Spring 2024 curricular happenings & highlights
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Spring 2024 welcome back graphic by Theo Haggi, Graphic Design MFA ‘25, accompanied by a “Mix for Spring.” Listen here >
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The Spring 2024 semester is well underway, with courses beginning last week and the first MFA thesis exhibition newly installed in Green Hall Gallery.
In Undergraduate Studies, Yaminay Chaudhri is teaching “Temperamental Spaces” for first-year students. Working like a therapy session for architecture, the body, and the objects around us, the seminar explores how the visual arts have utilized a productive, but skeptical, relationship with space. In collaboration with the Center for Collaborative Arts and Media (CCAM), Alvin Ashiatey is teaching “Technology and the Promise of Transformation,” a course which examines the inherent transformative qualities embedded within technology, and how art can reflect on these transformations. Students explore the implementation of technologies in their art making from pneumatic kinetics, bioengineering, AR, VR, and works assisted by artificial intelligence—modes of production that carry movement, degradation, and displacement of authorship. American Artist is leading the course “Dematerial/Material,” through which students explore questions and topics pertinent to contemporary sculpture through making, writing, reading, looking, critique, discussions, and field trips, developing projects that become increasingly self-directed as students develop relationships to materials, techniques, and ideas both familiar and new.
In Graphic Design, Shira Inbar, MFA ‘14, is teaching the new graduate course “Motion,” which recognizes movement as an impactful communication method, combining studio work with an examination of histories and theories to explore the possibilities and value of time-based design. Workshops in Graphic Design begin with Luiza Dale, MFA ‘21, and Rachel Kauder’s “Thesis Transmission” for second-year MFAs, followed by a marbling workshop led by Sheryl Oppenheim in February. In addition to joining the department as a Visiting Artist, Emily Sara is leading the workshop, “Alt Text as Poetry.” Additional workshops will be led by Jesse Marsolais, Matthew Carter and Sam Lavigne. Lonnie Holley, Nicole Killian, Julia Schäfer, and Ben Schwartz will be conducting desk visits with Graphic Design MFA students this semester. The Visiting Artist program in Graphic Design, hosted as the Paul Rand Lecture Series, will welcome Emily Sara, Harsh Patel, Avram Finkelstein, and Meriem Bennani, with Patel, Finkelstein, and Bennani also joining the roster of designers leading desk visits with students.
In Painting/Printmaking, Halsey Rodman is teaching “Color Space,” a course open to all MFA students that explores the psychophysical dimensions of color, inspired by the question Paul Thek suggests in his 1978 “Teaching Notes for the Fourth Dimension”—how can we “redesign a rainbow”? Opal Ecker DeRuvo, MFA ‘22, will lead “Material Knowledge,” a course that presents a practical guide to understanding the materials and processes of art-making. Borrowing from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s framework of braiding together multiple “ways of knowing,” the course combines disparate sources of knowledge in the handling of as many materials as possible, with a sensitivity to the intrinsic and poetic ability of materials to convey meaning. Jennifer Pranolo is teaching “Aesthetics of Difference,” which explores the duality of representation understood, on the one hand, as aesthetics and, on the other, as politics, and the constant slippage between the two in the making and interpretation of a work of art. Sarah Zapata joins the faculty to teach the hands-on, technique-based course “Alternative Cloth Processes,” which takes place within a dedicated shared studio space and explores fiber-related praxis through a series of investigations into stitching, basketry, needlecraft, knots, and more complicated weave structures and pattern weaving. Visiting Artists in Painting/Printmaking scheduled for this semester include Autumn Night and Jes Fan.
In Photography, Assistant Professor Elle Pérez, is teaching “Art for Survival,” for second-year MFAs to coincide with their thesis presentations. The class takes the position that artists and art are necessary for our individual and collective survival through past, present, and future crises, and engages artists whose practices offer a method for envisioning and enacting change while also being experienced as, or having, components of activism and political organizing. In a new team-taught graduate seminar led by Matthew Leifheit, Alissa Bennett, and Jarrett Earnest entitled “Fame is the Mask that Eats the Face,” students trace connections between research, fandom, and obsession to the photographic image. In a special course entitled “The Edit, With Kathy Ryan,” the award-winning director of photography of the New York Times Magazine will teach on the intersections of art, reportage, and photojournalism, offering a rare opportunity to learn about editorial visual storytelling. Visiting Artists in Photography this semester include An-My Lê, MFA ’93, Nick Waplington, Ming Smith, Holly Lynton, Curran Hatleberg, MFA ‘10, Andre Wagner, Ava Nirui, and Tomashi Jackson, MFA ’16, among others.
