design and Best Production Design, 91st Academy Awards, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 2/24/19.

Yiwei Chen (MFA 2018 Social Documentary), Andrea Cordoba Urrutia (MFA 2018 Social Documentary), Hanna Nordenswan (MFA 2018 Social Documentary), Sophia Peer (MFA 2006 Photography, Video and Related Media) and Bella Randle Racklin (MFA 2018 Social Documentary) were awarded Women’s Film, TV & Theatre Fund grants, New York Foundation for the Arts, NYC, 2/28/19.

Mickey Duzyj (BFA 2004 Illustration) created and Andrew Romero (BFA 2004 Film and Video) worked on the animated documentary series Losers (2019), which was released on Netflix, 3/1/19.

Melissa Brown (BFA 2001 Film and Video), Matthew Craven (MFA 2010 Fine Arts) and Nicasio Fernandez (BFA 2015 Fine Arts) had work in “Spiritual Art Advisory.”

Elektra KB (BFA 2012 Visual and Critical Studies) presented “The Politics Of Healing: Destroying Silence”; and Tatiane Schilaro (MFA 2015 Art Criticism and Writing) curated “Recipes for a B_R_Z_L?”, AnnexB at Spring/Break Art Show, NYC, 3/5-3/11/19.

Allison Kaufman (BFA 2000 Photography) and Eric Rhein (MFA 2000 Fine Arts; BFA 1985 Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “The Space Between,” Julie Saul Gallery, NYC, 3/7-4/20/19.

Hilary Brougher (BFA 1990 Film and Video) screened South Mountain (2019); Rebecca Halfon (MPS 2018 Directing) screened Bodega (2018); David Guglielmo (BFA 2009 Film and Video) screened Darlin’ (2019); John Lavin (MFA 1994 Fine Arts) and Lynn Shelton (MFA 1995 Photography and Related Media) screened Sword of Trust (2019); Gillian Robespierre (BFA 2005 Film and Video) screened Shrill (2018); Thom Zimny (BFA 1990 Film and Video) screened The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash (2019); Juan Tubert (BFA 1997 Illustration) gave a talk, “Internet Stories at Ignite”; and Quinn Dukes

(MFA 2015 Art Practice) curated “Performance Is Alive” for the Satellite Art Show, South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference & Festivals, Austin, TX, 3/13-3/17/19.

Eduardo Alberto Enriquez Espinosa (BFA 2018 Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects) and Andy Tai (BFA 2018 Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects) screened A Long Way From Home (2018), Queens World Film Festival, NYC, 3/23/19.

Geoffrey Makowski’s (BFA 2017 Photography) and Michael Perrone’s (BFA 2015 Film and Video) thesis film Evol (2016) was acquired for distribution by Amazon, 3/27/19.

Brian Belott (BFA 1996 Fine Arts), Peter Hristoff (BFA 1981 Fine Arts), Alix Lambert (1990 Fine Arts), Robert Lazzarini (BFA 1990 Fine Arts), Tim Maul (1973 Fine Arts), Jessica Underwood (BFA 2010 Fine Arts) and Michelle Weinberg (BFA 1983 Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Pulled in Brooklyn,” International Print Center New York, NYC, 4/4-6/15/19.

Dan Halm (MFA 2001 Illustration as Visual Essay; BFA 1994 Illustration) curated the group exhibition “Queer As I,” featuring work by John Arsenault (BFA 1999 Photography), John Dugdale (BFA 1983 Photography), Nadine Faraj (MFA 2015 Fine Arts), Logan Jackson (BFA 2015 Photography), John MacConnell (MFA 2009 Illustration as Visual Essay), Sean McGiver (MPS 2008 Digital Photography), Patrick McNabb (MFA 2016 Photography, Video and Related Media), Timothy Mensching (BFA 2002 Illustration), Ryan Pfluger (MFA 2007 Photography, Video and Related Media) and Antonio Pulgarin (BFA 2013 Photography), Here Arts Center, NYC, 5/2-6/30/19.

Daniela Alatorre (MFA 2015 Social Documentary) screened A Tale of Two Kitchens (2019), Siyan Liu (MFA 2015 Social Documentary), Lulu Men (MFA 2016 Social Documentary; BFA 2014 Design) and Danni Wang (MFA 2015 Social Documentary) screened American Factory (2019); and Jessie Adler (MFA 2018 Social Documentary) and Hanna Nordenswan (MFA 2018 Social Documentary) screened The Boxers of Brule (2018), Tribeca Film Festival, NYC, 5/4-5/5/19.

Thomas Shim (BFA 2011 Graphic Design) and Bowook Yoon (BFA 2019 Advertising) and Ha Jung Song (BFA 2019 Advertising) were awarded a Webby for Good Award for their project “#WhyIDidntReport,” The Webby Awards, 5/13/19.

Brian Belott (BFA 1996 Fine Arts) and Christine Sun Kim (MFA 2006 Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition 2019 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC, 5/17-9/22/19.

Ruth Freeman (MFA 2016 Fine Arts), Allison Kaufman (MFA 2008 Photography, Video and Related Media), Julianne Nash (MFA 2018 Photography, Video and Related Media) and Aaron Wax (MFA 2014 Photography, Video and Related Media) had work in the group exhibition “Ad Astra Per Aspera,” Wassaic Project, Wassaic, NY, 5/18-9/21/19.

MIKA ROTTENBERG (BFA 2001 Fine Arts), Finger (installation view), 2018, artificial finger and mechanical system. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.

From the solo exhibition “Mika Rottenberg,” Museum of Modern Art of Bologna, Bologna, Italy, 1/31-5/19/19.

