MFA CCNY - MFA The City College of NY

Upcoming Artist Talks - Hank Willis Thomas & Christine Osinski

2010-09-19T16:04:00.000-07:00

Compton Goethals Hall - Room 225

Hank Willis Thomas 9/23/10 5pm

Christine Osinski 10/6/10 12pm

In Dialouge - St.Nicolas Park - Public Art Project

2010-06-29T11:36:00.000-07:00

Public Art works by City Collge MFA students
Scherezade Garcia and Marcie Revens
June 8th - July 17th

http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_newsroom/daily_plants/daily_plant_main.php?id=22198

For Immediate Release ... The West Harlem Art Fund, Inc. and The City College of New York’s Division of Humanities and the Arts are hosting a daring exhibition in historic St. Nicholas Park -- bringing contemporary art installations by new artists that mix history, community and landscape together for residents and New Yorkers alike. Public viewing begins June 16, 2010.

As apart of the college’s MFA program, a special “studio” was created last fall. Artists Scherezade Garcia and Marcie Revens were chosen from a panel to participate in the exhibition “In Dialogue”. Historic St. Nicholas Park which slopes below the neo-gothic campus of City College was designed by George Browne Post and overlooks both West and Central Harlem.

The college’s motto: Respice (Past), Adspice (Present), Prospice (Future), suits this exhibition especially well. In result, this collaboration bridges new attitudes and forges bold artistic expressions.

The MFA program at The City College of New York provides an opportunity for students to study studio art in the heart of the art world -- New York City. The City College of New York’s Division of Humanities & the Arts insures an intensive professional experience and affords students the opportunity to follow their creative vision in a collaborative environment. The MFA Program offers instruction in the theory, practice, and teaching of the visual arts through a required sequence of courses as well as in-depth training in one or more of the following areas of specialization: drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, or ceramic design.

The West Harlem Art Fund, Inc. is a twelve year old, cultural arts and preservation organization. WHAF offers exhibition opportunities for artists and creative professionals wishing to share their talent with residents in Northern Manhattan and around the city. The West Harlem Art Fund, Inc. showcases art and culture in open, public spaces to add aesthetic interest to our part of the city; promote historical and cultural heritage; and support community involvement in local development. The organization’s African symbol is the double crocodile from West Africa. Funtunmmireku-Denkyemmirreku means unity in diversity

This exhibition is in partnership with the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation and its Public Art Program administered by the venerable Mr. Jonathan Kuhn and Ms. Jennifer Lantzas. Special thanks are given to Manhattan Community Board 9 and the Friends of St. Nicholas Park for their support.

Sergio Prego - Studio visits

2010-06-18T11:32:00.000-07:00

Sergio Prego will be doing studio visits June 23rd.

To view his work go to http://www.lehmannmaupin.com/#/artists/sergio-prego/

MFA Thesis Show

2010-04-13T15:39:00.000-07:00

Luciana Maiorana
April 19- 23th
Opening Reception: Thursday April 22th
5-8pm

Compton Goethals Hall - Gallery
140th st. & Amsterdam Ave.
New York, NY
212-650-7420

Artist Talk

2010-04-07T15:49:00.000-07:00

Judith Page

Monday April 12th
5pm
CG room 252

MFA Thesis Show

2010-04-07T15:32:00.000-07:00

Elena Stojanova
April 12- 17th
Opening Reception: Thursday April 15th
6-9pm

Compton Goethals Hall - Gallery
140th st. & Amsterdam Ave.
New York, NY
212-650-7420

Sarah Schmerler Visits!

2010-03-26T11:46:00.000-07:00

Sarah has been an art critic and journalist in New York City for 12 years. Her writing has appeared in newspapers like The New York Post and The New York Times, weekly magazines like TimeOut New York and The Village Voice, and monthly and bi-monthly publications like Art in America, ArtNews, Photograph, Art & Auction, and Art on Paper.

She has developed a writing methodology specifically geared toward visual artists and helps artists write great statements about their own and others’ work.

Sarah's Blog

The writer is present.

