MFA Visual Arts - Lesley University

MFA Visual Arts
GRADUATE EXHIBITION JUNE 2014
From the Director
With every ending comes a new beginning. This exhibition at the Lesley University
College of Art and Design Galleries celebrates the passing from one to another. As
these seventeen MFA students of the Graduating Class of June 2014, our twentieth
graduating class, mount their exhibitions and complete their theses and course work, I
am reminded of the importance and the significance of this passage. We talk about the
graduate exhibition as the culminating experience of the graduate’s career, and it is, but
it is also the foundation for the rest of each student’s life. I consider their work prophetic.
It provides a visual statement and vision of our future. Not only is it the student’s
connection between past and future, it is also a barometer for the faculty and the future
of the institution. It is their joint accomplishments, their dedication and hard work,
that have made this exhibition and this catalog a reality. We will wait to hear from them
about the future. I am reminded of an art adage from my own graduate school days:
“Remember an artist cannot fail, it is a success to be one.”
Judith Barry
Director MFA Visual Arts
Lesley University College of Art and Design
MFA Visual Arts June 2014
JUDIE BAMBER
MATTHEW MEYER
ALISON BESTE
NATHANIEL MEYER
LINDA BRANT
WIL OTT
ANDREA CASTILLO
BRIAN RANDALL
NINA EARLEY
BRITT SNYDER
JOSEPH FONTINAH
SAM SMART
AMY HAGBERG
STACY UTLEY
MARIA JONES
ANDREW YANG
STEPHANIE MARCUS
top left
TITLE Mom with Tan Lines #1 MEDIA graphite on paper
SIZE 15 3/8” x 18 3/16” PHOTO CREDIT Brian Forrest
bottom left
TITLE Mom in Stripped Shirt MEDIA graphite on paper
SIZE 12 3/16” x 17 3/8” PHOTO CREDIT Brian Forrest
top right
TITLE Mom in Profile MEDIA graphite on paper
SIZE 18” x 14” PHOTO CREDIT Brian Forrest
TITLE Mom on Red Carpet MEDIA watercolor on paper
SIZE 15 5/8” x 20 3/8” PHOTO CREDIT Brian Forrest
JUDIE BAMBER
My project entitled “Are you my Mother?” includes smallscale representational watercolors and graphite drawings
on paper, of my mother from posed erotic and fashion
photographs my father took of her in the mid -1960’s. For
my parents, making these photographs was a combination
of frustrated artistic aspirations and foreplay. For me,
finding them was an opportunity to examine the complexity
involved in sexualized representation of women. By
re-presenting these images of my mother, I intend
to create a disturbance in the unexamined erotic
depictions of women that are often easily consumed.
Objectification, as it relates to the history of images of
women in art and mass media, is brought to the fore
but complicated because the images are of my mother,
and I, as a lesbian, might be a consumer of images of
other women.
Through the translation of the photographs into hand
made images, formal ideas related to drawing, painting,
and photography are employed in order to intensify
and question the contradictions of our perceptions
of these media. This work finds a place between
mechanical record and human mark in order to explore
different aspects of emotional connection and distance.
By painting and drawing my father’s photographs of
my mother, I ostensibly place myself between my mother
and father in a sexual encounter, thereby attempting
to destabilize the subject positions of husband, father,
wife, mother, daughter, homosexual and heterosexual. In
these works, issues of objectification are put in relation to
personal history, intimacy, and desire, thereby questioning
assumption about what desire, and whose desire, is being
represented.
3
TITLE Oil Tanker Postcards Grid MEDIA Postcards SIZE 4” x 6” each, 20 x 30 grid
ALISON BESTE
My photographs explore the boundaries between the built and natural world through tropes of Hawaii. I
examine how constructs of nature and the artificial are interrelated, ambiguous, and mediated by culture.
With millions of tourists visiting the islands every year, expectations of an organic paradise collide with an
often manufactured environment. My work scrutinizes the tension between nature and artifice in this popular
“paradise.” Oil tankers evoke tropical sunsets, polyester leis substitute for fresh flowers, and concrete “rocks”
create teeming lagoons. In one series, I engage the feeling of pristine sunset postcards by photographing
various light effects on a defamiliarized ocean horizon. My work questions whether these are illusions or the
reality of Hawaii, and whether the distinction between organic and manufactured nature is relevant.
TITLE Non-Paradise Postcards
MEDIA Postcards SIZE 4” x 6” each
5
top left
TITLE Imagined, 2 MEDIA Opossum skeleton, pig bone, sculpey clay
SIZE 3.5” x 4” x 2”
top right
TITLE Linnaean-Deleuzian-Relational (detail) MEDIA Animal remains, glass bottles
SIZE 3” high, 1.5” wide, 1.5” deep ADDITIONAL INFO Detail view of one of four bottles.
Each bottle is 3 inches tall. 1.5 inches wide, 1.5 inches in depth. Size of entire piece is 3
inches high, 9 inches wide, 1. 5 inches deep.
bottom left
TITLE Popcorn’s Tooth: A Gift from Florence Thuot MEDIA horse tooth
SIZE 2.5” x 1.25” x .75” ADDITIONAL INFO Artifact from interview with Florence Thuot
bottom right
TITLE Bullet hole, sheep skull MEDIA photograph SIZE 20” x 20”
LINDA BRANT
Informed by psychology, philosophy, anthropology, human-animal studies, personal interviews
and field work, I explore the complexities of inter-species connections and relationships through
the mediums of sculpture and photography. I am especially interested in the process of honoring
non-human animal life. Honoring can take many forms, ranging from traditional burials and funerary
rites to everyday acts such as story-telling, picture-making and memory production. It may also be
construed as a psychological state of reverence, expressed in simple acts of caring.