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1954

Pete Hamill (Illustration) was featured in Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists, HBO, 1/30/19.

Louise Sloane (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Louise P. Sloane: For the Love of Color,” Spanierman Modern, Miami, FL, 2/7-3/9/19.

1967

1975

Joseph Kosuth (Fine Arts) was featured in “What’s the Deal With That Neon on the Side of the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium?” KQED Arts, 3/13/19.

1972

Kathleen McSherry (BFA Media Arts) had work in the group exhibition “National Annual Juried Exhibition,” Prince Street Gallery, NYC, 1/2-1/26/19.

Linda Stillman (Graphic Design) had work in the group exhibition “Among Friends/Entre Amigos,” Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center, NYC, 5/3-5/12/19.

1974

Margaret McCarthy (BFA Fine Arts) had work in “LIC Arts Open Studios,” Reis Studios, NYC, 5/18-5/19/19.

1976

Lucky Checkley (BFA Photography) had work in the group exhibition “Exposure 2018,” Ceres Gallery, NYC, 12/4-12/8/18.

Theresa DeSalvio (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Art & Healing: Expressions of Trauma and Gratitude,” Monmouth Museum, Lincroft, NJ, 3/17-5/19/19.

Effie Serlis (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Form & Function,” Sweet Lorraine Gallery, NYC, 12/1-12/30/18.

Tina Dunkley (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Sanctuary for the Internal Enemy: An Ancestral Odyssey,” Wilmer Jenning Gallery, NYC, 1/16-3/16/19.

1977

Vincent LoBrutto (BFA Film and Video) published Ridley Scott: A Biography (University Press of Kentucky, 2019).

Tom Sito (BFA Animation) published Eat, Drink, Animate: An Animators Cookbook (CRC Press, 2019).

Dawoud Bey (Photography) had a solo exhibition, “Dawoud Bey: Night Coming Tenderly, Black,” Art Institute Chicago, Chicago, IL, 1/11-4/14/19.

Philip Sugden (BFA Fine Arts) was inducted into the Marathon Center for the Performing Arts and Fifth Third Bank Wall of Fame, Findlay, OH, 5/3/19.

1978

Sally Lelong (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “SPURIOUS,” Kinescope, NYC, 12/29/17-1/28/18.

1979

Rivka Katvan (BFA Photography) had a solo exhibition, “Photographs of Cus D’Amato’s Boxing Gym,” Atelier Progressif, Catskill, NY, 4/6-4/27/19.

John Pelech (BFA Media Arts) had work in the group exhibition “2019 Salmagundi Open Photography Exhibition,” Salmagundi Club, NYC, 1/7-1/24/19.

1980

Michael Halsband (BFA Photography) appeared on Twilight Talks, hosted by Kevin Moore, CUNY TV, NYC, 1/8/19.

1981

Joseph Cultrera (BFA Film and Video) was featured in “Postscripts: A Steamy Encounter Yields the Story of the Rise and Fall of the Leather

KIRA NAM GREENE (MFA 2004 Fine Arts), Chloe and Tommy, 2018, oil, acrylic, flashe

and Xerox transfer on canvas. From the group exhibition “My Kitchen Table,” Lyons Wier Gallery, NYC, 1/2-1/26/19.

Industry in Peabody, Mass.,” The Westerly Sun, 4/13/19.

Keith Goldstein (BFA Photography) was featured in “Interview With Keith Goldstein,” Inspired Eye, 1/7/19.

Peter Hristoff (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “One Night Stand,” Backwater Studios, NYC, 5/17/19.

Kenny Scharf (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Blue Blood,” Totah, NYC, 5/2-7/28/19.

1982

Susan Leopold (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Interior Monologues,” Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit, NJ, 2/22-6/16/19.

Mary Mortimer (BFA Illustration) had work in the group exhibition “Feast & Famine,” Paul Robeson Galleries, Newark, NJ, 3/28-12/14/19.

Lorna Simpson (BFA Photography) was awarded the J. Paul Getty Medal, The J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, CA, 1/24/19.

Joey Skaggs (BFA Media Arts) was featured in “Episode 271,” Canadaland Podcast, 4/1/19.

1983

Susan Karnet (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Art is Money—Money is Art,” East Village Art View, NYC, 4/26-5/11/19.

Paul Leibow (BFA Media Arts) was selected as the Artist in Residency at the Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque, NM, 2/1/19.

1984

Jerry Craft (BFA Cartooning) published New Kid (HarperCollins, 2019).

Benita Raphan (BFA Graphic Design) was awarded a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship, Guggenheim Museum, NYC, 4/10/19.

1985

Dana Marshall (BFA Photography) had a solo exhibition, “Beauty Squared: Photographic Still Lifes,” deMess Naarden-Vesting, Naarden, Holland, 3/16-4/16/19.

Collier Schorr (BFA Communication Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Collier Schorr: Stonewall at 50,” Alice Austen House Museum, NYC, 5/19-9/30/19.

Nancy Siesel (BFA Photography) was featured in “The First Female Photographers Brought a New Vision to The New York Times,” The New York Times, 4/1/19.

Emily Thompson (BFA Media Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Landscapes of New Jersey: Past, Present, and Future,” John F. Peto Museum, Island Heights, NJ, 5/18-9/1/19.

1986

Annie Sprinkle (BFA Photography) presented “Water Makes Us Wet—An Ecosexual Adventure,” The Museum of Modern Art, NYC, 2/25/19.

1987

Aleathia Brown (BFA Media Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Music Speaks to Our Hearts,” Tsion Cafe, NYC, 5/7-6/30/19.

