SVA Visual Arts Journal Fall/Winter 2021

journal VISUAL ARTS

SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS MAGAZINE

FALL / WINTER 2021

FA L L / WINT E R 2021 FROM THE PRESIDENT | 2 MYSVA | 3

An alumnus re-imagines the SVA logo

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BEYOND DEFINITION

“It makes you feel like you are part of one big family.”

SVA CLOSE UP | 4

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

Products and services by SVA artists and entrepreneurs

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PORTFOLIO: MU PAN | 20

Epic and surreal visual narratives by the artist and SVA alumnus

PORTFOLIO | MU PAN

SPOTLIGHT: NEW ORLEANS | 32

“It’s just an image— nothing’s real.”

Three graduates who live and work in the storied Gulf Coast city BEYOND DEFINITION | 38

The art, craft and community of ceramics REEL LIVES | 48

Talking shop with SVA alumni who work in film and TV Q+A: STORM ASCHER | 56

The SVA alumnus and artist on her “nomadic” gallery, Superposition THE NEW WAVE | 60

Nontraditional alumni-run arts orgs for a nontraditional time F R O M T O P : I M A G E S C O U R T E S Y K AT Y S T U B B S , NICOL A S TOURON, MU PAN, ADA .

ALUMNI AFFAIRS | 64

For Your Benefit A Message From the Director SVA Alumni Society Awards Donors Alumni Notes and Exhibitions In Memoriam FROM THE ARCHIVES | 80

9/11 remembered in “here is new york”

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CLOSE UP | ART AND SOL

Sol LeWitt’s art can now be explored in a whole new way.

FALL/WINTER 2021 |

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VISUAL ARTS JOURNAL

FROM THE PR ESIDENT

Fall/Winter 2021 Volume 29, Number 2

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 Mark Maltais, art director

COVER FRONT Mu Pan, detail from Compendium of Materia Mudica, 2020, acrylic on paper.

(See page 20.)

BACK, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT Alice Mackler, Untitled, 2020, glazed ceramic; Margaret Lanzetta, St. Edward’s Crown, UK, ca. 1661, 2016, porcelain; Judy Mannarino, Privileged, 2020, glazed clay; Nicolas Touron, Artificial Terrain 31, 2019, 3D-printed stoneware and hand-built porcelain. (See page 38.)

ADVERTISING SALES 212.592.2207

CONTRIBUTORS Louisa Bertman Maeri Ferguson Daniel Fishel Lawrence Giffin Dan Halm Beth Kleber Diana McClure Jane Nuzzo Miranda Pierce Anne Quito Lainey Sidell Michael Tisserand © 2021, 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 David Rhodes PRESIDENT

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s I write this letter, SVA is just a few days away from reopening its campus after some 18 months of fully remote education and largely remote operations. Just as our transition to virtual learning in March of 2020—and our continuation and improvement of such throughout the following academic year—represented a tremendous achievement by our students, faculty and staff, so too does our anticipated return to in-person activity.

Just as I was thankful and proud of our collective work then, I am thankful and proud of it now.

Progress can be fragile and halting. It is, ultimately, a collective responsibility. We continue to update and implement our policies in accordance with health authorities’ latest recommendations. We trust in our community members to be safe and responsible to themselves and others, and we are approaching the coming months with caution and clear-eyed optimism.

With our sustained hard work and a bit of good fortune, we will get there soon.

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

Anthony P. Rhodes EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT

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PHOTO BY NIR ARIELI

schoolofvisualarts.tumblr.com

MYSVA Daniel Fishel MFA 2011 Illustration as Visual Essay o-fishel.com / @o-fishel

Daniel Fishel is a prolific illustrator, educator and writer whose work has appeared on album, book and magazine covers, apparel, websites and more. For this issue’s MySVA, he turned the SVA letters into a tattoo, a visual analogy for how one’s experience at the College “sticks with you, years after you leave,” he says. Fishel’s recent projects include the cover for Emmanuel Acho’s Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Boy (Roaring Book Press), packaging illustrations for Target’s Mondo Llama brand and assignments for Texas Monthly, Vice and The New Yorker.

He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

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CLOSE UP

News and events from around the College

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CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT Move-in photos by Jacqueline Iannacone (BFA 2012 Photography); SVA in LA photos by Steve Birnbaum (BFA 2004 Film and Video).

Read on to find out more about the start of this longawaited school year: The College required COVID-19 vaccinations for all SVA students, faculty and staff who returned to campus, with select medical or religious exemptions, and a mask requirement for indoor spaces. (The latter is subject to change in accordance with the latest CDC guidelines.)

In response to the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes and as part of a continuing effort to create a safe, supportive community, SVA hosted a virtual bystander intervention training in July and is planning similar events throughout the year.

New studio spaces for drawing and painting foundation classes have opened at

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Back to the Future

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fter a year and a half of remote learning, working and socializing, the School of Visual Arts welcomed approximately 4,100 students and 650 faculty to campus for the start of the 2021 – 2022 academic year. Residence halls, kept at a reduced capacity throughout 2020 – 2021, are back to full occupancy. In-person classes—with the exception of most undergraduate liberal arts courses and some continuing-education offerings—have resumed. SVA Destinations, which offers short-term, travel-based programs, hosted its latest trip, to Los Angeles, in July. SVA Theatre opened its doors for the 2021 After School Special Alumni Film and Animation Festival in September. Exhibitions are once again on view in the College’s galleries. Life at SVA may not yet be “normal,” but it’s getting there.

“Our reopening this fall to in-person instruction at full capacity marked a significant turning point in our recovery from the monumental challenges wrought by the pandemic,” says SVA Provost Dr. Christopher Cyphers. “It’s wonderful to see students and faculty back on campus, along with the staff, chairs and administrators who kept SVA afloat while we were forced online.”

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HEARD AT SVA

NOTABLE QUOTES FROM COLLEGE EVENTS

220 East 23rd Street and 132 West 21st Street, allowing for greater flexibility in scheduling and availability.

Student Orientation combined introductory online content—a concept carried over from last year’s remote event—with an in-person Welcome Week, at which there were programming tracks for first-year students, second-year students (who are on campus as students for the first time this fall) and new graduate students. The week included information sessions—including a presentation by Dr. Jarvis Watson, director of the College’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion office, established last December—facilities tours and neighborhood walks, and social events like comedy night and karaoke.

SVA’s Instagram, @svanyc, introduced “#SVAIRL (#SVAInRealLife),” spotlighting students and their art to engage the community and amplify individuals’ voices.

SVA IT launched a redesigned GoSVA, a mobile app that provides access to all SVA essential systems, as well as Cleared4, a health verification platform.

SVA Career Development, which saw great success with its online events last school year, continues to host its workshops and counseling sessions virtually.

[Michelle Mackin]

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“It’s sort of a thorn in my paw in that there’s so little described about what the Bay Area was like during the ’70s.

There was a lot of creative energy from a lot of different directions, and there were a lot of really interesting, great, emerging women artists.”

—Judith Linhares, artist. From a conversation with art historian, curator and writer Jennifer Samet, hosted by BFA Fine Arts.

“Is it a time of peace that’s more propitious to thinking, or is it a time of war?”

—Samir Gandesha, director of the Institute of Humanities, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver.

From a talk hosted

by BFA Visual & Critical Studies and the Honors Program.

Academy Honorees

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n May, the American Academy of Arts and Letters added 33 new members to its ranks, which are intended to comprise the country’s most esteemed architects, artists, musicians and writers. Two of the new inductees are SVA alumni: artists Adrian Piper (1969 Fine Arts) and Lorna Simpson (BFA 1982 Photography).

(A third, artist Faith Ringgold, once taught at the College.)

The academy, founded in 1898, is dedicated to supporting the arts in the U.S. through grants, events and other activities. Members are elected to lifelong, dues-free terms. Membership, which had previously been limited to 250, is undergoing a gradual expansion to 300 and an effort to build a

more inclusive and representative organization.

Academy membership is just one of several distinctions in recent years for Piper and Simpson.

In 2018, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, presented the retrospective “Adrian Piper: A Synthesis of Intuitions, 1965 – 2016,” which The New York Times called “the largest ever for a living artist”; this fall, she will receive the Goslar Kaiserring Award, given each year to an artist of exceptional achievement. In 2019, Simpson received a J. Paul Getty Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the Getty, one of the world’s largest philanthropic arts institutions. [Greg Herbowy]

Lorna Simpson photo by James Wang.

Adrian Piper in Second Wave Feminism: Unfinished Business, 2014. Lecture/ discussion delivered at the National Academy of Art, Oslo, open access. DVD. 01:49:41. Collection of the Adrian Piper Research Archive (APRA) Foundation Berlin. © APRA Foundation Berlin

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Art Is . . . City Life CLOSE UP News and events from around the College

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t the end of August—just as students arrived at the SVA campus and New York entered its second autumn since the COVID-19 pandemic began—the latest installment in the College’s long-running series of posters went up in the city’s subway stations, where it will be on view through later this fall.

Created by MFA Illustration as Visual Essay faculty member and alumnus

Hyesu Lee (2011), the poster depicts a lively and surreal urban scene, with six buildings spelling out the phrase “ART IS!” An artist’s hand, holding a pencil, appears on the left, giving the impression of the composition—and city life—being a work forever in-progress.

“The idea is to show how embedded art is in our lives,” Lee says.

August was a busy month for Lee. In addition to her poster’s debut, sparkling

water company Topo Chico introduced Lee-designed merchandise, and her first authored children’s book had its South Korean publication. (The title was not available at press time; look for it in the spring/summer 2022 Visual Arts Journal.) She has also regularly been publishing comics on The Lily, an online publication of The Washington Post. For more information, visit heyheysu.com.

[GH]

LEFT MFA Illustration as Visual Essay faculty member and alumnus Hyesu Lee created the latest SVA “subway series” poster.

RIGHT, FROM TOP

2016, 2015 and 2012 SVA posters created by new BFA Illustration and BFA Cartooning Chair (and SVA alumnus) Viktor Koen, in collaboration with MFA Design Co-Chair Steven Heller.

Making an Appointment

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ongtime SVA faculty member and alumnus Viktor Koen (MFA 1992 Illustration as Visual Essay) took the helm as chair of SVA’s BFA Cartooning and BFA Illustration programs this summer, succeeding Thomas Woodruff, who retired this year after 39 years at the College, 20 of them as a department chair.

(Woodruff is now chair emeritus.)

A native of Greece and the creative director of Attic Child Press, Inc., Koen is known in the design and illustration fields for his imagery for the branding of conferences and large cultural events, as well as his prints and posters. His work has been widely commissioned, and his clients include The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, Esquire, National Geographic, Rolling Stone, Penguin Random House, Doubleday, Harper Collins, Rizzoli, Houghton Mifflin and many other national and international media outlets.

He has exhibited his work in solo shows in Los Angeles; New York City; Athens, Greece; and London, and regularly lectures at academic conferences. A recipient of the American Illustration Award, the Graphis Gold Award and the Communication Arts Magazine Award of Excellence, Koen serves on the Adobe Photoshop Advisory Council and the Photoville Board of Directors. He has been a TED speaker and named 3x3 Magazine Educator of the Year.

Koen joined the SVA faculty in 2004; three years later, he founded the Summer Illustration Residency Program.

He has also created six posters for the College’s long-running “subway series” campaign, all of them in collaboration with friend and colleague Steven Heller, co-chair of MFA Design and SVA faculty member in several programs.

Of his new role, Koen says, “I am thrilled for the opportunity to become a more integral part of SVA, an institution whose faculty and graduates are some of the most influential cultural forces I know.” [Maeri Ferguson] FALL/WINTER 2021 |

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CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT Photo by SVA

faculty member Elizabeth Bick; SVA alumnus and small store owner Diana Ho; homepage of the online Journal; art by SVA alumnus Ryan J. Brady.

CLOSE UP News and events from around the College

ICYMI

The Visual Arts Journal experiments with the possibilities of online publication . . .

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f you missed the last issue of the Visual Arts Journal, you may have been looking in the wrong place.

This past spring, rather than arriving in alumni and campus mailboxes, the Journal published its first-ever all-digital edition, on the SVA website.

The spring/summer 2021 Journal contains much of the content regular readers may be familiar with, as well as some only-on-the-Internet extras like

Branding Extension

. . . and the MPS Branding program commits to the possibilities of online education.

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videos, pop-up footnotes and slideshows. Stories include: •a look at three alumni-owned, community-minded shops; • money-management tips for independent creative workers; • photography about and inspired by dance; • lessons learned from a year of remote education at SVA; • and much more.

To read the spring/summer 2021 issue, visit sva.edu/S21journal; for the online Visual Arts Journal archive, visit sva.edu/journal. [GH]

his fall, MPS Branding at SVA launched a permanent, synchronous online track to run simultaneously with its in-person courses. On the heels of its successful transition to remote learning last year, the one-year master’s degree

program is now accessible to a wider range of students, who have the option of studying on campus or from home. The two tracks are not interchangeable, and students are committed to their chosen track once the academic year begins, though all students will have the opportunity to present their thesis in person if they choose.

Co-founded in 2010 by design leaders Debbie Millman, who serves as department chair, and Steven Heller, MFA Design co-chair, MPS Branding examines the intersection of design and business strategy, the ubiquity of brands

and branding concepts in modern life and the research, creative skills and problem-solving integral to brand development. More than 300 students have graduated from the program since its inception, and Millman is excited about the opportunities for intercultural exchange and expanding global influence made possible by this new online track.

“Our school is about opening doors, not closing them,” she says. “We want to continue to evolve that legacy, allowing more voices a platform to take a role in global conversations.” [MF]

Art and Sol

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he work of minimalist conceptual artist and SVA alumnus Sol LeWitt (1953 Illustration) can now be explored in a whole new way, thanks to a recently released app from Microsoft. In partnership with the tech giant and close collaboration with the late artist’s estate, New York–based curator and LeWitt expert Lindsay Aveilhé and experiencedesign agency Ada have created an immersive virtual experience of LeWitt’s singular works that allows users to take a deeper dive than ever before.

Users of the app can tour LeWitt’s home studio in Chester, Connecticut; explore his career milestones and

archival audio and photos; see the process behind his large-scale wall drawings and other pieces; and learn about his landmark installations around the world. In the spirit of LeWitt’s legacy as a collaborative artist—he famously used many assistants to execute his bigger works— the interactive platform makes his work accessible to art lovers anywhere, just as he intended.

The Sol LeWitt app is available for free download on Apple and Android devices. [MF]

Screenshots of the free interactive app celebrating the art of SVA alumnus Sol LeWitt. Courtesy Ada.

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NOTABLE QUOTES FROM COLLEGE EVENTS

HEARD AT SVA

CLOSE UP News and events from around the College

For more information on SVA events, visit sva.edu/events.

“The [National Museum of African American History and Culture], they have an exhibit [on the Tulsa Race Massacre], and it’s pennies. . . . Because everything was burnt down to the ground, but the pennies lasted. So, how do you tell the story of something that’s just gone?”

—Dr. Georgette Grier-Key, executive director of the Eastville Community Historical Society.

From Diversity in 3D, the SVA Diversity, Equity and Inclusion podcast.

“

To design is to communicate clearly by whatever means you can control or master.

— M ILTO N G LAS E R (SEE NEXT PAGE)

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Coming Attractions

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“I feel like we can learn so much from how nature treats [itself]. . . . Even as an artist I think in terms of an ecosystem. I don’t necessarily need to benefit, but how am I serving the ecosystem? Even if I have nothing to contribute, how am I present to witness and to lessen a burden for someone else?”

—Jean Shin, artist.

From a talk hosted

by MFA Art Practice.

i3: Images, Ideas, Inspiration 10th Anniversary Lectures

MPS Digital Photography celebrates a decade of its popular i3 lectures with a series of talks curated and hosted by the program’s founding chair, Katrin Eismann (MFA 2002 Design). Online Every Tuesday through December 14, 7:00pm ET Art and Activism

SVA Continuing Education hosts its fifth annual Art and Activism panel.

SVA Theatre, 333 West 23rd Street, and online November 3, 6:00pm ET MFA Illustration as Visual Essay 2021 Thesis Exhibition

A selection of work by alumni from the program’s latest graduating class.

SVA Chelsea Gallery, 601 West 26th Street, and online November 18 – December 11

SVA @ Untitled, Art Miami

Featuring work by nine Class of 2021 alumni from six undergraduate and graduate SVA programs.

Ocean Drive and 12th Street Miami Beach, Florida November 30 – December 4 Mentors

An exhibition of work by BFA Photography and Video students, made as part of their mentorships with industry professionals.

SVA Chelsea Gallery, 601 West 26th Street, and online March 3 – 21, 2022

MILTON’S ROAD TO

Hell

Designer’s Journey (Continued)

Glaser’s caution to designers in his famous essay

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Glaser’s Great Gems

The sheer magnitude of Milton Glaser’s brilliant output is hard to fathom. You’re probably familiar with Glaser’s Dylan poster or his I NY logo, but he’s also responsible for thousands more works you may never have laid eyes on. The Milton Glaser Design Study Center and Archives at SVA contains all of it: unseen book jackets and album covers, rare posters and original art for unproduced projects.

These are just a few hard-to-find and mostly unknown pieces from our collection:

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few years ago I had the pleasure of illustrating Dante’s Purgatory for an Italian publisher. I was impressed by the fact that the difference between those unfortunates in Hell and those in Purgatory was that the former had no idea how they had sinned. Those in Hell were there forever. Those in Purgatory knew what they had done and were waiting it out with at least the possibility of redemption, thus establishing the difference between despair and hope.

In regard to professional ethics, acknowledging what it is we do is a beginning. It is clear that in the profession of graphic design the question of misrepresenting the truth arises almost immediately. So much of what we do can be seen as a distortion of the truth.

Put another way, “He who enters the bath sweats.”

Finally, all questions of ethics become personal. To

establish your own level of discomfort with bending the truth, read the following chart: 12 Steps on the Graphic Designer’s Road to Hell. I personally have taken a number of them.

in minority hiring.

1. Designing a package to look bigger on the shelf.

8. Designing a line of T-shirts for a manufacturer that employs child labor.

2. Designing an ad for a slow, boring film to make it seem like a lighthearted comedy.

3. Designing a crest for a new vineyard to suggest that it has been in business for a long time.

4. Designing a jacket for a book whose sexual content you find personally repellent.

7. Designing a package aimed at children for a cereal whose contents you know are low in nutritional value and high in sugar.

9. Designing a promotion for a diet product that you know doesn’t work.

10. Designing an ad for a political candidate whose policies you believe would be harmful to the general public.

5. Designing a medal using steel from the World Trade Center to be sold as a profit-making souvenir of September 11.

11. Designing a brochure for an SUV that flips over frequently in emergency conditions and is known to have killed 150 people.

6. Designing an advertising campaign for a company with a history of known discrimination

12. Designing an ad for a product whose frequent use could result in the user’s death.

BOOK JACKET

1. The Magic Barrel Glaser’s 1958 book jacket for Bernard Malamud’s The Magic Barrel contains a lovely homage to Henri Matisse’s cutouts.

PORTRAIT

2. Jimi Hendrix

It’s unknown of this Jimi Hendrix portrait was ultimately published anywhere. The original drawing confidently conveys detail through minimal line and contrast.

POSTER

3. Art Love Time & Money “Art Love Time & Money” was a 1968 poster for the 13th Annual Communications Conference sponsored by the Art Directors Club. Glaser’s fascination with 3D design resulted in a sort of mathematical diagram exploring the four things that animate most human activity.

COVER

4. Smash Magazine Smash magazine, “the magazine that comes with two free staples,” was a wonderful and short-lived children’s magazine of the mid-1970s edited and published by Jenette Kahn.

Glaser was the design director, and the graphics were playful in the manner of Push Pin Graphic. Much like other groundbreaking children’s media of the era (Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Zoom) Smash’s tone was fun, smart and curious.

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POSTER

5. Lillian Roxon Lillian Roxon was a trailblazing rock writer of the 1960s and ’70s. Her syndicated radio program, Lillian Roxon’s Diskotique, was pressed to vinyl and sent to radio stations.

Glaser’s psychedelic poster from 1972 is both elegant and silly.

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P22 Reissues Glaser Fonts

This year, P22 Type Foundry, a Rochester, New York–based studio specializing in historic lettering styles, introduced four digital font families based on typefaces created by Milton Glaser in the 1960s and ’70s: Babyfat, Babyteeth, Houdini and Kitchen.

SVA s Milton Glaser

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his summer, SVA began what will be a year-long initiative to celebrate the singular life and work of designer Milton Glaser, longtime faculty member and former acting chairman of the SVA Board, who died last year.

In September, a banner featuring a black-and-white portrait of Glaser by photographer Michael Somoroff—who had worked with designer at New York, the weekly magazine co-founded by Glaser and

P22 BEGAN WORK ON the project in 2019, after principal Richard Kegler heard through a mutual acquaintance that Glaser was unhappy with the subpar knockoffs of his fonts that were circulating online.

