PennDesign MFA takes part in Penn's Art & the City Year Arts Crawl THIS Friday, Nov. 20th

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.

This Friday, Nov. 20th there is an astounding range of events taking place across the Penn campus. You can find a full listing of all of the events here: www.vpul.upenn.edu/platthouse/artscrawl.php

Here is a small selection of some of the events taking place (edited to mostly Fine Arts related events):

8:30am – 9pm: Kamin Gallery, 1st Floor, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center. Experience Penn Libraries provocative exhibition: Werner-Pfeiffer (censor, villain, provocateur, experimenter): Book objects & Artist Books. Refreshments from 2-4 pm.

10am -5pm: Addams Gallery - First Year MFA Exhibition.

12pm (doors open at 11:30 am): XPN Free At Noon Concert and Live Broadcast | WXPN/World Cafe Live, 3025 Walnut Street. GRANT LEE PHILLIPS / BOB SCHNEIDER. FREE ADMISSION | RSVP @ XPN.org

12pm-8pm Institute of Contemporary Art - Join the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) from noon until 8pm for their exciting line up of fall exhibitions. Among them, Dance with Camera, a group show of over thirty artists, spanning seventy years featuring film, video and photography. At 6:30pm author Steven Conn will discuss his new book, Do Museums Still Need Objects? Music generously provided by WQHS, Penn's student radio station. ICA is always free!

7-9pm. Meyerson Hall - MFA Benefit Auction. Bid on contemporary work by University of Pennsylvania MFA Candidates, Faculty, Alumni, and Supporters of PennDesign. Auction Preview: Thursday, November 19th 10am – 5pm . All proceeds support PennDesign's 2010 MFA Thesis Exhibition.

8pm: The Rotunda - In this installment of the popular GATE experimental series, witness sonic innovations as Bowerbird presents local and international musicians who span countless styles and inspirations.

9:30pm: Finish up at Annenberg After Hours (Annenberg Center) for a FREE arts party! Eat food from your favorite local restaurants, try your luck at winning awesome prizes and get great deals on Annenberg Center tickets. Spend the night dancing or just hanging out while Pieris Music transforms the lobby into a happening club scene with its electronic string concertos, DJ interludes and hip video art projections. This event is part of the Penn Arts Crawl and is FREE to all students!

Coffee and Conversation with Susan Fang (MFA '10) at the ICA this Thurs.

WHENEVER WEDNESDAY: COFFEE & CONVERSATION

November 11 at 6:30pm · FREE

Please join the ICA for a tour of the exhibition Tim Rollins and K.O.S.: A History, followed by coffee and conversation with ICA lecturer Susan Fang and David Grazian, a professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.

David Grazian is Associate Professor and Undergraduate Chair of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. Prof. Grazian received his BA from Rutgers University in 1994, and his PhD from the University of Chicago in 2000. He teaches courses on popular culture, mass media and the arts; cities and urban sociology; social interaction and public behavior; and ethnographic methods. In his research he employs a variety of ethnographic and other qualitative methods to study the production and consumption of commercial entertainment in the urban milieu.

Susan Fang is an MFA candidate at the University of Pennsylvania. She is interested in constructions of identity and the uncanny. She holds a BFA from the University of Georgia.

Institute of Contemporary Art
University of Pennsylvania
118 S. 36th St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104

A Spiegel Fund event

For more information about the event see: www.icaphila.org

See more of Susan's work: http://www.susanfang.com/

LECTURE: Oran Catts, bio-artist and co-founder of SymbioticA, to give lecture at the Penn Museum, Nov. 4th, 2009

Oron Catts Lecture, 4 November 2009 from 5:00–6:30pm

Harrison Auditorium
Penn Museum
3260 South Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104

Lecture:
Killing Flesh? Can the Semi-Living Die?

http://www.phf.upenn.edu/09-10/catts.shtml

Cosponsored by Penn's Institute of Contemporary Art
Perhaps no one has probed the connections between life and art more dramatically than Oron Catts, bio-artist and co-founder of SymbioticA, an artistic research laboratory housed within the biological science department at the University of Western Australia. Professor Catts discusses the fascinating issues raised by bio-artwork, such as the living coat he created out of mouse stem cells for a recent MoMA design exhibition.

Oron Catts is Co-founder and Artistic Director of SymbioticA, School of Anatomy and Human Biology, University of Western Australia. An artistic laboratory dedicated to the research, learning, and critique of life sciences, SymbioticA is the first research laboratory of its kind. Since its founding in 2000, the lab has produced new cultural experiments in the field of neurosciences, molecular biology, anatomy, physics, anthropology, and ethics. It has enabled dozens of artists to create "wet technologies" while complying strictly with scientific requirements within a bioscience department. In 2007 SymbioticA was awarded the inaugural Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica in Hybrid Arts.