I begin my work by carefully cleaning, bleaching, drying, sanding and polishing the bones of common
animals such as chicken, turkey, cow, deer, lamb and snake. The bones may be soft and smooth,
hard and shiny, delicate and lacy or rough and jagged. Shades of white, cream and ecru permeate
my work. Themes of mourning, sadness, gratitude, reverence, humility, hypocrisy, paradox and
inequality emerge through porous substrates. I seek to create sacred spaces for contemplation,
questioning and dialogue. Acts of honoring dissolve the boundaries between species and encourage
thoughtful choices about the care and treatment of non-human animals. My art work explores the
myriad ramifications and consequences of such choices.
7
ANDREA CASTILLO
I reconstruct anonymous memories from fragmented
photographs culled from estate sales, antique thrift
stores, and the Internet. I take them to psychic
readings, and then begin to fuse the unknown
photographs into paintings depicting fabricated scenes
and false memories of domesticity.
TITLE Kiddie Pool MEDIA Acrylic on Canvas
SIZE 66” x 47”
opposite page
top left
TITLE Black Boat MEDIA Acrylic on Canvas SIZE 66” x 47”
top right
TITLE Snow Day MEDIA Acrylic on Canvas SIZE 66” x 47”
bottom right
TITLE Ski Lift MEDIA Acrylic on Canvas SIZE 66” x 47”
I am interested in how snapshots reconfigure a past
that never was and how this past can be reshaped
over and over again. My paintings recall an idealized
domesticity and refer to standardized images of
American family. I relate them to the process the mind
uses to reconstruct actual past experiences while
examining our ideals of family cultural structures.
The invented scenes are from an archetypal mixture
of past and present cultural influences. The paintings
create a hybrid of these images to fictionalize a
narrative of specific cultural signifiers such as figures,
cars, and houses. The idiosyncratic scenes of familiar
elements of domestic life portray a symbolic and
stylistic nostalgic ordinariness.
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NINA EARLEY
We should tell the wind our gratitude
We should tell the wind our gratitude
for it speaks of places far away and
never seen before
nur in unser Erinnerung
the lonely revel in the wandering
mit jedem Schritt
tracing lines that connect
to the world
to the neighbor
mit dem Fremden
that no one sees
and with each step
as a path is remembered
wieder und wieder und wider
no line is forgotten
ich verlauf mich nie
– Agnes Martin
featured on cover
TITLE Von der Ihegi zum Brugglismatt (detail)
MEDIA Installation with cyanotypes on fabric, chalk drawing,
animation, and sound SIZE 15’ x 19’
top left
TITLE Unhindered Bodies MEDIA Handmade Photograph
SIZE 44” x 60”
bottom right
TITLE Von der Ihegi zum Brugglismatt (detail)
MEDIA Installation with cyanotypes on fabric, chalk drawing,
animation, and sound SIZE 15’ x 19’
TITLE Von der Ihegi zum Brugglismatt (installation view)
MEDIA Installation with cyanotypes on fabric, chalk drawing, animation, and sound SIZE 15’ x 19’
11
TITLE 3 Cups MEDIA Oil on Linen
SIZE 24” x 14” (each panel)
JOSEPH FONTINHA
There is a cadence and tempo to oil painting that stands in full contrast to the
frenetic nature of our contemporary culture. My work offers a slow and forensic
account of my painting experience. I invite the viewer to retrace the steps of my
search for a pregnant moment. I see a painting as a collection of many moments;
I preserve only those that I won’t negotiate. I am interested in the relationships
between personal and human stories, between subject matter and the plastic form.
I look for truths in my process. I hope that my paintings offer a durational mode of
viewing that can lead to contemplation, even knowledge, for as much as I believe
we can truly know anything.
left
TITLE Watching Yuto #2 MEDIA Oil on Linen
SIZE 64” x 30”
right
TITLE Schumann, Pizza, Mini-blinds #1
MEDIA Oil on Linen SIZE 52” x 44”
13
AMY HAGBERG
My work illustrates the way time transforms the past,
superimposing memory onto the present. I utilize
photography as an instrument of time, marking moments
with a shutter click and uncovering the unseen. I further
illustrate time through the slow exposure of the old pinhole
camera and paper negative process. This process mirrors
the life experience: sometimes a horrible failure occurs, and
sometimes a surprise gift is bestowed. The old New England
homesteads I photograph symbolize people lost within
the past. I construct sculptures from these ruins, burn my
creations, and double expose, all the while creating
photographic traces of my progress through time. In
some images I use transparent veils of vellum to block
the viewer’s access to the color image beneath, similar
to the present clouding our memory.
The past may never be revisited. But we may choose to
use the past as a vehicle to create something new.
TITLE Remembrance MEDIA Sandwich of Pinhole Image on
Vellum Adhered Over Color Image on Cold Press Paper
SIZE 15” x 20.5”
TITLE Crescendo MEDIA Pinhole Paper Negative Image Printed
on Cold Press Fine Art Paper SIZE 17” x 22”
ADDITIONAL INFO Photo of Totem Sculpture on Site
TITLE Elusive Past MEDIA Pinhole Paper Negative Image Printed
on Cold Press Fine Art Paper SIZE 17” x 22”
ADDITIONAL INFO Multiple Exposures in Camera.
