Fall 2022 curricular happenings & highlights 🍂
Interdepartmental Wednesdays, inaugural Post-Colonial Critic, & more
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The School of Art community gathered in 36 Edgewood Ave. for the Dean's Welcome Dinner & Fall Semester All-School Meeting held on Wednesday, September 7, 2022. Photo by Taryn Wolf, Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs.
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With student orientations, our first faculty orientation, and introductory presentations by first-year MFAs already behind us, the Fall 2022 semester is proceeding apace, with exciting curricular initiatives happening within and across areas of study:
This year, the first-year MFA course formerly titled “Critical Practice” has been expanded and transformed. As “Critical and Professional Practices” this fall, the course is being taught as four smaller sections—each with a theme culled from the admissions essays of incoming students. This momentum towards building intimate connections across departments is furthered by the debut of Interdepartmental Wednesdays!
After speaking with students who wanted more opportunities for interdisciplinary critiques and cross-collaboration, Dean Pinder worked together with the Directors of Graduate Studies and the Registrar to create a day in the curricula dedicated to interdepartmental interactions. In addition to interdepartmental critiques in gallery and crit spaces across the School of Art, Associate Dean Anoka Faruqee and Assistant Dean Taryn Wolf created a variety of programming and opportunities for each Wednesday, informed by student and faculty suggestions. Upcoming events include field trips to other Yale departments and organizations like the Peabody Museum's Horse Island, artist talks and conversations, as well as visiting curators. Participating in Interdepartmental Wednesdays this fall is the School of Art’s first Post-Colonial Critic, Rina Banerjee—a new interdepartmental position supported by the Cross-Cultural Curriculum Fund.
After an all-school welcome dinner on September 7, this Wednesday we hosted our first All-School Convocation with artist, writer, and performer Pamela Sneed. Her keynote address, followed by lunch and discussions, centered our annual Convocation text: bell hooks' Teaching to Transgress, which generated a conversation about education as a liberatory experience and will serve as a touchstone for the School of Art community to refer to throughout the semester in courses and critiques.
Graphic Design’s new Director of Graduate Study, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, begins her first year leading the department as co-teacher of the second-year thesis advising course, alongside Dan Michaelson and Mindy Seu. Former Visiting Artist, Dena Yago, has joined the faculty to teach “Writing as Visual Practice,” and in Melanie Hoff’s new course, “Cybernetics of Desire,” students explore desireful gathering through code. Other new additions to the Graphic Design faculty include alums Bryant Wells—teaching an interactive graduate class called “localhosts,” which questions the relationships between networks and physical space—and Shira Inbar, who is co-teaching the undergraduate course “Motion Design” with Senior Critic Chris Pullman.
Amsterdam-based designer Linda van Deursen just completed a three-week workshop with second-year MFAs reflecting on “the image of graphic design,” while New York-based designer Geoff Han completed a three-week workshop themed “Burnout” with first-years. Type designer and Senior Critic Matthew Carter will be conducting studio visits with graduate students in November, and the department is also hosting a workshop with Masamichi Udagawa and Sigi Moeslinger of Antenna Design. Upcoming Paul Rand lectures in Graphic Design this fall feature an international roster of designers and artists including Aarati Akkapeddi, John Morgan, American Artist, and Jungmyung Lee.
Painting/Printmaking will welcome Nicole Eisenman, Tishan Hsu, and Kevin Beasley as Visiting Artists this semester. An all-department Convocation held earlier this month hosted Catherine Morris, Senior Curator for the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, as speaker, and centered around Lorraine O'Grady’s text Writing in Space, 1973–2019. Beverly Acha has joined the faculty to co-teach the weekly critiques with Byron Kim. Another new faculty member in Painting/Printmaking, Kristen Hileman, has joined full-time faculty member Rachelle Dang to lead the 2023 thesis cohort.
In Photography, Jennifer Blessing, Antwuan Sargent, Manal Abu-Shaheen, John Edmonds, and Ka-Man Tse, have joined the department’s roster of rotating critics. The department also hosted a trip to Hartford Art School last week in a collaboration that allowed students to experiment with color darkroom printing. As Visiting Artists this semester, Photography will welcome Sasha Wolf, B. Ingrid Olson, Koyoltzintli, and Naima Green among others.
Sculpture’s newest faculty member is American Artist who, this semester, is teaching “Technology Criticism in Practice,” which engages the historical and future development of computer technology from a critical perspective. Aki Sasamoto leads the department as Director, and Visiting Artists in Sculpture this fall include Adrian Wong, Ariana Reines, Win McCarthy, and Trisha Donnelly among others. At the start of the semester, Sculpture hosted Lukman Àlàdé Fákẹ́ye as a Hayden Visiting Artist. For four days, Fákẹ́ye demonstrated carving in the Yorùbá tradition for the School of Art community, as part of a larger engagement at Yale, contributing to the Yale University Art Gallery exhibition Bámigbóyè: A Master Sculptor of the Yorùbá Tradition. Fákẹ́ye worked closely with the Gallery’s conservation team to identify wood species and help interpret the significance of works by Nigerian artist Moshood Olúṣọmọ Bámigbóyè.