Upcoming Thesis Shows

2010-03-17T16:35:00.000-07:00

Compton Goethals Gallery
140th St. @ Amsterdam Ave.
Hours Mon.-Fri. 10am - 5pm
212.650.7420

April 12-16 - Elena Stojanova

April 19-23 - Luciana Maiorana

April 26-30 - Chris Lea

More info. to come!

Spring Visiting Artists/Writers

2010-03-16T16:23:00.000-07:00

Start off our Spring 2010 Visiting Artists/Writers

March: Sarah Schmerler
http://www.sarahschmerler.com

April: Judith Page
http://www.judithpage.com

MAD - Rob Carter

2010-03-05T17:10:00.000-08:00

See Visitng Artist Rob Carter in the last few weeks of the Museum of art and Design (MAD) exhibition Slash: Paper Under The Knife

http://collections.madmuseum.org/html/exhibitions/485.html

Artist Rob Carter visits City College!

2009-05-07T10:02:00.000-07:00

Rob Carter creates re-constructed imagery of architecture and landscape, using photography, and video animation. This October he will premier a new cut-paper animation at the Museum of Fine Arts and Design in New York City.

See his work at: http://www.robcarter.net/

Photos by Priska. Taken during studio visits with the MFA students.

Open Studios!

2009-04-21T15:46:00.001-07:00

Join us this week: City College Open Studios

When: April 23rd & 24th (Thursday & Friday)
Time: 5-9pm
Where: 140th St @ Amsterdam - Compton-Goethals Hall

Directions: Take the A,C,B,D to 145th st. Walk west to Amsterdam Ave. (two blocks)
Then walk south to 140th st. Or take the 1 train to 145th and walk 1 block east to Amsterdam and then south to 140th st.

Studio are on the 2nd Floor room 201

MULTIPLES: MFA EXHIBITION - Opening!

2009-03-31T20:01:00.000-07:00

2009-03-19T10:32:00.000-07:00

MULTIPLES: MFA EXHIBITION

Exhibition dates: March 23 through March 27

Opening Reception: March 24 @ 5:00 - 8:00

Recent Grad Spotlight: Shani Peters (current exhibit at HSA)

2009-02-10T15:07:00.000-08:00

Recent work by Shani Peters is on view now through February, at The Harlem School of Arts (645 St. Nicholas Avenue, NY) in Layers of Current-cy: Memory and Imagery of Black History of a New Time.

More About the Show

In this momentous year for American socio-politics, HSA celebrates Black History Month with a dynamic group show of artists working in our own Harlcommunity. Together, these very disparate works offer a unique sketch of African American experience through our modern American lens. All three artists fuse the past and the present, both literally through the layering of media, and figuratively by layering past ideologies and present perspectives.

Artists:
Thomas Heath, b. 1949, American. Heath has participated in solo and group shows throughout NY, including the Harlem Open Artist Studio Tour, NY; He is also published in African American Art: The Long Lost Struggle, edited by Crystal Britton.

Gail Shaw-Clemons, b. 1953, American. Shaw-Clemons has exhibited her work at Skylight Gallery, NY; South Broadway Cultural Center Gallery, NM; and is presently showing at Columbia University, NY.

Shani Peters, b. 1981, American. Peters is an MFA student at City College of NY. She has exhibited at Harlem Textile Works, NY; Rush Gallery, NY; and participated in Harlem Open Artist Studio Tour, NY.

More about Shani Peters:

Statement: "I am interested in the power of collective activity, in the identification of the self within the whole, and in cyclical patterns throughout history and generations. My work bridges my personal experiences with the collective history of Black people in the United States. I examine this history and its present circumstances through the perspective of family structures as they inherently lie between the self and the whole and are microcosms for larger societal conditions."

See more of Shani's work at.....

http://re-cord.blogspot.com/ or http://afonline.artistsspace.org/

2008-12-17T14:25:00.000-08:00

The Box

2008-12-11T08:13:00.000-08:00

The Box.

The idea of exploring a box as a common theme for a group show emerged as part of conversations and discussions among MFA students at the City College, City University of New York. The exhibition, simply entitled “The Box,” was initiated, produced and curated by the students and shows a variety of directions in their works, investigating the box and its physical form, social connotation, and even contemporary political issues related to the form.

