Fall 2023 curricular happenings & highlights 🍂
All-School Convocation and artist-in-residence Hlengiwe Dube
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Images from the 2023 All-School Convocation, which included a community panel conversation, an afternoon exercise co-developing Community Agreements for the coming academic year, and lunch in the Presidents' Room at Yale Schwartzman Center; September 19, 2023. In the bottom-left photo, we raised our hands in response to being asked: who has ever felt like they didn't belong in an institutional space? Photos by Pat Garcia, Photography MFA '24.
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With student and faculty orientations behind us, the Fall 2023 semester is off to a rushing start, with exciting curricular initiatives happening within and across areas of study:
For the second year in a row, the first-year MFA course “Critical and Professional Practices” is being taught as four smaller sections by faculty across School of Art leadership: Marta Kuzma’s “Performativity, Poetics, and the Social,” Meleko Mokgosi’s “Weak Theory, Strong Reading,” A.L. Steiner’s “Queer Strategies,” and Dean Kymberly Pinder’s “Public Art, Aesthetics and Communal Power.”
Interdepartmental Wednesdays are also continuing into their second year, and upcoming programming includes interdepartmental critiques with Post-Colonial Critic Rina Banerjee, MFA '95, a press training session, a public art tour, a performance workshop series with Coco Fusco, as well as drawing sessions with Tracey Emin.
At our recent All-School Convocation, organized by Director of Sustainable Equity & Inclusion Dannika Kemp Avent and Kern Samuel, Lecturer in Painting/Printmaking and MFA '20, a panel of faculty and graduate students discussed this year’s text, collectively chosen by the community last spring: Ocean Vuong’s Time is a Mother. Panelist and Painting/Printmaking second-year Creighton Baxter talked about how grief reveals the porousness of the “I”—of individual subjectivity, working outside of “clock time” to remind us of the extent to which the personal moves beyond the individual to the collective.
Recent full-time appointments in Graphic Design have officially brought Yeju Choi, MFA ‘09, and Andrew Walsh-Lister, MFA ‘12 as Critics, and Alvin Ashiatey, MFA ‘22 as Lecturer, to the department's Core Faculty. Additionally, Choi, Manuel Miranda, and Dan Michaelson will be co-teaching the second-year thesis advising course, with Director of Graduate Study, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, and Walsh-Lister leading the first-year graduate studio course.
Dena Yago returns to teach the workshop “Writing as Visual Practice,” and just last week Yuchen Chang led a departmental workshop on bookbinding. Tonight, Riley Hooker leads the 12-hour workshop "Death and Delirium," that will run from 6PM to 6AM. Later this fall, Jesse Marsolais will lead a two-part series of letterpress workshops, followed by a subsequent two-part series of workshops on brush calligraphy and stone letter carving. Upcoming Paul Rand lectures in Graphic Design this fall feature an international roster of designers and artists including Remco Torenbosch, Emily Sara, and Salome Asega.
Painting/Printmaking will welcome Tuesday Smillie, Grace Rosario Perkins, and Kiyan Williams as Visiting Artists this semester. The all-department Colloquium held at the start of September hosted Davida Fernández-Barkan and Steffani Jemison who spoke about experimentation from various points of view as practicing scholars and artists, and Chilean poet, Cecilia Vicuña, was hosted in the Pit to deliver the distinguished faculty lecture. New faculty this semester include Kari Rittenback who will be co-hosting the 2024 thesis class alongside Senior Critic, Sophy Naess.