Artist, researcher, and curator, Oron Catts has pioneered the emerging field of bio-arts, which examines shifting perceptions of life. He was a Research Fellow at the Tissue Engineering and Organ Fabrication Laboratory, Harvard Medical School, and has worked with numerous other biomedical laboratories around the world. In 1996, he founded the Tissue Culture and Art Project to explore the use of tissue technologies as a medium for artistic expression.

In April 2009, Icon Magazine (UK) named him one of the top 20 designers “making the future and transforming the way we work.” He has received international awards, including the 2008 Western Australia Premier Award and Second Prize in the Telephonica VIDA10 International Competition on art and artificial life. Catts' work has been shown at MoMA, Ars Electronica, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), and National Gallery of Victoria (Australia), among others.

LECTURE TONIGHT: Jenelle Porter, ICA associate curator...Thurs., April 9th at 6PM...Morgan White Room

The Real World Lecture Series Presents…

JENELLE PORTER: associate curator, Institute of Contemporary Art
THURSDAY, April 9th at 6:00 PM

Jenelle Porter is associate curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, where she has most recently organized “Dirt on Delight: Impulses That Form Clay,” “Joshua Mosley: dread,” “Trisha Donnelly,” “Locally Localized Gravity,” and “Gone Formalism,” among others. From 1998-2001 she was curator at Artists Space in New York where she organized over twenty exhibitions, including a re-creation of the seminal 1977 Artists Space exhibition “Pictures.” She was a curatorial fellow at the Walker Art Center (1997-98) and a curatorial assistant at the Whitney Museum of American Art (1994-1997). She has written essays for several catalogues and magazines, and books on artists Trisha Donnelly, Joshua Mosley, Stephen Prina, Matthew Ritchie, and Uri Tzaig.

White Room
Morgan Building
205 S. 34th Street

fine-art@design.upenn.edu
http://www.design.upenn.edu/new/finar/

Interesting new website for art/artist videos launched by the Indianapolis Museum of Art

An article in the New York Times recently introduced a new web resource for art focused media. Artbabble will feature such hard to find material as artist interviews and short profiles of curators and art handlers. This could be a great way for artists to get a behind-the-scenes sense of how arts institutions function. The website opens with links to videos featuring Brice Marden, Maya Lin, and a preview of the 5th Art:21 season.

Here is an excerpt from the article written by Kate Taylor (3/6/2009):

"In the last few years, as museums have tried to take advantage of the Internet to connect with young audiences, they have produced an increasing number of online videos, from artist interviews and time-lapse shots of exhibition installations to short profiles of curators, art handlers, and even museum guards. Most institutions feature these videos on their own Web sites, as well as uploading them to sites like YouTube or blip.tv. But until now, there has been no dedicated place on the Web for art videos...
Maxwell Anderson, the museum's director, said the goal behind ArtBabble, and the museum’s own video production, is to allow visitors to 'experience the life of museums,' whether through employee profiles, studio visits with artists or videos of conservators restoring objects. The advantage of making the new video site a collaborative one was obvious, he said: 'The strength and potency of this as a shared site is much greater than one museum at a time'.”

Here is a link to the NYT article: www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/arts/design/07babb.html

Check out Artbabble: www.artbabble.org

MONDAY: Talk with Michael Brenson (MFA Senior Critic) on "The MFA Question"...Morgan Building White Room at 8PM

$K6?: THE MFA QUESTION

with Michael Brenson

MONDAY April 6th at 8pm
White Room, Morgan Building

Informal discussion about art education and that which is The (your) MFA.

Essays available online:

· Thierry De Duve's essay on what art education could/should be
· Essays from the avant garde school in Frankfurt
· Revision Number 6 ADDICTIONS by Dave Hickey from Art in America

You can download the essays in our course folder by logging in with your penn key here: http://www.design.upenn.edu/remoteaccess
Navigate to FNAR and then the “distribution” folder

THIS FRIDAY: Women in Fine Arts Panel Discussion featuring MFA Alumni...Morgan Building White Room 4PM

(click image for bigger view)

Friday, April 3, 4-5:30pm

Morgan Building, White Room

Panel discussion on gender and careers in fine arts with…

Carson Fox, Penn BFA, multi-media, www.carsonfox.com

Jill Sablosky, PennDesign MFA '79, sculptor, www.inliquid.com/artist/sablosky_jill/sablosky.php

Marjorie van Cura, PennDesign MFA '02, painter, www.marjorievancura.com

All PennDesign students--men and women, undergraduate majors and grad students--are welcome. Refreshments and hors d'oeuvres will be served. RSVP if attending to Rachel at rlburk@upenn.edu.

Series sponsored by the Trustees’ Council for Penn Women and organized by Career Services.