Collaborating with Glaser and his studio, the foundry worked from the designer’s original drawings and phototype proofs while adding characters and styling options to make the typefaces functional, versatile and fun. The Houdini family, for example, includes a fully invisible option, in the spirit of Glaser’s stated goal, “to produce a letterform that would gradually disappear.”

For more information, visit p22.com.

ABCDEFGHIJKLM NOPQRSTUVWx YZ !#%&?*$12345

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1975–1977

Centre Pompidou and MoMA Glaser’s artwork has been featured in exhibits worldwide, including solo shows at both the Centre Pompidou in Paris (1977) , above, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1975).

1977

I Love New York The original taxi sketch, now in the Museum of Modern Art archive, for the ubiquitous and much-copied logo.

I NY

1982

The Conversation Glaser and the French artist Jean-Michel Folon were great friends over a long period of time. They decided to recognize that friendship by creating a book where one would start a drawing and the other would finish it.

It’s an accordion fold that celebrates an affectionate relationship.

Photo: Cosmos Sarchiapone.

1983

WBMG In 1983, Glaser teamed with SVA alumnus Walter Bernard to form WBMG, a publication design firm located in New York City. WBMG was responsible for the complete redesigns of three major newspapers including The Washington Post. It consulted on design projects for The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe and New York Daily News, among others.

Magazine clients include Time, U.S. News & World Report, Adweek and The Nation.

MORE SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS | 9

editor Clay Felker in 1968— went up on an exterior wall of 209 East 23rd Street. (In 2014, the same space displayed Glaser’s climate-change PSA, “It’s Not Warming, It’s Dying.”)

Soon after, the first issue of the Glaser Gazette—a newsletter dedicated to Glaser’s multifaceted career, his mentorship of countless creative talents and his dedication to the greater good—appeared around campus as a free publication for the College community and its visitors.

Copies have also been made available at the Poster House museum in Manhattan to coincide with “The Push Pin Legacy,” its exhibition on the legendary design studio, which

counted Glaser as an early and integral member. “The Push Pin Legacy” is on view through February 6, 2022.

In December and early January, a multimedia exhibition showcasing Glaser’s work will be on view in the SVA Flatiron and Gramercy gallery spaces.

Designed by 3D Design Chair Kevin O’Callaghan (BFA 1980 Media Arts), the show draws from the extensive holdings of the Milton Glaser Design Study Center and Archives, established at the College in 2006.

A second issue of the Gazette, a book commemorating Glaser’s legacy as a teacher and mentor, and more events will follow in 2022. [GH]

OPPOSITE AND ABOVE

Select pages from the fall issue of the Glaser Gazette, one of several projects comprising a year-long SVA initiative celebrating the late designer and SVA faculty member Milton Glaser.

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Fenestra bookends images courtesy MoMA Design Store; IBYOP logo courtesy It Be Ya Own People.™

Adobe “Portraits: Medium Skin” Premium Presets ADOBE APPS FEATURE

Pack of 11 presets Available to paid Lightroom subscribers

WHAT’S IN STORE

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

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Fenestra BOOKENDS

Earlier this year, Adobe released a set of “Premium Presets” for its photography applications, created by a diverse group of photographers. Artist Dario Calmese (MPS 2012 Fashion Photography) developed the “Portraits: Medium Skin” preset pack, which contains 11 presets designed for photos of people with medium skin tones.

[Michelle Mackin]

Set of four bookends, $55 store.moma.org These colorful steel bookends— created by Eugenia Ramos Alonso (MFA 2019 Products of Design) as part of MFA Products of Design’s long-running collaboration with the MoMA Design Store—can nest when unused to form an abstracted picture of a landscape view. [Greg Herbowy]

It Be Ya Own People PODCAST

ibyop-podcast.com Creative director Treeva Royes (MPS 2020 Branding) and criminal justice academic Celinet Duran, two “Brooklyn besties,” bring the laughs and dish on the latest news and pop culture in this POCcentered podcast. Guests to date include Alexzenia Davis, founder of The Poet’s List; Ibada Wadud, founder of the socially minded Lulah handbag brand; broadcaster and comedian Justin Ramos; and influencer and media consultant Gina Doost. [GH]

“Before” and “after” images of portrait photos edited using Adobe Premium Presets developed by SVA alumnus Dario Calmese. Courtesy Dario Calmese x Adobe Lightroom Presets.

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POP-ART POLAROID

WHAT’S IN STORE

Polaroid x Keith Haring

POLAROID NOW I-TYPE CAMERA AND COLOR FILM $17.99 – $169.99 polaroid.com

Chartwell Manor

Two analog-era favorites—the instant photograph and the exuberant art of Keith Haring (1979 Fine Arts)—unite in this special-edition camera and film pack from Polaroid.

Both the iconic white border of the Polaroid photograph and the body of its distinctively chunky camera are decorated with motifs from Haring’s cartoon-like paintings. [GH]

While the work is deeply personal, Head says, “I’m a comic book artist first and foremost. I need to be telling a good yarn.” This is just one of the lessons he says he learned during three years of study with Art Spiegelman at SVA—“a notoriously tough teacher,” Head recalls. “There are things I still carry with me about narrative and structure that I took from his class. It was a full education in comics.”

Other lessons came from fellow students. In Chartwell Manor, Head shows his friend Mark Newgarden (faculty, Art History; BFA 1982 Media Arts) telling him, “The best comics by Glen Head are gonna be comics about Glen Head!”

(Head spells his first name differently in his books, a subtle cue to separate the author from the character.)

Although Head published his first book-length graphic memoir in 2015—Chicago, an account of his teenage years,

FANTAGRAPHICS Hardcover, $29.99 fantagraphics.com

Described by Publishers Weekly as “unflinchingly honest and hypnotically powerful,” Chartwell Manor, the latest work by cartoonist Glenn Head (BFA 1986 Media Arts), was immediately heralded as one of the finest graphic memoirs of the genre. The material is brutal—the sexual and emotional abuse of legions of boys, including Head himself, by a charismatic boarding school headmaster—but Head’s unique approach turns it into a compelling narrative in text and image about the countless ways we bury or uncover our personal histories.

“I would tell anybody who listens that I don’t see this as an abuse memoir, I see it as a family drama,” Head says. “What the book is really about is reckoning with one’s past, how it follows us around.”

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TOP LEFT, ABOVE, RIGHT Cover and

interiors from Chartwell Manor (Fantagraphics), courtesy Glenn Head.

CENTER

Polaroid x Keith Haring images courtesy Artestar.

when he’d dropped out of school, landing on that city’s meaner streets—he says he had actually imagined he’d create a comic out of his Chartwell experience when he was still a student there. Perhaps it’s a good thing he waited.

In Chartwell Manor, Head takes his readers through passages of horror until they reach at least some sense of resolution, even finding what Head calls “a sliver of forgiveness” for the serial predator who did lasting harm to so many young lives.

“We don’t ask for the cards we’re dealt,” Head says. “We all just play them and we’re all just playing for time.”

[Michael Tisserand]

aromatic, neurologically influential “scent-track” to accompany digital media–like movies, video games and VR for hyperrealistic, transportive experiences. Learn more at hypnosvr.com. [MM]

Real Life Faces THE CENTER FOR ALLOPLASTIC FACIAL RECONSTRUCTION 3924 W. Markham Street Little Rock, Arkansas reallifefaces.com While growing up, Michael Kaczkowski (BFA 1992 Fine Arts)

was intrigued by what makes living things look alive and what makes experiences feel real. At SVA, these interests materialized as immersive, kinetic multimedia sculptures; SVA President David Rhodes acquired one in Kaczkowski’s fourth year. Another sculpture, of a car crash involving lifelike human anatomy, helped him land a job at a New York City prosthetics studio, where he worked full-time during school making artificial body parts for medical clients.

Continuing in the field postgraduation, Kaczkowski has become what he calls a “medical inventor,” developing innovations to make prosthetics look as trueto-life as possible. Now he is the

lead ocularist and anaplastologist at Real Life Faces: The Center for Alloplastic Facial Reconstruction, located near several hospitals and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, in Little Rock. There, he and his team use his patented technologies in prosthetic eyes and alloplasty— called RealLifeEyes and RealLifeSkin—to create custom pieces for their patients, many of whom are children, cancer survivors or veterans. He also has ensured that the center’s services are available to Medicare and Medicaid recipients and that the center donates artificial eyes to medical mission trips. As the largest private clinic of its kind in the country, Real Life Faces has provided prosthetics to thousands from all over the world.

The key to Kaczkowski’s success, he says, is treating prosthetics as art. “My artistic vision was always very clear: make living art to change the patients’ lives. I want to bring this art to everyone.”

Additionally, Kaczkowski has a project in progress at his tech startup, Hypnos Virtual, called Scentscape—an immersive media technology that creates an

Real Life Faces images courtesy Michael Kaczkowski; Simply Robotix logo courtesy Monique HenryHudson.

Simply Robotix PODCAST

simplyrobotix.com Simply Robotix—the animation and design consultancy, blog and shop founded and run by Monique Henry-Hudson (BFA 2011 Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects)—is also home to a podcast of the same name.

As host, Henry-Hudson reviews recent releases and interviews fellow industry professionals like Courtney Pure (BFA 2011 Animation), Ruel Smith (BFA 2004 Computer Art) and Karen Toliver, executive vice president of creative at Sony Pictures Animation.

Bonus content is available for Patreon subscribers. [GH] FALL/WINTER 2021 |

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Pon the Store

CURATED HOME WARES 11 Main Street Rockport, Massachusetts pontheonlinestore.com

Pon the Store might be best described as a collage of memories, taste and material objects arranged by its owner, photogra-

LEFT

Items sold at Pon the Store, a shop started

by SVA alumnus Madde Pontin and her mother, Laura Novack.

Images courtesy Madde Pontin.

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PONY EXPRESS 2.0

WHAT’S IN STORE

pher Madde Pontin (BFA 2019 Photography and Video). And though the brick-and-mortar pop-up in Rockport, Massachusetts, will be around only through January 2022, conceptually, the endeavor has been a long time coming.

Conceived as a collaborative project with her mother while Pontin studied at SVA, Pon is a contemporary riff on the oldtimey general store. Originally slated for a summer 2020 run, the opening of the pop-up space was put on hold with the advent of COVID-19. Pon’s website, however, launched last year as planned, along with a capsule jewelry collection designed in collaboration with up-andcoming brand Sparkle Diva, featuring rings, earrings and necklaces of seashells in resin; the shells were sourced from Pontin’s mother’s vast archive of beachcombing finds.

This inaugural drop illustrates Pon the Store’s overarching ethos: reexamining and, at times, upcycling items perceived as lowbrow with a curatorial perspective. Whether that principle manifests as artistic collaborations or the sale of Pop Rocks alongside handmade fine jewelry, Pon’s throughline is its commitment to juxtaposing the silly alongside the serious—elevating the former and recontextualizing the latter in the process.

[Lainey Sidell]

Western Wear “FOREVER” USPS POSTAGE

Book of 20 stamps, $11 store.usps.com This past summer, the United States Postal Service issued a series of stamps celebrating the tradition and timeless appeal of Western wear—10-gallon hats, leather cowboy boots, big belt buckles and pearl snap-button shirts—all of them illustrated by Ryan Feerer (MFA 2007 Design).

Available while supplies last. [GH]

ABOVE The Visual Muze artist residency.

Lower photo by Timothy Schneck.

Images courtesy Nadia deLane.

Visual Muze ARTIST RESIDENCY

Nolan Park, Governors Island, New York westharlem.art/artist-residency Last year, Nadia deLane (MFA 2015 Visual Narrative) and Savona Bailey McClain, executive director of West Harlem Art Fund, a public arts organization, established Visual Muze, a new residency that is dedicated to artists whose practices focus on storytelling.

Based in a historic military house on Governors Island in New York City, Visual Muze hosts commuting artists for four- to 10-week sessions in the summer and fall months, providing indoor and outdoor work spaces. Participants may work independently or collaboratively, and are encouraged to experiment with media and narrative forms.

Visual Muze will begin accepting applications for its 2022 sessions on November 15. [GH]

Screen time with SVA alumni and faculty

Watch List

Luca

Halloween Kills

FROM TOP, LEF T TO RI GHT, I MAGES CO URTESY DIS NEY-P IX AR, UNIVERSAL PI C TURE S, SE ARCHLI GHT PI C TURES, MAYA COZIER, NBC, R AN DALL EM MET T, N ETFLIX, K AT YA USTI NO VA .

Disney/Pixar’s tale of shape-shifting sea-monster friends was directed by onetime SVA student Enrico Casarosa and includes work by BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects alumni Daniela Dwek (2020) and Jessica Monteiro (2010); MFA Computer Art alumni Nancy Kato (1991), Ivo Kos (1991) and David Peng (2000); and Maria Lee (BFA 1988 Media Arts).

The French Dispatch

Storyboard artist Warren Drummond (BFA 1984 Media Arts) (see page 48), cinematographer Michael Simmonds (BFA 2000 Film and Video) (see page 48 again!) and co-producer Ryan Turek (BFA 1998 Film and Video) of the 2018 horror hit Halloween reunite— along with star Jamie Lee Curtis and director David Gordon Green—for the latest installment in the long-running franchise.

She Paradise

Kenan

Director Wes Anderson’s latest, an episodic look at the last days (and stories) of a fictional France-based American magazine, is produced by frequent collaborator Jeremy Dawson (MFA 1993 Photography and Related Media) (see page 48).

This debut feature by Maya Cozier (BFA 2016 Film) (see page 48), acquired by Samuel Goldwyn Films earlier this year, follows a teenage girl in Trinidad whose innocence is shattered after she joins up with a streetwise dance crew.

David Caspe (MFA 2005 Fine Arts), creator of Black Monday (Showtime, 2019 – ), co-created this NBC sitcom featuring longtime Saturday Night Live star Kenan Thompson as a morning-TV host and widowed father of two.

Midnight in the Switchgrass

Halston

Shtetlers

The directorial debut of longtime producer Randall Emmett (BFA 1994 Film and Video) stars Megan Fox and Bruce Willis as FBI agents whose sex-trafficking investigation intersects with that of a police officer on the hunt for a serial killer.

Daniel Minihan (BFA 1987 Film and Video) directed and executive-produced this five-episode Netflix miniseries on the career of superstar 1970s fashion designer Halston, played by Ewan McGregor.

In this documentary, Katya Ustinova (MFA 2012 Social Documentary Film) profiles residents of former Jewish enclaves, or shtetls, in the Soviet Union, which kept cultural and religious traditions alive for generations—knowledge that is now in danger of being lost.

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Shelf Liners

WHAT’S IN STORE

ACTIVITY/EDUCATION 52 Ready-to-Use Gaming Programs for Libraries Edited by Ellyssa Kroski; with an essay by Shea’la Finch (SVA librarian) and Christopher Bussman (former SVA Library staff member) Chicago: ALA Editions Softcover, $69.99

Buchanan-Smith’s Axe Handbook: Knowing, Buying, Using, Hanging, Restoring & Adorning Peter Buchanan-Smith (MFA 2000 Design), Ross McCammon, Nick Zdon and Michael Getz Abrams Image Hardcover/e-book, $24.99/$18.65

New Kid Sketchbook Jerry Craft (BFA 1984 Media Arts) Clarkson Potter Hardcover, $14.99

ART/PHOTOGRAPHY Ali Banisadr Ali Banisadr (BFA 2005 Illustration) Rizzoli Hardcover, $85

Alice Mackler Alice Mackler (BFA 1988 Fine Arts); text by Matthew Higgs and Kelly Taxter; interview by Joanne Greenbaum Gregory R. Miller & Co. Hardcover, $45

Assuming the Ecosexual Position: The Earth as Lover Annie Sprinkle (BFA 1986 Photography) and Beth Stephens, with Jennie Klein University of Minnesota Press Hardcover/paperback, $120/$29.95

Avenue of Roses Kevin Fletcher (MFA 1999 Photography and Related Media) kevinfletcher.net/store Softcover, $41

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Books by SVA alumni and faculty

Bright Light/Darkest Shadow Diana Shpungin (MFA 2002 Fine Arts) MOCA Tucson Hardcover, $40

During the Day but Mostly at Night Katelyn Kopenhaver (BFA 2016 Photography and Video) Pen + Brush Softcover, $32

Empty Art Galleries (NYC) Raul Valverde (faculty, BFA Fine Arts; MFA 2011 Photography, Video and Related Media) RVB Books Softcover, €60

Fever

Related Media) Loose Joints Hardcover, £30

Meet Me in the Green Glen Maureen R. Drennan (MFA 2009 Photography, Video and Related Media) Aint–Bad Hardcover, $30

The Moon Belongs to Everyone Stacy Mehrfar (faculty, SVA Continuing Education) GOST Books Hardcover, £35

Note(s): Work(ing) Process(es) Re: Concerns (That Take On / Deal With)

Allen Frame (faculty, BFA Photography and Video) Matte Hardcover, $40

Dara Birnbaum (faculty, MFA Fine Arts) Primary Information Paperback (edition of 2,000), $30

I Wish I Never Saw the Sunshine

Shipwrecks

Pacifico Silano (MFA 2012 Photography, Video and

Alexis Rockman (BFA 1985 Fine Arts) DelMonico Books/Guild Hall Hardcover, $40

Tickety-Boo Charles H. Traub (chair, MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) Damiani Hardcover, $50

Works on Paper Alexis Rockman (BFA 1985 Fine Arts) Damiani Hardcover, $55

CHILDREN’S/PICTURE All the Fish in the World David Opie (MFA 2002 Illustration as Visual Essay) Peter Pauper Press Hardcover, $16.99

A Friend Like You Frank Murphy and Charnaie Jordan; illustrated by Kayla Harren (BFA 2011 Illustration) Sleeping Bear Press Hardcover, $16.99

Go and Do Likewise!: The Parables and Wisdom of Jesus John Hendrix (MFA 2003 Illustration as Visual Essay) Abrams Books for Young Readers Hardcover/e-book, $18.99/$15.54

Hear My Voice/Escucha Mi Voz Compiled by Warren Binford for Project Amplify; cover

by Cecilia Ruiz (MFA 2012 Illustration as Visual Essay) Hardcover, $19.95

A Hundred Thousand Welcomes Mary Lee Donovan; illustrated

by Lian Cho (BFA 2019 Illustration) Greenwillow Books/ HarperCollins Hardcover, $18.99

I’m On It! Andrea Tsurumi (MFA 2013 Illustration as Visual Essay) Hyperion Books for Children Hardcover, $9.99

Keeping the City Going Brian Floca (MFA 2001 Illustration as Visual Essay) Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books Hardcover/e-book, $17.99/$10.99

Little Owl in the Big City Marcia Mogelonsky; illustrated by Jill Alexander (MFA 2006 Fine Arts) The Paulist Press Hardcover, $19.95

Mr. Watson’s Chickens Jarrett Dapier; illustrated by Andrea Tsurumi (MFA 2013 Illustration as Visual Essay) Chronicle Books Hardcover, $17

One Step Further: My Story of Math, the Moon, and a Mission Katherine Johnson with Joylette Hylick and Katherine Moore; illustrated by Charnelle

Pinkney Barlow (MFA 2012 Illustration as Visual Essay) National Geographic Kids/ Linden Tree Books Hardcover, $17.99

COMICS/GRAPHIC NOVELS The Girl From The Sea Molly Knox Ostertag (BFA 2014 Cartooning) Scholastic Hardcover/softcover/e-book, $24.99/$14.99/$14.99

Heartless Prince Leigh Dragoon; story and illustration by Angela De Vito (BFA 2014 Animation) Disney-Hyperion Hardcover/paperback, $18.99/$13.49

Kyle’s Little Sister BonHyung Jeong (BFA 2018 Cartooning) Yen Press Hardcover/softcover/e-book, $24/$13/$6.99

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century Timothy Snyder; illustrated

by Nora Krug (MFA 2004 Illustration as Visual Essay) Ten Speed Press/Penguin Random House Hardcover, $24

Run: Book One John Lewis and Andrew Aydin; illustrated by L. Fury and Nate Powell (BFA 2000 Cartooning) Abrams ComicArts Hardcover/e-book, $24.99/$18.65

Save It for Later: Promises, Parenthood, and the Urgency of Protest Nate Powell (BFA 2000 Cartooning) Abrams ComicArts Hardcover/e-book, $24.99/$18.65

DESIGN The New York Subway Map Debate Foreword by Paula Scher (faculty, BFA Design); edited

by Gary Hustwit; photographs

by Stan Ries Standards Manual Hardcover, $40

Why Design Matters Debbie Millman (chair, MPS Branding) HarperCollins Hardcover/e-book, $60/$29.99

NONFICTION Spectacular Logic in Hegel and Debord: Why Everything Is as It Seems Eric-John Russell (MA 2013 Critical Theory and the Arts) Bloomsbury Academic Hardcover/e-book, $115/$103.50

FALL/WINTER 2021 |

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ABOVE Mu Pan, Sayonara Vikings, 2020, acrylic on wood.

