www.artandeducation.net/yearbook
www.artandeducation.net/school_watch
art&education now features Yearbook, a platform for schools to present student work from MFA shows, open-studio presentations, and other annual student exhibitions.
Yearbook exhibitions on view:
Columbia University School of the Arts
2015 MFA Thesis Exhibition
April 26–May 18, 2015
Hosted each year at the Fisher Landau Center for Art in Long Island City, this year’s thesis exhibition was curated by Omar López-Chahoud and showcases work by the 27 students who graduated from the program in May. See the Columbia MFA gallery here.
School of Visual Arts (SVA)
MFA Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition
May 16–June 6, 2015
Curated by Lumi Tan, SVA’s 2015 MFA thesis show took place at a storefront space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and included the work of the program’s 35 graduates. See the SVA gallery here.
School Watch reports from Pasadena and London:
In Theory: Art Center College of Design and A Few Notes on Art Schools in Southern California
By Andrew Berardini
In Los Angeles, you’re always getting off freeways. The 110 disgorges onto South Arroyo Parkway, and there to the left is the South Campus of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Better known for the flowers and football of its Rose Parade/Bowl than anything else, the suburban city of Pasadena is a wealthy enclave with double the average household income of Los Angeles, just a few miles down the road. Getting to Art Center from the parkway takes just a few swift turns: pass the old power plant, the last industrial vestiges of an almost fully gentrified town, then take your first left on Glenarm, go over the Gold Line tracks, and pass an office tower bearing the name Parsons. Though not named for him, to me it’s an unlikely monument to the legendary local rocket scientist and Thelemite occultist Jack Parsons, a necessary shadow to all this bright suburban wealth. Make your first right on Raymond and you’ll find yourself in front of a converted aircraft design and testing facility, redesigned for Art Center with perforated metal flourishes by architects Daly Genik. [read more]
The Royal College of Art: Expanding Tradition at the “Best Art School in the World”
By Andrew Cappetta
As one might imagine, the RCA has been rethought and restructured over its 178-year history. It has moved, changed focus, and expanded; in many ways, renewal and redevelopment are part of the school’s DNA. Now boasting a student body of over 1,400, the South Kensington facilities have become inadequate. Three modern multistory buildings clustered around a small plaza-like street sit in the shadow of the grand Royal Albert Hall. Together they form a tight network of classrooms, workshops, offices, exhibition spaces, and research facilities, in which students and faculty use every conceivable space. One evening I sat down to a packed lecture by artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan in a room that appeared to be something between a hallway and a lecture hall. Hence the necessity of the Battersea expansion, a cluster of clean, modern buildings just off Battersea Bridge Road and steps from the south bank of the Thames. [read more]
School Watch presents distilled perspectives on degree programs in the arts, with interviews, critical texts and editorial exposés on MFAs, Masters, Doctorates and certificate programs in fine arts, art history, curatorial, cultural and film studies, and other related areas of specialty.