"Ecology of Inequality" conference to be held at UPenn School of Design... April 3-4, 2009.

(click image for bigger view)

Friday, April 3, 2009 - Saturday, April 4, 2009 at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design

The Ecology of Inequality is an examination of the systems, infrastructure and design processes that create or perpetuate the socio-economic and environmental stratification of our society.

Conference sessions will include a diverse pool of invited panelists, as well as intriguing submission from our Call for Papers. Presentations will evaluate the social conditions, historical precedents and design decisions that have led to today's conditions. The conference will also discuss contemporary approaches that are confronting the current power structure, or ones that are seeking to establish new, justice-oriented design strategies that replace the ecology of inequality with ecologies of equity.

Details and list of panelists and speakers available here: http://www.design.upenn.edu/unspokenborders09/schedule.htm

Organized by the PennDesign Black Student Alliance and the 2009 Unspoken Borders Planning Committee.

Article about "Dirt on Delight" exhibition at the ICA published today in New York Times Art section... Jane Irish (MFA program Coordinator) mentioned!

Excerpt from the article written by Roberta Smith (NYT art critic):

"PHILADELPHIA — On a surprisingly regular basis, the tiny Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania here mounts exhibitions that make the contemporary-art adventures of many larger museums look blinkered, timid and hidebound. The institute’s current show is a lively case in point, never mind the ungainly, uninformative title: “Dirt on Delight: Impulses That Form Clay.” Only the last word hints that this convoluted syntax might signal an exhibition of ceramic vessels and sculptures.

When this show is seen in person, it is unmistakable that it is wildly, exuberantly, yet quite cogently about things of a ceramic nature, many different things: large and small, abstract and representational, glazed, unglazed and painted, old and new.

The show’s determination to integrate ceramics into the art mainstream is nothing new. But its refusal to do so simply by slipping some universally agreed-upon ceramic exceptions into a show of painting, sculpture and so forth is close to groundbreaking...

Nods are given to some of the art world’s youngest and hottest users of clay, but also to artists with little art-world profile, like Philadelphia’s own Jane Irish and Paul Swenbeck or Jeffry Mitchell of Seattle. The show even has an outsider artist: Eugene von Bruenchenhein, better known for his sweetly (mostly) erotic photographs of his wife."

Read the full article here: www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/arts/design/20dirt.html

A Conversation with Joshua Mosley (Acting Chair of MFA Program) and Elisabeth Camp at the ICA...Wed., Mar. 18th at 630PM

Conversation: Joshua Mosley and Elisabeth Camp

Whenever Wednesday, March 18 at 6:30pm

Joshua Mosley, who explores the limits of human expression and existential thought in his acclaimed installation dread, talks with Elisabeth Camp, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, about metaphor and the role of thought in perception, communication, and self-understanding.
A Spiegel Fund event.

Joshua Mosley: dread
Exhibition Dates: January 16 - March 29, 2009

Joshua Mosley titled his most recent installation dread after photographer Eadweard Muybridge's motion study sequences of a dog named Dread. Made over a two-year period, Mosley's dread is composed of five bronze sculptures, and a six-minute, black-and-white, animated video that combines computer and stop-motion animation, as well as the artist's own music and dialogue.

dread is installed in two adjacent rooms. The first houses five, small bronze figures on pedestals spaced about the room. Enter the second room to see the film, projected large so as to evoke the scale of the environment the characters inhabit: a real world place created using sequenced still photographs. But unlike the real world, music notes replace ambient sounds. Composed by the artist, each character has its own "soundtrack." dread follows philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Blaise Pascal on something of a nature walk. They encounter flora and fauna, and engage in conversation about existence, God, and nature; in the end, they encounter Dread.

Institute of Contemporary Art
University of Pennsylvania
118 S. 36th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-3289
tel: 215.898.5911

For more info: www.icaphila.org/exhibitions/mosley.php

Marc Blumthal (MFA '10) will give a tour of the ICA's current exhibition, Dirt on Delight. Sat. March 7 at 2pm.

First Saturday Tour: Dirt on Delight
Saturday, Mar. 7th at 2pm

Lectures On Contemporary Art: Marc Blumthal on Dirt on Delight

Now in its sixth year, ICA’s Lectures on Contemporary Art program welcomes Marc Blumthal, an MFA candidate in the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, to present tours at the museum. Marc Blumthal’s geometric abstract paintings and prints investigate one's travels within the urban landscape, specifically looking at how light defines space. Blumthal joins current program participants Susan Fang, also an MFA candidate in the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, Ruth Erickson and Yael Rice, both Ph.D. candidates from Penn’s Department of the History of Art.

