Matthew Ritchie named Distinguished Senior Fellow in Fine Arts

Artist Matthew Ritchie will join the MFA faculty at PennDesign this year as a Distinguished Senior Fellow. He will be teaching seminars and doing critiques, and we welcome him with great excitement.

The press release from Dean Taylor:

"It is with great pleasure that Joshua Mosley, Acting Chairman of Fine Arts at PennDesign, and I announce the appointment of Matthew Ritchie as Distinguished Senior Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, effective July 1, 2009. Matthew will teach studio and seminar courses through the Department of Fine Arts.

An installation artist and painter, Matthew Ritchie integrates contemporary fabrication processes and innovative narrative forms to explore, as TIME magazine put it, “the unthinkable or not-yet-thought.” His work is respected internationally and has premiered in museums and galleries such as the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, the Dallas Museum of Art, Mass MoCA, Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, White Cube London, and Andrea Rosen Gallery, NY. In addition, his work has been curated for important international exhibitions including the biennials at Venice (in Architecture), the Whitney, Sydney, and São Paulo.

Matthew’s work is widely published, serving as the focus of eight monographs as well as an anthology of seven hybrid monographs/artist books titled Matthew Ritchie: Incomplete Projects 01-07. Over 50 catalogs have been published which include his work for both solo and group exhibitions, including such titles as Guggenheim Collection: 1940s to Now, Art 21: Art in the Twenty –First Century (PBS), and Drawing Now: Eight Propositions (Museum of Modern Art).

Prior to this appointment at PennDesign Matthew taught as an adjunct professor at Columbia University and the School of Visual Arts in New York, and he held most recently a studio professorship in the School of Architecture at Princeton University. Additionally, he has been a visiting artist at Yale University, Pratt Institute, Boston University, and Goldsmiths College of Art in London.

The breadth of Matthew Ritchie's work is a great fit with the broad interdisciplinary scope of the School’s mission. I know you will all join me and Joshua in welcoming him to Penn and the faculty of Fine Arts as Distinguished Senior Fellow."

To see more of Matthew's work, visit www.matthewritchie.com and www.andrearosengallery.com

Ivanco Talevski (MFA '08) is mentioned in a review of an exhibition by the New York Times

Ivanco Talevski’s “Self Portrait” (2009)

Ivanco Talevski (MFA '08) was mentioned in an enthusiastic review of the exhibition, Up and Coming: New Printmakers Make Their Mark, currently on view at the Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, NJ. The show will be up until the 13th of Sept., 2009. The review was written by Benjamin Genocchio of the New York Times. Yay Ivanco!

By Invitation Only

By BENJAMIN GENOCCHIO
Published: August 21, 2009

"There is a welcome recent trend at regional museums in which exhibitions of work by nominated or invited emerging artists are taking the place of juried shows open to whomever pays the entry fee. This phenomenon has led to better quality control by curators and ultimately much better exhibitions.

The Hunterdon Art Museum is treading this path, replacing its annual juried print exhibition with an invitational show of prints by M.F.A. candidates and recent graduates from East Coast art schools. Titled “Up and Coming: New Printmakers Make Their Mark,” it is one of the best contemporary print shows I have seen in a long time.

To choose the artists, the museum’s curator, Mary Birmingham, asked 11 art schools to nominate their best up-and-coming printmakers, from which she selected 22 artists. Some work with traditional printmaking techniques, but over all the accent is clearly on artists experimenting with the print medium.

If the majority of exhibitors have anything in common, it is probably that they tend to look beyond conventional printmaking materials and techniques, incorporating elements like painting, drawing, sculpture and collage. One artist, Tara Cooper, has even combined printmaking with new technology to create a 10-minute animation.

Nearly all the artists are first rate, and I suspect that several will go on to have long and productive careers...

There are artists here working in more traditional media, but this does not mean their art is in any way conventional or boring. Ivanco Talevski makes strikingly unusual and beautiful etchings of figures, among them “Self Portrait” (2009), which shows him in profile wearing a fanciful hat; it combines elements of a village folk costume from his native Macedonia and an ancient helmet worn backward...

Nothing about this show is brisk or businesslike, qualities all too common in juried exhibitions. Chalk it up to the exuberance or the optimism of youth, but for many of the participants in this show, being an artist appears to be the most important thing in the world. That is a quality worth fostering."

