New exhibition! A Place That Is Not Here
Hosted in collaboration with the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale
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Exhibition identity by Simon Charwey, Graphic Design MFA '24, & Theo France-Haggi, Graphic Design MFA '25.
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We're excited to invite you to visit the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale to see its latest exhibition, A Place That Is Not Here, featuring works created by the Black student cohort of the Yale School of Art.
The exhibition showcases a diverse range of works in Painting, Sculpture, Photography, and Graphic Design, that transport viewers to diasporic worlds using traditional and speculative materials. A testament to the power of personal and political research, the show reflects the resilient spirit of our communities in a world that is rapidly changing. It is a celebration of the ways in which we care for each other in times of crisis, and how we continue to create beauty and meaning in a world that is on fire.
Participating artists include Kayla Monae' Hawkins, Jaamal Benjamin, Simon Charwey, Theo Haggi, Cierra Peters from Graphic Design; Patrick Frantz Henry, Y. Malik Jalal, Yacine Fall, Marcelline Mandeng Nken, Jesús Hilario-Reyes, Gozie Ojini, Nic[o] Aziz from Sculpture; Louise Mandumbwa, Ana Cláudia Almeida, Taína Cruz, Anietié Ekanem, Erol Scott Harris, Nadir Souirgi, Katherine Wiese, Sidney "Sage" Cain, Khalif Thompson, Justin Emmanuel Dumas from Painting/Printmaking; and Andina Marie Osorio, Torry Brown, Christopher Desanges, Jeremy Grier, Avion Pearce from Photography.
The exhibition is accessible to the public during the Afro-American Cultural Center's regular building hours:
Sunday: 10AM – 1:30PM
Monday - Friday: 12PM – 8:30PM
Saturday: 12PM – 5:30PM
For full information, please visit our public events calendar >
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Collaborative event welcomes designer Busayo Olupona
"Innovations in Design Across the Diaspora" hosted with Schwarzman
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"Innovations in Design Across the Diaspora" panel at the Afro-American Cultural Center. From left to right: Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Robert Garland, Pamela Allen-Cummings, Toni-Leslie James, and Busayo Olupona. Photos by RaShaun Belcher of Belcher Digital LLC.
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On the evening of February 23, the School of Art—in collaboration with Yale Schwarzman Center—hosted a public conversation with Dance Theatre of Harlem Artistic Director Robert Garland, Dance Theatre of Harlem costume designer Pamela Allen-Cummings, co-chair of design at the David Geffen School of Drama Toni-Leslie James, and BUSAYO brand founder and designer Busayo Olupona.
Moderated by designer and visual artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Director of Graduate Studies in Graphic Design, the conversation was an enlightening discussion on the intersections of aesthetics and advocacy. Garland and Allen-Cummings talked about the pivotal work of Arthur Mitchell, dancer, choreographer, and founder of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, who was the first to insist that dancers' tights and pointe shoes match the color of their skin. "If you want to be an artist," Olupona shared, "there is not typically a path paved for you."
Olupona left her firm as a lawyer to launch her own clothing brand, with the intention of laying claim to an African aesthetic and celebrating the culture of the Yoruba people. "The fabric and the design is just the entryway to be able to talk to people about their practices," Olupona said, talking about her collaborative approach of engaging African designers in pursuing cross-diasporic conversations through material culture.
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Left: Robert Garland. Right: Busayo Olupona. Photos by RaShaun Belcher of Belcher Digital LLC.
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Busayo Olupona is a force to be reckoned with—a powerhouse fashion designer and attorney who has made a name for herself in both fields. As the founder of Busayo, a Brooklyn-based fashion brand, she has created a unique and vibrant style that celebrates her Nigerian heritage and fosters dialogue across the Black diaspora. With a complete obsession for colorful prints and a dedication to amplifying traditional Nigerian culture, Busayo collaborates with local artisans to create dynamic and joyful textiles that are sold at some of the world's most prestigious retailers, including Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Moda Operandi, and Shopbop.
This event was a part of our Spotlight on DEI in Art Series, highlighting non-European cultures and their influence on the arts in painting, graphic design, sculpture, and photography. Subscribe to our public events calendar, or follow us on Instagram to be the first in the know about our latest public events.
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Celebrating faculty & alum news
Congrats to our faculty and alumni on their recent achievements!
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From left to right: Laduma Ngxokolo, Founder of MaXhosa Africa, and Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Director of Graduate Studies in Graphic Design during "From Heritage to Fashion: The Making of MaXhosa Africa.” Photo courtesy of the Yale Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage.
