2.26.2015

Installation by Claire Bidwell (MFA '14) in Bushwick - Opens 3/4


Wilmer Wilson IV (MFA '15) performing in NYC - March 1st

Wilmer is doing a performance as part of the Performing Franklin Furnace series at Martha Wilson's retrospective in NYC, this Sunday March 1
GALLERY: Participant Space, at 253 East Houston Street, at 7pm. There will be a few others performing too, as hosted by Clifford Owens. Come by!

2.10.2015

NEW WORK by Heather Ramsdale (MFA '10) at the Gallery at Delaware County Community College - OPENS Wednesday 2/11


On View: February 11 - March 13, 2015, The Gallery at Delaware County Community College
Artist's Talk Wednesday, February 11, 2 - 3 p.m.
Large Auditorium | Room 2225 I Academic Building

Opening Reception Wednesday, February 11, 3 - 7 p.m.
Art Gallery | Room 2305 I Academic Building 
In Beyond Origin, the importance of form and material is emphasized as artist Heather Ramsdale carefully constructs objects that represent structural slices of renovation/design materials.
The constructed forms are often used as metaphors for questioning or encapsulating time, or are used to make comments regarding the speed of time. Recognizable objects are re-presented in combination with architectural and interior design elements, and seem to bookend decades or eras. This is in an effort to generate a unique psychological response that feels familiar and new.
The goal of the artist is to prompt the viewer's psychic space and bring into question several ideas centered around time, how we relate to it by the way we live, and how to locate ourselves within it.
For more information on Heather Ramsdale's work visit heatherramsdale.com

2.08.2015

Here Comes the Sun - A new photobook by Mohammadreza Mirzaei (MFA '14)


Here Comes the Sun - A new photobook by Mohammadreza Mirzaei (MFA '14)


The Graduate Department of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design and the University of Pennsylvania Common Press are pleased to present Here Comes the Sun, a photobook by Mohammadreza Mirzaei. The book is designed by Filippo Nostri and contains 21 color plates, writing by Mirzaei, and an essay by Carlos Basualdo (full essay).

In Here Comes the Sun, photography is not only a medium which can gives a form to Mirzaei’s representation, but also the subject of his work. Basualdo writes, "If Mirzaei began by fearing that nothing of the world would be revealed now he seems intended to make us turn away from what’s appeared in front of us. Lack of language, before, to talk about the world surrounding us, lack of feeling afterwards, to talk about ourselves. We clearly see that the question that this book attempts to pose concerns the very possibility of seeing, only inasmuch as our vision defines our very selves. What can we really see, and what do we become while seeing it? What it is left for us to see? DeracinĂ©, in a foreign city and a foreign language, Mirzaei firmly grasps the chance to think with images about images themselves."

Mohammadreza Mirzaei is an Iranian artist who is now living and working in Tehran. The images included in this book are all made while he was pursuing his MFA at University of Pennsylvania, from 2012 to 2014.

Carlos Basualdo is the Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and is also a senior critic in the Interdisciplinary Master of Fine Arts Program at the University of Pennsylvania.

The two-year Master of Fine Arts program at Penn is focused on the professional development of studio artists. Through studio work, seminar courses, international residency opportunities and interactions with vital working artists, the program provides an open intellectual framework to foster critical awareness and independent methods of artistic research. Students extend their conceptual strategies while inventing and then refining their own hybridized forms of art making methods. The program encourages exploration, extending studies into other disciplines within the School of Design and the university-at-large with a rich selection of outside electives and optional certificate and dual-degree programs.


Here Comes the Sun
University of Pennsylvania Common Press
52 pages
21 color plates
20 x 30 cm
ISBN: 978-0-692-29127-6
Printed in Italy