FOLLOWING Mu Pan, Pirates I,

2021, acrylic on wood.

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PO RTFO LIO

Mu Pan

by Dan Halm BRACE YOURSELF! The action and melee in the large-scale drawings and paintings of Mu Pan (MFA 2007 Illustration as Visual Essay; BFA 2001 Illustration) are in full bloom. Every inch of Pan’s meticulous works is covered with sights to behold: opponents that have taken to the battlefields and dived headlong into a swirl of bloodshed, drama and carnage. Pan is a storyteller of epic proportions, fearless in his compositions, scale and theatricality.

“Mu Pan is a painter of singular vision, extraordi- sometimes one has to make sacrifices in order for nary craftsmanship and unrestrained imagination,” others to live. writes filmmaker Ari Aster, for whom Pan created Similar to the work of Hieronymus Bosch, Pan’s drawings featured in Aster’s 2019 film Midsommar, expansive and detailed layouts reward repeat in the foreword of Pan’s first monograph, American viewings and close readings, giving viewers opFried Rice: The Art of Mu Pan (Abrams, 2020). “His portunities to discover frozen moments of action exquisitely overcrowded paintings are bursting that they may have missed on first glance. One of at the seams with fevered humor, his art-making goals is to cover explosive violence and a pervasive every possible inch with life and “WHEN YOU devotion to the absurd. I love him.” commotion.

The animal kingdom is an inte“When you are faced with a big A R E FA C E D gral part of Pan’s work, serving as a blank space, you just want to keep stand-in for human interactions and telling stories,” he says. “Like an their destructive behaviors. These Egyptian wall or any of those ansurrogates, he says, enable him to cient art pieces with figures—they more directly express his meanings, don’t really follow any kind of rules. and also make it easier for viewers They basically keep telling stories to absorb his content—depictions of and keep going on and on with no people, Pan says, are more open to beginning and no end.” With no fixed subjective interpretation. center to the action, Pan lets his au“With animals, it is easy to exdience decide where to look and get press their emotions and actions,” lost in the areas they find most alPan says. “The basic nature of huntluring and intriguing. ing and gathering, society [at large].

For each of his pieces, Pan reUsing people is a lot less interesting. I also don’t searches possible costuming, weaponry and types want to draw clothes.” of animals to include, and he sometimes poses acThe epic battles in Pan’s works also reference tion figures to help conceptualize a narrative. But the natural world and how it affects every living he is careful to keep from being bound by historical thing on Earth—our struggle for survival and how or scientific accuracy. “Once I have a basic idea I

with a big blank space, you just want to keep telling stories.”

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PREVIOUS, TOP Mu Pan, Compendium of

Materia Mudica, 2020, acrylic on paper.

PREVIOUS, RIGHT Mu Pan, Many Little Pigs, 2020, acrylic on wood.

PREVIOUS, LEFT Mu Pan, Tree,

ABOVE Mu Pan, The Ark,

2021, ballpoint pen on paper.

2020, acrylic on wood.

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I N PA N ’ S A R T,

the victors are irrelevant and impossible to determine.

just go crazy,” he says. “It’s just an image— nothing’s real.”

For his latest exhibition, “Don’t Concentrate on the Finger,” at Galerie LJ, in Paris, on display October 16 through November 20, Pan turned his attention to the swashbuckling adventures of pirates. Each vertically oriented piece offers a bird’s-eye view of battles occurring onboard and alongside ships, with fights among many different creatures of the sea—including fantastical specimens like sirens and sea dragons—as well as pirates of all shapes and sizes. The cumulative havoc is characteristically spectacular, overflowing with high-sea adventures and hijinks.

“Everyone loves pirates—look how popular those Pirates of the Caribbean movies were,” he says. “Pirates are like the mafia on the sea—they are very muscular, curse and drink lots of rum. I also like the oceans.

I’ve always fantasized about sailing, but have never done that.” The work also obliquely references the ongoing competition among global superpowers to command the oceans.

“Whomever dominates the ocean is really dominating the world,” he says.

Though history may be written by the victors, in Pan’s art the outcome is irrelevant and impossible to determine. The conflict itself is what’s important; action over results.

Pan’s work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad, including Copenhagen, Denmark, and Cologne, Germany.

For more information, visit mupan.com. ◆ Dan Halm (MFA 2001 Illustration as Visual Essay; BFA 1994 Illustration) is an artist, independent curator and project manager for SVA External Relations.

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“ O N C E I H AV E A BASIC IDEA

I just go crazy. It’s just an image— nothing’s real.”

PREVIOUS Mu Pan, Rabbits, 2020, acrylic on wood.

LEFT Mu Pan, River, 2021, ballpoint pen on paper.

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LOCAL RECOMMENDATION “I WOULD ENCOURAGE EVERYONE TO COME TO BALD WIN & CO. BOOKSTORE ON ELYSIAN FIELDS. IT FEELS GOOD, IT’S A BEAUTIFUL SPACE AND IT’S A BL ACK- OWNED BUSINESS THAT

SPOTLIGHT NEW ORLEANS

PROMOTES READING AND LEARNING. AND THE OWNER’S

In this issue, Visual Arts Journal presents three alumni who are living and working in the cultural and economic capital of America’s Gulf Coast region, New Orleans. Each has carved out an individual path in one of the world’s most celebrated cities, whether in design, animation and video production or community building and sustainable real-estate development.

by Michael Tisserand Illustrations by Louisa Bertman (MFA 2015 Visual Narrative)

MOTHER MAKES THE PASTRIES.” – JENGA MWENDO

Jenga Mwendo BFA 1999 Computer Art

In the summer of 2005, Jenga Mwendo’s path seemed to be on a fairly straight line. She was in her seventh year at Blue Sky Studios, where she’d put her 3D modeling skills to work on films like Ice Age (directed by a fellow alumnus, MFA 1993 Computer Art graduate Carlos Saldanha). Then she learned that much of her hometown of New Orleans was underwater following a collapse of the city’s levee systems during Hurricane Katrina.

Mwendo and her young daughter returned home to her childhood neighborhood of the Lower Ninth Ward and to a house she’d originally purchased as an investment property. She went to work rebuilding that house, her family’s homes and her greater community, eventually founding the Backyard Gardeners Network to support home gardening and develop and sustain two cooperative gardens, yielding everything from herbs to okra to muscadine grapes. She received a master’s in sustainable real-estate development and now works as a project analyst with the nonprofit Gulf Coast Housing Partnership, developing affordable housing.

She hadn’t predicted any of this when she was studying animation. “Gardening was brand new. Building was brand new,” she says. Yet Mwendo—whose first name, Jenga, is derived from the Swahili word for “builder”—doesn’t see the paths as all that dissimilar. “I feel more like an artist than I ever had in my life,” she says. She remembers her time at SVA—and, before that, at her high school, New Orleans Center for Creative Arts—as “an environment of self-expression, of using your art to say something.” She now lives and works on a crossroads of her arts skills and experience and the values she inherited from her parents about the importance of building a community.

“My art background also influences the way I solve problems,” she says. In her current work in housing, she uses SketchUp software to imagine rooms in use. “It’s very important to me to know how the space is going to feel as you walk through it.” It’s yet another example of Mwendo’s strongly held belief that “there are many different ways of being an artist.”

OPPOSITE, TOP SVA alumnus Jenga Mwendo

(second from left) with members of the Backyard Gardeners Network’s Guerrilla Garden project.

ELSEWHERE Backyard Gardeners Network gardens.

Images courtesy Backyard Gardeners Network.

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LOCAL RECOMMENDATION “ WHATEVER ELSE YOU DO IN NEW ORLEANS, PAY ATTENTION TO THE ARCHITECTURE. WALKING THROUGH THESE STREETS TRANSP ORTS YOU TO ANOTHER PL ACE AND TIME. UP TOWN, THE GARDEN DISTRICT, THE MARIGNY, THE TREMÉ, THE

SPOTLIGHT NEW ORLEANS

FRENCH QUARTER AND ALGIERS. THE BEAUTY AND THE HISTORY ARE ALL THERE IF YOU LOOK .”

– ALBERTICO ACOSTA

Albertico Acosta

BFA 1999 Graphic Design The breakneck pace of setting up large-scale, immersive experiences gave Albertico Acosta the name for his company, Tico Sighting. As he busily worked to build interactive stations at massive events such as the Super Bowl, Coachella or Lollapalooza, his coworkers started joking about glimpsing him in brief “Tico sightings.” A title was born.

“My work means being able to be in a lot of places at once,” Acosta says with a laugh.

Born and raised on Long Island, New York, Acosta moved to New Orleans in 2015, after having encountered the city while setting up an interactive, 360degree dome experience for Microsoft

34 | V I S U A L A R T S J O U R N A L

at the 2013 Super Bowl. He was smitten.

“It was like a love affair with the city, I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” he says.

Tico Sighting offers 2D/3D virtual-reality and immersive experiences through video projection, environmental design and installation art. Yet it’s all built on foundational courses at SVA, Acosta says. “I took a perspective drawing class that really changed the way I see a flat canvas,” he says. “That simple horizon line allowed me to see everything in 3D, and that type of training has made it a

ABOVE Tico Sighting, the company founded by SVA alumnus Albertico Acosta, helped to create a dome installation at Burning Man for artist Android Jones. Image courtesy Tico Sighting.

lot easier to be fluid with how fast the technology is developing.”

Those lessons in perspective would lead to extravagant projects such as an installation at the Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas that Acosta built around an actual 1940s-era B-25 Mitchell bomber. Using such materials as Plexiglas, projection-mapping software and laser projectors, Acosta created the experience of a ghost flight descending from the clouds. Sometimes, the best solution is comparatively low-tech.

“Over the years, one thing I’ve learned is the power of the projector,” he says.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP

Tico Sighting work for EDC Las Vegas (photo by jspagg); By Dzign, Las Vegas; Unreal Garden, San Francisco (art by WERC); and Confluence Group, Los Angeles (art by Hans Haveron).

Images courtesy Tico Sighting.

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SPOTLIGHT NEW ORLEANS

Jack Lykins

BFA 2009 Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects Jack Lykins goes all the way back to his childhood trumpet lessons to explain his eventual relocation from New York City to New Orleans. “Louis Armstrong and Wynton Marsalis were in heavy rotation, and I’ve always had this strange affinity for the city,” he says. “So after graduation I packed up and moved here.”

Upon arriving, he met up with his friend and former classmate Hunter Thomson (BFA 2009 Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects), and the two began making music videos for friends. This grew into Flatland, an animation, motion graphics and design studio with projects that have included an animated New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival 36 | V I S U A L A R T S J O U R N A L

schedule announcement, a solar energy promotion and a short Netflix film with New Orleans–born actor Mark Duplass that blends live action, illustration and animation.

Thomson would move on to other endeavors, while Lykins continues to build Flatland. Current projects include graphics for an upcoming Netflix series and animating work by the artist Young & Sick for NFTs. He is also experimenting with digital/analog video synthesis.

A sense of musicality threads through Lykins’ varied projects. Although Lykins hasn’t taken his trumpet on stage, his work has found its way to local music

clubs in the form of video projections behind musicians. Flatland’s music videos are among its most experimental products, including a series of videos for the band Nebula Rosa that manipulates outer-space pictures from NASA. The result is what Lykins calls a “weird little abstract jaunt through the universe.” As with New Orleans music, Lykins says, there’s a strong element of improvisation in his work. “Sometimes,” he says, “it comes down to plugging in a bunch of things and seeing what the result is.” ◆ Michael Tisserand is the Eisner Award-winning author of Krazy: George Herriman, a Life in Black and White (HarperCollins).

CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT Flatland, the creative studio of SVA alumnus Jack Lykins, has produced work for band Cardinal Sons; the 2021 ESPN documentary A Room of Our Own; Lykins’ own experimental art; band Nebula Rosa; online learning resource Learn Liberty; and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Images courtesy Flatland.

LOCAL RECOMMENDATION “I’M A BIG ADVOCATE OF WANDERING AROUND AIMLESSLY. ONE GOOD WAY IS TO HOP ON ROYAL STREET AND STUMBLE ACROSS PL ACES AND EXPERIENCES, CHECK OUT THE ARTISTS IN THE FRENCH QUARTER , GET A DRINK AT ANNA’S ON FRANKLIN. AND GET A P O’BOY AT VERTI MARTE, BUT JUST BE SURE YOU BRING CASH.” – JACK LYKINS

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DEFINITION

The Traditional, Radical, Forward-Thinking, Comical, High-Minded, Multitudinous World of Ceramics Art

by DIANA McCLURE

LEFT Nicolas Touron, Artificial

Terrain 30, 2019, 3D-printed stoneware and hand-built porcelain.

RIGHT Katy Stubbs, Problems,

2021, stoneware and glaze.

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At a time

when art

and cultural institutions are working to embrace diverse forms and ideas, it is no surprise that the intersection of art, craft and design at the heart of ceramics and its global histories are part of a new discourse. It’s one that the School of Visual Arts has engaged for decades with ceramics courses offered in several of its undergraduate, graduate and continuing education departments.

The medium’s growing presence as a highly regarded art form in contemporary art galleries and museums challenges a centuries-old binary in Western culture between fine art and craft, one that is inextricably linked to broader questions of access, visibility and invisibility. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2021 exhibition “Shapes from Out of Nowhere: Ceramics From the Robert A. Ellison Jr. Collection,” which featured modern and contemporary ceramics, is just the latest and most high-profile example of ceramics’ rising status.

Craft, which includes ceramics, has historically been associated with women, labor, utilitarian and functional objects, and by default disregarded in the realm of fine art, or relegated to the domain of the decorative. However, in the recent past a concerted challenge to this type of thinking has been underway, quietly building momentum, particularly in feminist art circles.

The iconic 1970s work by artist and feminist Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party, a long-term installation at the Brooklyn Museum since 2007, is perhaps one of the most significant challenges to the status quo. The multimedia work consists of a variety of art forms associated with “women’s work,” one of which is ceramics, in the form of 39 place settings on a triangular table in an installation that honors 1,038 women in history by name.

Another challenge to traditional thinking is the emergence of stoneware pottery by David Drake, an enslaved African American artist, who from census records appears to have lived between 1801 and the 1870s. An 1836 stoneware “catination” jar by Drake was bought at auction for $369,000 in 2020 by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, after an initial valuation of $40,000 to $60,000. Championed on the world stage by renowned artist Theaster Gates and 40 | V I S U A L A R T S J O U R N A L

FIRST ROW 1. Margaret Lanzetta, Glinda, Good Witch of the North, Wizard of Oz, 1939, 2018, porcelain.

2. Katy Stubbs, It’s Just Business, 2021, stoneware, porcelain and glaze.

3. Nicolas Touron, Rhino, 2020,

3D-printed porcelain, celadon cone 10 and luster.

4. Wushuang Tong, Purity Is a Kind of Debauchery, 2016, ceramic.

5. Katy Stubbs, It Definitely

Wasn’t Worth It, 2020, earthenware and glaze.

SECOND ROW

6. Katy Stubbs, Crayfish Tower I, 2020, earthenware and glaze.

7. Heather Williams, Coming Together Failing Apart 2 (detail), 2021, fired clay on wood.

8. Alice Mackler, Untitled, 2020, glazed ceramic.

9. Judy Mannarino, Pucker,

2020, glazed ceramic.

THIRD ROW

11. Heather Williams, Safe Passage Witness (from Williams’ 2020 short film Safe Passage), 2020, fired clay.

12. Wushuang Tong, Floating Islands and Underwater Worlds, 2019, ceramics, glass case, oil on canvas, acrylic on canvas, color pencil, fiber, pin and wire. Photo

by JSP Photography.

13. Katy Stubbs, City Life, 2019, earthenware and glaze.

FOURTH ROW

14. Heather Williams, Witness 2019, 2019, fired clay.

15. Margaret Lanzetta, Prince

Charles, Investiture Crown, United Kingdom, 1969, 2018, stoneware.

16. Alice Mackler, Untitled, 2020, glazed ceramic.

17. Katy Stubbs, Death of a Magician, 2020, stoneware and glaze.

18. Wushuang Tong, Time (detail), 2016, ceramic.

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increasingly in demand, one of Drake's masterpieces currently sits in the American Wing Gallery of Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Working in the context that was available to him, Drake’s work makes visible the invisible artisan, asserting his individual skill and refinement—and, similar to Chicago, raising questions around access and gatekeeping in an art-historical context.

Addressing similar issues from a different vantage point is Grayson Perry, an English contemporary artist and Turner Prize recipient known for his ceramic vases, tapestries, broadcasting work and cross-dressing as his female alter ego, “Claire.” Perry has contributed to the movement of the art form into more contemporary, experimental and critical territory with subversive yet humorous commentary on class, classicism, taste and elitism embedded in the surfaces of largescale ceramic objects and vessels.

Though questions on the value of ceramics beyond the classical and decorative realms are present at an institutional level, artists in the field are perhaps more engaged by process than semantics. According to artist Nicolas Touron (faculty, BFA and MFA Fine Arts; MFA 2003 Fine Arts), “Most ceramists are so passionate and lost in the complexity of their production that the definition of ‘craft’ or ‘fine art’ doesn’t often come into the discussion. Discussions almost always start with the question: ‘How did you do it?’”

While deeply appreciative of the illustrative quality and color palette of Qing Dynasty porcelain from China (c. 1600s – 1700s) and Meissen porcelain from Europe (c. 1700s), as well as the the beautiful naive and abstract shapes of the Middle Jōmon period (c. 2500 – 1500 BCE) in Japan, Touron’s processes are informed by the latest in fabrication technology, such as 3D-printed porcelain and digital mold-making.

“Using digital media to work with porcelain allows me to create juxtapositions between art forms considered naive and computerized forms of creation perceived as more concept driven,” he says. “It also allows me to assemble shapes and forms pulled out of the menagerie of personages from paintings and drawings I have been creating over the years.”

For Wushuang Tong (MFA 2019 Fine Arts), the juxtaposition of influences and ideas informs her ceramics art as well. Pulling from both the East and the West—the subtle elegance of classical Chinese ceramics, especially from the Song Dynasty (960 – 1279), and the voluptuous curves and intricate details of Rococo decorative arts, initiated in France and developed over the late 17th and early 18th centuries—Tong’s work engages ideas of both abundance and simplicity. “This may sound contradictory, as these two are opposite poles of style, but I do continuously pursue an enchanting and reserved ambience in a relatively sophisticated form,” she says.

Working in white earthenware, air-dried and more recently polymer clays, Tong’s “tortured structures,” as she calls them, are created by free-hand sculpting and often read as abstract.

While aware of typical assumptions that ceramics are simple, often functional objects, such as dinnerware or vases, Tong is concerned with the potential of ceramics as a tool for critical thinking. “When I first started learning ceramic techniques, I asked my teacher why he was so obsessed, and he said, PREVIOUS Wushuang Tong, One Hundred Aliens – Born by Accident, 2016, air-dried clay.

OPPOSITE, TOP RIGHT Judy Mannarino, Privileged, 2020, glazed clay.

OPPOSITE, TOP LEFT Katy Stubbs,

OPPOSITE, BOTTOM Wushuang

You Are So Beautiful to Me, 2019, earthenware and glaze.

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Tong, Raindrops and Weeds, 2016, ceramic.

“When I first started learning ceramic techniques, I asked my teacher why he was so obsessed, and he said, ‘Because it is everything and it is nothing.’”

‘Because it is everything and it is nothing,’” she recalls. “In addition to his preference for the material as a ceramic artist, his answer also expresses the many possibilities of ceramics.”

While Tong and fellow alumni such as Heather Williams (MFA 2020 Art Practice), Katy Stubbs (BFA 2015 Illustration), Margaret Lanzetta (MFA 1989 Fine Arts) and Judy Mannarino (faculty, SVA Continuing Education; BFA 1981 Fine Arts) are poised to benefit from growing interest in ceramics as contemporary art—Lanzetta, for one, will show her sculptures at Russell Janis gallery in Brooklyn this November—the recent success of Alice Mackler (BFA 1988 Fine Arts) as a ceramic artist began at the age of 82, with her first solo show in 2013 and her first monograph published this year (see page 18).

After decades of painting and drawing, Mackler developed an interest in ceramics in the late 1990s, when obstacles associated with both her medium and gender were formidable.

While galleries and museums offer a particular kind of critical acclaim, an active market for ceramics in general is also on the rise. Touron, who also works as an art director at Sculpture Space NYC, a facility that specializes in high-end ceramics, says, “Ceramics have definitely been a hot material for the last five to 10 years. Designers, sculptors and potters are selling work at an incredible pace, even during the pandemic.”