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We have some exciting news to share from faculty and alumni!
Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Director of Graduate Studies in Graphic Design and MFA ‘12, has been especially busy of late, recently returning from a global symposium in Johannesburg, South Africa that took place in early February, hosted by Yale’s Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage (IPCH). The Yale IPCH Global Symposium invites leaders and innovators to learn, connect, and develop strategies to support cultural heritage preservation on the African continent. Mutiti participated in the symposium’s second session, “From Heritage to Fashion: The Making of MaXhosa Africa” alongside Laduma Ngxokolo, Founder of MaXhosa Africa.
Almost immediately after returning to the U.S., Mutiti was in New York for “Publishing Expanded: Where Is Africa,” a three-day convening that offered a more expansive approach to the book launch, hosted by the Center for Art, Research and Alliances (CARA). Designed by Mutiti, Where Is Africa was published this month by CARA and edited by Emanuel Admassu and Anita N. Bateman. The publication functions as an extended set of exchanges with contemporary artists, curators, designers and academics who are actively engaged in representing the continent—both within and outside its geographic boundaries.
Mutiti also celebrated the opening of a special commission at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia this month. On view through December 2024, Entryways is the inaugural project for a new series that commissions artists to activate the façade of ICA’s building in partnership with Maharam, North America’s leading creator of textiles for commercial and residential interiors. In reimagining the windows, Mutiti created a work that combines African hair braiding patterns and hair clips with symbols often found in ironwork.
Meleko Mokgosi, Director of Graduate Studies in Painting/Printmaking, was recently announced as an awardee of the 2024 Creative Capital grant. The funds will work to support Mokgosi’s project “De-futuring and Wilding Futurisms” which aims to make interventions through a reconsideration of how African art and African culture in general has been influential to the dominant notions of Western aesthetics. By making text-based work, paintings, and creating a photo-novel (colloquially referred to as look-books and popularized in 1960s South Africa), the project will reconsider formal visual elements, using painting, photography, and publications as effective forms outside the narrow scope of the white cube.
In March, the Hong Kong art center Para Site will present an exhibition of work by Aki Sasamoto, Director of Graduate Studies in Sculpture. Entitled Sounding Lines, the exhibition will be open March 16 through July 28, 2024 and marks the first major solo presentation of the artist in Hong Kong.
Also in March, Printed Matter Chelsea is hosting a discussion and signing of the fifth monograph by Lisa Kereszi, Assistant Director of Graduate Studies in Photography. On March 21, Kereszi and Michelle Dunn Marsh, co-founder and publisher of Minor Matters, will discuss the design and concept of the book, entitled Mourning. Writer-curator Marvin Heiferman, who contributed the introduction, will speak with Kereszi about visualizing grief.
Interdepartmental Professor Marta Kuzma has curated the latest exhibition at Kode, the museums of art, crafts, design and music in Bergen, Norway. Composition for the Left Hand interweaves contemporary art from the collection of polar explorer and adventurer Erling Kagge with rarely displayed works from Kode’s historical collection. By virtue of its title, the exhibition explores a symbolic “left-handedness” in relationship to its right counterpart, a complementary opposition that zig-zags through the correlate of the brain’s two hemispheres.
Andrew Walsh-Lister, core faculty in Graphic Design and MFA ‘12, is celebrating the opening of Lily Greenham: An Art of Living as co-curator of the first large-scale exhibition that marks the centenary of the artist, author, and composer’s birth. Open March 7 through May 26, 2024, the exhibition charts Greenham’s polyvocal and expansive work with sound, language, and movement across a variety of mediums and contexts. On view at the Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe, Germany, the exhibition will be accompanied by a two-day symposium in May.
Faculty member in Graphic Design, Geoff Kaplan, co-runs No Place Press. The publisher’s most recent title, which Kaplan also designed, The Effect of Tropical Light on White Men by Catherine Lord, was recently named one of the best art books of 2023 by the New York Times. Through its nuanced explorations of visual culture and novel approach to art historical study, the book broadens the dialogue on colonialism, complicity, and cultural property.