In Photography, Gregory Crewdson, MFA '88, John Pilson, MFA '93, Elle Pérez, MFA '15, Lisa Kereszi, MFA '00, Marta Kuzma, Dawn Kim, MFA '20, and Lacey Lennon, MFA '18, comprise the department’s first roster of rotating critics, with Vinson Cunningham and Tommy Kha, MFA '13, participating in the second rotation. Additionally, Jennifer Blessing, Kalia Brooks, Michelle Ku, and Roxana Marconi are joining the "Critical Perspectives" faculty this fall. Photography will also welcome Collier Schorr, Angela Strassheim, MFA '03, Elizabeth Bick, MFA '13, Eugene Richards, Lieko Shiga, Christian Patterson, Alex Da Corte, MFA '10, Heji Shin, and Justine Kurland, MFA '98. New Yorker writer Vinson Cunningham is also returning to teach “Between Eye and Ear,” a seminar designed to help students incorporate writing into their practice and find language fit to introduce their work to the wider world.
Core faculty member in Sculpture, American Artist, is leading the 2024 thesis cohort for the first time this year. Aki Sasamoto continues leading the department as Director, and Visiting Artists in Sculpture this fall include Christoph Cox, Minerva Cuevas, Bully Fae Collins, and Daisy Desrosiers. Last week, the department partnered with Graphic Design and the Yale University Art Gallery to welcome renowned South African beadwork artist Hlengiwe Dube as an artist-in-residence. In addition to an Interdepartmental Day Zulu Beading Workshop, Dube also hosted smaller workshops for Sculpture students as well as drop-in hours open to the entire School of Art community. From September 18th through the 21st, students and faculty were invited to come in and out of the studio to watch and speak with Dube at work. This program was generously supported by John and Kate Carrafiell, the Yale School of Art’s Cross-Cultural Fund and the Yale University Art Gallery.
In Undergraduate Studies at the School of Art this semester, newly appointed Director of Undergraduate Studies (DUS) and tenure-track faculty member in Painting/Printmaking Alexandria Smith will officially begin her appointment in October. Until then, Lisa Kereszi, MFA ‘00 and Senior Critic in Photography, will be transitioning from her role as current DUS to the first-ever Assistant Director of Graduate Studies in Photography.
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New Faculty Lecture Series begins next month
Join us October 9 for Catherine Opie's inaugural lecture at YUAG
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Poster design by Darnell Henderson, Graphic Design MFA '24.
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We're excited to invite you to join us for the first event in the Yale School of Art's new Faculty Lecture Series, featuring photographer Catherine Opie, with an introduction by Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Photography, Gregory Crewdson.
Monday, October 9, 2023
5-7PM
Yale University Art Gallery
Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Lecture Hall
Enter at 201 York Street
Catherine Opie (b. 1961, Sandusky, OH; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) is an artist working with photography, film, collage, and ceramics. Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States and abroad and is held in over 50 major collections throughout the world. Opie was a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow recipient and recently returned from the American Academy in Rome as the Robert Mapplethorpe Resident in Photography for 2021. Opie was also awarded The Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art Medal in 2016, The Julius Shulman Excellence in Photography Award in 2013 and a United States Artists Fellowship in 2006. In September of 2008, the Guggenheim Museum in New York opened a mid-career exhibition titled, Catherine Opie: American Photographer. She debuted her film, The Modernist, at Regen Projects, Los Angeles in 2018. Opie received a B.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute, and an M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts in 1988. She held the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Endowed Chair in Art at UCLA for a 2 year appointment, and was a professor of Photography there for 22 years. She has forthcoming exhibitions at Regen Projects, Los Angeles, Peder Lund, Oslo and Lehmann Maupin, New York all opening in early 2024.
This program is generously supported by John and Kate Carrafiell.
📅 Full info on the calendar >
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Inaugural Climate Engagement Mural complete!
Join us for the unveiling of Victoria Martinez's piece on October 2, 2023
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Images of the mural in-progress. Photos by Victoria Martinez, MFA '20 & Annie Lin, Project Specialist.
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On the corner of Mill Street and Saltonstall Avenue in Fair Haven, just 1.6 miles down from the Yale School of Art’s main building on Chapel Street, you’ll find a new mural created by 2020 MFA alum of the Painting/Printmaking program, Victoria Martinez. Entitled Take the Risk to Cool Down, the mural is the result of 12+ months of work by Martinez, collaborators across Yale, and Daniel Pizarro, MFA ‘12, the Communications Design Fellow for the project.