Enthusiasm for the medium among practitioners makes for a communal experience. “Because it encompasses so many fields and creates so many crossovers, it is often less ‘stiff’ than other creative environments. Ceramicists exchange ideas and techniques more often than a painter for example. It makes you feel like you are part of one big family,” he says.

As the field of ceramics intersects with new technologies and expands into the landscape of contemporary art while it continues to grow in decorative and utilitarian contexts, intermedia and interdisciplinary works are increasingly on the horizon. Whatever the case may be, any path forward is informed by millennia of histories from multiple continents.

Whether technologically informed or traditionally made, whether displayed in a museum or on a kitchen shelf, ceramics’ roots in the earth and natural materials offer a visual account of a shared human history illuminated by infinitely diverse forms of creative expression. ◆ Diana McClure is a writer and photographer and writer based in New York City. Her essays, reviews and profiles have appeared in Art Basel magazine, Art21, Cultured, catalogs, monographs and other publications.

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“Ceramicists exchange ideas

and techniques more often than a painter,

for example. It makes you feel like

you are part of one big family.”

LEFT Judy Mannarino, Whisper, 2020, glazed ceramic.

RIGHT Margaret Lanzetta, St. Edward’s

Crown, UK, ca. 1661, 2016, porcelain.

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Reel LIVES

BY M AE R I F ERG U S O N AND GR EG H E R B OWY Pick any profession within the film and television worlds—and there seem to be an ever-growing number of them—and odds are you can find an SVA alumnus to claim it. These graduates have a range of backgrounds, too: Many may have completed one of the College’s film programs, but others might have come from cartooning or fine arts or photography.

What draws such diverse creative talents to the entertainment business? What do people in these different careers actually do? How have they carved a place in a notoriously competitive and unpredictable industry? We talked with seven alumni in various professions and at various stages of their careers to get a sense of the ingenuity, compromises and daily labors that go into creating movies and series in the 21st century.

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5

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Director, writer and SVA alumnus Maya Cozier at work on the set of her debut feature, She Paradise (2020).

The film was acquired earlier this year

by Samuel Goldwyn Pictures. Image courtesy Maya Cozier.

4.

2.

Producer and SVA alumnus Jeremy Dawson (right) on the set of the film The French Dispatch (2021) with cinematographer Bob Yeoman. Photo

by Roger Do Minh. © 2021 20th Century Studios. All rights reserved.

5.

Still from the series Space Force (Netflix, 2020 – ), featuring VFX work by compositor and SVA alumnus Aditi Khosla. Image courtesy Aditi Khosla/ Zoic Studios.

3.

Cinematographer and SVA alumnus Michael Simmonds at work on the set of the series The Righteous Gemstones (HBO, 2019 – ). Photo by Ryan Green.

6.

The set of the series The Morning Show (Apple TV+, 2019 – ), one of several television shows and films whose look has been realized by production designer and SVA alumnus John Paino.

Image courtesy John Paino.

1.

From left: actor Natalie Portman, director Darren Aronofsky, Woodstock Film Festival co-founder and SVA alumnus Meira Blaustein and actor Jennifer Connelly at the 2014 festival.

Photo by Simon Russell.

7.

Still from the series Jane the Virgin, (CW, 2014 – 2019), featuring VFX work by compositor Aditi Khosla. Image courtesy Aditi Khosla/Muse VFX.

8.

Storyboard artist and SVA alumnus Warren Drummond (right) on the set of Fences (2016) with director and actor Denzel Washington and production designer David Gropman. Photo by Fences cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen, courtesy Warren Drummond.

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PRODUCER

Jeremy Dawson

“What I do as a producer is, somebody comes to me with a project, and I start figuring out the how, why, what, where . . . and each one of those things brings up other questions that need to be answered.”

1.

Producer Jeremy Dawson (left) on the set of The French Dispatch (2021) with co-producer John Peet. Photo by Roger Do Minh. © 2021 20th Century Studios.

All rights reserved.

2.

Still from The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), featuring effects work by compositor Aditi Khosla. Image courtesy Aditi Khosla/Secret Lab.

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(MFA 1993 Photography and Related Media) is best known for his collaborations with writer–director Wes Anderson. Dawson produced Anderson’s latest film, The French Dispatch, which had its U.S. premiere in October.

No one says, “I want to be a film producer” when they’re a kid—it’s not something you can quantify. But I always wanted to collaborate with people on things. I’m a workaholic, but I always say I’m also really lazy. What gets me excited and motivated is working on something with other people.

What I do as a producer is, somebody comes to me with a project, and I start figuring out the how, why, what, where . . . and each one of those things brings up other questions that need to be answered. It’s a Rubik’s cube, and you never run out of things to figure out.

Some of it is creative and some of it is practical. I’m working in Spain now, and I was just trying to figure out how to get someone in the country who’s having trouble getting in. The next moment I could be helping a crew member. This morning I was rearranging a gymnasium that we’ll be using as a location.

I started out in film creating titles, visual effects and special sequences. I was teaching Photoshop at SVA and taking a continuing-education animation course at the school. I needed a project for class, and [director] Darren Aronofsky, who I’d gone to undergraduate with, was making Pi [1998], his first film. I was helping him out on it and said, “Maybe I could do the title sequence.” I animated it in the SVA building on 23rd Street.

From there other film people started hiring me to do things, and I was getting known as a “maker.” I ended up helping Wes with stop-motion sequences on The Life Aquatic [with Steve Zissou (2004)], though I didn’t know how to do stopmotion at the time, and after that he asked me to join Fantastic Mr. Fox [2009] and help with post-production on The Darjeeling Limited [2007]. All of a sudden I was a producer, with no idea of how to be one.

The nice thing about working with Wes is that he likes to be fearless. A lot of times in art school or in the industry, you’ll see people imitating their predecessors, or “playing adult.” My feeling is, if you really want to be great, don’t emulate anyone—just break the rules and go a little crazy with it.

The French Dispatch was an unusual project in that it’s an anthology of

several stories, so every week and a half we’d be shooting a new story. So many sets were being built and knocked down.

It felt like the road was being built as we were driving down it—the builders were a half-mile ahead and we were gaining on them. But Wes has strategies that we tend to use to keep locations physically close together and we do a lot of preparation, which includes putting together an animated storyboard of the whole movie for all the departments to have.

We shot pretty much everything in the same town in France, Angoulême.

I was there for four or five months; we go in advance to visit locations, figure out where we’re going to stay and hire a local line producer, who’ll introduce you to local crews. A great thing about French film crews is a lot of them are real film fans. Wes is one of a small group of directors who still shoots on actual film, and for the black-and-white sequences we shot on black-and-white film stock, which is hard to come by and you have to order in advance. We ran out at one point and had to scramble while we waited for more.

I don’t think I’ve ever really thought about what I’d be doing in five years. I’m not one of those people. I like movies.

Once I was first on a set, I thought, “This is fun.” I was just happy that someone needed me to figure something out and I was going to do it.

STORYBOARD ARTIST

Warren Drummond

(BFA 1984 Media Arts) is a storyboard artist who has contributed to more than 120 films and series, including King Richard (2021), Halloween Kills (2021), Coming 2 America (2020) and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013 – 2018). In 2016, he was voted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Storyboards are a visual reference for the filmmakers—they show how a scene should play out. You tend to use them more for scenes with complicated camerawork, stunts or effects. For a big action scene, you wouldn’t draw every punch, but you want to have all the main beats of the scene. The stunt coordinator can use that to estimate how much time it’s going to take to film it, and productions can count how many shots will need certain effects.

Another reason to storyboard is, you often shoot out of order. You’ll try to shoot everything you need to at the location you’re at, or everything you need from a certain viewpoint, before moving on. My job is to storyboard the sequence as if it’s cut together as a movie. That

way the filmmakers get to see how the shots will play together and what they might need to add in or take out.

I’ve done a lot of action and comedy.

I’ve done dramas—A Beautiful Mind [2001], Fences [2016]. I’ve gotten calls for war or period films, but I don’t get hired, because they’re so specific about hiring someone who’s done that. As a Black storyboard artist, sometimes they want to set up Black directors with collaborators who they won’t have to explain things to, who might have a certain shared cultural understanding.

Sometimes you don’t connect with a director and you find another place of employment. Other times the director is magical to be around. I worked for 20 years with John Singleton; our meetings would just be me and him. Someone like [director–producer] Shawn Levy has fun with pitches, which is where you present your ideas. Ron Howard lets you do whatever you want, then gives you feedback. For Fences, I was on location in Pittsburgh and would meet with [director and star] Denzel Washington on Sunday mornings. He’d take me through how he envisioned the scenes for that week, and I’d go back to the office and make them. Imagine sitting with Denzel Washington, who’s acting out the script in character, just you and him? It was mind blowing.

I haven’t experienced racism as a storyboard artist, but I have done movies where I’ve been the only Black person.

I’ve been Jackie Robinson. But if they get Will Smith to star, or a Black director, then you’ll see Black department heads. John Singleton’s crews were very mixed. Though I’ve never worked

directly with him, Spike Lee’s crews are very mixed as well.

This business is very much about who you know. So sometimes, to move things along, you have to make a statement and say, “This is how we come to the 21st century, and we’ve got to hire certain people.”

CINEMATOGRAPHER

Michael Simmonds

(BFA 2000 Film and Video) has been the director of photography on more than 40 films and television shows, including The Righteous Gemstones (2019 – ), Halloween (2018), The Last O.G. (2018 – ) and Halloween Kills (2021).

A cinematographer is like a photographer, but for movies. They’re responsible for the framing and lighting of every shot of every scene.

Your average feature-film shoot day never really starts or ends but is a continuation of the previous day, with a few night terrors linking the two. I usually show up on set 45 minutes before my call time—30 minutes early is industry standard. If you showed up “at call,” people would think poorly of you.

Each day starts with a breakfast burrito and coffee. Burritos are key: They don’t require utensils or even a seat.

Breakfast on a set is pretty awesome, but the cinematographer rarely spends time at the buffet or food truck. Productions go above and beyond to bring things to me to ensure my focus stays on the photography and schedule. Even my bathroom visits are mentioned on the P.A.’s radio.

Every morning, the first assistant director [A.D.] and I debate the shooting

order for the day. But the biggest creative decision I’ll make is where to park the production trucks. You never want to move the trucks.

The first shot of the day gets an absurd amount of attention. Paintings on the walls or cars on the street get slightly moved, and people point out things like “plants growing out of people’s heads,” because a leaf in the background briefly lines up with an actor’s head during a wide shot. There is no fighting this phenomenon aside from an experienced director, and even they tend to obsess. It’s best to let everyone get this out of their system; in a few hours, nobody will give a shit about any of it.

At lunch, the director, A.D. and I discuss a strategy for the afternoon work and whatever’s left over from the morning. Usually it’s “Mike needs to work faster” and “Let’s use our two cameras to shoot different scenes at the same time.” It’s the A.D. and the director against me, so I say, “Great idea,” and go tell my crew—the lighting, grip and camera team, which can be up to 50 people—that we’ll be splitting up. They never like this. What’s worse is that when they execute this plan effectively, it means it’ll be asked of them again, and they know it.

You often double the amount of setups in the afternoon. As long as the performance and focus are good, you move on—no more fidgeting with “trees growing out of an actor’s head.” I believe that shot selection and acting are what’s critical to a scene being good and everything else is nonessential, and the after-lunch work is a testament to that.

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By the end of the day my job is managerial: I jump between two cameras, which are pointing in completely different directions.

When the day is over, I go back to my Airbnb and have a few beers as I skim through the dailies. I’ve been shooting movies for close to 20 years and I will forever be shocked that none of the on-set dramas are present in the images.

The audience cannot see that sliver of a flag I couldn’t get out of the edge of the frame, or that the sun is rising behind the camera during a night scene. A scene that took six hours to shoot is no better than one that took 90 minutes.

DIRECTOR

Maya Cozier

(BFA 2016 Film) is the director and co-writer of She Paradise (2020), which premiered at the virtual AFI Fest last year and screened at the Tribeca Film Festival this past June.

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I co-wrote She Paradise in 2017 with a screenwriting student from NYU. It’s a coming-of-age story set in Trinidad, which is where I grew up. We wrote it as a feature but decided to make a short of it, to have something we could use as a pitch for the project. We submitted it to Short of the Week and they accepted it.

Soon after I won a small grant from the Trinidad government to shoot the full feature. The D.P., Jackson Warner Lewis, and the sound mixer, Brian Perry, also went to SVA [both BFA 2015 Film and Video].

Later, the short screened at BAM’s 2019 Carribean Film Series. An executive producer came up to me after, and I told her I’d already shot the full feature.

I sent her the raw footage, the script and a rough timeline for post production, and in the space of a week, she was able to call some people, get an investor and I was able to fund post-production for the film.

We submitted the feature to festivals in late 2019 and decided to premiere at Tribeca, because of the huge Caribbean diaspora in New York. It was really exciting—we had the screening scheduled and an after-party planned—but because of COVID, none of it happened. When it finally showed at Tribeca this year, it was surreal to see it on the big screen after so long. But it was bittersweet.

Because of the pandemic, I couldn’t have the cast and crew with me. I’m planning on organizing a proper first screening out in Trinidad.

I’m working on a lot right now. In June, Samuel Goldwyn Films acquired the U.S. rights to She Paradise. I was approached about a project set in Newburgh, New York, and we plan on beginning production next August. I’m co-developing a limited series about [songwriter and musician] Calypso Rose, with a company out in L.A., with the co-writer of She Paradise. I shoot

commercials, mostly in Trinidad. I shot a music video for Atlantic Records. I’m also working on my MFA at Columbia.

I think my heart really is with the narrative. I love being on set with actors and bringing a script to life. My least favorite part of filmmaking is definitely pre-production, making miracles happen with no budget. But I do feel like SVA was a hands-on, tactical program, and that I got a strong foundation for that practical part.

PRODUCTION DESIGNER

John Paino

(BFA 1983 Fine Arts) is the Emmy-nominated production designer of such films as The Station Agent (2003), Dallas Buyers Club (2013) and Wild (2014), and such series as Big Little Lies (2017 – 2019), The Leftovers (2014 – 2017), The Shrink Next Door (2021) and The Last of Us (2022 – ).

BELOW Select storyboard panels for action sequences from Abduction (2011), by storyboard artist Warren Drummond. Drummond has contributed to more than 120 productions. Images courtesy Warren Drummond.

I went to SVA to become an artist and I got into production design because I’d gotten sick of the art world—it felt very cloistered. One day I wandered into a theater, and I started painting and designing sets for them. And I liked that.

That led to low-budget music videos and commercials, and low-budget films, and it just built up from there.

As a production designer, I’m responsible for the look of everything except the costumes—every fork, every piece of décor, everything that’s in front of the camera. How I get work is, someone contacts my agent and I’ll read the

script. If it interests me, I’ll meet with the director or producer. If we like each other, they’ll offer me the job. I’ll put together a crew, start doing research, spend time sitting with the director and getting into their heads and start looking into locations. For research, I have a huge personal library, I avail myself of things online and I’ll use the New York Public Library Picture Collection, which is a great resource. Sometimes you research on location. For The Leftovers we did an 1830s Millerite village in the Australian outback, so I went to a historical society in Australia to look at

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1 2 3

1.

A pre-VFX shot from Training Day (CBS, 2017), from compositor Aditi Khosla’s reel.

Once completed, the character on the left appears to be hanging from the side of a skyscraper. Image courtesy Aditi Khosla.

2.

Producer Jeremy Dawson (left) on the set of The French Dispatch (2021) with co-producer Octavia Peissel. Photo by Roger Do Minh. © 2021 20th Century Studios.

All rights reserved.

3.

Woodstock Film Festival co-founder Meira Blaustein with actor Giancarlo Esposito (left) and producer William Horburg (right) at the 2017 festival. Photo by Dione Ogust.

the furniture. I love research—that’s the time when you’re dreaming and everything’s possible.

During pre-production, we’re putting together a lot of pictures and references.

I’ll make extensive mood boards that visually boil down the show, to get across the atmosphere and color schemes.

Those can change, but you need somewhere to start. There are designers who are drafting plans for all the sets, and these sets are big and complicated.

Not only do they have to be built, which could take 10 or 12 weeks, they have to be wired for a big grid of lights overhead, and when they’re done being built, they need to be decorated.

I try to work with the same people consistently, and I oversee many departments: the set decorators, who choose every detail down to the fabric on chairs; the construction and scenic department, which builds the sets; the graphics department, which is responsible for any signs or seals or flags, things like that; and the props department.

A week or two before shooting I’ll go with the director and cinematographer and look again at locations and talk about what we’re going to do, how we’re going to film them. My team is always ahead of anyone—typically a location has to be changed and dressed, and that has to be done in advance.

I’m there throughout filming. Sometimes, I’m there for the whole creative process. On The Leftovers, they were coming to me while they were writing episodes and asking me to help figure out things, like what something should look like. I would be in the writers’ room. This is a collaborative medium.

The best part about being a production designer is, someone gives you the means to do incredible things in a perfect world.

VFX ARTIST/COMPOSITOR

Aditi Khosla

(BFA 2014 Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects) has contributed computer-based effects to such films as The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Drunk Bus (2020) and A Most Violent Year (2014); series such as Westworld (2016 – ), and The Walking Dead (2010 – ); and commercials and music videos for Pokémon GO, Prada, BMW and Taylor Swift.

I graduated in 2014, but I’ve been working in the field since 2012, interning at studios like Pixomondo, in Burbank, and Playware, in Singapore.

After SVA, I joined the Molecule [cofounded by Luke Di Tomasso (BFA 2001 54 | V I S U A L A R T S J O U R N A L 54 | V I S U A L A R T S J O U R N A L

“Right now, I’m a freelancer.

The hours can be inconsistent, but I find it exciting.

Sometimes it’s a 9-to-5 schedule.

Other times, it’s 12-hour days for months.”

Computer Art)] as a junior compositor, and came to L.A. a few months later.

The easiest way to describe my work is how I describe it to my parents: It’s Photoshop, but for video. You can add or take away anything you want—you could put an elephant in the room, or paint one out of a room. You could composite an entirely new location using green screen, add explosions and computer-generated imagery [CGI] or make the sublest change to an actor’s appearance.

Right now, I’m a freelancer. The hours can be inconsistent, but I find it exciting—it allows me to work at different studios on all sorts of projects. Sometimes it’s a 9-to-5 schedule. Other times, it’s 12-hour days for months. The hours get longer as you get closer to summer.

That’s when you’re working on summer releases and new shows, which can have reshoots and re-editing.

Probably the most cumbersome projects I’ve worked on have been the DC crossover events between Legends of Tomorrow [2016 – ], The Flash [2014 – ], Arrow [2012 – 2020] and Supergirl [2015 – 2021]. The timeline is super tight and these episodes are effects-heavy. Once we have the footage, all the shots need to be tracked, which gauges the speed and direction of the camera’s movement. Then the dynamics department needs to simulate each superhero’s effects—lightning, tornadoes, dust storms, tsunamis, ice or fire blasts. . . . If there’s CGI involved, that team needs to create the asset, add maneuverability (or rig), texture, animate, light and then render it. Then everything

is brought into compositing, which is where we make it look like it belongs in the footage in terms of color, placement, interactivity in the scene, etc., and take care of certain 2D effects—like beauty cleanup work.

The technology is always improving, but there’s still a limit to how quickly things can be done. Rendering time is something that often gets forgotten by clients, though a VFX house will budget for it. A shot might take X number of man-hours, but the rendering—the time it takes for computers to render out complete frames—can take a while, especially if there’s heavy CGI. It can be chaotic, but it’s exciting to work on projects that let you push the envelope and discover ways to streamline the process.

Working crazy hours physically in an office is something that I miss—it’s a comfortable feeling to be around your teammates all working on the same projects. Ever since the pandemic started, we’ve been working through either VPN [virtual private network], online portal or Teradici, a remote-desktop device that connects you to a computer at the studio. Some smaller studios are considering going remote permanently, although I don’t know if anything can replace the morale-building environment of being together in a room.

FESTIVAL CO-FOUNDER

Meira Blaustein

(BFA 1986 Film and Video) is the executive director, programmer and founder, with Laurent Retjo (BFA 1984 Film and Video), of the Woodstock Film Festival in Woodstock, New York. This year the festival celebrated its 22nd year, running from late September through early October in various Hudson Valley locations.

The way I run the Woodstock Film Festival is, my work is my life and my life is my work. I start early in the morning and I stop late at night. I was having a drink last night with a colleague after a long day and telling her what I’d done that day: I was dealing with the design of the goodie bags and the hats, screening and programming films, editing program blurbs, interviewing potential new staff and working on a grant application. This morning I’m dealing with the marketing promotions, dealing with a company we’re partnering with, doing various interviews with filmmakers and sponsorships. You keep shifting your attention between business and creative—programming the right films, putting the panels together, figuring out what logo is going on what item and

what the design of it is, shopping around for the right prices. . . . Obviously I love it, but I feel like I wear too many hats, always.