In Sculpture, Joseph Buckley will lead a new course entitled “Non Human Intelligence,” investigating the role of science fiction today. Working through contemporary, historical, speculative, and fantastic examples the course explores and negotiates modalities of hostility and solidarity, asking: As we slough into a haze of omnipresent and hallucinatory grimness, and the dates on the calendar pass the dates in the books and movies, what can science fiction give us? Visiting Artists in Sculpture include Lonnie Holley, Amy Sall, Anthea Hamilton, Rodney McMillian, and Kevin Beasley, MFA ‘12.
Interdepartmental Wednesdays continue with weekly interdepartmental critiques and studio visits, plus talks and workshops. Programming also includes the second iteration of our Interdepartmental Open Studios, through which students are invited to visit each other’s workspaces ahead of the public Open Studios scheduled for April 13 and 14, 2024. Recent alum Paloma Izquierdo, MFA ‘23, is leading a workshop on 3D modeling in collaboration with CCAM, and Brianne Brathwaithe, MS, RDN, will lead four sessions on nutrition, stress, and overcoming imposter syndrome as part of a "Feeding Your Potential" Workshop Series, hosted by the SoA Office of Sustainable Equity & Inclusion.
We’re co-hosting a series of sketching sessions with the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, taking place on the last Wednesday of every month throughout the Spring 2024 semester at four different locations across campus. A lecture by Ferring Foundation Chief Curator at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Dean Daderko, is also being hosted as part of Interdepartmental Wednesdays, during which they’ll be in conversation with Senior Critic and Director of Galleries and Exhibitions, A.L. Steiner.
In February, the School of Art is excited to welcome Nigerian designer Busayo Olupona to campus for a number of engagements. On February 21, Olupona will host a site visit to Yale University Art Galleries, West Campus to look at Nigerian garments from the 18th and 19th centuries. Students will have the opportunity to look at traditional Nigerian textiles that have been recently acquired by YUAG, and Olupona will frame conversations around the specimens that bridge the gap between earlier practices of weaving, dyeing and embroidery, and contemporary practices.
Join us on February 23 from 5-7PM as the Schwarzman Center and the School of Art present the public panel discussion, “Innovations in Design Across the Diaspora: A conversation with Robert Garland, Pamela Allen-Cummings, Toni-Leslie James, and Busayo Olupona.” This event will take place at the Afro-American Cultural Center and moderated by Director of Graduate Studies in Graphic Design, Nontsikelelo Mutiti.
We’re also excited to invite you to a public interdepartmental talk in April—also moderated by Mutiti—on Art and Activism with Rashida Bumbray and Jamal Cyrus. Keep an eye on our public events calendar here for more information as it becomes available >
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First Spring 2024 MFA thesis exhibition installed!
Join us TONIGHT for the first public reception of the spring semester
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Exhibition identity by Junyan Hu and Orlando Porras, Graphic Design MFAs ‘24
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We're excited to invite you to join us TONIGHT, the evening of Friday, January 26, to celebrate the first MFA thesis exhibition of the Spring 2024 semester:
and the forms which linger / humming in our ears
Painting/Printmaking MFA Thesis Exhibition Part I
Green Hall Gallery, 1156 Chapel St.
Public reception TONIGHT
Friday, January 26 from 6-8PM
Open to the Yale community through January 30, the Painting/Printmaking MFA Thesis Exhibition Part I presents work by second-year MFA students Creighton Baxter, Zoe Ann Cardinal Cire, Earthen Clay, Haleigh Collins, Michael Cuadrado Gonzalez, Irisol Gonzalez-Vega, Eloise Hess, Mei Kazama, Mike Picos, Nadir Souirgi, and V Yeh.
Part II of and the forms which linger / humming in our ears will be open to the Yale community February 7–17, 2024, and feature work by Adam Amram, Sydney Cain, Justin Emmanuel Dumas, Ricardo Galvan, Madeleine Gray, Lauren Klotzman, Louise Mandumbwa, Laura Camila Medina, Khalif Tahir Thompson, Katharen Wiese. Join us for the public reception for Part II of the exhibition on Friday, February 9 from 6–8PM.
Exhibition documentation and 3D walkthroughs for both exhibitions will be made available to the public in the coming weeks. Spring 2024 exhibition receptions are open to the public. During regular gallery hours, the gallery space is open only to members of the Yale community (current ID holders) and invited, accompanied guests.