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Gary Petersen (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Your Plus-One: Celebrating 10 years at MAC,” MAC (Mount Airy Contemporary), Philadelphia, PA, 5/11-6/15/19.

Eric Weeks (BFA Photography) had a solo exhibition, “A Rose by Any Other Name,” Head On Photo Festival, Paddington, Australia, 5/4-5/18/19.

1988

Carla Marina Marchese (BFA Illustration) was featured in “The Sommeliers of Everything,” The Washington Post Magazine, 2/4/19.

Christopher Neyen (BFA Illustration) had a solo exhibition, “Obsolescence,” Gritworks, Newburgh, NY, 4/22-6/22/19.

Catya Plate (Fine Arts) was awarded the Jury’s Citation Award, 38th Black Maria Film Festival, Hoboken, NJ, 12/12/18.

Kathleen Shorr (BFA Photography) was featured in “Photographer Kathy Shorr on Driving a Limo in ’80s Brooklyn,” The Guardian, 1/13/19.

1989

Craig Gillespie (BFA Media Arts) was featured in “Craig Gillespie in Talks to Direct Emma Stone in Cruella,” Deadline, 12/4/18.

Margaret Lanzetta (MFA Fine Arts) had work in “Open Doors Open Studios,” Clemente Soto Veléz Cultural & Education Center, NYC, 5/31-6/1/19.

Suzanne McClelland (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Selections from Mute,” Team (gallery, inc.), NYC, 3/7-4/20/19.

1990

Deborah Crowell (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Slower Time,” Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, NJ, 1/30-2/19/19.

Michael Giacchino (BFA Film and Video) was featured in “Composer Michael Giacchino Is Set to Direct One of the Animated Star Trek: Short Treks Episodes,” Syfy Wire, 2/1/19.

Gina Minichino (BFA Cartooning) had a solo exhibition, “Gina Minichino,” George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 4/6-5/11/19.

Brian Palmer (MFA Photography and Related Media) was awarded a Peabody Award for the Monumental Lies radio series, George Foster Peabody Awards, 4/23/19.

Kenneth Schuyler (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Two Elements,” Speakeasy Art Gallery, Boonton, NJ, 4/5-5/18/19.

1991

Dawn Henning (BFA Fine Arts) had work in “Exposure,” Ceres Gallery, NYC, 12/20/18.

Philip Jimenez (Cartooning) gave the keynote address for the 2019 Queers and Comics Conference, NYC, 5/17-5/18/19.

Gary Silberman (BFA Film and Video) was a semifinalist in the Children’s Music International Songwriting Competition, 3/5/19.

V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L

SIGNE PIERCE (BFA 2011 Photography) inside her installation Reflexxxions. Photo by Eike Walkenhorst, courtesy the artist and EIGEN + ART Lab. From the solo exhibition “Reflexxxions,” EIGEN + ART, Berlin, Germany, 4/24-6/15/19.

1992 Lili Almog (BFA Photography) had work in the group exhibition “Watershed Moments: Select Works from The Jerusalem Biennale,” Laurie M. Tisch Gallery, NYC, 5/8-8/14/19.

Sean Cassidy (BFA Illustration) was featured in “Cape Conservatory to Celebrate International Jazz Day to Close Out April,” The Cape, 4/20/19.

Francis Ruyter (BFA Fine Arts) wrote “Trans-ness, Mans-ness, and a Life’s Work: Artist and Gallerist Francis Ruyter Tells His Truth,” ArtNews, 4/16/19.

1993

Scott Bakal (BFA Illustration) created the 2019 Earth Day poster, ShareAmerica, U.S. Department of State, 4/9/19.

Miles Ladin (MFA Photography and Related Media) wrote “Medium in Crisis: Narcissist in the Pond,” Aufbau, 2/1/19.

Derick Melander (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “You Are My Other Me,” Swire Real Estate Management, Hong Kong, 3/18-4/28/19.

Andrew Rash (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) wrote and illustrated The Happy Book (Penguin Random House, 2019).

Anna Zaderman (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the solo exhibition “Celebrate,” East Brunswick Public Library, Brunswick, NJ, 2/2-3/2/19.

Jennifer Miller (BFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Big Hair and Bad Luck: The Hard Times of the Troll Museum,” The New York Times, 1/18/19.

1997

2000

1995

Michael De Feo (BFA Graphic Design) published Michael De Feo: Flowers (Abrams, 2019).

Lori Earley (BFA Illustration) was featured in “Lori Earley,” Hey! Magazine, 3/1/19.

Erwin Redl (MFA Computer Art) had work in the solo exhibition “Reflections v2,” The Hole, NYC, 5/30-6/7/19.

Lynn Shelton (MFA Photography and Related Media) was featured in “Hulu Series Little Fires Everywhere Sets Lynn Shelton to Direct,” Variety, 4/30/19.

Simon Langer (BFA Film and Video) published Theorizing Transgender Identity for Clinical Practice: A New Model for Understanding Gender (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019).

Raul Manzano (BFA Illustration) had work in the group exhibition “34th Annual International Exhibition,” Meadows Gallery, Tyler, TX, 2/13/8/19.

Esao Andrews (BFA Illustration) was featured in “Into the Mystic: Esao Andrews and Thinkspace Bring Petrichor to Mesa Arizona,” Juxtapoz, 4/15/19.

1999

Katherine Bernhardt (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Gold,” Newmark Gallery, Ghent, NY, 3/165/18/19.

Hema Bharadwaj (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) had work in the group exhibition “Eating Our Fathers,” Chashama, Matawan, NJ, 5/18-6/7/19.