Also this month, MFA alums and faculty members were announced as participating artists for upcoming large-scale biennials and triennials. Torkwase Dyson, MFA ‘03, Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio, MFA ‘16, Dala Nasser, MFA ‘21, and 2022 commencement speaker Rose B. Simpson have been selected as participating artists for the 2024 Whitney Biennial, Even Better Than the Real Thing, opening March 20, 2024. The citywide contemporary art triennial, Prospect New Orleans, also announced this month that Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio, MFA ‘16, Abigail DeVille, former faculty member and MFA ‘11, Meleko Mokgosi, Director of Graduate Studies in Painting/Printmaking, Didier William, MFA ‘09, and Ashley Teamer, MFA ‘22 have been selected to participate in the sixth edition of Prospect, entitled the future is present, the harbinger is home. Curated by Co-Artistic Directors, Miranda Lash and Ebony G. Patterson, Prospect.6 opens to the public on November 2, 2024, and will close February 2, 2025.
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Visiting Mexico City with alums & friends
Dean Pinder ventures south to support alumni, with help from Jay Oles
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Alums and friends of the School of Art traveling in Mexico City. The bottom-right photo features Dean Kymberly Pinder with Cristóbal Gracia, MFA '22, in the artist's Mexico City studio.
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In early February, Dean Kymberly Pinder and a group of Yale alumni and friends embarked on a three-day tour of Mexico City led by Jay Oles, YC '84, PhD '95.
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Highlights of the trip included a walking tour in Centro Histórico to view murals, a private viewing of Oles's exhibition Mexichrome: Photography and Color in Mexico, a major exhibition of color photography at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, a tour of the many cultural sites at UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico), and studio visits with Cristóbal Gracia, MFA '22, and Pedro Reyes.
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See Gracia's work at the Independent Art Fair in New York May 9-12, where he’ll be presenting with Mexico City gallery Pequod Co.
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Sheila Levrant de Bretteville: Community, Activism, and Design open through June
New YUAG exhibition celebrates professor & former director
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Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, Women in Design: The Next Decade, 1975. Diazotype. Courtesy of Sheila Levrant de Bretteville.
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This month, the first monographic exhibition on the renowned graphic designer, teacher, and artist, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville—Professor and former Director of Graduate Studies in Graphic Design—opened at the Yale University Art Gallery.
De Bretteville, who has long championed principles of advocacy and inclusion through her community-based and politically informed work, is well known for her contributions to the field of feminist design and education. In 1971 she created the first women’s design program at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), and in 1973 she cofounded, with the artist Judy Chicago and the art historian Arlene Raven, the Feminist Studio Workshop and the Woman’s Building, a center in downtown Los Angeles dedicated to women’s culture.
The rich array of materials on view in the exhibition is drawn from de Bretteville’s personal archive and highlights pivotal moments in her multifaceted and trailblazing career. Included are early designs for promotional materials for Yale University Press and the Italian manufacturer Olivetti, posters and broadsheets that blend word and image to advance woman-focused initiatives, and photographs and models of public art installations, which have not been examined collectively until now. These public projects, which reflect not only her ongoing engagement with the feminist movement but also her commitment to such issues as immigration and racial equity, are located in New York, New Haven, Boston, and Los Angeles as well as in Hong Kong and Yekaterinburg, Russia.
De Bretteville served as director of Graduate Studies in Graphic Design from 1990 to 2022 and is the first woman at the Yale School of Art to be awarded tenure. This monographic exhibition reinforces her role as a quiet leader and visionary role model who has shaped a new generation of graphic design.
Sheila Levrant de Bretteville: Community, Activism, and Design is open at the Yale University Art Gallery through June 23, 2024.
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Alums & friends gather with MacArthur fellows
MFA alums & MacArthur fellows share their experiences & expertise
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On February 15, Yale School of Art alumni and friends gathered at Pamela Joyner and Fred Giuffrida's New York home, filled with a seminal collection of work by Black artists. Dean Kymberly Pinder moderated a discussion featuring Yale alumni and MacArthur fellows Jordan Casteel, MFA '14, Mary Reid Kelley, MFA '09, An-My Lê, MFA '93, and Judy Pfaff, MFA '73.
The artists reflected on their time as both students and recipients of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, sharing insights into their artistic journeys and the impact of their Yale education. The evening served as a nexus of artistic celebration and intellectual exchange, highlighting the profound contributions of School of Art alumni to contemporary art discourse.
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School of Art alums are invited to submit events and exhibitions to be added to the new School of Art in the World calendar, as well as publications and initiatives to be archived on the wiki.
School of Art alums are also encouraged to apply for a new residency in Istanbul with 10__12 Gallery. Open only to Yale MFA and BA alums—classes of 2023 and earlier—the 10__12 Summer Artist Residency is a six-week program and the deadline to apply is March 8, 2024.
Members of the public are invited to subscribe to the School of Art in the World calendar, and visit the full wiki archive.
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