TITLE Old Dreams MEDIA Sandwich of Pinhole Image on
Vellum Adhered Over Color Image on Cold Press Paper
SIZE 15” x 20.5”
17
15
TITLE Bed Memories MEDIA Fabric, LED lights, and found objects with wood. SIZE 4.5’ x 4’
MARIA JONES
Women are often silenced by the dominant culture. My time spent in the Navy had a lasting
effect on me, and my experience has created a great sense of pride, but also bitterness towards
military and societal restraints stifling my individuality and voice. I translate the sense of pride and
enjoyment to the bitterness and violence endured during my military service into larger concerns
of society silencing female voices. Commentary is created on the loss of identity and the injustices
experienced by society and the military through the use of the Navy Achievement Medal and its
colors as a stain on civilian objects. It becomes the vehicle to carry the idea of continued restraint
and persistent memories.
My paintings, sculptures, and installations memorialize women that have served in the United
States Navy through names and images of characteristically feminine objects. I use military
ribbons and their colors as paint, delicate sculptural elements, and feminine craft within
constraining boxes and grids to emphasize the silencing of women’s voice, and use of repetition
suggests the limitations and confinement experienced by women in today’s military and society.
TITLE The Silence MEDIA Yarn, fabric, glass beads, and found objects in wood. SIZE 6’ x 7’
17
STEPHANIE MARCUS
My work is a mashup, filled with imaginary characters,
ordinary objects and anxious energy. Monsters,
furrballs, furniture and friends traipse about with
cheerful desperation through ambiguous landscapes,
which are cobbled together from medieval paintings,
modernist interiors and my Boston apartment. My
creative process is a messy spew that helps me vent
some of the pressure of a relentlessly churning mind.
It goes like this: I draw from observation, mess up or
become frustrated, destroy the picture, and then must
mount an aesthetic rescue mission that challenges “fine
art” and “good taste.” Is it possible to preserve selfvandalism, acknowledge self-doubt, and still create an
appealing picture? Can childish impulses, cartoons and
kitties coexist with chaos and critique?
With this work, I’m battling the overstimulation of
modern life. I secretly hope that within the tangled
imagery is some kind of epic narrative, something
meaningful to myself and useful to others. Right now,
I’m wading through reality, drawing constantly, drawing
aimlessly, and drawing seriously; seeking to render an
honest window into the world as I experience it.
TITLE The Morning MEDIA Acrylic, Marker, Gouache, and Ink on paper SIZE 22” x 30”
top left
TITLE Journey MEDIA Acrylic and Paint Markers on Canvas
SIZE 11” x 17”
bottom right
TITLE “Way to go” (You Ruined it)
MEDIA Acrylic, Watercolor, Bic Pen and India Ink on Paper
SIZE 22” x 30”
19
MATTHEW MEYER
Perceptual painting is and always has been a philosophical endeavor. To stand before tangible reality and
to express that purely human experience in visual, physical terms is to be a mirror for the world. With each
stroke of paint, we give our perceptions substance. Truly, this is the wonder of the painter’s art – that paint
may be stuff and sensation simultaneously. This element of transfiguration speaks to the duality of the
human condition as well; an awareness of our physicality, our corporeality, is an inextricable element of our
experience, our sensory makeup.
My current work seeks to draw attention to the phenomenological inquiry that painting from life represents.
Self-portraits have figured largely in this endeavor. Whether in the studio or in the landscape, I have pulled
back to include the mirror and its surroundings in these works; thus, the painting is not merely an image of my
self, but of its reflection. Embedding this perception of self in the midst of other witnessed phenomena allows
the work as a whole to stand as a transfiguration, a meta self-portrait composed of successive, subjective
decisions. In overtly depicting not just an image of my body, but the phenomenological experience of looking
at my own body, I seek to address the elements of mediation and meditation intrinsic to perceptual painting.
TITLE Self-Portrait with Patio SIZE 14” x 12”
TITLE Decoy (R. Duck # 51)
MEDIA Oil on canvas SIZE 10” x 8”
opposite page
bottom left
TITLE Echo: Self-Portrait with Habitat
MEDIA Oil on canvas SIZE 40” x 25”
bottom right
TITLE Construction Site: Homage to the Grid
MEDIA Oil on canvas SIZE 14”x14”
21
NATHANIEL MEYER
In Absurdist thought it is suggested that, even if there is a meaning
or purpose to existence, humankind does not possess the faculties to
grasp it. Creating worlds where there is actual meaning might be the
closest one gets to finding meaning in this existence; realms where
symbols and portents suggest the hand of a greater being, instead of
mere happenstance. In my work, I endeavor to create a greater meaning
within the realm of painting. In the absence of a god, one must make
their own. I choose me.