Soonchoel Byun (BFA Photography) had a solo exhibition, “Don’t Move,” Goeun Museum of Photography, Buson, South Korea, 9/8-11/21/18.

Shawn Martinbrough (BFA Illustration) gave a talk, “In Conversation: Robert Pruitt and Shawn Martinbrough,” California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA, 1/6/19.

1996

Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir (MFA Fine Arts) was selected to represent Iceland at the 58th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, 5/11-11/24/19.

Ketta Ioannidou (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) had work in the group exhibition “Blurred,” The Yard, NYC, 5/17-7/26/19.

1994

KAWS (BFA Illustration) was featured in “XX Marks the Spot: KAWS Goes Global,” The New York Times, 5/15/19.

Artem Mirolevich (BFA Illustration) had work in the group exhibition “Heat: Create the Environment You Want to Live In,” Archivi della Misericordia, Venice, Italy, 5/12-11/24/19.

Michael Brennan (BFA Graphic Design) was featured in “This Geek Pop Art Mashes Up Stranger Things and Doctor Strange, Marvel and the Macabre,” Syfy Wire, 2/8/19.

Inka Essenhigh (MFA Fine Arts) was awarded the Arts and Letters Award in Art, The American Academy of Arts and Letters, 3/18/19.

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Justine Kurland (BFA Photography) was featured in “Three Women Photographers Reclaim the American Landscape,” Aperture, 2/20/19.

Paul Amenta (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in “ArtPrize Names Artists Creating Large-Scale Works for Inaugural Project Biennial,” ArtNews, 3/14/19.

Gerard Way (BFA Cartooning) was featured in “Gerard Way on The Umbrella Academy, My Chemical Romance ... and Liza Minnelli,” The New York Times, 2/15/19.

Guy Frenkel (BFA Film and Video) was featured in “Guy Frenkel Pushes the Envelope With Bread,” Bake Magazine, 5/22/19.

Maayan Zilberman (BFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Confidence and Creativity: A Perfect Recipe for Sugar Artist Maayan Zilberman,” Forbes, 12/13/18.

2002

Michael Alan (BFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Clowns and Tricksters Unite: The Living Installation Will Turn the Human Body Into Live Art,” Bushwick Daily, 12/13/18.

Marlena Buczek Smith (BFA Graphic Design) had work in the group exhibition “Posters on Politics,” Arthur Secunda Museum, Howell, MI, 2/8-3/30/19.

Mariam Ghani (MFA Photography and Related Media) premiered What We Left Unfinished (2019), Berlinale 2019, Berlin, Germany, 2/7-2/17/19.

David Heredia (BFA Animation) was awarded the 2019 Pitch Black Media Award, Black Public Media, 4/11/19.

Gonzalo Fuenmayor (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Empire,” Dolby Chadwick, San Francisco, CA, 5/2-6/1/19.

Young Sam Kim (BFA Photography) had a solo exhibition, “Metamorphosis: Climate Change,” Fremin Gallery/ Hearst Galleries, NYC, 2/8-9/8/19.

2001

Jose Casado (MFA Computer Art) was featured in “New Public Art Installation at Rufus King Park,” Queens Gazette, 5/29/19.

Crystal Moselle (BFA Film and Video) was featured in “Skate Kitchen– Inspired Comedy Series in Works at HBO From Crystal Moselle & Lesley Arfin,” Deadline, 12/17/18.

Daina Higgins (BFA Fine Arts) was awarded the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant, The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, 2/28/19.

Katherine Neckel (MFA Computer Art) was featured in “Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready on His Fine Arts Renaissance,” Rolling Stone, 2/26/19.

Carlos Motta (BFA Photography) had work in the solo exhibition “Conatus,” P.P.O.W., NYC, 4/25-5/25/19.

Reka Nyari (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Ink Stories,” Fremin Gallery, NYC, 2/28-4/6/19.

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SARA MEJIA KRIENDLER (MFA 2013 Fine Arts), Sangre (installation view), 2019, terracotta. From the solo exhibition “Sangre y Sol,” The Chimney, NYC, 3/15-5/5/19.

Raina Telgemeier (BFA Illustration) published Share Your Smile (Scholastic, 2019).

2003

Thomas Holton (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) was featured in “A 13-Year Project That Started in Chinatown,” The New York Times, 3/17/19.

Edward Kulzer (MFA Computer Art) was awarded Outstanding Multiple Camera Editing for Sesame Street (1969-2019), Daytime Emmys Creative Arts Awards, 5/4/19.

Sophia Shalmiyev (MPS Art Therapy) published Mother Winter: A Memoir (Simon & Schuster, 2019).

2004

2006

John Breiner (BFA Illustration) became director of Clinton Street Studio, Poughkeepsie, NY, 12/1/18.

Joseph Grazi (BFA Animation) had a solo exhibition, “Portal,” Black Diamond Gallery, NYC, 3/16-3/30/19.

Nora Krug (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) was awarded the Gold Cube and Best of Illustration, 2019 ADC Awards, 5/6/19.

Christine Sun Kim (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in “An Artist Who Channels Her Anger Into Pie Charts,” T: The New York Times Style Magazine, 5/21/19.

Anne Peabody (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Furies, Fairies, Visionaries,” Pen + Brush, NYC, 1/24-3/16/19.

Daniel McNamara (BFA Computer Art) screened Wish Weasel (2019), Astoria Film Festival, NYC, 5/17-5/18/19.

“Na Na Land: It’s My World,” Savina Art Museum, Seoul, South Korea, 3/14-7/7/19.