The idea for starting a festival probably began when I was at SVA. I interned at Lincoln Center, for the New York Film Festival—I also interned with Ruth Westheimer, the sex doctor—and I actually pitched a festival to [former BFA Film Chair] George McGinnis, though it never happened. After graduating, I got a job at the Hudson Valley Film Festival, which no longer exists, to program their shorts and ended up programming the festival itself. That led to a job as a programmer at another upstate film festival, and that led to me wanting to create my own.

Because I run a festival, I get invited to be on other festival juries or attend industry events in places I would have otherwise never gone, like the Faroe Islands or Bhutan. And that is wonderful. I also love getting to know filmmakers and supporting them. This year, we launched a month-long, in-person filmmakers’ residency/incubator. Every day we’d get together with the filmmakers and watch films and have conversations about everything from the state of the world to philosophy to the movies. And we’d do it over food and wine and it would be just like a heavenly summer camp for adults. We also do a youth film lab—a three-week immersive for teenagers, where we help them each make their own film. I think I really love nurturing filmmakers; it gives me joy and a sense of fulfillment.

During the year we are four full-time staffers. It balloons in the summer and keeps on adding. Eventually it will probably be 30 or more seasonal staff.

And we have about 200 volunteers and a board of directors. Right now we have 13 board members and 30 advisory board members.

As of now [August], we’re planning for an in-person festival unless things drastically change. We’re working on the design of the printed program and still staffing. We’re also getting ready to announce the lineup, getting ready to start selling tickets—that’s going to happen at the beginning of September. And we’re finalizing contracts with venues, applying for grants and constantly raising money. Raising money never stops. ◆ Interviews and contributions have been condensed and edited.

Maeri Ferguson is the manager of media relations at SVA. FALL/WINTER 2021 | FALL/WINTER 2021 |

55 55

Q+A STORM ASCHER

BY ANNE QUITO

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP

Artist and SVA alumnus Storm Ascher at events for her roving gallery, Superposition, in Taipei, Los Angeles and West Hollywood. Images courtesy Storm Ascher.

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Nomadic living is not for the faint of heart.

Thriving in the uncertainty of leaping from place to place requires a good measure of agility, organization and personal courage. It’s a stance that appeals to curator, artist and writer Storm Ascher (BFA 2018 Visual & Critical Studies), who in 2018 founded Superposition, a roving art gallery that has produced winning pop-up exhibitions in cities like Los Angeles, Miami and New York.

Ascher developed the concept for Superposition during her senior year at SVA, when she produced a film that investigated the role that traditional

brick-and-mortar art galleries play in rising rents and real-estate speculation.

She later studied the pragmatics of running a gallery at Sotheby’s Institute of Art’s master’s in art business program.

“I wanted to work in art without feeling like a gentrifier,” she says, “and I wanted to work with emerging artists in a socially conscious way.”

A nomadic gallery, while it has logistical challenges, not only avoids the costs incurred by renting and maintaining a space—it is an effective platform for showcasing under-the-radar artists in various regions, she says. Since its first show, Superposition has featured over

50 artists of diverse backgrounds. They include photographer Ed Maximus, painter Ludovic Nkoth, multimedia artist Haleigh Nickerson, as well as fellow SVA alumni Ryan Cosbert (BFA 2021 Fine Arts), John Rivas (BFA 2019 Fine Arts) and Sinjun Strom (BFA 2017 Photography and Video), and current BFA Fine Arts student Bryan Fernández.

The pandemic has altered Ascher’s travel agenda, grounding her, for the most part, in New York. Like most galleries, Superposition has had to bolster its online presence (which can be found

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“Superposition is a physics term. It means that an object only exists when observed at that moment.”

at superpositiongallery.com). Thankfully, adaptability is the nomad’s métier. When we corresponded, in midsummer, the gallery had just concluded a solo show of painter Dodi King’s work, in Manhattan, and Ascher was busy planning an August auction to raise funds for the Eastville Historical Society, in Sag Harbor, New York, as well as working on an assignment for Cultured magazine, to which she regularly contributes.

What first inspired your idea for a nomadic gallery?

I was studying city branding in Barcelona, Spain. We did a case study on the Olympics, which commissioned a lot of public art and new businesses to impress the tourists. Historically, art has been used to gentrify neighborhoods, and the community goes from an O.G. arts district to yuppie heaven. Being nomadic replicates the journey of the artist, who gets priced out of their studio or home because of the culture they produce for their own communities.

On another note, I was working in galleries for a few years throughout college in New York and Los Angeles, and it always baffled me how thousands of square footage saw very little foot traffic besides the opening receptions and specific events. So that formed the base model of having a short run of shows and focusing on the celebration, bringing everyone together to congratulate the artists for putting their work out there.

Why did you name your gallery “Superposition”?

Superposition is a physics term. It means that an object only exists when observed at that moment. I’ve been going by the phrase ‘’everywhere and nowhere” to fit in with the theme of being nomadic.

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You list “building community” and increasing equity among your goals.

How does having a nomadic gallery help you achieve that?

Many of the artists we work with are centralized—their programming is at school or at a residency—so working with Superposition makes it so that new audiences can learn about them while they work with the same gallery.

Can you tell us about your first exhibition and what you learned from it?

Our inaugural show was at a studio in downtown L.A. It was a consistent pop-up space and when we arrived the renters before us had not left and we had to help them load out and repaint everything before installing during the time we were originally allotted.

For my first show I was so steadfast on making it look as seamless and effortless as possible. Luckily the artists and my friends came to help. True team effort. I learned that I can’t expect a space that isn’t mine to be show ready— there’s always something to adjust or fix.

How do you scout for Superposition exhibition spaces?

Originally I would look on sites like Peerspace, Popshop and Appear Here.

But now people usually reach out to me and tell me about a space that is looking to be activated.

What do you think makes for a good gallery space?

At first, because I wanted to be taken seriously, white walls and good lighting

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT Superposition events

and shows “CMY=K” (2019), Frieze L.A. 2020 and “Parallel Realities & Unpopular Truths” (2020); artist Dodi King with Storm Ascher. Images courtesy Storm Ascher.

accounted for before agreeing to that because our main mission is to expand and contract.

How did the COVID-19 pandemic affect your operations?

We were already operating heavily online, so the transition was easier for Superposition than other spaces, I would imagine. Our sales were steady, too! were the most important. But now I’m more into experimenting with unique spaces that wouldn’t normally be seen as a gallery.

had previously been time for my coursework as] studio time.

Do you negotiate with the owners of a space yourself?

“Labor of Love” for Frieze LA [held in February 2020] was an amazing turnout because everyone flew in from all over the country. It was our peak before the pandemic.

Yes.

What stage of the curatorial practice thrills you most?

Hanging the show. It’s like making a collage of all my favorite people and their work.

How does running a gallery affect your own artistic practice?

I was painting a lot less at first but now that I’m done with my master’s program at Sotheby’s, I’ve been able to use [what

What would you say have been your most successful exhibitions?

Might you expand your operations beyond L.A., New York and Miami?

Yes! I’m looking toward other countries and want to participate in traveling art fairs.

Would you turn down the opportunity to operate in a permanent space?

A lot of factors would have to be

Tell us about what you’re currently working on.

Superposition is partnering with Artmatic Art Advisory in New York to bring together emerging and established artists for a fall exhibition titled “House of Crowns,” which will be sponsored by Phillips.

What is your grand vision for Superposition?

For it to be considered a movement. ◆ Anne Quito (MFA 2014 Design Criti-

cism) is a journalist and design critic based in New York City. She wrote Mag Men: Fifty Years of Making Magazines (Columbia University Press), a book about the glory days of magazine design as told by Walter Bernard (1961 Graphic Design) and Milton Glaser.

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THE NewWave

BY D IANA M c CLURE A N D G REG HE RBOWY

SUPERPOSITION, THE “NOMADIC” gallery founded by Storm Ascher (BFA 2018 Visual & Critical Studies; see page 56), is one of several recent efforts by SVA alumni to help create a more accessible, equitable and interconnected art world. Here are some others.

Satellite Art Club davidhasselhoff.net

This members-only club in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood hosts exhibitions and performances, sells art and maintains a well-stocked bar and an anarchic, happily rude spirit. Cofounder and artist Brian Andrew Whiteley (MFA 2013 Fine Arts), whose Satellite Art Show (featured in the spring/summer 2020 Journal) takes a similarly iconoclastic approach to the typically staid art fair, started the project with artists Jen Catron, Joseph Latimore and Paul Outlaw. The venue opened last fall and quickly won admiring press from Artnet, Forbes and The New York Times.

De:Formal deformal.com

ABOVE AND TOP RIGHT

The Satellite Art Club, co-founded by SVA alumnus Brian Whiteley (top right, second from left) offers an anarchic, happily rude art venue.

RIGHT, FROM TOP

Image from “The Rise of the Care Machines,” an online De:Formal exhibition; image from a De:Formal residency with Sid and Geri (MFA 2018 Fine Arts).

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Co-founded in 2015 by Vincent Cy Chen and Wednesday Kim (both BFA 2015 Fine Arts), De:Formal curates and promotes critical conversations, exhibitions and interviews both online and offline, as well as monthly virtual residencies. The artist-run platform is focused on contemporary art and makes space for video, performance, installation, sculpture, media art and other forms that are under-recognized in the conventional gallery system.

Haul Gallery haul.gallery

In 2021 Haul Gallery, co-organized by Erin Davis and Max C. Lee (both MFA 2016 Photography, Video and Related Media), is offering an “art share” inspired by the community farm share model. The structure offers collectors a chance to purchase shares in one year’s worth of exhibitions, for which artists get paid upfront. Haul continues a forward-thinking and experimental ethos initiated in Davis and Lee’s previous collaborative project, Re: Art Show.

Their new model aims to offer an alternative to the blue-chip gallery system, exploring new ways of presenting work and full financial transparency.

Peep Space peepspaceny.com

Artists and art teachers Jane Kang Lawrence (MAT 2006 Art Education) and Monica Carrier started Peep Space in the Westchester County village of Tarrytown in March 2020. Their goal: create a community-minded, artist-run space free from the high-profit pressures (and exclusivity) of a typical contemporary gallery.

Exhibitions have included “Plus One,” in which the invited artists were asked to invite another artist to show with them; “Art for Angels,” benefiting young students with special needs; a guest-curated group show on the theme of “family”; and “Flat File 2020,” featuring more than 50 artists’ work, culled from an open call. (The second annual “Flat File” opens in November.)

ABOVE, FROM TOP Ivoire Foreman (MFA 2017 Fine Arts), Every day I’m coloring coloring, 2020, from their solo show “I was busy thinkin’ bout toys” (2020), Haul Gallery; installation view of “L’Épilogue” (2021), a solo show by Marvin Touré (MFA 2016 Fine Arts) at Haul Gallery; Images courtesy Haul Gallery.

LEFT Installation view of “Re-Union” (2021),

a show at Peep Gallery featuring work by Debbi Kenote and Alyssa McClenaghan.

Image courtesy Peep Space.

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Dragon, Crab and Turtle dragoncrabandturtle.com

Painter Katherine Bernhardt (MFA 2000 Fine Arts) left New York City last year to resettle in her hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, where she had recently transformed a former car dealership into a studio and storage facility. That building is now also home to Dragon, Crab and Turtle, a gallery (currently open on Saturdays and by appointment) named for the terracotta fauna motifs that decorate the building’s preserved early-1900s façade and dedicated to showcasing underrepresented artists, art forms and artistic communities from around the U.S. and the world.

The space has so far hosted everything from solo shows to a pop-up Moroccan rug sale to an exhibition of work from the eclectic and vast private collection of fellow St. Louis artist and gallerist Philip Slein.

ABOVE, RIGHT Karolina

Majewska (MFA 2017 Photography, Video and Related Media), Credo, 2020, wax and water tattoo, from “A Discourse of Accord” (2021), Transmitter; Dáreece J. Walker (MFA 2016 Fine Arts),

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Black Fathers Matter series II | Rubber Ducky Crossing, 2020, charcoal on inkjet print and cardboard, from Transmitter’s 2021 Brooklyn Community Bail Fund benefit.

Courtesy Transmitter.

LEFT Installation

view, “Traders” (2020 – 2021), Dragon, Crab and Turtle.

BELOW, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP Artworks

by Roberta March, Amy Laskin and Jamaal Barber, from “Mirror in the Dark: Resiliency Through Art” (2021), a virtual show presented

by Visionary Art Collective.

Visionary Art Collective visionaryartcollective.com

Founded by Victoria Fry (BFA 2012 Fine Arts), Visionary hosts online exhibitions, editorial content, workshops, educational materials and an artist directory. Focused on emerging, mid-career and established artists and educators, the organization’s mission is to connect contemporary art and education, decentralize the global art community and increase artists’ and teachers’ access to resources.

Transmitter transmitter.nyc

Transmitter is a collaborative curatorial initiative founded in 2014 with a rotating leadership model; its current group of nine directors includes MFA Photography, Video and Related Media alumni Kate Greenberg (2010), Melvin Harper (2017) and Sara Meghdari (2016). Based in Brooklyn and focused on multidisciplinary, international and experimental programming, Transmitter promotes racial and social justice in its messaging and operations; their current Benefit for the Brooklyn Community Bail Fund runs through December 19. ◆

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! FOR YO UR BENEF I T CONNECT

BENEFITS

Update your contact information info ffo ormation sva.edu/alumni

Alumni mixers and networking events

Tell us about your proj projects, ojjects, o exhibitions and accomplishments sva.edu/alumni Join us for ffo or 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 (on hold)

Showcase your work on SVA VA V A Portfo ffo olios Portfolios portfo ffo olios.sva.edu portfolios.sva.edu

Education pricing on all Apple products and 15% 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 @schoolofvisualarts

Access to the SVA-curated Kickstarter page

SV VA Alumni

{

Lifetime access to SVA email

For complete details visit sva.edu/alumni sva.edu/a //a alumni at

.

.

or alumni@sva.edu

}

ALUMNI AFFAIRS

SVA staff and alumni gathered together at the last in-person alumni reception, held during the 2019 Miami art week.

Metamorphosis A message from Jane Nuzzo, director of alumni affairs and development at SVA In my role at the School of Visual Arts, I serve as an advocate for and champion of the entire SVA alumni community, an international network of more than 40,000 and growing. I am entrusted to share your achievements, cultivate relationships, bring you together in fellowship, steward your trust, foster the next generation of the College’s graduates and provide you with resources and opportunities as your careers and lives progress. Never has that felt more important, and yet my ability to do this has been tested over the last year and a half during what has been a tremendously disruptive time for all of us.

The pandemic has forever changed us, and I believe we must embrace that

change. This is a chance to adapt, evolve and set upon a renewed path forward.

With that in mind—and as we continue to shake off the dust—we have begun to see glimpses of what is to come as my colleagues and I gradually resume our in-person activities. After School Special, SVA Theatre’s annual alumni film and animation festival, recently concluded, welcoming our accomplished alumni back on stage, and their audiences back to a communal viewing experience. And now we look ahead to Miami’s art week, where SVA has presented the work of recent alumni for the past 15 years. This year, the College will once again participate at Untitled, making it our third year with this prestigious international art fair. That event, too, will once again take place in person, following 2020’s virtual edition.

Finally, later this year, Alumni Affairs and the SVA Diversity, Equity and Inclusion office plan to host an alumni roundtable discussion, as part of the larger effort to foster a truly welcoming College community, in which everyone’s voice is valued. Stay tuned for more on that.

I hope and anticipate that this is just the start of our 2021 – 2022 calendar, and that I may soon meet or reconnect with many of you in person—or, perhaps, remotely—at an SVA alumni event. To keep in the loop, please take a moment to ensure that your contact information is up to date by visiting sva.edu/alumni. And be sure and follow us on Instagram and Twitter, @svanycalumni. ◆

FALL/WINTER 2021 |

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SPRING 2021 SVA ALUMNI SOCIETY AWARDS The SVA Alumni Society celebrates its latest group of award winners— nine students and recent graduates, representing a range of the College’s undergraduate programs.

1

Thanks to the generosity of 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 BFA Cartooning students entering their third or fourth year.

Alumni Society Merit Award Srishti Dass, BFA 2021 Fine Arts

Rodman Family Scholarship Jillian McNulty, BFA Animation

Brian Weil Memorial Award Ori Haiblum, BFA 2021 Photography and Video

Russell J. Efros Memorial Award Rianne Pyle, BFA 2021 Film

Lila Eva Lewental Memorial Award SooJung Lee, BFA Illustration

Silas H. Rhodes Memorial Award James Bowles, BFA Visual & Critical Studies

Richard Wilde Award Lucian French, BFA Design Sam Lee, BFA Design

Will Eisner Sequential Art Scholarship Ashton Smith, BFA Cartooning

2

3

66 | V I S U A L A R T S J O U R N A L

5

4

6

1. Srishti Dass, Point of View, colored pencil on paper, 2021; 2. Ori Haiblum, Reflections, 35 mm archival print, 2018; 3. James Bowles, Ayrton in Monaco, acrylic and oil on canvas, 2021; 4. Sam Lee, Homebody, editorial catalog, spring 2021; 5. Rianne Pyle, Freedom Day Foundation – Juneteenth Protest, film, June 19, 2020; 6. SooJung Lee, Desert Ksar, digital, 2020; 7. Ashton Smith, Hamlet (page 12), digital, spring 2020; 8. Jillian McNulty, still from Chase, digital film, 2021; 9.

Lucian French, Dating Shoes, highheel shoes and rubber dating stamp, 2021.

8

7

9

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SPRING 2021 SVA ALUMNI SOCIETY AWARDS Continued

10

10. Ashton Smith, Hamlet (page 13), digital, spring 2020; 11. Srishti Dass, Mannat, colored pencil on paper, 2021; 12. Sam Lee, Dandelion, zine, fall 2020; 13. Ori Haiblum, Burning Carriage, 35mm archival print, 2021; 14. Jillian McNulty, background from Chase, digital film, 2020; 15. SooJungu Lee, Antique Store Concept – Day Cycle, digital, 2020.

12

14

13

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DONORS The Alumni Society gratefully acknowledges these SVA alumni who gave to the society January 1 through June 30, 2021.

11

Evin Aksel BFA 2010 Photography

Mrs. Joanne Honigman 1981 Graphic Design

Mark Willis BFA 1998 Illustration

Dawn E. Albore BFA 1981 Illustration

Lynda M. Hughes BFA 1981 Photography

Andrew Alexander BFA 2016 Cartooning

Jennifer Kachler BFA 2009 Film and Video

Gary Nicholas Zaccaria BFA 1981 Graphic Design

Evelyn M. Alfaro BFA 1985 Advertising

Yvette Kaplan BFA 1976 Animation

Gail Anderson BFA 1984 Graphic Design

Katherine Kravit MPS 2017 Branding

Anonymous (3)

Abby Kreh 1962 Illustration

Paul Basile 1969 Advertising Maxwell Beucler BFA 2015 Design Gary Brinson BFA 1985 Media Arts Elissa L. Bromberg BFA 1978 Fine Arts Carla Brown BFA 2003 Fine Arts

15

Julianna (Ferriter) Bruce BFA 1986 Fine Arts

Emanuel Lamprinidis 1984 Pat Langer BFA 1995 Illustration

Joyce Rutter Kaye

Linda Marcus

Patrick F. Loughran BFA 1980 Fine Arts

Elizabeth and Coleman O’Donoghue

Maria Mannino BFA 1982 Media Arts

Proskauer

Gregory Jude Coyle BFA 2002 Illustration

Nefertite Nyguvu/ Hollywood Africans, LLC BFA 1997 Film and Video

Tom Engelhardt 1957 Cartooning

Peter Papulis BFA 1977 Fine Arts

Celeste Ericsson 1971

Alexander Shipman Payson BFA 2017 Photography and Video

Catherine Gilmore-Barnes BFA 1986 Graphic Design

Francis and Carla Di Tommaso

Novartis

Patrick McDonnell (alumnus) and Karen O’Connell BFA 1978 Media Arts

David Fried BFA 1987 Photography

BRD Foundation

Missy Longo-Lewis BFA 1984 Illustration

Andrew Chang MFA 1987 Illustration as Visual Essay

Charles Fazzino BFA 1977 Graphic Design

BP Air Conditioning

Lakeland Bank

Lawrence Milbauer 1965

Matthew Farina MFA 2014 Art Criticism and Writing

Anonymous (3)

Steven Langerman 1972 Photography

Aniello Callari 1972 Advertising

Anthony Chibbaro 1979

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

Salomon Sassoon P. E. Smith Loraine and Michael Ungano, Sr. Edward Van Hise Visual Arts Foundation Momma Dukes Wells Fargo Middle Market Banking Will & Ann Eisner Family Foundation

Steve Pullara BFA 1979 Fine Arts Alfred Ragin 1969 Advertising Marc Rubin BFA 1982 Advertising Heewon Seo MFA 2012 Fine Arts

John and Lauren (alumnus) Giuffre BFA 1986 Illustration

Vesper Stamper MFA 2016 Illustration as Visual Essay

Paul Harlacher BFA 1978 Media Arts

Eva Tom BFA 1987 Media Arts

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ALUMNI NOTES & EXHIBITIONS

SVA alumni achievements from December 1, 2020, through May 31, 2021. To submit an item, email alumni@sva.edu.