“Up and Coming: New Printmakers Make Their Mark,” Hunterdon Art Museum, 7 Lower Center Street, Clinton, through Sept. 13, 2009.

Read the full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/nyregion/

For more info on the exhibition see: www.hunterdonartmuseum.org

To see more of Ivanco's work see: http://www.ivancotalevski.com/

Nsenga Knight (MFA '10) mentioned in review of MoCADA exhibition in the New York Times

Nsenga Knight (MFA '10) was mentioned in a review of the exhibition that is currently on view at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, Perspectives: Art, Women and Islam. The review was written by the great Holland Cotter in the Art In Review Section of the New York Times. Go Nsenga!! The exhibition will be on view until Sept. 13th, 2009. Here is an excerpt of the review:

"The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, more easily called Mocada, is a New York story, by now often told. The museum started in a walk-up office space in a church house in Bedford-Stuyvesant. It now has its own space, small but sharp. An adjacent empty lot is begging for future expansion.

None of this would mean much if the exhibitions weren’t good, but for the most part they are. The current one, “Perspectives: Art, Women and Islam,” is a collaboration with the Museum for African Art, which is completing its own new permanent home in Manhattan. There are five artists, all women, all in their 20s or early 30s, whose relationship to Islam is as varied and diffuse as the term itself....

[W]illing devotion is the subject of videos by the New York artist Nsenga Knight, who for several years has been interviewing Muslim women in Brooklyn. At least two of the three subjects included in the Mocada show converted to the Nation of Islam from Christianity in the civil rights era. One of them speaks plainly but eloquently of that moment of change in her life and weeps when recalling it. Obviously her perspective on Islam is quite different from that of the younger Ms. Bouabdellah, but you wonder whether in the end the impact on both is not equally strong." HOLLAND COTTER

Read the full post here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/arts/design

For more info on the exhibition see: http://mocada.org/

Marc Blumthal (MFA '10) in exhibition, "Under Pressure," OPENING Aug. 28, 2009 at the ShiftSpace Gallery at Wichita State University

(Images of Marc's work from the exhibition)




From the gallery's press release:

"Under Pressure consists of a full range of approaches in print media, from the traditional to the experimental. Printmaking has a strong basis in tradition, both as a fine art medium, and as an essential area of technological innovation for the dissemination of text and images. Old approaches to printmaking have been challenged and enriched by the introduction of digital and photographic media, and by artists producing work that integrates print media with other approaches. These new uses and understandings of printmaking have re-defined the very notion of what a print is. The exhibition consists of MFA students and recently graduated MFA students that can add to this complex dialogue in printmaking, and who have a vision that reaches beyond traditional practices. Whether by presenting traditional processes in a new light, or by pushing the conceptual or technological limits of that which can be considered printmaking, work submitted addresses the printmaking tradition in new and innovative ways."

For more about the exhibition see: www.shiftspace.blogs.com

See more of Marc's work: http://marcedmundblumthal.blogspot.com/

PennDesign Alumni Exhibition Opportunity

ALUMNI INVITATION FOR SPECIAL EXHIBIT
February 3 - February 28, 2010

The submission form will be on the PennDesign Web site next month "Alumni Exhibit Submission." See: www.design.upenn.edu

Dear PennDesigners,

We hope this finds you well and enjoying the summer!

The Local Community Cultivation Committee of PDAA is sponsoring a special event in Philadelphia in conjunction with Philagrafika 2010, a multi-sited, international festival of contemporary art. We invite you to submit "printed media" with the submission form that will be located on the PennDesign Web site on September 1. There will be a jury panel from the PennDesign community (one from each discipline) who will select the works to exhibit.

The exhibit will be installed for the entire month of February at Bahdeebahdu Gallery, a studio, showroom and gallery at 1522 N. American Street. We will have an opening reception the first week of February 2010 (date to be decided) and an event closing at the end of the month.

Philagrafika 2010: The Graphic Unconscious will focus on artistic practices that engage the visual, intellectual and creative frontiers in printmaking and how these approaches relate to social and political issues in the public sphere.

Submission parameters: Printed Media - Largest Dimension: 6 feet x 6 feet. You are allowed to submit up to 6 images at a total collective size
of 10mb. Once the form is available on the Web site, please send all images attached to the PDF by email to pdalumni@design.upenn.edu or mail a CD-rom with the form to:

PennDesign Philagrafika 2010 Exhibit
102 Meyerson Hall
210 S. 34th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104

We look forward to your submissions by October 1, 2009. Check us out on Facebook!