A cardboard box is perhaps one of the most mundane and commonly used objects in our contemporary consumer culture. As a container, it serves a principal role of protecting desirable and saleable objects against scratches and damages that could potentially lower their market values. It allows for safety and transportation across countries, continents, and around the world. Once the consumer goods have lost their owner’s interest, they often return again to their cardboard shelters and are removed, thrown out, left in closets, garages, or rented storage spaces.

The box as a form has also found its way into the arts, art criticism and museum contexts. Robert Rauschenberg, for example, used cardboard boxes in his combine paintings as an attempt to bring art closer to life adding common day references to the paintings along with photographs, newspaper clippings, family photos, and even hand-painted gestures. Andy Warhol’s empty replica cardboard boxes, Brillo Box (1964) served to cast doubt on art and its market values in mainstream consumerism, as well as questioning modernism in its quest for originality and renewal. Donald Judd’s cubical forms investigated the box as a generic shape consisting of surfaces that marked an exterior from an interior space, which turned into a critique of modernism’s emphasis on the artist’s hand and a consideration of the form viewed in relation to the institutional space in which they were situated. Brian O’Doherty’s now canonical Inside the White Cube (1976) discussed the modernist clinical exhibition space as a white box in which:

The frame of the easel picture is as much a psychological container for the artist as the room in which he stands is for the viewer (…) One "steps" firmly into such a picture, or glides in effortlessly, depending on its tonality and color. The greater the illusion, the greater the invitation to the spectator's eye; the eye is abstracted from an anchored body and projected as a miniature proxy into the picture to inhabit and test the articulations of its space.

Chris Lea’s Untitled (2008) tests the articulation of such a space in a box in relation to the space of the gallery. The used cardboard box appears in stark contrast to the blue pigment painted on its interior walls. Left as an open field of blue, we are encouraged to investigate the form and attach meaning to it, perhaps filling in the blanks. Nancy Palubniak’s Self Image and The 3 Me’s (2008) considers self-portrait as a genre and the box as a container that metaphorically holds a world, similarly to the body. Here, a brown box with the stamp “fragile” on the side is featured open with a second and a third smaller box inside. The three different boxes allude to the shells or layers of self, which Palubniak defines as: “the physical self, the social self and the inner self.” Priska Wenger’s World in a Box (2008) responds to the history of art making by taking its starting point in 16th and 17th century perspective boxes, and 19th century panoramas. Peeking through the holes of two white boxes, quirky juxtaposed collage snippets guide the imagination and invite us into an open-ended story in a fairytale style.

A whimsical play with everyday experiences that intermingle between reality and illusion are also found in Seung Ae Kim’s work Obscure Boxes (2008) where a hanging cardboard box is seemingly capable of doing the impossible: holding water. “Drops” made of translucent acrylic appear as if dripping from a box and down in a “pond” of colored plexi glass on the floor. Added a drawing of steam on the wall, Kim speaks to the nature of water as a substance meandering between its vapor and solid form. It is a much more personally driven space Marcie Reven’s 950 (2008) strives for, using the box as a metaphor for home, in this case the author’s grandparents’ home, currently up for sale following the passing of the two significant role models in Reven’s life. Photographs of the empty interiors placed in “windows” of a corrugated box aim to transport us into memories of lost and warm family history. Rachel Reese’s theatrical setting views time as a subjective parallel in the presence of two human beings. Peaking through windows into the mundane corrugated box, we discover a Baroque interior alluding to a movie theater in which the scene takes place. Two clocks, curtains and a mirror act as the main characters in a play, that create numerous doubles corresponding to one another in complete symmetry.

Dennis Delgado’s Hummer - Like Nothing Else (2008) responds to the box in reference to consumer culture, the war in Iraq, and the U.S. army’s many ways of recruiting soldiers. Delgado points to the hidden messages in buying and owning the army-developed Hummer and its replica: a cardboard toy, cut out and assembled following directions on the Internet. Aware of the desirable object and its power to subconsciously spark the desire in boys and girls to play war and perhaps join the army later in life, Delgado places one example in front of us to (re-)consider. Elena Stojanowa’s The Bed (2008) similarly responds to current social and political issues, using the box as it is found in the streets, utilized by homeless people as temporary shelters or homes. An otherwise dead material takes on a life of its own reconfigured in a gallery space, as it simulates a person’s “living” environment in the streets questioning the solitude and ignored ghostlike presence of the homeless in an urban environment. Luciana Maiorana’s Il Baco del Calo del Malo (2008) is similarly politically driven, commenting on the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s recent interviews and media coverage, in which he notes a perceived religious status and healing powers. Maiorana mockingly shows Berlusconi flanked with donkeys on a triptych as a portable altarpiece that alludes to Renaissance portraiture with a contemporary twist.