ARANTXA XIMENA RODRIGUEZ (MFA 2019 Fine Arts), Duplexity, 2021, charcoal on archival paper. From the group exhibition

“Spring Forward,” Revelation Gallery, NYC, March 2021. Image courtesy Arantxa Ximena Rodriguez.

GROUP EFFORTS

Joey Gonnella (BFA 2020 Visual & Critical Studies), Xinyu Han (BFA 2020 Fine Arts), Mike Marrella (MFA 2020 Fine Arts), Jimmy Mezei (MFA 2020 Fine Arts), Barbara Owen (MFA 2020 Art Practice), Tarah Rhoda (MFA 2020 Fine Arts; BFA 2010 Fine Arts), Joshua Spector (MFA 2020 Photography, Video and Related Media) and Sam Stoich (BFA 2020 Photography and Video) participated in Untitled Art Fair Miami Beach, Miami, 12/2-12/6/20.

Soledad Arias (MFA 2002 Fine Arts), Graciela Cassel (MFA 2014 Fine Arts) and Kate Harding (MFA 2014 Art Practice) had work in the group exhibition “Stirring Glows,” Urban Glass, NYC, 1/20-3/5/21.

Karlos Cárcamo (BFA 1997 Fine Arts), Alejandro Guzman (MFA 2009 Fine Arts; BFA 2004 Photography) and Mary Valverde (BFA 1999 Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Latinx Abstract,” BRIC, NYC, 1/21-5/2/21.

Several alumni projects screened at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, Park City, UT, 1/28-2/3/21: Daniela Alatorre (MFA 2015 Social Documentary Film) produced Users, which was nominated for the Directing Award for U.S. Documentary; Nottapon Boonprakob (MFA 2017 Social Documentary Film) co-wrote One for the Road, which received the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Creative Vision; Luigi Rossi (BFA 2016 Film) produced Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma; and Dash Shaw (BFA 2005 Illustration) directed Cryptozoo, which received the NEXT Innovator Award.

Matthew Craven (MFA 2010 Fine Arts) and Trish Tillman (MFA 2009 Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Extra, Extra,” Asya Geisberg Gallery, NYC, 1/29-3/20/21.

Joe Fig (MFA 2002 Fine Arts; BFA 1991 Fine Arts) and Kate Gilmore (MFA 2002 Fine Arts) were featured in “Artists Quarantine With Their Art Collections,” Hyperallergic, 1/30/21.

Danielle Scott (BFA 2001 Fine Arts) curated and Josephine Barreiro (BFA 1990 Media Arts), Bennett Gewirtz (1978) and Andrea McKenna (BFA 1992 Illustration) had work in the group exhibition “The Empowering,” ART150 Gallery, Jersey City, NJ, 2/6-3/21/21.

Marianna Peragallo (MFA 2019 Fine Arts) and Darice Polo (BFA 1982 Media Arts) had work in the group exhibition “An A-historical Daydream: 14th A.I.R. Biennial,” A.I.R. Gallery, NYC, 2/12-3/14/21.

Tiffany Alfonseca (BFA 2020 Fine Arts) curated and Veronica Fernandez (BFA 2020 Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “De Lo Mio,” Jenkins Johnson Gallery, NYC, 2/13-3/27/21.

Melvin Harper (MFA 2017 Photography, Video and Related Media) and Sara Meghdari (MFA 2016 Photography, Video and Related Media) were named co-directors of Transmitter, NYC, 2/18/21.

MFA Fine Arts alumni Allison Hester (2006), Amy Talluto (2001) and Katherine Umsted (1990) had work in the group exhibition “The Magic Garden,” LABspace, Hillsdale, NY, 2/20-4/11/21.

BFA Fine Arts alumni Marysia Gacek (2009) and Sophia Dawson (2010) published Correspondence (2021), Maria Editions.

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Arantxa Ximena Rodriguez (MFA 2019 Fine Arts) co-curated and exhibited and LaTonia Allen (MFA 2020 Fine Arts), Orly Benun (BFA 1993 Film and Video), Eliza Boyer (MFA 2019 Fine Arts), Sadia Fakih (MFA 2019 Fine Arts), Michelle Girardello (MFA 2019 Fine Arts), Oxana Kovalchuk (MFA 2019 Fine Arts), Dulce Lamarca (MFA 2020 Fine Arts), Carla Maldonado (MFA 2019 Photography, Video and Related Media), Marianna Peragallo (MFA 2019 Fine Arts), Maria Durán Sampedro (MFA 2020 Fine Arts), Amanda Smith (MFA 2020 Fine Arts), Collette Tompkins (MFA 2019 Fine Arts) and Caroline Villard (MFA 2017 Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Spring Forward _ Vibrant Visions and Voices of Women Artists from Around the Globe,” Revelation Gallery, NYC, March 2021.

Collier Schorr (BFA 1985 Communication Arts) had photographs featured in and Matt Holmes (BFA 2016 Photography and Video) styled “Spring’s Relaxed New Look,” T: The New York Times Magazine, NYC, 3/1/21.

Rebecca Goyette (MFA 2009 Fine Arts) co-curated and Trish Tillman (MFA 2009 Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Everyday Magic: Artistic and Gnostic Impulses,” National Arts Club, NYC, 3/2-3/27/21.

Chris Prynoski (BFA 1994 Animation) and Shannon Prynoski (BFA 1994 Film and Video) were featured in “Smash Parties, Talking Vulvas and Big Mouth: Inside Titmouse Animation Studio,” The Guardian, 3/4/21.

MFA Photography, Video and Related Media alumni Hyemi Kim (2020), Wanki Min (2019), Tiffany Smith (2015) and Qingshan

Wang (2017) had work featured in “Lens on Learning: School of Visual Arts,” Musée Magazine, 3/16/21.

MFA Fine Arts alumni Yael Azoulay (2016), Eli Barak (2016), Delano Dunn (2016), Michal Geva (2016), Jon Gomez (2017) and Pedro Mesa (2018), and Netta Laufer (MFA 2016 Photography, Video and Related Media) had work in the group exhibition “This Is Not My Tree,” NARS Foundation, NYC, 3/26-4/16/21.

MFA Fine Arts alumni Georgia Lale (2016) and Marianna Peragallo (2019) had work in the group exhibition “Collective Health,” Collar Works, Troy, NY, 3/26-5/16/21.

Three SVA alumni were recognized at the NAACP Image Awards, 3/27/21: Yibing Jiang (MFA 2010 Computer Art) wrote and directed Windup, nominated for Outstanding Short Form (Animated); and MFA 2013 Social Documentary Film alumni Amitabh Joshi and Erik Spink co-directed In the Making, nominated for Outstanding Short Form Series – Reality/ Nonfiction.

Peter Ash Lee (MPS 2012 Fashion Photography; BFA 2009 Photography), Elizabeth Wirija (BFA 2016 Design) and An Rong Xu (BFA 2012 Photography) were featured in “Keeping Love Close,” The New York Times, 4/8/21.

Rosson Crow (MFA 2006 Fine Arts; BFA 2004 Fine Arts), Robert Lazzarini (BFA 1990 Fine Arts) and Lucia Love (BFA 2012 Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Nature Morte,” The Hole NYC, 4/8-5/9/21.

Bon Duke (MPS 2012 Fashion Photography) had photographs featured in and TM Davy (BFA 2002 Illustration) was featured in “Weekend Friends,” T: The New York Times Style Magazine, 4/12/21.

exhibition “Life starts at the age of a thousand.

Meanwhile, light dreams of colored time, and gravity runs through time,” SVA Seocho Gallery, Seoul, Korea, 5/8-5/29/21.

INDIVIDUAL NOTES & EXHIBITIONS 1963

Ellen Pliskin (Fine Arts) was featured in “Winter View,” Flora Fiction, Winter 2020.

1969

“Assembled Sculptures by Artist Willie Cole Cluster High Heels Into Expressive Masks,” Colossal, 5/5/21.

Theresa DeSalvio (BFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Theresa DeSalvio,” Clementine Magazine, 1/28/21; and had work in the group exhibitions “22nd WAH Salon Exhibition,” 4/3-5/1/21; “Lost and Found: A Personal Vision,” The New York Artists Circle, May 2021; and “Togetherness & Oneness,” 5/22-6/26/21, Williamsburg Art and Historical Center, NYC.

Rosemary Mayer (Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Pleasures and Possible Celebrations: Rosemary Mayer’s Temporary Monuments, 1977-1981,” Gordon Robichaux, NYC, 5/26/20/21.

Jorge Luis Rodriguez (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Renacimiento: 1st New Rochelle Invitational,” The Venezuelan American Endowment for the Arts, New Rochelle Arts Center, New Rochelle, NY, 12/21/20.

1974

1977

Frank Papandrea was the recipient of Best Traditional Illustration, Florida Magazine Association, 2/10/21.

1975

Margaret McCarthy (BFA Fine Arts) won first place in the BEST OF ASMP 2020 Competition in the Self Promotion/Personal Work Category, American Society of Media Photographers, San Francisco, 1/29/21; self-published A Vision and a Verse (2021); and had work in the group exhibition “The Southern Landscape: 10th Anniversary Show,” South x Southeast Gallery, Molena, GA, May-July 2021.

James Nares (Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “2021 OVR,” Kasmin, NYC, 1/27-2/27/21.

1976

Willie Cole (BFA Media Arts) was featured in

Dawoud Bey (Photography) had a solo exhibition “Dawoud Bey: An American Project,” The Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC, 4/17-10/3/21, and was featured in “An American Project: For Decades, Dawoud Bey Has Chronicled Black Life,” NPR, 2/2/21; “The Art Angle Podcast: How Photographer Dawoud Bey Makes Black America Visible,” Artnet, 4/16/21; and “Taking a Look Back at the Profound Photos of Dawoud Bey,” BuzzFeed, 5/2/21.

Charles Fazzino (BFA Graphic Design) was featured in “Artist Charles Fazzino Donates $5K and Proceeds from Artwork to Artist Relief Fund to Raise Awareness of Need in Artist Community,” ArtsWestchester, 2/23/21.

Tim Rollins (BFA Fine Arts) was featured in “The Kids of Survival Are Middle-Aged and

Transforming Yet Again,” The New York Times, 1/15/21.

1978

Lisa Levine (BFA Photography) was featured in “In Lisa Levine’s house photographs, an exploration of isolation and comfort,” 48 Hills, 1/27/21.

1979

Ray Billingsley (BFA Cartooning) was nominated for 2020 Cartoonist of the Year, National Cartoonist Society, Orlando, FL, 3/30/21.

Keith Haring (Fine Arts) was featured in “This $7.9 Million Tribeca Loft Comes With Its Own Keith Haring Mural, Painted While He Was a Student at SVA,” Artnet, 2/10/21.

Rivka Katvan (BFA Photography) had photography featured in “Exploring the Magic World of Broadway’s Backstage,” 3/10/21; “When Broadway Does Its Striptease for a Good Cause,” 4/12/21; and “Rivka Katvan: Timeless New York,” 5/19/21, Blind.

John Michael Pelech (BFA Media Arts) had work in the group exhibition “2021 Annual Membership Exhibition,” Salmagundi Club, NYC, 5/3-5/20/21.

Amy Sillman (BFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Amy Sillman Breaks Down Art Barriers,” Chicago Reader, 2/9/2021, and “Amy Sillman’s Philosophy of Doubt,” Frieze, 3/2/21, and gave a talk “Virtual Concert and Conversation,” The Jewish Museum, NYC 5/13/21.

SVA alumni worked on a number of films recognized at the 93rd Academy Awards, Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences, Los Angeles, 4/25/21: Stephanie Andreou (MFA 2012 Computer Art) was assistant editor for Time, nominated for Best Documentary Feature; Nancy Kato (MFA 1991 Computer Art) was animation fix lead for Onward, nominated for Best Animated Feature Film; Daniela Dwek (BFA 2020 Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects) contributed character work, Jake Kaplan (BFA 2017 Animation) was art and sets coordinator, Kato provided additional animation, Ivo Kos (MFA 1991 Computer Art) was sets modeling artist, Jessica Monteiro (BFA 2010 Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects) was rendering technical director, Montaque Ruffin (BFA 2013 Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects) was an animator and cultural trust member, Gini Santos (MFA 1996 Computer Art) was directing animator, Ye Won Cho (MFA 2002 Computer Art) was lighting artist and Lin Zhang (MFA 2019 Computer Arts) was character intern for Soul, which won Best Animated Feature Film.

Peter Hristoff (BFA 1981 Fine Arts) and Wade Schaming (MFA 2010 Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Rapture: A Queer Taste for Color, Texture and Decorative Pattern,” New York Artists Equity Association, Inc., NYC, 4/29-5/22/21.

Jhu yul Choe (MFA 2015 Computer Art) and Wanki Min (MFA 2019 Photography, Video and Related Media) had work in the group

WONJUNG CHOI (MFA 2004 Fine Arts), Roots, 2021, 30 pieces of 3D printing figurines, mixed media. From the solo exhibition “Where Are You From?,” The Anderson at VCUarts, Richmond, VA, 1/26-2/13/21. Image courtesy Wonjung Choi.

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1985

Alexis Rockman (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Alexis Rockman: Shipwrecks,” Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA, 3/6-5/13/21, and was featured in “A New Life for Old Shipwrecks,” The Wall Street Journal, 2/26/21, and “A New Twist on Marine Painting at the Peabody Essex Museum,” Hyperallergic, 4/30/21.

1986

Jim Lahey (Fine Arts) was featured in “NoKnead Bread, Revisited,” The New York Times, 5/3/21.

Todd Radom (BFA Graphic Design) was featured in “Uniforms of the Past Making a Comeback,” MLB.com, 3/3/21, and “At This NCAA Tournament, Orange Is the New Bracket,” The New York Times, 3/19/21.

Annie Sprinkle (BFA Photography) was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship 2021 – Film and Video, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 4/12/21.

1987

Aleathia Brown (BFA Media Arts) had a solo exhibition, “She-Story: Celebrating a Visual Journey,” Nostrand Social Restaurant & Music Supper Club, NYC, 3/14/21, and gave a talk, “Color Conversations,” The Renaissance Pavilion at Strivers’ Row, NYC, 4/3/21.

1988

Alice Mackler (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “New Work,” Kerry Schuss Gallery, NYC, 4/24-6/19/21, and was featured in “4 Art Gallery Shows to See Right Now,” The New York Times, 5/27/21.

Gary Simmons (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “The Engine Room,” Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, 4/3/21-8/22/21, and was featured in “Gary Simmons, Artist Focused on Erasure and Racist Stereotypes, Heads to Hauser & Wirth,” Artnews, 3/25/21, and “Gary Simmons Built a Life-Sized Garage for a Rock Band Inside This Seattle Museum,” The Stranger, Seattle, 5/27/21.

1989

KENNY RIVERO (BFA 2010 Fine Arts), clockwise from top: installation view, “Kenny Rivero: Palm Oil, Rum, Honey, Yellow Flowers”; Vital Signs, 2013-2020, collage, graphite, marker on paper; I Want to Go Home Now, 2015-20, graphite on paper. From the solo exhibition “Kenny Rivero: Palm Oil, Rum, Honey, Yellow Flowers,” Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, Brattleboro, VT, 3/18-6/13/21. Images courtesy Kenny Rivero, Brattleboro Museum & Art Center and Charles Moffett Gallery.

1980

William Abranowicz (BFA Photography) published This Far and No Further, The University of Texas Press.

Wendel White (BFA Photography) was featured in “Raymond Thompson Jr. and Wendel White in Conversation,” Lenscratch, 2/23/21.

1981

Moira Dryer (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Back in Business,” Phillips Collection, 12/13/20.

Lowell Handler (BFA Photography) had photography featured in the documentary Oliver Sacks: His Own Life, PBS, 3/9/21.

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Rita Maas (BFA Photography) had work in the group exhibition “Fit to Print,” The Print Center, Philadelphia, 5/1-6/30/21.

Kenny Scharf (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition “Toy Drive,” Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles, 12/1/20-2/1/21, and was featured in “Caught in a Creative Rut This Year? You’re Not Alone. We Asked 17 Artists What They Do When They Get Stuck in the Studio,” Artnet, 5/31/21.

1982

Glen Mayo was featured in “Glen Mayo’s sculptures on view at Wheelhouse 28 Studio,” Hudson Valley One, Kingston, NY, 2/11/21.

Lorna Simpson (BFA Photography) created a portrait of Rihanna for the cover of Essence’s January/February 2021 issue.

Joey Skaggs (BFA Advertising) screened Joey Skaggs: Satire and Art Activism, 1960s to the Present and Beyond, The Oregon Documentary Film Festival, The Dalles, Oregon, 2/28/21, and Joey Skaggs: Bad Guys Talent Management Agency, Bonita Springs International Film Festival, Bonita Springs, FL, 5/22/21.

1983

Stephanie Pfriender Stylander (BFA Photography) had a solo exhibition, “New York City Lockdown,” Galerie Sophie Scheidecker, Paris, 3/19-4/30/21.

1984

Gail Anderson (BFA Graphic Design) was featured in “Even Calibri’s Creator Is Glad That Microsoft Is Moving On,” Wired, 5/1/21.

Craig Gillespie (BFA Advertising) was featured in “Cruella: Mark Strong and Director Craig Gillespie Talk the Movie’s Epic Soundtrack,” Comicbook, 5/22/21; “Craig Gillespie Interview: Cruella,” ScreenRant, 5/27/21; “Filmmaker Craig Gillespie on Cruella and Why ‘We’re Culpable’ in the Pam & Tommy Story,” The Hollywood Reporter, 5/28/21; and “This Cruella Combines ’70s London Punk and Alexander McQueen in Bold Fashion,” The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, 5/28/21.

1990

Gina Minichino (BFA Cartooning) had work in the group exhibition “Group Show,” George Billis Gallery, Westport, CT, 5/14-6/13/21, and illustrated Two Blow Pops in the Winter, Granta, 12/13/20.

1991

Tad Beck (BFA Photography) had a solo exhibition, “Eyes of,” Grant Wahlquist Gallery, Portland, ME, 3/12-6/12/21.

Luca Buvoli (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in “How to Responsibly Collect Work by MFA Students,” Artsy, 4/12/21.

Lisa Deloria Weinblatt (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) had a solo exhibition, “School Lunch Series,” The Judy Black Memorial Park and Gardens, Washington Depot, CT, 11/1612/30/20.

1992

David Bleich (BFA Illustration) was lead color and lighting designer for The Mitchells vs. The Machines (2021).

Renée Cox (MFA Photography and Related Media) had a solo exhibition, “The Signing,” Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, FL, 10/29/20-9/5/21, and had work featured in “The Case for Reparations, in Pictures,” CNN, 5/3/21.

Christine Romanell (BFA Graphic Design) had work in the group exhibition “Grayscale Wonderland 4,” bG Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, 2/20-3/13/21.

Michelle Tommasi (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “N/A,” The Green Kill, Kingston, NY, 3/6-2/7/21.

1993

Scott Bakal (BFA Illustration) was interviewed in 3x3, Issue 25, 2/1/21.

Anne Checler (BFA Film and Video) was featured in “Filmmakers Making A Social Impact: Why & How Filmmaker Anne Checler Is Helping To Change Our World,” Authority, 3/22/21.

Miles Ladin (MFA Photography and Related Media) had a solo exhibition, “And The Revel Went Whirlingly On,” Nieuwe Gaanderijen, Oostende, Belgium, 2/3-3/14/21.

DOZIE KANU (BFA 2016 Film), Headboard Trial, 2021, sculpture. From the solo exhibition “value order

[gentrify.pt],” Galeria Madragoa, Lisbon, Portugal, 2/5-3/20/21. Image courtesy Dozie Kanu.

1994

Steve Ellis (BFA Illustration), hand-painted the front panel of the Coney Island Cyclone, Luna Park, Coney Island, NY. Inka Essenhigh (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in “A Rooftop Artists’ Salon Figure Drawing Alfresco,” Vulture (New York), 4/12/21.

Nona Faustine (BFA Photography) had a solo exhibition, “Mitochondria,” Higher Pictures Generation, NYC, 5/15-7/3/21, and was featured in “16 Black Artists to Know,” New York Foundation for the Arts, 1/25/21, and “Fantasy America,” Carnegie, Spring 2021.

John Ferry (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) had work in the group exhibition “Tapped,” Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH, 12/11/201/8/21.