In Undergraduate Studies at the School of Art this semester, Photography classes will trek to New York City to visit Wolfgang Tillmans: To look without fear at MoMA, an exhibition of work by Baldwin Lee, MFA ‘75, at Howard Greenberg Gallery, and Cataclysm: The 1972 Diane Arbus Retrospective Revisited at David Zwirner. Photography students will also see work by upcoming Visiting Artists, Jenny Drumgoole, MFA ‘06, and Andrea Modica, MFA ‘85.
Already this semester, seniors sat down with Adrian Wong, MFA '05, right before his Visiting Artist lecture in Sculpture, for an intimate conversation about life after graduation. Art students also met with local shipwrights from Leetes Island Boatworks, at work building a Viking boat using traditional methods for a veterans non-profit group. One of the last working waterfront properties in nearby Stony Creek, the site is stewarded by Sculpture alum, Jonathan Waters, MFA ‘77. Afterwards, the seniors spent the afternoon on the Peabody Museum's Horse Island, photographing, collecting, and sketching in nature.
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New Assistant Directors of Graduate Study:
Maria De Los Angeles in Painting/Printmaking & Sandra Burns in Sculpture
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Left: Maria De Los Angeles, photo by Ryan Bonilla. Right: Sandra Burns.
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The Yale School of Art is pleased to announce that faculty members Maria De Los Angeles and Sandra Burns have been appointed as the Assistant Directors of Graduate Study, in Painting/Printmaking and Sculpture, respectively. Both De Los Angeles and Burns are alums of their programs, and will work closely with students as both faculty and vital administrators.
In an effort to provide clarity and consistency to administrative roles across the School, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Dean Kymberly Pinder worked with Directors of Graduate Study to convert existing departmental coordinator positions to Assistant Directorships. Dean Pinder explained, “Coordinators such as Sandra have been performing duties serving student, admin and curricular needs in a role typical of one who assists the director, so we needed to just recognize this work already being done.”
In her new role as Assistant Director of Graduate Studies, Maria De Los Angeles, Critic in Painting/Printmaking, will work alongside the program’s Director of Graduate Studies, Meleko Mokgosi, to lead the Painting program at the Yale School of Art and its 43 MFA students.
“As a previously undocumented person, student, artist, and DACA recipient, I want to state that I believe everyone should be able to unlock their potential and follow their dreams regardless of legal status,” De Los Angeles shared of her appointment, “I’m here to support all my students and community in the pursuit of their dreams.”
Sandra Burns first joined the School of Art faculty in 2011 as a lecturer in the Film/Video/Interdisciplinary department. She joined the Sculpture program in 2015 and in 2020 was appointed Senior Critic. Formerly the Graduate Coordinator in Sculpture, Burns will continue her longtime commitment to the department as its first Assistant Director, leading alongside Director of Graduate Study, Aki Sasamoto.
“I am thrilled to work with Sandra, as she is like a good doctor,” Sasamoto shared, “she is able to see how the department is doing, also she has a great style, and great compassion for the students and her colleagues.”
Learn more in the full news item here >
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Welcome to our new postgraduate fellows
Four MFA alums return to New Haven through new & continuing partnerships
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Top left: Victoria Martinez, MFA '20, photo by Diana Solis. Top right: Daniel Pizarro, MFA '12.
Bottom left: Brian Orozco, MFA '22, photo by Sydney Mieko King, Photography MFA '23. Bottom right: Alvin Ashiatey, Graphic Design MFA ‘22.
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This semester, the Yale School of Art is welcoming four MFA program alums back to New Haven as postgraduate fellows, through both new and continuing partnerships across campus:
In collaboration with the Schools of Environment and Architecture, Victoria Martinez, MFA '20, and Daniel Pizarro, MFA '12, will serve as the School of Art’s first Climate Engagement Fellows. Martinez will create a mural, funded by a Planetary Solutions grant, using special surface-cooling paints in a New Haven neighborhood that gets especially hot in the summertime. Pizarro will support the project as the first Communications Design Fellow for the Climate Engagement through Art in Cities initiative.
Newly graduated alum of the Photography program, Brian Orozco, MFA '22, is the inaugural Fredric Roberts Photography Workshops Fellow, and will establish a summer 2023 high school photography workshop in New Haven based upon the Roberts global workshops. Orozco will also be teaching an undergraduate course in Photography in the spring.