opposite page
top left
TITLE The Wreck of the Venus
MEDIA Oil on canvas SIZE 24” x 36”
top right
TITLE Vulgar Display of Power I
MEDIA Oil on canvas SIZE 41.5” x 52”
bottom left
TITLE Schoodic IIX
MEDIA Oil on canvas SIZE 18” x 24”
TITLE Coming Forth by Day (another falls away)
MEDIA Oil on canvas SIZE 24” x 36”
23
TITLE Remote Surveillance 2
MEDIA Digital Photography SIZE 9” x 7”
WIL OTT
TITLE Remote Surveillance 1
MEDIA Digital Photography SIZE 9” x 7”
25
TITLE Plum Bob
MEDIA Wood, Brass and rope SIZE 45” x 10”
TITLE Metamorphasis
MEDIA Reclaimed wood SIZE Appx 6’ x 2.5’
TITLE Finger Prints
MEDIA Charcoal on paper SIZE variable
BRIAN RANDALL
The handmade, the mass produced, or the personally
nostalgic object each hold value to us as individuals. This
value is upheld by societal reinforcement: a universal
perception of its worth. Throughout history that value
system has changed drastically due to advances in
technology. The sheer number of things that are produced
around the world in a given day is astronomical. As these
“things” accumulate around us they begin to create a
larger picture. Everything from the car we drive to the
clothes we wear has become a physical representation
of the person we believe our self to be. My work has
become an exercise in understanding the ways in
which a material value system effects the creation of
an artist’s particular visual language. Interrogating
my material socialization uncovered an affinity for the
hand made object and the value of the physical labor
that it embodies. The utilitarian object is of particular
interest to me, not only because it defines elements
of a craftsman, but because of its potential energy. My
intent is to memorialize the potential for future work by
transforming tools into something precious. In reaction
to de-materialized forms of art these objects stand in
protest and reassert their role in crafting our material
identity.
27
TITLE Depth MEDIA Oil on Panel SIZE 48” x 24”
TITLE Metal MEDIA Oil on Panel SIZE 21” x 41”
TITLE Hall MEDIA Oil on Panel SIZE 28” x 14”
BRITT SNYDER
There is a cadence and tempo to oil painting that stands in full contrast to the frenetic nature of our
contemporary culture. My work offers a slow and forensic account of my painting experience. I invite
the viewer to retrace the steps of my search for a pregnant moment. I see a painting as a collection
of many moments; I preserve only those that I won’t negotiate. I am interested in the relationships
between personal and human stories, between subject matter and the plastic form. I look for truths in my
process. I hope that my paintings offer a durational mode of viewing that can lead to contemplation, even
knowledge, for as much as I believe we can truly know anything.
TITLE Swim MEDIA Oil on Panel SIZE 48” x 37”
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SAM SMART
TITLE Purification MEDIA Color print on aluminum SIZE 24” x 36”
I am interested in revisiting painting, particularly
abstract expressionism, and now provi-sional painting,
through a digital lens. I am specifically focusing on
the conversation between the history of painting and
technology. I ask myself how painting has evolved or
repeated itself over time. These are neither paintings
or photographs. I start with a painting on a scanner,
I allow myself to make mistakes. I then take the scan as a
digital file and technologically alter it to create a digital
painting. In the end the piece is presented as a print. My
process resonates with the way that we remember, as I
work on a moment it becomes manipulated, at which point
every part is reproducible except for the original, the actual
painting only exists for a short time.
TITLE Error MEDIA Color print on aluminum SIZE 24” x 36”
TITLE Blunder MEDIA Color print on aluminum SIZE 24” x 36”
TITLE Modification MEDIA Color print on aluminum SIZE 24” x 36”
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top left
TITLE In Transition MEDIA Photography SIZE 18” x 24”
top right
TITLE Repurposed Site MEDIA Photograph SIZE 18” x 24”
bottom left
TITLE Time Study No.1 MEDIA Digital Collage SIZE 11” x 17”
STACY UTLEY
TITLE The Weight of Not Knowing MEDIA photograph SIZE 18” x 24”
Through the placement of portable objects in urban spaces, my work addresses the social process of gentrification.
It is a catalyst in the discussion on the implication of change in an existing context through urban renewal or
gentrification. I simulate this process by taking my own ambiguous yet familiar portable objects –miniature houses
that serve as architectural prototypes-- and placing them in urban spaces. Painted white, the houses are symbolic,
metaphoric, allegorical, evocative and ambiguous. Their juxtaposition in the context of apparent urban renewal
is an uncanny co-existence of the old and new, certainty and uncertainty, the past, the present, or the unknown.
Photographing this juxtaposition in context gives the portable object equivalence to its surrounding in both scale
and effect. In reality, however, small in scale and ambiguous, the object becomes a signifier for change.
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TITLE Flying Gardens of Maybe, installation detail (2013)
MEDIA Ceramic, deceased Hermit Thrush, what sprouts from the seeds found in the Hermit Thrush’s belly
SIZE Dimensions variable
ANDREW YANG
Natural History of the Enlightenment was the contemporary art of its time. Re-engaging such possibility,
I make objects, installations, and texts that probe the ever-changing relationships between theories,
things, and creatures teeming within our ecology of experience. I seek out the emergent meanings
among the materials and forms of diverse phenomena, from songbirds to meteorites, ivory to embryo.
If nature is a hypothesis, then art can be a contraption to experiment with its logic and limit - a means to
model the expanding spaces of nature as culture, past and future.
top
TITLE Makeshift Geologies (an Anthroposcene) (2013) MEDIA Tracing paper, watercolor, found objects, collage
SIZE Dimensions variable
bottom 3 images
TITLE Makeshift Geologies (rocks are clouds) (2013) MEDIA photocollage SIZE 16” x 20”
35
galleries and institutions including the Whitney Biennial; White Columns; Murray Guy Gallery,
New York; the Serpentine Gallery, London; Depo, Istanbul; and the United Nations Plaza in
Berlin. Her writings and interviews have been published in publications such as Artforum, Art on
Paper, North Drive Press, and Pacemaker.