The site was carefully chosen by a committee of stakeholders across New Haven and the University, and the work is installed outside of MATCH, the Manufacturing and Community Technical Hub—a nonprofit that provides comprehensive manufacturing training, mentorship, wrap-around support, and jobs to the New Haven community.
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The mural was first painted on parachute cloth at the Osborn Memorial Lab on Science Hill, where Martinez had a studio during her fellowship. With the help of mural coordinator, Irisol Gonzalez-Vega, Painting/Printmaking MFA ‘24, and mural assistants Kat Wiese, Painting/Printmaking MFA ‘24, Lobbin Liu, Graphic Design MFA ‘24, and Berkana McDowell, the design was painted September 1st through the 6th before the parachute cloth was transported to MATCH at 20 Mill Street in Fair Haven. On September 6th and 7th, the mural was affixed to the wall with the help of the mural coordinator and assistants, with the mural’s entire creation and installation taking place inside a week.
“The inspiration behind the mural includes various threads,” Martinez shared. “Part of the visual was inspired by warming stripes, which are a simple visual representation of the long-term rise in global temperatures due to human-caused climate change.”
The mural’s content contains references to climate change, while its physical installation works to lessen one of its effects—rising temperatures—through the use of cooling paint. Created for use on asphalt, the cooling paint is applied to a portion of the mural closest to the ground, in an attempt to contribute towards lessening the heat of the surrounding environment during the hottest parts of the year.
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Images of the mural in progress and during community engagement events. Photos by Annie Lin, Project Specialist, and Shaun Pierson, Photography MFA '23.
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We're excited to invite you to join us for the mural's public unveiling, taking place this coming Monday, October 2 from 4-5PM at 20 Mill Street in Fair Haven.
Learn more about the mural on the news page >
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Special Ai Weiwei event hosted with the School of Architecture
Dean Pinder & Dean Berke welcome Ai Weiwei to Yale for the first time
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On September 15, renowned contemporary artist and activist Ai Weiwei made his first visit to Yale for a collaborative talk hosted by the Yale School of Architecture with the Yale School of Art.
While in conversation with both School’s deans, Dean Deborah Berke and Dean Kymberly Pinder, Weiwei shared, "For me, freedom means struggle."
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He continued on to give the following advice directly to students about their time in school: "I think it is a shelter before you meet the reality, and you should be prepared [for] the journey. Maybe everything you prepared cannot be used… You have to step out—the first step, maybe you'll fall."
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Photo by Lindsey Mancini, Assistant Director of Communications.
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SoA faculty and students share AI-centric projects at C-CAMP
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On Saturday, September 16, the Center for Collaborative Arts & Media hosted their biannual C-CAMP event, which invited the public to explore emerging technologies through project shares and workshops in development at CCAM, Yale School of Architecture, and the Yale School of Art.
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Lecturer in Graphic Design and former inaugural CCAM/SoA Postgrad Fellow, Alvin Ashiatey, MFA ’22, joined with current MFA student in Sculpture, Ivana Dama, MFA ’24, to lead sessions and share projects during the working lunch of the all-day event.
Together with Matthew Suttor, Program Manager at CCAM and Senior Lecturer in Theater and Performance Studies, Lauren Dubowski, Assistant Director of CCAM, Dana Karwas, Director of CCAM and Critic at the School of Architecture, and recent School of Architecture graduates Vignesh Harikrishnan and Kaifeng Wu, the group participated in and hosted an interactive session on "Combinatory Play"—a hands-on collaborative game exploring Python scripting with ChatGPT using AI models from Suttor’s opera I AM ALAN TURING, presented ongoing AI-centric projects, and joined in a discussion about the current and future landscape of AI in art and architecture.
