July 16–24, 2022
30 Campus Road
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York 12504
United States
T +1 845 758 7248
mfa@bard.edu
The Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College (Bard MFA) presents “Absolutely Maybe,” the thesis exhibition of the class of 2023. “Absolutely Maybe” brings together works by candidates in the disciplines of film and video, music and sound, painting, photography, sculpture, and writing.
The process of making art, in essence, boils down to decision-making. The title of this year’s exhibition, “Absolutely Maybe,” considers the tumultuous and often anxiety-ridden nature of this process: the beauty and absurdity of what it means for artists to insist on creating new worlds through their art within the polarity of uncertainty and necessity.
The Bard MFA thesis exhibition features work by MFA candidates Sarah Abarbanel, Anthony Almendárez, Namrata Arjun, Russell Barsanti, Samuel Lang Budin, Bastien Gachet, Cochemea Gastelum, Nele Jäger, Woojae Kim, NIC Kay, Kricket Lane, Mehves Lelic, Lucy Lie, Bleue Liverpool, Alonso Llerena Carrasco, Ulrik López, Thomas Mader, May Marei مي مرعي, Sasha McEvoy, Funto Omojola, Charlie Perez-Tlatenchi, Rory Rosenberg, Andrew Rubin, Ginerva Shay, Yanik Wagner, Tin Wai Wong, Christopher Yuda, and ricky sallay zoker.
The thesis exhibition is coordinated by Isis Awad (MA ’17), a graduate of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (CCS Bard). Awad is a writer, curator, and poet from Cairo living in New York City. She is the founding director of Executive Care*, an art organization at the service of unrepresented artists from performance and nightlife communities.
Sarah Abarbanel
Anthony Almendárez
Namrata Arjun
Russell Barsanti
Samuel Lang Budin
Bastien Gachet
Cochemea Gastelum
Nele Jäger
Woojae Kim
NIC Kay
Kricket Lane
Mehves Lelic
Lucy Lie
Bleue Liverpool
Alonso Llerena Carrasco
Ulrik López
Thomas Mader
May Marei مي مرعيّ
Sasha McEvoy
Funto Omojola
Charlie Perez-Tlatenchi
Rory Rosenberg
Andrew Rubin
Ginevra Shay
Yanik Wagner
Tin Wai Wong
Christopher Yuda
ricky sallay zoker
Founded in 1981, Bard MFA is a nontraditional school for visual, written, and time-based arts. At Bard, the community itself is the primary resource for the student — serving as audience, teacher, and peer group in an ongoing dialogue. In interdisciplinary group critiques, seminars, school presentations, as well as discipline caucuses and one-on-one conferences, the artist-student engages with accomplished faculty members while developing their individual studio practice. The program probes a diversity of approaches and fosters imaginative responses and insights to aesthetic concerns across the disciplines of film/video, writing, painting, sculpture, photography and music/sound. Bard MFA is a low-residency program that takes place over two years and two months. Students are on campus for three consecutive eight-week summer sessions and off campus for two independent study sessions completed during the intervening winters.