MFA Visual Arts Faculty
JUDITH BARRY
Judith Barry is an artist and writer whose work crosses a number of disciplines: performance,
installation, sculpture, architecture, photography and new media. She has exhibited
internationally at such venues as the Berlin Biennale, Venice Biennale of Art/Architecture, Sao
Paolo Biennale, Nagoya Biennale, Carnegie International, Whitney Biennale, and the Sydney
Biennale, among others. In 2000 she won the Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts, and
in 2001 she was awarded “Best Pavilion” at the Cairo Biennale. She is a 2011 Guggenheim
Fellowship recipient. Public Fantasy, a collection of Barry’s essays, was published by the ICA in
London (1991).
ANTHONY APESOS
Anthony Apesos is a painter who studied at Vassar College (BA), Pennsylvania Academy of
Fine Arts (Certificate), and the Milton Avery Graduate School of Fine Arts at Bard College
(MFA). Selected one-person shows: Andrea Marquit Fine Arts, Boston; F.A.N. Gallery,
Philadelphia; More Gallery, Philadelphia; Villanova University Art Gallery; Michael Dunev
Gallery, San Francisco. Selected group shows: Allentown Art Museum, Pennsylvania; Amos
Eno Gallery, New York; Artists’ Choice Museum, New York; Philadelphia Sketch Club, Art
Alliance, Philadelphia. He was a critic for the New Art Examiner. Apesos was chair of the
Fine Arts Department at Lesley University’s College of Art and Design and was the founding
director of the MFA program in Visual Arts. He is currently professor in the Fine Arts
Department at Lesley University’s College of Art and Design. Awards include a Kress Travel
Fellowship from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia; and a grant from the New England
Foundation for the Arts.
Anthony Apesos: Circle, oil on canvas,
48" x 48"
Judith Barry: Cairo stories, 2011
Sharjah Biennial 2011 installation, one of
6 sites © Judith Barry
JAN AVGIKOS
Jan Avgikos is an art critic and historian who is based in New York City. She is a contributing
editor with Artforum, where she regularly publishes reviews. She is widely published,
and her writings appear internationally in magazines, museum catalogs, and anthologies
of critical writing. Recent and forthcoming texts include a monograph on Katy Grannan
(Aperture Books) and an essay on Roni Horn for the Dia Art Foundation’s ongoing series of
collected lectures from the Robert Lehman series. Recent and forthcoming catalog essays
include Lili Dujourie (for the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels) and Matts Leiderstam (for
the Magasin 3 in Stockholm). She is a recipient of the Frank Jewett Mather Award, awarded
by the College Art Association for distinction in arts criticism, and was a Mellon Fellow in
graduate studies in art history at Columbia University. Avgikos is an adjunct member of the
faculty for the graduate visual arts program at Columbia University, and the graduate visual
arts program at NYU. She is also a professor at the School for the Visual Arts in Manhattan.
In addition, she lectures regularly for the Dia Art Foundation for contemporary arts and at
Sotheby’s in its graduate American Art program.
BETH CAMPBELL
Beth Campbell: Lamps
Fia Backström: Recycle (Hanging proposal
for sculpture by Kelley Walker) 2007, (detail)
plastic cups and tray, silkscreen on napkins,
plastic cutting boards, glass plates and glasses,
silkscreen on towels, play-doh, silkscreen on
fabric, Untitled, Kelley Walker, (2004), variable
dimensions
Campbell’s commissioned projects include Following Room at the Whitney Museum of Art and
Manifesta 7, and Potential Store Fronts for the Public Art Fund, NY. Along with international and
national gallery exhibitions, additional museum exhibitions include the Brooklyn Museum of
Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, and Greater New York at PS1. Her work is included in collections of
the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art. She has been awarded a
Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, a Louis Comfort Tiffany Memorial Fellowship, and
a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant.
CAROLYN CHRISTOV-BAKARGIEV
FIA BACKSTRÖM
Fia Backström’s work takes on a diagnostic and propositional engagement with the
symbolic and real construction of social agency. Backström’s employment of display
mechanisms provokes interrelations between pedagogical methods, modes of corporate
address and political rhetoric. Her practice frequently includes peers, visitors and
institutional staff alike, and spans a wide range of media such as text, typography,
photography, broadsides, objects, performances and environments. Backström represents
Sweden at the Venice Biennial 2011. Her work has been staged at numerous international
Recent publications include Projections: mise en abyme (1997), the catalogue for The Study
for the Mirror and Garden in Granada, Spain (2003) and Body without Limits, Salamanca, Spain
(2009). She has taught and lectured extensively in the USA, Japan and Europe. Recent full-time
teaching positions include ACT at MIT, Boston (2002–2003) and the Merz Akademie, Stuttgart,
Germany (2003–2004). Her work is included in the collection of MoMA, NYC, Whitney Museum,
NYC, Generali Foundation, Vienna, MCA, San Diego, Pompidou Center, Paris, Le Caixa, Barcelona,
FNAC, Paris, Goetz collection, Munich, Frac Lorraine, Metz, CIFO, Miami among many others
world-wide. A traveling survey of her installations was recently at Berardo Museum, Lisbon,
Portugal. In 2012 she participated in dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, Germany. The first installment
of her project…Cairo stories premiered at the Sharjah Biennial in 2011 and is touring in Europe
and the Middle East.
Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev: Photographer
unknown, II. documenta, 1959, installation
with works by Julio González, Bequest of
Arnold Bode, documenta Archiv, Kassel
Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev is a curator, author, and researcher into artistic practices, the
histories of art, and the politics of aesthetics. She was Artistic Director of dOCUMENTA (13) from
2009 to 2012. Previously, she was Artistic Director of the 16th Biennale of Sydney: “Revolutions—
Forms That Turn” (2008), and Chief Curator at the Castello di Rivoli Museum for Contemporary
Art (2002–08, interim director in 2009). She was Senior Curator at P.S.1 Contemporary Art
Center—a MoMA affiliate, New York, from 1999–2001. Her books include William Kentridge
(1998), Arte Povera (1999), and for dOCUMENTA (13) the 100 Notes–100 Thoughts series as well
as The Book of Books (2011–12).
37
and The Drawing Center, 2003). He has curated several exhibitions, including Tacita Dean at the
Art Gallery of York University, Toronto (2000), on whom his essays have been published by Tate
Britain (2001) and Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2003). He has published the following
monographic books: Richard Prince: Untitled (couple) (Afterall and MIT, 2006), Jeff Wall: Works
and Writings (Poligrafa, 2007), and Price, Seth (JRP Ringier, 2010). He co-edited the volume
of essays Re-Writing Conceptual Art (Reaktion Books, 1999). In philosophy he has published
essays on Kant, Nietzsche, Derrida, Levinas, and Blanchot. He is currently working on books on
appropriation, and on the trace in drawing and philosophy.
LYNNE COOKE
Lynne Cooke is Andrew W. Mellon Professor at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual
Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. She served as chief curator and deputy
director of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid from 2008 to 2012 and
as curator at Dia Art Foundation from 1991 to 2008. In 1991, Cooke cocurated the Carnegie
International, and has helmed numerous major shows since, including the 10th Biennale of
Sydney (1996), the traveling exhibition “Rosemarie Trockel: Cosmos” (2012), and “Cristina
Iglesias: A Place of Reflection,” recently on view at the Casa França-Brasil in Rio de Janiero.
She is currently working on a project researching the interface between mainstream and
outlier artists in the United States in the twentieth century.
CESARE PIETROIUSTI
Cesare Pietroiusti was the Coordinator of the Oreste projects, 1997–2001 and cofounder
of Nomads & Residents, New York, 2000. Since 2005 he has been a member of the Advisory
Board and co-curator of the CSAV, Fondazione Ratti, Como. Currently, he is a professor at the
Laboratorio di Arti Visive, IUAV University, Venice. Recent solo exhibitions include Paradoxycal
Economies, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, Artworks that Ideas can Buy, Wilkinson Gallery, London
and Regali e regole. Prendere, dare, sbirciare nel museo with Stefano Arienti, MAMbo, Bologna.
Recent group exhibitions include the 28th Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana, 2nd International
Biennale, Athens, Performa 07, New York City, the 3rd Tirana Biennial, Tirana, Ore d’artista,
Galleria Franco Soffiantino, Torino and Giro di Campo (with Linda Fregni Nagler), Galleria Franco
Soffiantino, Torino. In 1999, Oreste represented Italy at the 48th Venice Biennale, in the Italian
Pavilion in the exhibition dAPERTutto and later that year Cesare Pietroiusti was awarded the
Premio Alinovi Award.
DEBORAH DAVIDSON
Deborah Davidson is an experienced curator and program developer. She is an educator,
having done so as an academic advisor, lecturer, and visiting and artist-in-residence. She
received her M.F.A. from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University and her
B.A. from Binghamton University. She is part of the core faculty in the MFA program at
Lesley University’s College of Art and Design. She was the curator of exhibits and programs
for the New Center for Arts and Culture, Boston for six years. Her current project Catalyst
Conversations is an organization devoted to the idea of art and science in dialogue,
launched in October 2012. She maintains her own studio practice as well, exhibiting widely
in the greater Boston area. Deborah’s work is in many private and public collections,
including Yale University, Wellesley College, Boston Public Library, Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston and the Houghton Library, Harvard University. She is the recipient of a Berkshire
Taconic ART grant.
Deborah Davidson: Standing See B, Acrylic on
Wood, 12x12x12 inches, 2012
MATT KEEGAN
Matt Keegan is an artist based in New York. Last year, he had a solo exhibition at Galeria
Pedro Cera in Lisbon, Portugal. Over the last two years, Keegan had solo exhibitions at
Altman Siegel Gallery, San Francisco and D’Amelio Terras, NY. His work was featured in
a three-person exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago, and group shows at the Deutsche
Guggenheim, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, FOAM, Amsterdam, and the Aspen
Art Museum. His work is included in numerous private and public collections, including
The Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and The Metropolitan
Museum of Art. Keegan was the co-founder and editor of North Drive Press, an annual
art publication published from 2004–2010. Last year, Keegan edited ==, an art edition
published by mfc Michéle Didier.