Using the cardboard box as a structure for a Piñata (2008), Scherezade Garcia similarly tabs into her cultural heritage and Dominican tradition presenting a Piñata as a golden airplane, using a modern-day symbol for transportation and immigration, dreams, expectations, and hope for a better future. Viewers are invited to hit the Piñata during the opening reception retrieving the treats inside. The remains of the event will continue to be on display throughout the exhibition. Perhaps most recent in its commentary is Shani Peters’ time capsule responding to the recent presidential election of Barack Obama. A video shows family footage from the celebrations on election night and an accompanying letter addresses the people who may find the time capsule in a certain number of years. Perhaps then living a life without racism, Peters explains the excitement and reasons behind the overpowering joy of the election result.

Starting with a simple form, a cardboard box, this show features a variety of works that exemplifies the students’ work together, reworking and kindling ideas while investigating a simple form and common day material. A simple box has opened up for what seems to be endless possibilities and leaves one wondering: what will be next?

Lise Kjaer

2008-12-10T21:25:00.000-08:00

White Columns

2008-12-04T21:53:00.000-08:00

proposals for group exhibitions click here

It will be a good chance for us. What do you think?
-Seung Ae

I think we should get together and make a proposal
Nancy

2008-12-03T16:42:00.000-08:00

For the show, which is titled "The Box," the artists are limited to working in or on a corrugated cardboard box.

The exhibition will open 12/8 and run through 12/19. The opening reception is 12/11 5pm-8pm.

The participating students are: Dennis Delgado, Scherezade Garcia, Rachel Reese, Seung Ae Kim, Christopher Lea, Luciana Maiorana, Nancy Palubniak, Shani Peters, Marcie Revens, Patricia Riebesehl, Elena Stojanova, Priska Wenger.

Directions to the gallery:

City College Art Department
Compton-Goethals Hall
The City College of New York
Convent Avenue at 138th Street
New York, New York 10031
212.650.7420 tel

Compton-Goethals Hall is a neo-gothic building located between 139th and 140th Streets, and between Amsterdam Avenue and Convent Avenue. The building is to the left (if you're facing the campus from Amsterdam Ave) of the very large, modern building know as the NAC (North Academic Center.

If you're coming by subway:

The campus may be reached either by the #1 train to 137th Street, or by the A or D lines to 145th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue. As it is one of the few New York City colleges with an actual campus, providing directions can sometimes be confusing. Here are the options:

Take the #1 local to 137th Street and Broadway; when you come out of the 137th street station, you will be in a small triangular park. Walk through it up hill, and then one more block uphill (east) on 138th St. At the top of the hill is Amsterdam, and the main gate of the campus. Continue through the gate and walk down hill and make your very first left down a pathway between two buildings. Walk straight down this path until the end (the path ends in a building called Baskerville). At your immediate left will be Compton Goethals Hall. Inside the doors and up the stairs of the entrance to C-G hall stands a security guard. If you indicate that you have an appointment in the art department they should be able to direct you to the office which is room 109.

Take the "A" or "D" express, or the "B" or "C" local to 145th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue. Stay on the back of the train. Exit the station from the exit which states "W. 145th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, SW exit." Walk west one block uphill on 145th Street to reach Convent Avenue. Walk straight down (towards the south) to 139th Street. You will pass a gated entranceway to CCNY (a security guard is usually standing there). Once you pass this entrance, Compton-Goethals Hall is on the right hand side. There will be an entrance to a building immediately after the gate (this is an entrance to Baskerville). Immediately past this building, there is a flight of stairs that open up onto a quad. Walk up these stairs and straight ahead of you. Immediately in front of you will be Compton-Goethals Hall with the tower looming above. Follow directions as above.