2007

Elizabeth Castaldo (BFA Fine Arts) was named a 2018 Scholar Resident, The Center for Book Arts, 1/18/19.

Amy Elkins (BFA Photography) had work in the group exhibition “Per(Sister): Incarcerated Women in Louisiana,” Newcomb Art Museum, New Orleans, LA, 1/19-7/6/19.

Lisa Elmaleh (BFA Photography) was featured in “Tintype Portraits of Old-Time Musicians from Appalachia,” The New York Times, 3/27/19.

Mu Pan (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay; BFA 2001 Illustration) had a solo exhibition, “Mu Pan and Other Beasts,” Colección Solo, Madrid, Spain, 4/26-7/26/19.

Zackary Drucker (BFA Photography) was featured in “How Transparent Producer Zackary Drucker Made It in Hollywood,” Out, 1/10/19.

Samantha Sethi (BFA Illustration) had a solo exhibition, “Samantha Sethi: Counterweight,” Creative Alliance, Baltimore, MD, 1/26-3/2/19.

Ryan Pfluger (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) photographed presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten, for the May cover of Time, 5/2/19.

Paul Gabrielli (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “NADA House,” Governors Island, NYC, 5/2-8/4/19.

Shen Wei (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) had a solo exhibition, “Shen Wei,” Flowers Gallery, London, UK, 5/3-6/22/19.

Andrew Thornton (BFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Internet, Intuition Can Help Businesses Spot Next Big Thing,” AP News, 3/6/19.

Jeong Mee Yoon (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) had work in the group exhibition

Jennifer Young (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Caught in the Moment,” Paul Calendrillo Gallery, NYC, 1/29-2/23/19.

2005

2008

To submit items for consideration for Alumni Notes & Exhibitions, email

alumni@sva.edu

Cat Del Buono (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) had work in the group exhibition “Videolands,” MOMus Experimental Center for the Arts, Thessaloniki, Greece, 4/4-4/25/19.

Lynn Herring (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the solo exhibition “Lynn Herring: MFA Thesis Show,” Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz, NY, 5/17-5/21/19.

Dana James (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “The Thread,” M. David & Co. Gallery, NYC, 3/15-4/14/19.

David Mramor (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Cover Story: The Young Activists Calling for Change, Justice and Acceptance,” Another Man, 3/20/19.

Jennifer Young (MAT Art Education; BFA 2007 Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Caught in the Moment,” Paul Calendrillo Gallery, NYC, 1/29-2/23/19.

2009

Jen Bartel (BFA Illustration) was featured in “Jen Bartel and Adidas Team Up for Captain Marvel Sneakers,” Newsarama, 3/5/19.

Katherine Biese (BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects) served as the graphics designer on two Spectrum News NY1 television programs that each won 62nd New York Emmy Awards, National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, New York Chapter, 5/4/19.

Noa Charuvi (MFA Fine Arts) had work included in Landscape Painting Now: From Pop Abstraction to New Romanticism (D.A.P., 2019).

Marysia Gacek (BFA Fine Arts) designed Mallorca (Maria Editions, 2019).

V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L

John MacConnell (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) had work in the group exhibition “In the In Between: Contemporary Queer Portraiture,” Smush Gallery, Jersey City, NJ, 3/29-5/21/19.

2011

Lisa Anchin (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) published The Little Green Girl (Dial Books, 2019).

Augustus Nazzaro (MFA Fine Arts; BFA 2007 Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Threshold,” Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton, NY, 3/30-4/28/19.

Jaime Permuth (MPS Digital Photography; MFA Photography and Related Media) photographed “A Blind 78-Year-Old Magician Finds a New Stage: New York’s Subways,” The New York Times, 1/11/19.

Katie Cercone (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Every Woman Biennial,” La MaMa Galleria, NYC, 5/19-5/29/19.

Pacifico Silano (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) was featured in “Artist of the Week: Pacifico Silano,” LVL3, 1/29/19.

Kirsten Flaherty (BFA Illustration) curated “Building Power: A Benefit for VOCAL and the Young Center,” Planthouse Gallery, NYC, 1/20/19.

Catherine Young (MFA Interaction Design) was awarded the (Un-)Learning Place Fellowship, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany, 1/9/19.

David Geeting (BFA Photography) was featured in “The 9 Young Photographers You Should Be Following in 2019,” W, 1/15/19.

Lightning Yumeku (BFA Animation) had a solo exhibition, “Sense Us,” Amsterdam Whitney International Fine Art, NYC, 5/11-6/12/19.

Miyeon Lee (MFA Fine Arts; BFA 2004 Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Immigrant’s Eyes & Changing Landscapes,” Tick Tack, Antwerp, Belgium, 5/4-6/9/19.

2013

Rebecca Sugar (BFA Animation) was awarded Outstanding Kids and Family Programming for Steven Universe (2013-2019), GLAAD Media Awards, 3/27/19.

2010

Isaac Goodhart (BFA Cartooning) illustrated Under the Moon: A Catwoman Tale (DC Ink, 2019).

Anthony Iacono (BFA Illustration) had a solo exhibition, “Night Bonding,” The Approach, London, UK, 2/22-3/24/19.

Jacqueline Lay (MFA Design) illustrated “50 Moments That Define an Improbable Presidency,” The Atlantic.

Dina Litovsky (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) photographed “The Fight for Gender Equality in One of the Most Dangerous Sports on Earth,” The New York Times Magazine, 2/7/19.

Matthew Stone (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “JJ Miyaoka-Pakola and Matthew J. Stone,” Morgan Lehman Gallery, NYC, 1/10-2/16/19.