Dama gave a presentation about the use of artificial intelligence in her personal work. She also gave a brief overview of early artwork from the 1960s through the 1980s that involved machine learning, discussing the contributions of Harold Cohen’s Aaron, Michael L. Noll’s Mondrian Experiment, and the establishment of the AI Lab at MIT in 1970.
Subsequently, Ashiatey co-taught the motion capture workshop with Ross Wightman, CCAM Technical Manager, Curator of the CCAM Sound Art Series, and Lecturer at Yale College, and Christian Killada, MFA student in Projection Design at the David Geffen School of Drama.
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Image: Ivana Dama, MFA '24, presenting work as part of C-CAMP on September 16, 2023. Photo by Kaifeng Wu.
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Welcome to our new postgraduate fellows
Alums selected as part of 2023-2024 cohort
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Left: Natalie Ivis, MFA '23. Tornado, 2023. Middle: Paloma Izquierdo, MFA '23. Money Rail (Right), 2023. Photo by Pat Garcia, MFA '24. Right: Daniel Pizarro, MFA '12. Graphic identity for "¡Despierta Boricua! in the Archives: Puerto Rican History & Activism" at Yale University.
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This semester, the Yale School of Art is welcoming three MFA program alums back to New Haven as postgraduate fellows, through ongoing partnerships across campus:
Newly graduated alum of the Photography program, Natalie Ivis, MFA '23, is the '23-24 Postgraduate Fellow in Photography. Ivis is teaching an undergraduate course “Photographic Storytelling”—a course that introduces students to the various elements of photographic storytelling, artistic styles, and practices of successful visual narratives. Through Yale Pathways to Arts & Humanities, Ivis is continuing to work with high school students in New Haven throughout the '23-24 academic year. Part of which involves being a co-instructor for a six-month photography program, "The View From Here", for high school students from greater New Haven organized by the Yale Center for British Art.
Another recent alum, Paloma Izquierdo, MFA '23, of the Sculpture program, will work in the Blended Reality Lab as the second SoA/CCAM Postgraduate Fellow—a role developed in collaboration with the Center for Collaborative Arts and Media. Izquierdo will be working with augmented reality, virtual reality, and machine learning as part of CCAM’s Blended Reality initiative which incubates new projects that layer real and virtual worlds.
In collaboration with the Schools of Environment and Architecture, Daniel Pizarro, MFA '12, was selected to be the 2023-2024 School of Art’s Climate Engagement Fellow. Last year, Pizarro served as the Communications Design Fellow and continues his engagement in the second iteration of the Climate Engagement Through Art in Cities initiative. As part of his ongoing work, Pizarro seeks to collaborate with other local artists to promote community engagement and public art centered on climate change and the built environment. He plans on establishing a partnership with the City of New Haven to design a digital platform that links building owners to artists via a mural registry.
Learn more about the fellows on the news page >
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Community news & awards
Congrats to faculty, alums, & students on their recent achievements!
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Maria De Los Angeles. Four Seasons: A Celebration of Community and Environmental Beauty. Acrylic; 8’.5” x 20’, Luther Burbank Center for the Arts, Santa Rosa, CA, 2023. Photo by Ryan Bonilla.
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It’s been a busy time for School of Art faculty, alums, and students!
Maria De Los Angeles, Critic, Assistant Director in Painting/Printmaking, and MFA ‘15, was commissioned to paint two murals in her hometown of Santa Rosa, California, at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts. The second mural, Four Seasons: A Celebration of Community and Environmental Beauty, resulted from two weeks of workshops with 100+ community members. De Los Angeles’ work is also featured in a new solo exhibition at the center entitled The Garden of Dreams and open through January 2024.
Director of Graduate Studies in Graphic Design and MFA ‘12, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, created the graphic identity for the 35th São Paulo Bienal—entitled choreographies of the impossible and open through December 10, 2023—producing the art direction for the website, all signage, and designing the Bienal’s official poster, while also featuring work in the exhibition.