PETER ROSTOVSKY
Cesare Pietroiusti: Bar di Radda in Chianti, August
14, 1988 (1988) The inside of a public bathroom
door in a bar was photographically reproduced on
a 1:1 scale. The photograph was then mounted on
the outside of the same door.
SUNANDA K. SANYAL
MICHAEL NEWMAN
Matt Keegan: It's Not You It's Me, 2011, Laser cut
steel, 30 x 30 in. Edition of 3
Michael Newman is Associate Professor in Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School
of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Professor of Art Writing at Goldsmiths College in the
University of London. He holds degrees in Literature and Art History, and a doctorate in
Philosophy from the Katholeike Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. He has written extensively
on contemporary art, including essays on James Coleman, Alfred Jensen, Hanne
Darboven, Joëlle Tuerlinckx, Giuseppe Penone, John Stezaker, Fiona Tan and Dara
Birnbum. An essay on drawing was included in The Stage of Drawing: Gesture and Act (Tate
Peter Rostovsky is a Russian-born artist who works in a variety of disciplines that include
painting, sculpture and installation. Known for his paintings that explore the sublime in the
everyday, he is equally committed to pursuing conceptual and collaborative work. Rostovsky’s
many diverse projects attempt to bridge the gap between painting and conceptual art while
remaining attentive to painting’s material and discursive history, and especially to its encounter
with new technologies. His work has been shown widely both in the United States and abroad
and has been exhibited at such venues as The Walker Art Center, MCA Santa Barbara, PS1/MOMA,
Artpace, The Santa Monica Museum of Art, ICA in Philadelphia, the Blanton Museum of Art,
S.M.A.K., and a host of private galleries. His critical writings, under the heteronym David Geers,
have also been published in October, Fillip, Bomb, and the Brooklyn Rail. He currently teaches
painting at New York University.
Peter Rostovsky: Epiphany Model: The
Photographer, mixed media, painting
88" x 42", 2006
Originally from India, Sunanda K. Sanyal is an art historian, with an MFA in Visual Arts (painting
and installation) from UCSD (1990); an MFA in Art History from Ohio University (1993); and a
Ph.D. in Art History from Emory University (2000). He is interested in politics of representation
and identity; representation and otherness; contemporary artists from former colonies in global
discourses; art pedagogy in nineteenth-century Europe and their colonies. Associate Professor of
Art History and Critical Studies at Lesley University College of Art and Design since 1999, Sanyal
has chaired panels on contemporary artists of color at various conferences, including the College
Art Association, the African Studies Association, and the Arts Council of the African Studies
Association. In 2008 and 2011, he produced and directed a two-part documentary film entitled
“A Homecoming Spectacle,” which explores the visual culture of Durga Pujo, an annual religio-
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cultural festival held in Kolkata, India.
STUART STECK
Some of Sanyal’s publications in art history and criticism include: Teaching Art History at
an Art School: Making Sense from the Margin. In Arlene Dallalfar et al eds., Transforming
Classroom Culture: Inclusive Pedagogical Approaches. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2011; “Medi(t)ations of a Decentered Self: the Art of Jayanta Roy” (catalog essay), Nature
Morte Gallery, New Delhi, India, 2010; ‘Being Modern’: Identity Debates and Makerere’s
Art School in the 1960s. In Monica Visona and Gitti Salami eds., A Companion to Modern
African Art. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell (Forthcoming).
For the past two decades, Stuart Steck has worked as both a curator and academic. Although
he was originally trained in the field of decorative arts, his current interests focus on postwar
art and critical theory. He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses at Lesley University
College of Art and Design since 1998. In addition to serving on the faculty at Lesley University
College of Art and Design, he has also held teaching positions at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Brown University, Boston University, and Suffolk University. Most recently, Steck
co-curated the video exhibition Israel from Within and Without. He has also published essays on
Ellsworth Kelly and Sung Ho Kim, with whom he collaborated on an architectural project. Steck
is currently the producer of the Short Attention Span Digital Video Festival and the founding
president of the Visual Culture Consortium, Boston. Over the years, Steck has received research
grants from the Henry Luce Foundation, the Pittsburgh Foundation, and the Boston University
Humanities Foundation. Steck received his BA in History from Cornell University and his PhD in
Art History from Boston University.
MATT SAUNDERS
Matt Saunders: Doorway #5, 2012, silver gelatin
print on fiber-based paper, 40” x 58”
Matt Saunders works between paintings, photographs, and films. His recent projects
include a month-long collaboration with the Harvard Film Archive and solo exhibitions
with The Tate, Liverpool, Marian Goodman Gallery, Blum & Poe, Harris Lieberman, and
at the Renaissance Society in Chicago. Recent group exhibitions include the 2012 de
Cordova Biennial in Lincoln, MA, the 2011 Sharjah Biennial, and exhibitions at the San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Aspen Museum, and Deutsche Guggenheim. His work is
represented in several public collections, including the Whitney, Guggenheim, MoMA and
MFA Boston. As a writer, he is an occasional contributor to Artforum and other magazines.
He was awarded the Jean-Francois Prat Prize in March, 2013.
OLIVER WASOW
BEN SLOAT
Ben Sloat: Imagist Poem, modified record covers,
wood shelf, 36" x 73", 2010
Ben Sloat is a photographer and multi media artist. Recent solo shows include those at
ACC Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2009), Front Gallery, Oakland (2009), 126 Gallery, Galway,
Ireland (2010), MMX, Berlin, Germany (2010), Steven Zevitas Gallery, Boston (2010), Galerie
Laroche/Joncas, Montreal, Canada (2011), and NLH Space, Copenhagen, Denmark (2011).