Another recent alum, Alvin Ashiatey, MFA '22, of the Graphic Design program, will work in the Blended Reality Lab as the inaugural SoA/CCAM/Blended Reality Lab Postgraduate Fellow—a role developed in collaboration with the Center for Collaborative Arts and Media. Using augmented reality, virtual reality, and machine learning, CCAM’s Blended Reality project incubates new projects that layer real and virtual worlds.
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Congrats to NXTHVN Fellows, Edgar & athena
Alums selected as part of 2022-2023 cohort
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Left: athena quispe's Psychic Warp, 2022. Steel, torched wood, incense, cochineal, ink, bodily fluids, pulverized rose quartz, and glitter on canvas; 86 x 27 x 11". Photo by Genevieve Hanson.
Right: Edgar Serrano's Primitive Games, 2022. Oil and sheepskin on linen; 40 x 32".
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Over the summer, NXTHVN, the local New Haven arts organization co-founded by Titus Kaphar, MFA ‘06, announced its 2022-2023 class of studio and curatorial fellows. Edgar Serrano and athena quispe—both alums of the Painting/Printmaking department—were selected as two of nine artists and curators in this year’s cohort. Intended to unite curators and artists, NXTHVN’s fellowships provide a stipend, dedicated studio space with 24-hour access, monthly professional development sessions, and inclusion in an annual publication and culminating exhibitions.
Edgar Serrano, MFA '10, is a painter, whose work combines the metaphor of art as a window with the social realities of xenophobia in contemporary America. For Serrano, the window serves as an allegory for screen culture, cultural translation, the flattening of information and limitless borders.
athena quispe, MFA '22, is a multidisciplinary artist and romantic poet dedicated to the cosmic endeavor of softening and distorting symbolic ideas. She creates sculptural paintings and interactive installations that increase psychic and soul redemption. quispe embeds her own poem spells within the cursive burns, plasma steel cuts, warped fractals and piping to convey intimate gestures of love, labor, and melancholic honesty. quispe pulverizes healing crystals, uses natural dyes and human fluids to problematize the Westernization of Indigenous art, culture, and tradition. Her art and creative style is a transmutation of her blood memory and Andean heritage.
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New staff members in the Dean’s Office, Financial Aid, & Facilities
Join us in welcoming Annie Lin, Nicole Archer, and John Hogan
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Left: Annie Lin. Center: Nicole Archer. Right: John Hogan, photo by Rafael Hernandez.
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With the new academic year underway, we’re excited to share that a flurry of new staff members have joined the School of Art across many areas of the administration.
On August 15, Annie Lin began her role as Project Specialist in the Dean’s Office, having previously served as the first Director of Arts Programs at Yale-China, a nonprofit that bridges American and Chinese cultures by creating transformative partnerships and experiences in education, health, and the arts. A volunteer on the boards of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, and a member of the City of New Haven’s Cultural Equity Plan Co-Creation Team, Annie has deep ties to New Haven that will be instrumental in her new position, working collaboratively across the School’s staff, faculty and students—further strengthening the ties we have to each other and our local community.
On September 12, Nicole Archer started as Financial Aid Director for the Schools of Art and Architecture, and in her new role she is splitting her time 50/50 supporting the two graduate schools. With over thirteen years experience in educational funding for higher education, Nicole comes to us from Yale College, and for the last seven years has served as Assistant Director of Undergraduate Financial Aid. At Yale College, Nicole was responsible for the Eli Whitney Students Program (EWSP), a more flexible program that allows students to take classes full- or part-time which welcomes applications from students with nontraditional backgrounds.
On November 1, John Hogan will start as Facilities Manager at the School of Art, bringing with him years of experience as the Studio and Gallery Manager at California Institute of the Arts. Moving here from Los Angeles, at CalArts, John was responsible for seven on-campus galleries and 176 studio spaces across four programs. During his time there, John developed and standardized safety protocols for galleries and studios and collaborated with contractors and Facilities staff on multiple projects. John holds an MFA from CalArts and a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. On a humorous note, his book Here To Help! (Within Reason), recently published by Insert Press, catalogs a sixteen-year archive of the many flyers John produced to communicate with CalArts students about safety and logistical concerns, and is a testament to his disarming approach to communicating with artists and his responsive engagement with community, art, and institutions.
Please join us in welcoming Annie, Nicole, and John to the School of Art staff!
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Expanded "School of Art in the World" calendars
Subscribe by city or region to keep tabs on alum events in your area
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Over the summer, we expanded Yale School of Art in the World—our calendars of exhibitions and events featuring graduate program alums, to build out separate cities and regions so that members of the public and friends of the School can subscribe to alum exhibitions according to where they're located.
Now, you can subscribe to SoA alum exhibitions happening in New Haven, New York, Los Angeles County, London & the UK, Venice, Seoul and more. You can also still subscribe to all alum exhibitions and events, accessible here. Please note that folks who had previously subscribed to Yale School of Art in the World will need to resubscribe to the expanded calendars launched in August 2022.
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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.
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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