Please visit our thesis website for the most up-to-date information on our exhibitions. Information and images will be added throughout the semester and you can learn more about the individual artists and designers that make up the class of 2024.
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"Photographic Storytelling" collaborates with Yale Daily News on photo essay series
Semester-long collaboration published undergrad work each week
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A photo essay "intended[ed] to capture the underlying eeriness of Halloween," by Willa Ferrer, YC '24, published on November 3, 2023. Photo courtesy of Natalie Ivis, 2023-2024 Postgraduate Fellow in Photography and MFA '24.
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Throughout the Fall 2023 semester, undergraduate students enrolled in the course "Photographic Storytelling" published commissioned work as photo essays, as part of a special collaboration with the Yale Daily News.
Individual students' work and words appeared weekly in full-page spreads as part of the series "Through the Lens," published in the Friday print edition of the Yale Daily News. Working within the constraints of a publishing paper was part of the coursework this semester, in a curriculum developed by 2023-24 Postgraduate Fellow in Photography, Natalie Ivis, MFA '23.
While students had the unique experience of curating their work exclusively for print media, unfortunately this means there is no link of digital articles hosted on the Yale Daily News website. We are excited however, to be able to share scans of some of the featured students' work as they appeared in the print editions throughout the semester, in a shared folder, accessible here >
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Lonnie Holley at the Yale School of Art
In addition to a public concert, Holley also joined us as a Visiting Artist
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Documentation of Lonnie Holley & Mourning [A] BLKstar in concert, January 18, 2024. Photos by Lotta Studio.
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On the evening of Thursday, January 18, the School of Art was thrilled to be able to collaborate with Yale Schwarzman Center and organizations across the university to host a public concert at the Whitney Humanities Center by Lonnie Holley & Mourning [A] BLKstar.
After the concert, Holley joined the School of Art on January 19 as a Visiting Artist in Sculpture, delivering a Visiting Artist lecture and conducting studio visits with MFA students in both Sculpture and Graphic Design.
Since 1979, Holley has devoted his life to the practice of improvisational creativity. His art and music, born out of struggle, hardship, but perhaps more importantly, out of furious curiosity and biological necessity, has manifested itself in drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, performance, music, and filmmaking. Holley’s sculptures are constructed from found materials in the oldest tradition of African American sculpture. Objects, already imbued with cultural and artistic metaphor, are combined into narrative sculptures that commemorate places, people, and events.
Many thanks to Holley and Mourning [A] BLKstar for joining us, our collaborators across Yale who helped make the concert happen, and Directors of Graduate Study in Sculpture and Graphic Design, Aki Sasamoto and Nontsikelelo Mutiti, alongside second-year MFA student in Sculpture, Y. Malik Jalal, for assisting in facilitating the lecture and studio visits.
The public concert was hosted as part of the Yale Center for Collaborative Arts & Media (CCAM) Sound Art Series and presented by Yale Schwarzman Center in partnership with CCAM; Yale School of Art; Yale School of Music; and the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration.
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Touring faculty & alum exhibitions in NYC
News from New York: Two new exhibitions feature faculty and alums
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Left: Dean Kymberly Pinder and collector Komal Shah with students during a private tour of Making Their Mark at the Shah Garg Collection. Right: Meleko Mokgosi discusses his exhibition Spaces of Subjection (2020-present) at Jack Shainman Gallery with School of Art alums.
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On the evening of December 18, School of Art alums gathered at Jack Shainman Gallery for a private viewing of Spaces of Subjection (2020-present), a solo exhibition of work by Meleko Mokgosi, Associate Professor; Director of Graduate Studies in Painting and Printmaking.
Subsequently, on January 20, Yale School of Art students, alumni, and friends gathered in New York City for a tour of Making Their Mark, joined by Dean Kymberly Pinder and collector Komal Shah. The exhibition assembles the work of over eighty women artists from the Shah Garg Collection, showcasing predominantly large-scale artworks spanning nearly eight decades. It highlights the significant contributions of women artists within the realm of abstraction, emphasizing their formal and material breakthroughs, intergenerational relationships, and historical impacts. SoA alums exhibited in the show include: Rina Banerjee, MFA '95, Jennifer Bartlett, MFA '65, Sheila Hicks, MFA '59, Howardena Pindell, MFA '67, Christina Quarles, MFA '16, Tschabalala Self, MFA '15, Sarah Sze, YC '91, and Marie Watt, MFA '96.
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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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Thank you for dedication to and interest in the Yale School of Art.
We welcome your support of the school and students, and we are grateful to the many alum and friends who generously donate. Give here >
We appreciate your support!
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