Jason Yarmosky (BFA Illustration) had work in the group exhibition “Men of Steel, Women of Wonder: Modern American Heroes in Contemporary Times,” Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR, 2/9-4/22/19.

Kenneth Murphy (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “On the Edge,” Nypop Gallery, NYC, 3/4-3/29/19.

2012

Pablo Delcan (BFA Graphic Design) illustrated the cover of “The Climate Issue,” The New York Times Magazine, 4/14/19.

Ina Jang (MPS Fashion Photography: BFA 2010 Photography) had a solo exhibition, “Radiator Theatre,” One Four Gallery, Seoul, Korea, 12/20/18.

Elektra KB (BFA Visual and Critical Studies) had work in the group exhibition “Nobody Promised You Tomorrow: Art 50 Years After Stonewall,” Brooklyn Museum, NYC, 5/312/8/19.

Jesse LoCascio (BFA Film and Video) was featured in “How a Movie Projectionist Keeps the Dying Art of Celluloid Alive,” The New York Times, 4/14/19.

Che Min Hsiao (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay; BFA 2011 Animation) created the mural “My Journey to the West III: Playground,” ArtSite, Queens Council on the Arts, NYC, 3/11/19.

Tiffany Lambert (MFA Design Criticism) co-curated “Arakawa and Madeline Gins: Eternal Gradient,” Graham Foundation, Chicago, IL, 2/7-4/27/19.

Clay McBride (MPS Digital Photography; BFA 1995 Photography) was featured in “Allen Iverson’s Iconic Slam Magazine Cover Still Resonates 20 Years Later,” The Undefeated, 3/20/19.

Star Montana (BFA Photography) had a solo exhibition, “By the Rivers, I Stood and Stared Into the Sun,” Gayle and Ed Roski Master of Fine Arts Gallery, Roski School of Art and Design, USC, Los Angeles, CA, 5/24-6/2/19.

Brendan Steere (BFA Film and Video) was featured in “The VelociPastor Director on the $35,000 Movie That Has Become the New Cult Film Sensation,” Forbes, 5/13/19.

Ilona Szwarc (BFA Photography) had a solo exhibition, “Unsex Me Here,” Make Room, Los Angeles, CA, 4/27-6/1/19.

Brian Andrew Whiteley (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Graduation Party installation,” Pony Sugar, Berlin, Germany, 5/28-6/4/19.

2014

Justin Aversano (BFA Photography) had a solo exhibition, “Cactus Diaries,” The Storefront Project, NYC, 4/18-4/25/19.

Graciela Cassel (MFA Fine Arts) was awarded Best Experimental Short, American Filmatic Arts Awards, 12/7/18.

Irene Chin (BFA Fine Arts) screened The Lost Arcade (2018), Museum of Chinese in America, NYC, 5/23/19.

Ja’Tovia Gary (MFA Social Documentary) had work in the group exhibition “God Made My Face: A Collective Portrait of James Baldwin,” David Zwirner Gallery, NYC, 1/10-2/16/19.

Nadia Haji Omar (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Shadow Figures,” Bronx Art Space, NYC, 1/9-2/16/18.

Andrea McGinty (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Housewarming,” VSOP Projects, Greenport, NY, 5/25-7/14/19.

Shelly Ni (MFA Interaction Design) was featured in “When Tech Makes Food Insecurity Worse,” City Lab, 4/17/19.

Oona Post (BFA Visual and Critical Studies) was featured in “Oona Tempest, One Of NYC’s Only Female Sushi Chefs, Is Back With Sushi by Bae,” Gothamist, 5/8/19.

Maximiliano Siñani (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Sindicato Comercio,” Museo Nacional de Arte, La Paz, Bolivia, 1/23-3/3/19.

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Kyle Thompson (BFA Photography) was featured in “See the Moody Photographs Netflix Commissioned for The OA’s Second Season,” Artsy, 3/5/19.

Caroline Tompkins (BFA Photography) was featured in “Duane Michals,” So It Goes, 4/18/19.

Daniel Zender (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) illustrated “One of Russia’s Neighbors Has Security Lessons for the Rest of Us,” Bloomberg Businessweek, 2/11/19.

Zachary Krall (BFA Photography) presented “Synchrony 2019,” Babycastles, NYC, 1/11/19.

Book Exhibition,” House of Lucie at ROW DTLA, Los Angeles, CA, 4/11/19.

Eunji Lee (BFA Illustration) had a solo exhibition, “Share my eyes with you,” Gallery DOS, Seoul, Korea, 2/27-3/5/19.

Delano Dunn (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Phantom Paradise,” Lesley Heller, NYC, 4/17-5/19/19, and was featured in “Four Artists to Watch Now,” The New York Times, 4/25/19.

Melissa Malzkuhn (MFA Visual Narrative) was featured in “Many Deaf Children Lack Early Access to American Sign Language. This Woman is Harnessing Tech to Change That,” The Guardian, 5/30/19.

2015

Feifei Ruan (MFA Visual Narrative) was featured in “An Interview with Feifei Ruan, Illustrator and Visual Storyteller,” Book Riot, 4/22/19.

Michael Bailey-Gates (BFA Photography) was featured in “Can this Young Photographer Dissolve the Drama of Gender?”, Aperture, 5/30/19.

Chase Tarca (BFA Design) screened One of the Good Ones (2019), Richmond International Film and Music Festival, Richmond, VA, 4/25/19.

Daniela Alatorre (MFA Social Documentary) screened Midnight Family (2019), New Directors/New Films at MoMA, NYC, 4/4-4/5/19.