All the best from Philadelphia,

Christianne Kapps (MFA'01), Jill Sablosky (MFA'79), Kim Douglas (MLA'96) and Nadine Kashlan (MArch'09)
Local Community Cultivation Committee of the PennDesign Alumni Association Board

Please contact the PennDesign Alumni Office for more information or call Andrea Williams at 215-898-2539.

**Sponsored by the PennDesign Alumni Association**

Penn Participates in "Arts & The City Year" in Philadelphia 2009 - 2010

Penn will be involved in Philadelphia's Arts & The City Year in 2009 and 2010. The Provosts office describes it as such: "Penn’s Arts & the City Year celebrates arts and culture across our campus – and throughout our neighborhood, city, and region. It features an exciting range of events in Fall 2009 and Spring 2010, from dynamic student performances and distinguished guest artists, to vital discussions about national arts policy, the role of the arts in public health, and the importance of civic engagement with arts and culture. With its array of diverse perspectives, the Arts & the City Year spotlights Penn’s commitment to knowledge that crosses disciplines and boundaries, while reaffirming the essential role of arts and culture in campus and city life."

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports, "The university is changing its approach as part of a new campaign it will officially launch next month, called "Arts & The City Year." In addition to the orientation project, Penn plans "arts crawls" around the city, and an arts "passport" to art and cultural institutions with discounts and prizes for students. An "art in public health" series, arts seminars, and a variety of other programs also are planned to put students more in touch with the art venues on campus and around the region. "We're focusing on the role of arts in building community," said Penn provost Vincent Price. "We just have an enormous array of institutions on campus and in our larger region. We want to build greater student awareness." Penn officials also hope the focus on arts this year will forge stronger ties between arts institutions on campus and those in the community."

Homecoming Weekend (Nov. 5-8, 2009) will be incorporated into the "Arts & the City Year".
Organized, in large part, by Sheila Raman, Director of Arts & Culture at Penn; and Hoopes Wampler, Assistant Vice President of Alumni Relations. For more info, contact the alumni office at alumni[at]dev.upenn.edu, PennDesign alumni office at pdalumni[at]design.upenn.edu, or MFA alumna Elizabeth Lim at lime[at]alumni.upenn.edu

For more information about Arts & The City Year, please visit www.upenn.edu/provost/artsyear
For more information about Penn's Homecoming role, please visit www.alumni.upenn.edu/homecoming2009/

Thomas Isaac (MFA '06) in Video Art Exhibition at Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, Opening August 20

Thomas Isaac (MFA '06) will be showing a video piece in the group exhibition, On The Edge: Emerging Native Video Art. This is part of the Ninth Annual Native Cinema Showcase at the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe, in association with the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts.

Three emerging artists confront issues including racism, spousal abuse, alcoholism and the clash of the modern with the traditional in these works, selected by NMAI associate curator for contemporary arts Kathleen Ash-Milby (Navajo). In Red Man, a woman responds to the taunting verses of a racist song with violence. The song inevitably continues, the white protagonist undeterred (d. Erica Lord (Iñupiag/Athabaskan) and Noelle Mason, U.S., 2005, 4min). In the animated video The Earliest Bruise feelings of helplessness and fear are encapsulated in the memory of a young boy who has witnessed his father’s drunken abuse of his mother (d. Thomas Isaac (Navajo), U.S., 2004, 2min). Tsu Héidei Shugaxtutaan I and II (d. Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit), U.S., 2006, 9min) mixes a Tlingit Raven dance and contemporary “robot” dance to create a commentary on the intersections of the modern world and Tlingit cultural expression. The title translates “we will again open this container of wisdom that has been left in our care.”

Opening Reception: August 20, 5:00 - 7:00pm
Showcase Dates: August 20 - 23, 2009

Center for Contemporary Arts
Moving Image Lab
1050 Old Pecos Trail
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505.982.1338
For more information on the showcase, visit www.ccasantafe.org/NCS_2009.html
For more information on CCA, visit www.ccasantafe.org
Gallery Hours: 12:00 - 8:00 daily

To see more of Thomas's work, visit www.isaaccaasi.com