Leemour Pelli (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibitions “The Heart,” Art Therapy Institute of NC, Carrboro, NC, 2/12/21, and “2021 Museum of Wild and Newfangled Art Biennial,” The Museum of Wild and Newfangled Art, NYC, 4/30-9/22/21, and was featured in “Leemour Pelli: Painter,” ARTDEX. Chris Prynoski (BFA Animation) was featured in “MTV’s Downtown Is a Hyperspecific Time Capsule,” Vulture (New York), 5/7/21.

1995

David Levy (BFA Animation) published the second edition of Your Career in Animation: How to Survive and Thrive, Allworth Press.

1996

George Dante (BFA Illustration) was featured in “Meet Woodland Park’s World-Renowned Taxidermist,” New Jersey Monthly, 2/10/21.

KAWS, a.k.a. Brian Donnelly (BFA Illustration) was featured in “The Surprising Ascent of KAWS,” The New York Times Magazine, 2/9/21, “A Private Viewing of the New KAWS Exhibition with the Artist Himself,” Vogue, 2/16/21, “A Coming-Out Party for KAWS at the Brooklyn

Museum,” The New York Times, 2/24/21, and “The Art Angle Podcast: KAWS Is the World’s Most Popular Artist. Why?,” Artnet, 4/9/21.

5/20-8/21/21, and had work in the group exhibition “Women Painting,” Museu Europeu d’Art Modern, Barcelona, 3/8-5/2/21.

Justine Kurland (BFA Photography) had a solo exhibition, “SCUMB Manifesto,” Higher Pictures Generation, NYC, 3/13-5/1/21.

Jeff Gilligan (BFA Graphic Design) was the recipient of a 2020 American Graphic Design Award, 1/8/21.

Stephen Savage (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) was featured in “Children’s Starred Reviews 2020,” Publisher’s Weekly, 12/2/20, and “If You Think Kid’s Books Are Child’s Play, You’re Missing Out,” Lemonade, 2/24/21.

Dice Tsutsumi (BFA Illustration) was the recipient of the June Foray Award, Annie Awards, 4/16/21.

Chiun-Kai Shih (BFA Photography) was featured in “26th Annual OUT 100,” Out, 12/1/20.

1997

Dino Alberto (BFA Illustration) illustrated the beer can “Amplified Voices,” Collective Arts Brewing, spring 2021.

John Carlucci (BFA Film and Video) co-directed Drunk Bus (2020).

HH German (BFA Advertising) was featured in “Interview with HH German of Sigma Comics,” Zia Comics’ YouTube channel, 12/30/20.

Cordy Ryman (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Constellations,” Freight and Volume, NYC, 2/25-4/4/21.

Sarah Sze (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Sarah Sze’s Immersive Exhibition ‘Night Into Day’ Questions Time and Space,” Stir World, 3/6/21; “Sarah Sze and Her Thoughtful Installations,” Fahrenheit, 5/3/21; and “At Storm King, 2 New Works Faced a Challenging Birth,” The New York Times, 5/20/21.

1998

Nanette Fluhr (BFA Illustration) had work in the group exhibition and won the Distinguished Portrait and Figure Award, “Lifting the Sky: Elevating the Works of American Women Artists,” American Women Artists, Lodi, CA,

1999

Janelle Lynch (MFA Photography and Related Media) had work in the group exhibitions “Collecting New York’s Stories: Stuyvesant to Sid Vicious,” The Museum of the City of New York, 1/1-12/31/20, and “Other Nature,” Foley Gallery, NYC, 1/27-2/27/21.

Artem Mirolevich (BFA Illustration) had a solo exhibition, “Mothership,” Denis Leon Gallery, Boca Raton, FL, 2/10-2/4/21.

Anna Zaderman (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Winter Art Show 2021 Virtual Galleries,” Bayside Historical Society, Bayside, NY, 2/1-2/8/21.

2000

Katherine Bernhardt (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Art for Change Releases Prints to Benefit 400 Year-Old Afro-Puerto Rican Community,” Art for Change, 1/28/21, and “National Artist Katherine Bernhardt’s Midtown Studio Was Once an Auto Shop,” St. Louis Magazine, 5/6/21.

Todd Kelly (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Settings,” Asya Geisberg Gallery, NYC, 1/9-2/13/21.

Lauren Redniss (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) gave a talk, “Lauren Redniss + Nicole Krauss: Oak Flat,” The Strand Book Store, NYC 1/19/21.

Eric Rhein (MFA Fine Arts; BFA 1985 Fine Arts) was featured in “Intimate Photographs Capturing One Artist’s Journey With HIV,” AnOther Magazine, 1/29/21.

2001

Zoe Crowhurst (BFA Film and Video) was featured in “‘Love Is Coming to You’: Outdoor Learning with Zoe,” Point Reyes Light, Point Reyes, CA, 3/3/21.

Daina Higgins (BFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Artist Daina Higgins Captures a Revolt in Progress,” If It’s Hip, It’s Here, 3/1/21.

James Jean (BFA Illustration) had a solo exhibition, “Seven Phases,” HYBE Insight Museum, Seoul, Korea, 5/14-11/14/21.

Noah Landfield (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Why Are You Painting?,” Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, 11/13-12/17/20.

Mika Rottenberg (BFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Mika Rottenberg Is Everywhere, Even Though She Is Just Working From Home,” Artnews, 12/2/20.

Danielle Scott-Jusma (BFA Fine Arts) was named 2021 Artist of the Year, Eileen S. Kaminsky Family Foundation, Jersey City, NJ, 3/12/21.

Maayan Zilberman (BFA Fine Arts) was featured in “How This Confectioner Gets Her Skin So Good,” The Cut (New York), 3/9/21.

2002

Michael Alan (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Survival Things: Works of a Native New Yorker,” Galerie Bruno Massa, Paris, 2/12-4/30/21.

TM Davy (BFA Illustration) had a solo exhibition, “Fire Island,” Galerie Thomas Fuchs, Stuttgart, Germany, 5/28-6/26/21.

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Joe Fig (MFA Fine Arts; BFA 1991 Fine Arts) was featured in “Oops! A New Documentary About the Knoedler Fakes Scandal Accidentally Included an Artist’s Trick Image as Real,” Artnet, 3/5/21.

Turbulent Year in Real Time—See the Beautiful and Unforgettable Works of 2020 Here,” Artnet, 12/31/20, and “Plywood and Positivity: National Arts Club Features Soho Storefront Murals from Summer of Tumult,” The Village Sun, 3/4/21.

Alois Kronschlaeger (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Kind of Blue,” Cristin Tierney Gallery, NYC, 5/21-6/30/21.

2004

Crystal Moselle (BFA Film and Video) was featured in “First They Fought Sexist Trolls. Now They’re Behind HBO’s Skateboarding Masterpiece,” The Los Angeles Times, 5/27/21.

Diana Shpungin (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Twenty Twenty,” The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT, 10/12/20-3/14/21.

Shareif Ziyadat (BFA Graphic Design) was featured in “Hip Hop Photography Has Told the Culture’s History Decades Before Instagram— Just Ask These Lens Legends,” Hip Hop DX, 2/27/21, and “DMX’s Photographer, Shareif Ziyadat, Says DMX Was ‘Passionate About Everything He Did,’” The Source, 5/17/21.

2003

Ron Amato (BFA Photography) was featured in “Gays Gone Wild: The Photography of Ron Amato,” Metrosource, 4/22/21; “With Nude Males Photographer Ron Amato Explores Gay Sexuality & Nature,” Out Traveler, 3/1/21; and “Winter in a Summer Town (Provincetown, That Is),” Advocate, 4/12/21.

Bobby C. Martin, Jr. (MFA Design) was featured in “The Daily Heller: Black Words Matter (Illustrated),” Print, 2/18/21.

Timur York (BFA Advertising) had work in the group exhibitions “What Happened This Summer: ART2HEART,” National Arts Club, NYC, 3/3-3/31/21, and “2021 Ad Art Show,” MvVO Art, NYC, 5/1-5/30/21, and was featured in “Street Artists Around the World Captured a

WonJung Choi (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Where Are You From?,” The Anderson at VCUarts, Richmond, VA, 1/26-2/13/21.

Beth Giacummo (BFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Patchogue’s Artistic Leader and PAC Executive Director, Beth Giacummo,” The Long Island Advance, Long Island, NY, 3/11/21.

Zackary Drucker (BFA Photography) co-directed The Lady and the Dale, HBO, and was featured in “‘Trans Lives Are Erased in Our Culture’: The Strange Untold Story of The Lady and the Dale,” The Guardian, 1/29/21, and “Director Zackary Drucker on Telling Liz Carmichael’s Story in The Lady and The Dale,” GLAAD, 2/7/21.

Matthew Pollock (BFA Film and Video) directed two episodes of Drama Club (2021- ), Nickelodeon.

Paul Gabrielli (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Funny Games,” New Discretions, NYC, 3/14-4/18/21.

Shen Wei (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) was featured in “The Physical & Metaphysical,” NeoCha: Culture & Creativity in Asia, 3/24/21, and “Shen Wei Almost Naked,” Harlem International Film Festival, NYC, 5/7-5/9/21.

Karen Gibbons (MPS Art Therapy) had work in the group exhibition “Present Tense,” 440 Gallery, NYC, 2/10-3/14/21.

Vashtie Kola (BFA Film and Video) was featured in “Entrepreneur And Designer Vashtie Kola Teams Up With Pine-Sol For Limited-Edition Shoe,” Cheddar News, 5/10/21.

Mary O’Malley (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “FLORA,” Gallery 263, Cambridge, MA, 5/20-6/19/21.

Minos Papas (BFA Film and Video) shot and edited the music video for Matea Leko’s “The Moonlight.”

Gillian Robespierre (BFA Film and Video) was featured in “Claire Foy Has a New Movie, and It Sounds Like The Shape of Water Meets The Lighthouse,” Collider, 1/26/21.

Ruel Smith (BFA Computer Art) was featured in “Ruel Smith Joins Stept Studios as Head of Visual Effects & Animation,” Shots, 2/17/21, and “Jamaican Film-Maker of Clint Eastwood and Black Panther Fame Continues to Soar,” Jamaican Observer, 5/21/21.

2005

Ali Banisadr (BFA Illustration) had a solo exhibition, “These Specks of Dust,” Kasmin Gallery, NYC, 5/6-6/26/21.

Andrea Burgay (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibitions “International Collage Art Exhibition 2020,” Retroavangarda Gallery, Warsaw, Poland, 9/29-12/31/20, and “Neuroanatomy: A Collage Show,” Stone Valley Arts at Fox Hill, Poultney, VT, 5/14-6/27/21, and was featured in “Episode 8: Andrea Burgay: Time, Decay, and Hope,” The Weird Show Broadcast, 4/11/21.

2006

Ian Jones-Quartey (BFA Animation) was featured in “Black Animators and Voice Actors Weigh in on How the Animation Industry Needs to Change,” The Takeaway, WNYC, 12/30/20, and “OK K.O. Creator Ian Jones-Quartey Blames the Show’s Cancellation on Trump’s Beef With CNN,” Gizmodo, 3/19/21.

Christine Sun Kim (MFA Fine Arts) had work featured in an AAPI solidarity billboard campaign, For Freedoms, 4/14/21, and was featured in “‘I Want to Be Able to Maintain My Clear Voice’: Artist Christine Sun Kim on Translating Her 2020 Into Trenchant New Drawings,” Artnet, 12/15/20; “American Sign Language Finds Its Spotlight,” T: The New York Times Style Magazine, 3/25/21; and “The Language of Friends,” The New York Times, 4/12/21.

Sarah Schorr (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) had a solo exhibition, “The Color of Water,” Galleri Image, Aarhus, Denmark, 3/12-5/2/21.

2007

Timothy Goodman (BFA Graphic Design) was featured in “Timothy Goodman Paints an Entire Basketball Court for Children at a Brooklyn School,” Creative Boom, 3/10/21, and “What Matters: Timothy Goodman,” Print, 4/18/21.

Alyssa Grella (BFA Interior Design) was featured in “Brand Steward,” Design Quarterly, Spring 2021.

Lindsay Lederman (MPS Art Therapy) was featured in “Lindsay Lederman of the Art Therapy Project,” Thrive Global, 3/10/21.

Mu Pan (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay; BFA 2001 Illustration) was featured in “I Hate Everything Equally: Mu Pan’s Ironic Art,” Los Angeles Review of Books, 2/19/21.

Ryan Pfluger (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) had work featured in “How Honest Can Demi Lovato Be?,” The New York Times, 3/16/21.

2008

Ashley Garrett (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Meadow: Paintings by Ashley Garrett,” Gold/Scopophilia, Montclair, NJ, 4/24-6/5/21, and had work in the group exhibition “The Vision of Care,” Woodstock Artists Association & Museum, Woodstock, NY, 4/9-5/23/21.

Hsiang Chin Moe (MFA Computer Art) was featured in “Pandemic Academics: Animation Programs Pivot to a New Normal,” Animation Magazine, 3/14/21, and “Women in Animation Helps Young Female Artists Find Place in the Biz,” Variety, 4/15/21.

Jenny Morgan (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “To Bathe the World in a Strange Light,” Mother Gallery, Beacon, NY, 4/17-5/23/21.

Martin Wittfooth (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) was nominated for Album Artwork of the Year for Protest the Hero’s Palimpsest, Juno Awards, 2/9/21, and had work in the group exhibition “New World Disorder,” Gallery Poulsen, Copenhagen, Denmark, 4/10-5/8/21.

2009

Raul Aguila (BFA Graphic Design) was featured in “How I Got Here: Raul Aguila,” Creative Review, 1/18/21.

Jen Bartel (BFA Illustration) created a set of eight variant covers for Marvel to celebrate Women’s History Month, and was featured in “DC and Marvel Comics to Celebrate Pride Month with LGBTQ Anthologies,” NBC News, 3/15/21.

ALOIS KRONSCHLAEGER (MFA 2002 Fine Arts), Kind of Blue, 2021, site-specific installation, 575 yards of ultra-suede fabric, dimensions variable. From the solo exhibition “Kind of Blue,” Cristin Tierney Gallery, NYC, 5/21-6/30/21. Image courtesy Alois Kronschlaeger.

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María Berrío (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) had a solo exhibition, “Esperando mientras la noche florece (Waiting for the Night to Bloom),” Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL, 1/2-5/9/21, had work in the group exhibition

“Born in Flames: Feminist Futures,” Bronx Museum of Art, NYC, 4/18-9/12/21, and was featured in “Painting the World As They See It,” W, 3/5/21.

Rebecca Goyette (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “My Snake is Bigger Than Your Snake,” Freight & Volume, NYC, 3/15-4/16/21.

Alex Merto (BFA Graphic Design) was featured in “Alex Merto on His Less-Is-More Approach to Book Cover Design,” Creative Review, 3/11/21.

Habby Osk (MFA Fine Arts) had the solo exhibitions “Connectivity,” Undercurrent, NYC, 1/29-3/7/21, and “The Absence of Movement,” Mutton Dressed as Lamb, NYC, 5/28-6/16/21, and had work in the group exhibitions “Proximity and Distance,” Kunstraum LLC, NYC, 2/28-3/28/21, and “Hush,” NARS Foundation, NYC, 4/23-5/21/21.

Rich Tu (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) was featured in “How One of New York’s Top Design Minds, Rich Tu, Is Raising Awareness for Diversity and Inclusion in the Creative Industry as a Rare AAPI Executive,” LA Weekly, 5/1/21.

Paul Vogeler (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Part III: Some Greater Sum,” Hunter College MFA Thesis Exhibition, NYC, 3/18-3/28/21.

2010

Ross Bollinger (BFA Animation) was featured in “Pencilmation Creator Ross Bollinger Sharpens His Next Big Toon Gil Next Door,” Animation Magazine, 3/12/21.

Natan Dvir (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) had a solo exhibition, “Plat-

forms,” Belgrade Photo Month, Dom omladine Beograda, 5/25-6/4/21.

Bibi Flores (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Dissolving Borders,” JVS Project Space, NYC, 4/18-5/9/21.

Dina Litovsky (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) had work featured in “Getting the Shot,” The New Yorker, 4/23/21, and was featured in “Amish Girls on Holiday at the Beach: Dina Litovsky’s Best Photograph,” The Guardian, 5/26/21.

Kenny Rivero (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Kenny Rivero: Palm Oil, Rum, Honey, Yellow Flowers,” Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, Brattleboro, VT, 3/18-6/13/21, and was featured in “The T List: Five Things We Recommend This Week,” T: The New York Times Style Magazine, 4/30/21.

Wade Schaming (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in “OtherPeoplesPixels Interviews Wade Schaming,” OtherPeoplesPixels, 4/14/21.

Devin Oktar Yalkin (BFA Photography) had work featured in “Andrew Cuomo’s White-Knuckle Ride,” The New York Times Magazine, 4/13/21.

Jason Bard Yarmosky (BFA Illustration) was featured in “How a Strangely Shaped Summer House Revived One Artist’s Practice,” T: The New York Times Style Magazine, 2/18/21.

2011

Bobby Doherty (BFA Photography) had work featured in “Thank You, Dr. Zizmor: This Rise of Wearable New York Pride,” New York, 3/1/21.

Monique Henry-Hudson (BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects) was featured on a podcast, “Monique Henry-Hudson on the Magic of Working in Animation and the Power of Connections,” Creative Boom, 5/24/21.

David Osit (MFA Social Documentary) was featured in “Documentary on the Mayor of Ramallah,” WNYC, 12/2/20.

Fitgi Saint-Louis (BFA Graphic Design) was the recipient of Coolest Retrofit Winner, Coolest Offices 2020, Crain’s New York, 1/12/21.

2012

Rafa Alvarez (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) had work featured in “According to the Algorithm,” The New Yorker, 2/5/21.

Peter Ash Lee (MPS Fashion Photography; BFA 2009 Photography) had work featured in “On Coming to Terms with Grief and Chasing Joy: An Exclusive Interview with Japanese Breakfast,” The Jakarta Post, 5/20/21.

Dario Calmese (MPS Fashion Photography) was featured in “How Will We Remember the Protests?,” The Atlantic, 12/31/20; “The Year in Vanity Fair Photography,” Variety, 12/17/20; and “Photographer Dario Calmese Talks His Most Recent Project, the Institute of Black Imagination Podcast,” Yahoo! Finance, 3/10/21.

Victoria Fry (BFA Fine Arts) founded Visionary Art Collective, 12/5/20.

Ina Jang (MPS Fashion Photography; BFA 2010 Photography) was awarded Best of 2019, British Journal of Photography, 12/15/20, and had work

featured in “Chili Crisp and Exquisite Fast Food at Milu,” The New Yorker, 1/8/21.

Laura Murray (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Laura Murray: Art of the Anthropocene,” North Museum of Nature and Science, Lancaster, PA, 1/15-4/30/21.

Pacifico Silano (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) was included in the 2021 Silver List, Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh, PA, 2/13/21; had a solo exhibition, “Cowboys Don’t Shoot Straight (Like They Used to),” Houston Center for Photography, Houston, 3/12-5/9/21; and was featured in “How I Made This: Pacifico Silano’s Obliquely Erotic Vintage Magazine Collages,” Artnews, 5/19/21, and “5 Emerging Artists to Discover at the One x Artsy Exhibition,” Artsy, 5/27/21.

Dasha Tolstikova (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) illustrated “What Makes You Feel Alive?,” Comfort Soup, Issue No. 22, 12/16/20.

Amani Willett (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) was featured in “Overlapse: Amani Willett: A Parallel Road,” The Eye of Photography, 1/8/21, and “A Parallel Road: A Multi-Layered Exploration into the Black Experience of the American Road Trip,” 1854, 2/24/21.

An Rong Xu (BFA Photography) had work featured in “Film or Real Life?,” The New York Times, 5/28/21.

2013

Star Montana (BFA Photography) had a solo exhibition, “By the rivers, I stood and stared into the Sun,” Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, 5/15-6/26/21.

Montaque Ruffin (BFA Computer Art, Computer Animation and Visual Effects) was featured in “MontaQue Ruffin Grew Up in Levittown and Is Now an Animator for Pixar’s Groundbreaking Soul,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, 12/23/20, and gave a talk, “Inside Pixar: Foundations,” Disney+, 3/26/21.

Matt Shaw (MFA Design Criticism) wrote “Louis Kahn–Designed Dorms in India May Be Razed,” The New York Times, 12/31/20; “Artist Genevieve Goffman Makes Fantasy Architectural Models To Explore History’s Complexities,” Pin-Up, Fall 2020/Winter 2021; and “Billionaire Capitalists Are Designing Humanity’s Future. Don’t Let Them,” The Guardian, 2/5/21.

Yahoo! Life, 3/23/21; “What Matters: Zipeng Zhu on Building Anew With LEGOs,” 4/9/21; “Zipeng Zhu Has a PSA for Us All: Hate Has No Place Here,” 4/20/21, Print; and “Zipeng Zhu Designed Harry’s Limited-Edition Pride Shave Set,” Dieline, 5/24/21.