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Nontsikelelo Mutiti. Graphic identity for the 35th São Paulo Bienal, choreographies of the impossible. Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo, Brazil; September 6 – December 10, 2023.
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Senior Critic Sarah Oppenheimer was recently recognized with a 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Craft/Sculpture. And just last week, first-year MFA student in Sculpture Nic[o] Brierre Aziz was announced as a 2023 Artist2Artist Fellow, an Art Matters Foundation award through which the grant recipients—artists—act as grantmakers.
In alum awards, Anna Boyiazis, MFA ’91, has been awarded the Michel du Cille Fellowship from the National Press Photographers Foundation. Nathaniel Donnett, MFA ‘21, has been named the Brown Foundation Houston Region Affiliated Fellow for the Rome Prize, and he’ll be in residence at the American Academy in Rome from March through May 2024. This week, we learned that Rebecca Soderholm, MFA ‘07, is one of five artists recognized with a 2023 JGS Fellowship for Photography from the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA).
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Join us! New staff positions open
Celebrating Brian Schmidt & expanding the School's admin support
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In August, the School of Art celebrated beloved staff member Brian Schmidt, who retired after more than three decades as Senior Administrative Assistant in Financial Affairs. He’s sorely missed and in his absence, the administrative support staff is being built out with new positions to more fully support Dean Pinder’s initiatives—including Interdepartmental Day and the new public lecture series.
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Please apply or forward to your networks if you or someone you know might be interested in any of our new open positions below:
Senior Administrative Assistant, Undergrad Studies
Reports to the Operations Manager and supports the Director of Undergraduate Studies (DUS) and undergraduate students.
🔗 Full information & apply >
Senior Administrative Assistant Dean's Office
Reports to the Operations Manager and supports the Dean, Associate Dean, and Interdepartmental Days among other initiatives.
🔗 Full information & apply >
Project Coordinator, CARE, DEI, Community Projects
Reports to the Dean, and serves as the sole staff person supporting the Yale Committee for Art Recognizing Enslavement (CARE) and the Director of Sustainable Equity and Inclusion for community projects.
🔗 Full information & apply >
Assistant Director of Development
Reports to the Director of Development and Alumni Relations and responsible for the overall annual funding planning and execution; will also create and manage a new alumni committee focusing on volunteerism and philanthropy.
🔗 Full information & apply >
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Image: Brian Schmidt's retirement party, held August 9, 2023 in Green Hall Galleries.
Photo by Lindsey Mancini, Assistant Director of Communications.
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Congrats to NXTHVN Fellows, Alexandria & Alex
Alums selected as part of 2023-2024 cohort
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Images: Alexandria Couch and Alex Puz's thesis work installed in Green Hall Galleries one year and one room apart. Top: Alexandria Couch, photo by Allison Minto, Photography MFA ‘20. Bottom: Alex Puz, photo by Meghan Olson.
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Over the summer, NXTHVN, the local New Haven arts organization co-founded by Titus Kaphar, MFA ‘06, announced its 2023-2024 class of studio and curatorial fellows. Alexandria Couch and Alex Puz—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.
Alexandria Couch, MFA '23, is a visual artist documenting figures in states of flux. Her work utilizes both traditional and found materials to facilitate states of dissonance between figures and their surroundings, provoking the apprehension of personal wayfinding. Flat and agitated areas of paint are used to disrupt the space or provide areas of brief respite. Body parts are created, cut down, and reassembled to generate shapeshifters that can oscillate between worlds.
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Alex Puz, MFA '22, is a painter whose practice investigates how perception is influenced by both emotion and cognition. He focuses on color study, optics and linear abstraction in order to explore how visual experience affects mental health and transforms bodily processes. Puz’s process oriented painting practice systematizes color and line resulting in dense, luminous and ornate chromatic fields.
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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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