Louisa Bertman (MFA Visual Narrative) had work in the group exhibition “Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote,” National Archives Museum, Washington, DC, 5/10/191/3/2021.

Zoë van Dijk (BFA Illustration) was featured in “Zoë Van Dijk’s Gorgeously Moody Illustrations That Play With Light and Shadow,” Unsorted, 3/25/19.

2016

Sarah Dineen (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in “A View From the Easel,” Hyperallergic, 4/5/19.

Trey Abdella (BFA Illustration) was featured in “The Recent Acrylic Paintings of Trey Abdella,” Hi Fructose, 2/1/19.

Nadine Faraj (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Bodies Lose Themselves Within Other Bodies in Erotic Watercolors,” Hyperallergic, 4/4/19.

Sabri Akin (MFA Design) was featured in “Sabri Akin’s Brilliant Pro-Bono Poster Designs for Indie Istanbul Culture,” Creative Boom, 3/5/19.

Nicasio Fernandez (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” Washington Art Association & Gallery, Washington Depot, CT, 3/5-4/20/19.

Annaliisa Ariosa-Benston (MFA Fine Arts) moderated the panel “Speak Now. Hear Us.”, International Womxn’s Day, NYC, 3/7/19.

Emmanuel Iduma (MFA Art Criticism and Writing) was featured in “The Man and the Writer: Emmanuel Iduma,” The Guardian, 12/3/18.

Logan Jackson (BFA Photography) photographed “The Reigning Queen of Drag Race Offers up her All Stars 4 Predictions,” Notion, 1/15/19.

Jiwon Choi (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media; BFA 2013 Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Take My Money/Take My Body,” Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA, 1/3-2/24/19.

Xia Gordon (BFA Illustration) illustrated A Song for Gwendolyn Brooks (Sterling Children’s Books, 2019).

Anna Ogier-Bloomer (MPS Digital Photography) gave a talk, “Creating a Sustainable Fine Art Career,” The Art Academy of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, 1/17/19.

Sadie Rebecca Starnes (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Hothouse: Sadie Rebecca Starnes and Sophie Parker,” CaShaMa, NYC, 1/18-1/27/19.

Danae Grandison’s (MPS Directing) film Unspoken (2018) was named an official selection at the 27th annual Pan African Film & Arts Festival, 1/31/19.

Sinjun Strom (BFA Photography and Video) had work in the group exhibition “Negative Space 4: A Survey of NYC-Based Female & Genderqueer Film Photographers,” Brooklyn Grain, NYC, 4/18/19.

Ryan Halliwill (BFA Photography and Video) had work in the group exhibition “MaryMary Projects,” Photo London, London, UK, 5/165/19/19.

Rose Brock (BFA Photography and Video) was featured in “From Bubble Memory to Hot Spots and a Fly Rod,” The New York Times, 4/3/19.

Netta Laufer (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) curated “The Lid,” Almacen Gallery, Jaffa, Israel, 5/22-7/4/19.

Younghoo Lee (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Bay Ver,” Sema Warehouse, Seoul, Korea, 3/6-3/17/19.

2017

2018

Elan Ferguson (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Family Furniture: Meet the Artist Turning Her Parents and Grandparents Into Chairs,” Vogue, 1/18/19.

Ying-Chen Huang (BFA Illustration) illustrated “Rock the Cradle: Growing Up in America Under the Shadow of Guns,” The Nation, 1/21/19.

Alex Hovet (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) screened Counter-Charge (2016), British Film Institute, London, UK, 4/3/19.

Jason Isolini (BFA Photography and Video) was featured in “5 Shows by Emerging Artists to See in NYC Before Mercury Is Out of Retrograde,” Artspace Magazine, 3/23/19.

Elizabeth Itzkowitz (BFA Cartooning) illustrated the Daily Cartoon “Trump Bingo,” The New Yorker, 12/10/18.

Andrew Jilka (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Scenes of the American Landscape,” Team Gallery, NYC, 4/25-6/1/19.

Pedro Felipe Mesa Lievano (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “No One Listening,” Creative Drive, NYC, 5/3-5/5/19.

Ninaad Kulkarni (MFA Computer Art) was featured in “30 Under 30,” Forbes India, 2/4/19.

Pamela Nasr (MPS Directing) was featured in “How Director Pam Nasr and Artist Gogy Esparza Found Love in Lebanon,” Vogue, 2/14/19.

Ashley Cortes (BFA Photography and Video) had work in the group exhibition “MOPLA Photo

Dongjun Kim (MFA Computer Arts) was selected in the Student Film Competition 2019 for Fun to Cook (2018), Animafest Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia, 3/13/19.

MIKA ROTTENBERG (BFA 2001 Fine Arts), NoNoseKnows, 2015, 22-minute video with sound and sculptural installation. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.

From the solo exhibition “Mika Rottenberg,” Museum of Modern Art of Bologna, Bologna, Italy, 1/31-5/19/19.

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V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L

IN MEMORIAM

Carl Titolo, untitled sketchbook art, undated.

The sketchbooks of artist, SVA alumnus and faculty member Carl Titolo, who died this year, were featured in the cover story of the fall 2017 Visual Arts Journal.

Nurit Karlin (1964 Animation) passed away on April 30. Born and raised in Jerusalem, Israel, she studied at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design before coming to New York to study animation at SVA. She began selling her drawings to The New York Times and The New Yorker, where she would become a regular cartoonist in 1974. At the time, she was the only female cartoonist at the magazine. She wrote and illustrated several acclaimed children’s books, including The Tooth Witch (1985), The Dream Factory (1988) and I See, You Saw (1997).