His work has been reviewed in Circa (Ireland), The Taipei Times, Oakland Tribune, The New
York Times, Boston Globe, and Boston Phoenix. Sloat is a recipient of a 2012 SMFA Alumni
Traveling Fellowship, a 2011 Berwick Research Institute Grant, and was a 2009 Faculty
Fulbright Scholar to Taiwan, working on a photo project documenting rural communities.
His writings on photography have been published in Big, Red & Shiny, American Suburb
X, Exposure Magazine, and Aperture Magazine. He is represented in Montreal by Galerie
Laroche/Joncas and in Boston by Steven Zevitas Gallery.
Oliver Wasow: Flowers and Fireworks, color
photo, 24" x 20", 2011
DEB TODD WHEELER
LAUREL SPARKS
Laurel Sparks: Whore of Babylon, acrylic, marble
dust, paper mache, glitter, spray paint, enamel
ink objects on unpainted canvas, 2011
Laurel Sparks was born in Phoenix AZ, and lives and works in Brooklyn NY. Her paintings
explore decadence, theatricality and esoteric symbolism. She earned her BFA from the
School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and her MFA at Bard College. Sparks has
exhibited in major galleries and museums including D’Amelio Terras (NY), Dodge Gallery
(NY), the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, CCS Bard, Hessel Museum (Annandale-on-Hudson
NY), Howard Yezerski Gallery (Boston), DeCordova Museum (Lincoln MA) and Art in
General (NY). Awards include two New American Paintings publications, Elaine DeKooning
Fellowship, SMFA Traveling Fellowship, Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant, Berkshire
Taconic Fellowship, and a Boston Cultural Council Grant. Sparks was a 2013 Fire Island
Artist Resident, and teaches painting at Rhode Island School of Design and Sarah Lawrence
College.
Photographer Oliver Wasow was born in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1960. His work is currently
represented by the Kathleen Cullen Gallery in New York City. He has had
a number of one-person exhibitions, including shows at the Janet Borden Gallery, the Tom
Solomon Gallery in Los Angeles, the South Eastern Center for Contemporary Art in North
Carolina, and Galerie De Poche in Paris, France. His work has also been included in numerous
national and international group shows, including such benchmark exhibitions as Image
World at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York City, and The Photography of Invention at the
National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. His photographs are included in a number of private
collections and are also represented in various prominent public collections, including The
Whitney Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Reviews of his work
have been featured in most major art publications including, among others, Artforum, ARTnews,
and The New York Times. He has been the recipient of various grants and awards including a
Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant in 1999 and, in 2000, his second New York State Council on the Arts
Grant.
Deb Todd Wheeler: Holoplanktonika: an
illustrated book of impressions, 2011
Deb Todd Wheeler is a media artist who produces installations, photographs, and sculptural
objects that explore the aesthetic impact of human productivity in the natural world. From
power generating interactive installations to cataloging prints of plastic as a possible new
species of marine life, to working with live Western Harvester Ants where, as Ann Wilson Lloyd
wrote in Art in America, “ants are perfect collaborators for Wheeler, as their industry is a microcomplement to her own intensive, finely wrought crafting, and her ongoing interest in science
and nature.” Recent exhibitions include the ICA at MeCA in the exhibit EXCHANGE, a solo exhibit
at Miller Block Gallery, The New Britain Museum of American Art, the Islip Art Museum, as well as
the Megapolis Audio Art and Documentary Festival. Other recent solo exhibits include the Gallery
at Green Street, and the Project Space at the John Michael Kohler Art Center. She has received
grants from the Artist Resource Trust, a LEF Contemporary Work Fund Artist grant in Inter-media,
a Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant in Sculpture and Installation, as well as in Photography,
and an AIR project grant. She also teaches in the 3D Department at the Massachusetts College of
Art and Design.
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Special Thanks
For a project like this to succeed—aside from the dedication of the
faculty, administration, and the students themselves—support
from all quarters of an institution and beyond are needed.
Among the many to whom thanks go are: Anthony Apesos,
Diana Arcadipone, Bob Baker, Emily Belanger, Janie Bess, Becky
Bettencourt, Marlo Brooks, Liana Caffrey, Heather Clang, Steven
Cramer, Michael David, Dana Dober, Bill Eve, Angelo Fertitta,
Jenn Fleming, Geoff Fried, Meredith Giesta, Louise Goldenberg,
Ed Imbier, Christopher James, John Kramer, Joel Leonard, Fred
Levy, Atoosa Malekani, Carrie McDade, Martha McKenna, Marty
McKnight, Dawn Medina, Gerard Melanson, Andrew Mroczek,
Kevin Murphy, Melissa Ratliff, Bonnie Robinson, Janet Sartor, Joe
Schwab, Natasha Seaman, Martha Sheehan, Julie Stanwood,
Stuart Steck, Stan Trecker, Brian Unwin, Jana van der Veer, Josh
Winer, Raye Yankauskas, Joel Zayac, and so many others who
helped through small and large favors, gestures, and simply
through the performance of their jobs. To them: please believe
that the failure of memory is no reflection of the weight of our
debt to you all.
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