Parsons school of design celebrates 10 years of
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NEW YORK, June 17, 2015 – The Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at The New School presents “Camera Work,” an exhibition of photographic and video work created using a variety of media and processes. The exhibition opens with a public reception on Thursday, June 25, 6-8 p.m. “Camera Work” features a wide array of artwork, from framed prints and moving images on glowing screens, to mock natural history dioramas, iPad slide shows and more, by graduates of the MFA Photography Program at Parsons School of Design. Work in the exhibition ranges from Keith Telfeyan’s deceptively casual series of prints, Endless, Nameless (2015), which walk the line between Instagram kitsch and the Romantic sublime, to Erik Madigan Heck’s sumptuous portrait Etro (2014), which exists between fine art and fashion photography, to Marie Vic’s Blowing Riccardo (2015), a video that slyly sends up commercial advertising using a Givenchy gown, industrial fans, and the fuselage of an abandoned airplane. Bobby Davidson’s photo series Number 34 and his video Principia (all 2014) use the great American pastime—baseball—to explore relationships between optical and photographic vision. In John Deamond’s installation, which is accompanied by his self-published book, A Field Guide to the Extinct and Extirpated Birds of North America (2013), images of taxidermy passenger pigeons flank a life-size diorama of a natural habitat in which clay-shooting targets have replaced birds. “From the outset, we positioned MFA Photography as a technology-forward program that would define the role of the photographer in the wake of the digital revolution,” James Ramer, director of the program, says. “The exhibition not only demonstrates the ways in which these artists represent and shape our world, but also their commitment to the medium even while expanding the breadth of their photographic practice.” Much of the artists’ work can be found in printed publications. The reliance on the printed paper format coupled with forward-thinking artistic approach echoes Alfred Stieglitz’s pioneering photography publication Camera Work, which also serves as the name of the exhibition. “Stieglitz’s Camera Work began by championing pictorialism, the already old-fashioned idea the photography could prove itself a fine art by imitating painting, but ended its distinguished run by presenting the most modern photographic vision of its time,” the curators said. “The artists in this exhibition similarly keep an eye on the legacy of the photographic past while bringing camera work into the future.” “This exhibition continues the SJDC’s exploration, begun with Prison Obscura this spring, of the unexpected ways in which cameras can be put to work,” said Radhika Subramaniam, Director/Chief Curator of the SJDC. The exhibition is curated by Sarah Hasted, a founding partner of Hasted Kraeutler, a contemporary art gallery in New York City, and Joseph R. Wolin, an independent curator and critic. It features work by Jun Ahn, Berk Çakmakçı, Alison Chen, Xiao Chen and Yichen Zhou, Bobby Davidson, John Deamond, Nathan Harger, Erik Madigan Heck, Brigitte Lustenberger, Joy McKinney, Charlie Rubin, Keith Telfeyan, José Soto and Marie Vic. |
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The Sheila C. Johnson Design Center is an award-winning campus center for Parsons The New School for Design that combines learning and public spaces with exhibition galleries to provide an important new downtown destination for art and design programming. The mission of the Center is to generate an active dialogue on the role of innovative art and design in responding to the contemporary world. Its programming encourages an interdisciplinary examination of possibility and process, linking the university to local and global debates. The center is named in honor of its primary benefactor, New School Trustee and Parsons Board of Governors Member Sheila C. Johnson. The design by Rice+Lipka Architects is the recipient of numerous awards, including an Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects. For more information please visit www.newschool.edu/sjdc. Parsons School of Design is one of the leading institutions for art and design education in the world. Based in New York but active around the world, the school offers undergraduate and graduate programs in the full spectrum of art and design disciplines. Critical thinking and collaboration are at the heart of a Parsons education. Parsons graduates are leaders in their respective fields, with a shared commitment to creatively and critically addressing the complexities of life in the 21st century. For more information, please visit www.newschool.edu/parsons. |
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Media Contacts: Scott Gargan, |
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