She is survived by her sister, Dina Wardi, and nieces Alma Cohen-Wardi and Ada Wardi.

Michael Katz (BFA 1976 Fine Arts) passed away on April 15. Born and raised in New York City, he studied printmaking as part of SVA’s first matriculated degree program. After graduating, he partnered with fellow alumnus Cynthia Knott to found Theacat Co., creating and selling hand-painted fabrics to fashion designers such as Halston and Stephen Burrows. He later introduced a ready-to-wear fashion line under FA L L / W IN T ER 20 19

his own name, featuring customized items such as kimonos and pajamas. His designs were worn

by Sophia Loren, Nastassja Kinski and Joan Collins, among others. He is survived by his brothers Marc and Matthew, and his sister, Melinda.

Batton Lash (BFA 1977 Media Arts) passed away on January 12. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. After graduating from SVA, he did illustrations for the magazine Garbage and the book Rock ‘n’ Roll Confidential, and assisted comics artist Howard Chaykin. He then began illustrating for the weekly Brooklyn Paper, where he created his best-known series, Wolff and Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre, which he later self-published as a comic book and renamed Supernatural Law. He received the Don Thompson Award for Best Achievement by a Cartoonist in 1996, an Eisner Award for Best Humor Publication in 2002, the Inkpot Award in 2004 and the Independent Book Publishers Association’s Benjamin Franklin Award in 2009.

He is survived by his wife, Jackie Estrada.

James Jay “Jason” McWhorter (1964 Illustration) died on December 16, 2018, at his home in Saugerties, New York. He was a gifted painter, sculptor and woodworker, and his art is in private collections throughout the United States. McWhorter taught drawing at SVA in 1968 and 1969.

Ted Stearn (MFA 1992 Fine Arts) passed away on February 1. He was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, and grew up in small towns across New England. He received his BA from the Rhode Island School of Design before attending SVA. After graduating, he led dual careers as an art director and storyboard artist, moonlighting as a kinetic sculptor. He is best known for his contributions to animated productions such as Rick and Morty, Daria, Beavis and Butt-Head, King of the Hill, Futurama, Drawn Together, Animals, Squirrel Boy and The Simpsons Movie. His comics series Fuzz & Pluck was nominated for an Ignatz Award in 2003, and also earned him a nomination for the Ignatz Outstanding Artist Award in 2007. He is survived by his mother,

Betty; his partner, Sharon; two daughters; his sister, Jeanne Firey, and his brother, Douglas.

Carl Titolo (1967 Illustration) passed away on April 12. A beloved, longtime faculty member of BFA Design, BFA Illustration and MFA Illustration as Visual Essay, he was born and raised in Queens. After completing the SVA certificate program, he began his professional career, illustrating for magazines and book jackets. He would also go on to exhibit his fine art in galleries, including Terry Dintenfass Gallery, in New York City; Mongerson Gallery, in Chicago; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, in Buffalo; Minnesota Museum of Art, in St. Paul; Arkansas Art Center, in Little Rock; and Chiavari Gallery, in Parma, Italy. Reflections from Hell, published in 2014, featured Titolo’s art accompanying writing by comedian Richard Lewis. Titolo’s honors include awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Society of Illustrators and the National Academy of Design. He is survived by his wife, Angela.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

To learn more, visit archives.sva.edu.

IN

1969, acclaimed designer Milton Glaser—a longtime SVA faculty member and acting chairman of the College’s board— was tapped by Time magazine to create the cover for a California-themed issue, which is now held, along with a sketch for the work, as part of the Milton Glaser Design Study Center and Archives at SVA. Fifty years later, on the occasion of the Visual Arts Journal’s own California-themed issue, Glaser—who celebrated his 90th birthday in June—spoke with us about the assignment, bygone production methods and the creative mandate to move on. [Beth Kleber]

Do you remember how this project came about?

Time wanted to make a big deal out of a special section on California. So they decided to use a fold-out to extend the imagery. They wanted it in the way I was working at the time, which was pseudo-psychedelic, or maybe simply psychedelic, using some of the motifs that people associate with California in this style that said, “Time is really cool.”

To some degree this was risky for Time, because it was transgressive. They were more interested, usually, in conventional photography and illustration.

I guess they wanted to signal, “Hey, this one is different.”

How did you arrive at this style?

First I would do a line drawing, then we would get a full-size photostat of it and paste a product called Cello-Tak—little

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patches of colored plastic—in between the lines. It was all by hand; it would take hours. Fortunately it was work that could be leased out, so I just did the drawings, and to some degree it was a means of increasing productivity without spending money on high-priced talent.

Of course this method was totally doomed by the computer, because then you could do in minutes what used to take days. But what was interesting was the incredible patience of anybody who did this work. It was like weaving a tapestry or doing a stained-glass window, if perhaps somewhat less elevated.

Well, I disagree. But I think for any artist it’s hard to look back at old work.

It is hard. And of course you’ve moved away from it for reasons. One is that it was repeated too often. If you do something well, and become noted for doing it well, then people will come to you for it and you will do it until you lose interest but still have to do it, because that’s the basis for your success. That is the heart of what’s wrong with the applied-arts business. You just have to figure out a way out. For me, it was leaving what had become acknowledged as my style and moving to something quite different.

What do you think about this piece now?

It looks terrible to me. I can’t stand looking at that stuff I did in the ’60s. It just seems so innocent and crude and reductive.

Every once in a while one of them looks okay, but otherwise it’s a mess.

And hoping that everyone would come along with you?

Living in hope.

BETH KLEBER is head of archives at the School of Visual Arts.

V I SUA L A R T S JOUR N A L