2014

Ja’Tovia Gary (MFA Social Documentary) screened The Giverny Document (2019), “Risks and the Senses: Black Women in Experimental Film,” 4/21-4/23/21.

Will Henry (BFA Film and Video) co-wrote, co-produced and screened The High Frontier: The Untold Story of Gerard K. O’Neill (2021), spacechannel.com, 3/17/21.

Says She Couldn’t Have Predicted Its Success,” Insider, 2/3/21.

Anne Quito (MFA Design Criticism) wrote “Decoding the Flags and Banners Seen at the Capitol Hill Insurrection,” 1/7/21, and “The Covid-19 Vaccine Passports in Development for 2021,” 1/31/21, Quartz.

Caroline Tompkins (BFA Photography) was featured in “The 30: New and Emerging Photographers to Watch in 2020,” The 30, 12/4/20.

2015

Michael Bailey-Gates (BFA Photography) photographed a campaign for Valentino Collezione Milano; the work was featured in “Valentino Defends Photographer’s Nude From Homophobic Trolls,” Out, 4/12/21.

Zach Krall (BFA Photography) was featured in “Kiswe Named the 10 Most Innovative Live Events Companies of 2021,” Fast Company, 3/9/21.

Ellie Lee (BFA Illustration) had a solo exhibition, “Room 2021 at Dreamy Hotel,” Art Space Unique, Seoul, 4/8-14/21.

Melissa Malzkuhn (MFA Visual Narrative) was nominated for a Webby Award in Education & Reference Apps and Software, Webby Awards, 4/20/21, and featured in “The Right to Sign: Deaf Culture and Language Access,” Changemakers, 4/30/21.

Tali Margolin (BFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibitions “RE:INVENT – In Motion,” Art Gallery 118, 1/28-2/28/21, and “Struggle,” New Rochelle Council on the Arts Rotunda Gallery, New Rochelle, NY, 2/15-4/16/21.

Tiffany Smith (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) co-curated “Becoming Buoyant,” Ortega y Gasset Projects, NYC, 3/20-4/25/21.

2016

Trey Abdella (BFA Illustration) had a solo exhibition, “In the Neighborhood,” T293 Gallery, Rome, 5/8-6/11/21, and was featured in “Trey Abdella: Still in Detention,” Juxtapoz, 1/6/21.

Maya Cozier (BFA Film) was featured in “Watch: TT Filmmaker Maya Cozier Talks Road to She Paradise,” Loop, Trinidad and Tobago, 12/29/20.

Sean Donovan (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “4,” M23, NYC, 4/24-6/20/21.

Delano Dunn (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Lobby Art Sucks, But These NYC Buildings Are Redrawing the Rules,” New York Post, 3/25/21.

Ruth Freeman (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Throwing Shapes,” Art Austerlitz, Austerlitz, NY, 5/1-5/23/21.

Jenna Guidi (BFA Illustration) illustrated The Fin-Tastic Cleanup, Mascot Books.

Dozie Kanu (BFA Film) had a solo exhibition, “value order [gentrify.pt],” Galeria Madragoa, Lisbon, Portugal, 2/5-3/20/21, and was featured in “Nigerian-American Artist Dozie Kanu on Disrupting the Norm,” Wallpaper, 3/5/21.

ROSEMARY MAYER (1969 Fine Arts), installation view, “Pleasures and Possible Celebrations: Rosemary Mayer’s Temporary Monuments, 1977-1981,” Gordon Robichaux, NYC, 5/2-6/20/21.

Photograph by Gregory Carideo, courtesy Gordon Robichaux, NYC.

Ilona Szwarc (BFA Photography) was shortlisted for the First Photo Book Award 2020, ICP/GOST.

Andrea McGinty (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Sunny Side Up,” Sunny NY, NYC, 2/27-3/27/21.

Dana Terrace (BFA Animation) was featured in “Disney Channel Conjures S3 of The Owl House Ahead of S2 Premiere in June,” Animation Magazine, 5/17/21.

Dia Muñoz (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Noetic,” NASAL, Lima, Peru, 2/11-3/7/21.

Brian Whiteley (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Who Should Create Trump’s Doomed Presidential Portrait?” Hyperallergic, 2/5/21.

Zipeng Zhu (BFA Design) was featured in “Here’s How Three Professionals Leverage Their Talent to Fuse Passion With Purpose,” Forbes, 2/12/2021; “Casetify’s Stop Asian Hate Collection Is Fully Designed by Asian Artists and 100% of the Profits Go to a Noble Cause,”

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Molly Ostertag (BFA Cartooning) was featured in “Interview with Molly Ostertag,” Geek Out, 3/3/21.

Alexandra Beguez (MFA Visual Narrative; BFA 2006 Computer Art) was featured in “The Best Graphic Novels of 2020,” The New York Times, 12/9/20.

Meaghan Cleary (BFA Film and Video) was featured in “East Rockaway Native Returns to Director’s Role for Latchkey Kids,” Long Island Herald, 1/28/21.

Fernando Palafox (BFA Photography) had work featured in “Love in Confined Spaces,” Metal Magazine, Spring/Summer 2021.

Elizabeth Fennelly (BFA Photography) was featured in “Photography Show Captures ‘Oregon in Extraordinary Times,’” Oregon Public Broadcasting, 3/26/21.

Vivzie Pop (BFA Animation) was featured in “A Cartoon Demon Musical Drew in 53 Million YouTube Viewers. The Creator of Hazbin Hotel

Carlos Jaramillo (BFA Photography) was featured in “15 Questions with Carlos Jaramillo,” Paper Journal, 2/24/21.

Katelyn Kopenhaver (BFA Photography and Video) had work featured in “Beige Ambition,” The Cut (New York), 3/2/21.

Georgia Lale (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in Performance Art: The Basics (2020), University Studio Press, Thessaloniki, Greece, and presented her performance A Public Cleaning, Art in Odd Places, NYC, 5/16/21.

Seungkyung Oh (BFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Mimesis of Utopia,” CYART Document, Seoul, 3/30-4/4/21.

Jessica Pettway (BFA Photography and Video) had work featured in “Million-Dollar Slice,” New York, 1/21/21.

Bat-Ami Rivlin (BFA Fine Arts) was the recipient of “The A.I.R. Fellowship Program,” A.I.R. Gallery, NYC, 1/1/20-12/31/21, had a solo exhibition, “No Can Do,” M 2 3, NYC, 2/12-3/21/21, and was featured in “Bat-Ami Rivlin: No Can Do,” The Brooklyn Rail, April 2021, and “Jeffrey Kastner on Bat-Ami Rivlin,” Artforum, May 2021.

Dáreece Walker (MFA Fine Arts) had work in the group exhibition “Nurturing Positivity and

Strength,” Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, 1/21-3/13/21, and was featured in “People: Dáreece Walker,” The Floating Magazine, 1/14/21.

2017

Theresa Chiechi (BFA Cartooning) was featured in “Review: Theresa Chiechi’s Drawn to Key West Finds Beauty in Performance and Local History,” The Beat, 1/29/21.

Linjie Deng (MFA Design for Social Innovation) had the solo exhibitions “Lost Museum,” 2/163/18/21, and “Asian Art SPA,” 3/29-5/24/21, Carlton Fine Art, NYC, and was featured in “Linjie Deng: Put Your Work First,” Thrive Global, 3/23/21.

Adebunmi Gbadebo (BFA Fine Arts) was featured in “This Nigerian-American Artist Uses Black Human Hair to Create Amazing Art Pieces,” How Africa, 3/30/21.

Joe Haddad (BFA Design) had work featured in “The Euphoria of Touching Mars,” Supercluster, 2/22/21.

Andrew Jilka (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Terra Firma,” Galeria Tiro Al Blanco, Guadalajara, Mexico, 4/17-9/25/21.

Jake Kaplan (BFA Animation) was featured in “Longtime Ewing Resident Kaplan Worked on Pixar’s Latest Film Soul,” Community News, 1/30/21.

Ninaad Kulkarni (MFA Computer Art) was featured in “Smart Art? NFTs from an Artist’s Perspective,” Little Black Book, 4/14/21.

Aya Rodriguez-Izumi (MFA Fine Arts) hosted a series of online lectures, workshops and panels, “Activating the Archive: Rewriting History through a Feminist Lens,” A.I.R. Gallery + BATURU, NYC, 5/17, 5/24, 5/31, 6/7, 6/14/21.

Harrison Weinstein (BFA Photography and Video) had work in the group exhibition “#ICPConcerned: Global Images for Global Crisis,” International Center of Photography, NYC, 10/1-12/31/20.

Agusta Yr (BFA Photography and Video) was featured in “NEW WAVE: CREATIVES 2020,” Fashion Awards, 12/4/20.

AMINA GINGOLD (BFA 2020 Photography and Video), Woman in a Sparkly Dress, 2019, archival pigment print. Gingold was featured in “Photographer Spotlight: Amina Gingold,” Booooooom, 3/8/21. Image courtesy Amina Gingold.

2018

Mengfan Bai (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Landing,” space776, Seoul, 4/13-4/30/21.

Ken Castaneda (BFA Photography and Video) curated “De Por Vida,” Company Gallery, NYC, 1/22-2/27/21.

Lizzy Itzkowitz (BFA Cartooning) was the recipient of the Emerging Designer Residency, NYCxDESIGN & Arts Thread at Hudson Yards, NYC, 4/1-7/15/21, and featured in “NYCxDESIGN’s Emerging Designer Residency Brings Craft to Commercial Retail,” Metropolis, 5/17/21.

Cindy Kang (BFA Illustration) was featured in “25 Exciting Female Graphic Designers and Illustrators to Follow this International Women’s Day,” Creative Boom, 3/8/21.

Pedro Mesa (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Instruments for Partial Proximity,” La Cometa, Bogota, Columbia, 12/4/20, and had work in the group exhibition “To Stay Alive/ You Must Be Alive,” Yellow Fish Festival VI, NYC, May 2021.

Sandy Ng (MFA Design for Social Innovation; BFA 2016 Fine Arts) created the animated timeline “New York Responds: The First Six Months,” Museum of the City of New York, NYC, 12/18/20-5/9/21.

2019

Ferguson Amo (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “I Am From...,” Kente Royal Gallery, NYC, 1/21-2/6/21.

Nan Cao (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) was featured in “Fresh: Nan Cao,” Communication Arts, 4/20/21.

Michelle Girardello (MFA Fine Arts) was featured in “Visual Diary,” Unafraid, 4/12/21.

John Kazior (MA Design Research, Writing and Criticism) published “Fishbowl Fetish,” The Baffler, 12/2/20.

Tooraj Khamenehzadeh (MFA Photography, Video and Related Media) had work in the group exhibition “It’s NEGATIVE,” MiM, Los Angeles, 4/10-5/29/21.

Hsiang Hsi Lu (MPS Fashion Photography) was featured in “He Meets Them on Grindr. Then What? Well, It’s Not Quite What You’d Expect,” Pride Source, 4/19/21.

Emily Rae Pellerin (MA Design Research, Writing and Criticism) wrote “Self v. System,” Oculus, Winter 2021, and “Low Life: Revisiting Robert Moses’s Exclusionary Design Scheme at Jones Beach,” Pin-Up, Fall 2020/Winter 2021.

Dana Robinson (MFA Fine Arts) had the solo exhibitions “In Celebration of Excellence and the Ordinary,” Selenas Mountain, Ridgewood, NY, 3/11-4/16/21, and “Scenes from the Middle Class,” Specialist, Seattle, 5/8-6/19/21.

Ishita Jain (MFA Illustration as Visual Essay) was featured in “Art in Progress: An Interview with Artist Ishita Jain,” Egeedee, 2/18/21.

Luyao Yan (BFA Cartooning) was a winner of the Inclusive Growth and Prosperity Competition, NASDAQ, NYC.

2021

Regena Paloma Reyes (MFA Products of Design) was featured in “Product and Student Winners Honored in Part II of the Sixth Annual NYCxDESIGN Awards,” Interior Design, 5/18/21.

2020

Alexander Si (MFA Fine Arts) had a solo exhibition, “Atlas,” Tutu Gallery, NYC, 5/14-6/18/21.

Membership Exhibition,” Salmagundi Club, NYC, 5/3-5/20/21.

Amina Gingold (BFA Photography and Video) was featured in “Photographer Spotlight: Amina Gingold,” Booooooom, 3/8/21.

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

Tiffany Alfonseca (BFA Fine Arts) was featured in “A Not So Subtle Rebellion,” Juxtapoz, Spring 2021.

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IN MEMORIAM Soledad Maria Arias (MFA 2002 Fine Arts; BFA 2000 Fine Arts), better known as Sol (Spanish for “sun”), died on July 27, 2020. Born in 1959 in Buenos Aires, Arias was an artist and visual wordsmith whose work encompassed prints, drawing, neon and installation. Her art has been exhibited at such institutions as MoMA PS1, Socrates Sculpture Park, Bronx Museum and El Museo del Barrio, New York; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Jersey City Museum, New Jersey; Art Museum of the Americas, Washington, DC; and galleries in Brooklyn, Houston, Miami and Montreal. Her work was supported by fellowships and residencies at the Virginia Centre for Creative Arts, Amherst, Virginia; Fountainhead Residency, Miami; Banff Centre for the Arts, Alberta, Canada; MacDowell, Peterborough, New Hampshire; and Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, New York. Arias was also a certified Spanish–English medical interpreter at several New York City hospitals and social-service agencies and taught Spanish classes at local community colleges, including a course for health care workers. She is survived by her sister, Malena De Achaval, and her brother, Antonio Arias.

Martina Beth Batan (BFA 1981 Photography) died on March 26, 2021. Born in Connecticut in 1958, Batan grew up in Middle Village, Queens. Her life was upended after the 1978 murder of her brother Jeffrey, which remains unsolved. She moved to Manhattan and dove into the punk scene, working for Punk magazine and inspiring an underground comic, Martini Baton!, by Peter Bagge (1977 Cartooning). Batan worked for the influential SoHo gallery Ronald Feldman Fine Arts for 35 years, eventually becoming its director, representing artists like Joseph Beuys and Chris Burden and selling work by Andy Warhol and William Wegman.

Throughout, she continued to look for answers about her brother’s murder, eventually hiring a private detective to look into the case. The events that transpired are covered in the documentary Missing People (2015). In 2012, Batan suffered the first of multiple debilitating strokes that deteriorated her health and affected control of her body. She is survived by her sister, Christi Saporito; her brother Timothy; and her stepfather, Kevin Brennan.

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SOLEDAD MARIA ARIAS (MFA 2002 Fine Arts; BFA 2000 Fine Arts), clockwise from

above: You Are Here, 2002, white neon light with timed fader on a five-second interval; Phonetic Neon (aha), 2012, white neon light; (lullaby), 2008, white neon lights. Courtesy Gallery Sonja Roesch.

Trevor Moore

(BFA 2003 Film and Video), a comedian, actor, filmmaker and writer, died on August 6. Born in New Jersey, Moore grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he worked locally in sketch comedy and cartooning before enrolling at SVA. With two fellow comedians, he co-created the topical-but-absurdist sketch comedy show The Whitest Kids U’ Know (2007 – 2012), which aired on IFC. He also recorded Drunk Texts to Myself (2013), a comedy album; starred in and co-created the movies Miss March (2009) and The Civil War on Drugs (2011); hosted The Trevor Moore Show (2019 – 2021), a Comedy Central YouTube series; and wrote for and appeared in numerous other series and specials. He is survived by his wife, Aimee; son, August; sister, Lila Haile; and parents, Mickey and Becki.

Julie Ross John Paul Leon (BFA 1994 Illustration), also known as JP, died on May 2, 2021, after a 14-year battle with cancer. Leon’s comics career started in his teens, when he landed work on titles like RoboCop. While still at SVA, he was hired to draw for Milestone Comics’ Static series, a job that comics artist and writer Walt Simonson, who then taught at the College, allowed Leon to count for course credit. Leon would go on to work on such noted projects as DC’s limited series Batman: Creature of the Night (2017-19), Marvel’s Earth X (1999), Wildstorm Comics’ miniseries The Winter Men (2005) and the Eisner Award–nominated Vertigo short story “Black Death in America” (2016). He also contributed to film productions like Batman Begins (2005) and Superman Returns (2006), and was a guest artist on books like Animal Man, Ex Machina, Grendel and Scalped. He is survived by his wife, brother and daughter.

(BFA 1987 Media Arts) died in June 2021. Born in Tampa, Ross grew up in Sarasota alongside her three siblings.

She attended a specialized arts program in high school before enrolling at Ringling School of Art and Design and later transferring to SVA. Ross traveled widely and remained a dedicated artist throughout her life, creating work in a variety of mediums. Ross is survived by her parents, Linda and Ronnie Meeks; brother Jeffrey; sister, Jana Hoefling, and brother-in-law, John; brother John and sister-in-law, Donna; niece Olivia Hoefling; nephews Tyler Cox and Sean and Spencer Ross; and many aunts, uncles, cousins and friends.

Romulo A. Yanes (BFA 1981 Photography) died on June 16, 2021, of peritoneal cancer. Born in Cuba in 1959, Yanes’ family emigrated to the U.S. when he was a child, moving to New Jersey. At SVA, he studied under food photographer Irene Stern, through whose connections he met Irving Glusker, then the art director of Gourmet. Yanes worked as the Conde Nast title’s staff photographer for 26 years, where he modernized the publication’s studio and helped revolutionize its aesthetic, playing a leading role in the industry-wide move from stagy, fussed-over constructions to a heightened, messier true-to-lifeness.

During his tenure, the magazine won two National Magazine Awards for photography. “No one romanced food the way he did,” former Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl told The New York Times. After Gourmet folded in 2009, Yanes continued to work as a sought-after photographer for books, catalogs and such publications as Bon Appetit, Martha Stewart Living and The New York Times.

He is survived by his husband, Robert Schaublin-Yanes; sisters Cira and Ana; and nephew, Michael Cozzino.

JOHN PAUL LEON

(BFA 1994 Illustration), from top: art for the Batman: Creature of the Night omnibus (2020); Batman: Creature of the Night #2 (2017); Superman Red & Blue #3 (2021); Static Shock: Rebirth of the Cool #1 (2001). Courtesy DC.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

To learn more, visit archives.sva.edu.

I

n the days following the September 11th attacks, people’s collective mourning took countless forms around the world.

In New York City, not 20 blocks north of the World Trade Center disaster, a perhaps unprecedented sort of collective mourning began to take shape when, on September 12, artist and writer Michael Shulan hung an old picture of the Twin Towers in the window of an empty storefront at 116 Prince Street.

Soon after, a friend, photographer Gilles Peress, called to see how he was doing. “I replied that I was in the shop staring at a group of people staring at a photograph,” Shulan later wrote, “and was thinking about putting up some more. ‘Do it,’ he said simply.”

Over the next few days, Shulan and Peress recruited friends Alice Rose George, a curator and editor, and Charles Traub, photographer “It was a place and chair of MFA for anybody and Photography, Video everybody to and Related Media, make a stateand the group put out ment, a place a public call for any where they could images taken on 9/11. metaphorically Soon, people began put their rock to drop by with their on the grave.” photos. Volunteers— many of them SVA students and staff—worked to scan, print and hang the pictures in the space. They called the show “here is new york” (“hiny”), after writer E.B. White’s post–World War II love letter to the city, setting it in all lowercase to fit with the subtitle: “a democracy of photographs.”

The doors opened on September 25, and it quickly became, Traub says, “a place for anybody and everybody to make a statement, a place where they could metaphorically put their rock on the grave.” By year’s end, the project had collected more than 4,000 images and raised over $500,000 for Children’s Aid’s WTC Fund. The “here is new york” Collection, part of the SVA Archives, preserves a subset of the photographs, along with correspondence and other materials.

“It was a wonderful moment,” Traub says, “but a lost one. The number of soldiers and civilians that were killed in the wars we’ve waged in the name of 9/11

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP

Visitors inside and outside the “here is new york” exhibition at 116 Prince Street; debris in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in Manhattan, photo

by Charles Traub; newspapers cover the 9/11 attacks, photo by Aaron Browne. From the “here is new york” Collection, courtesy SVA Archives.

was also an unnecessary tragedy. In the overreaction to what was done to the U.S. the nations forgot what our own sorrow meant for humanity.”

Traub sees a parallel between the rancor of post–9/11 politics and the nation’s faltering response to COVID-19. “Much of this loss was also avoidable,” he says, “if

we hadn’t been so divided, undisciplined and uncaring about the greater good.”

Twenty years later, we are once again struggling to find outlets for communal grieving. ◆ Lawrence Giffin is the assistant

archivist at the School of Visual Arts.

External Relations · School of Visual Arts 209 East 23rd Street, New York, NY 10010-3994 sva.edu