The artists in "Dirt on Delight" include the current generation (Nicole Cherubini, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Jeffry Mitchell, Sterling Ruby, and Paul Swenbeck), artists who emerged during the 1990s (Ann Agee, Kathy Butterly, Jane Irish, Arlene Shechet, and Beverly Semmes), those who established clay as a critical material during the 1960s and 1970s (Robert Arneson, Viola Frey, Ron Nagle, Ken Price, Adrian Saxe, Beatrice Wood and Betty Woodman), and historic and outsider figures (Lucio Fontana, Peter Voulkos, and Rudolf Staffel, as well as George Ohr and Eugene Von Bruenchenhein).

Founded in 1963, the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania is a leader in the presentation of contemporary art. Through exhibitions, commissions, educational programs, and publications, ICA invites the public to share in the experience, interpretation and understanding of the work of established and emerging artists.

For more about events at the ICA see: http://www.icaphila.org/events/

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

TONIGHT (Feb. 4): Penn First Wednesday at the ICA, Meet Campuzano and more: 7-10pm

February 4, 2009. 7-10pm

7:30PM / MEET THE ARTIST: Anthony Campuzano

8:30PM / PERFORMANCE: EXCELANO PROJECT

ICA is a laboratory for artistic freedom that fosters a creative dialogue through the presentation of world-class contemporary art on Penn’s campus. Join the adventure during the next Penn First Wednesday. Bring your friends, it’s free. Who knows, you might even meet the next Andy Warhol. BE RADICAL—we dare you!

For our February Penn First Wednesday, come early to meet artist Anthony Campuzano at 7:30pm as he leads a tour of his exhibition Touch Sensitive, currently on view in ICA’s Project Space. Make your own one-of-a-kind buttons with designs by the artist. Stay for a performance by the spoken word poetry group Excelano Project at 8:30pm. Be sure to catch a 60-second lecture by one of our Graduate Lecturers on Contemporary Art – they’ll be happening throughout the evening.

For more info: www.icaphila.org/students/

Emerging Artists: Residencies, exhibition submissions and more

Courtesy of Professor Jackie Tileston:

RESIDENCIES (search field examples: Visual Arts, USA; Bemis; etc.)
http://www.resartis.org/index.php?id=5

GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS, EXHIBITION SUBMISSIONS
http://artdeadlineslist.com/

ART IN GENERAL
http://www.artingeneral.org/

COLLEGE ART ASSOCIATION (ask the department for username and password)
http://careercenter.collegeart.org/search.cfm

NEW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS
http://www.nyfa.org/login.asp?id=8

EMERGING ARTISTS' RESUMES: A GALLERIST'S PERSPECTIVE
http://edwardwinkleman.blogspot.com/2006/06/bio-camp-open-thread.html

RESOURCES for Penn MFAs

STORE YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS AT PENN'S CAREER SERVICES

Establish a file to store all of your recommendations through Penn's credential systems:
http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/credentials/credentials.html

You often need letters of recommendation when you apply for fellowships, grants or jobs. You may establish a file of letters of recommendation which will be permanently stored by Career Services. You may have these mailed whenever you need to provide letters of recommendation. Your letters will always be available on short notice and you will not have to ask the same person to write letters for you again and again.

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TEACHING CERTIFICATE FOR PENN MFAS
If you've worked as a Teaching Assistant for two semesters, you're less than four steps from getting a Teaching Certificate from Penn's Center for Teaching and Learning. These are the requirements:

1. TA for two semesters
2. Take a few workshops (about an hour each; take during your coffee break)
http://www.ctl.sas.upenn.edu/grad/grad_workshops.html
3. Write a teaching philosophy
4. Have a CTL staff observe one class

And you're done: http://www.ctl.sas.upenn.edu/grad/certificate.html
Contact Bruce Lenthall for more info lenthall[at]sas.upenn.edu
(This is available to doctoral students and MFAs -- those pursuing a terminal degree.)

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CONCERNED ABOUT TAKING AN ELECTIVE OUTSIDE OF PENNDESIGN?
Check out Penn's course and instructor ratings for that elective

(click on a category in the "Browse Courses" section on the left):
http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/coursereview/

While this electronic publication lists mostly professors and courses from the undergraduate program, many graduate professors are listed as well (almost all of our MFA professors are listed).

RESOURCES for Penn MFAs

STORE YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS AT PENN'S CAREER SERVICES
Establish a file to store all of your recommendations through Penn's credential systems:http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/credentials/credentials.html

You often need letters of recommendation when you apply for fellowships, grants or jobs. You may establish a file of letters of recommendation which will be permanently stored by Career Services. You may have these mailed whenever you need to provide letters of recommendation. Your letters will always be available on short notice and you will not have to ask the same person to write letters for you again and again.

-------------------

TEACHING CERTIFICATE FOR PENN MFASIf you've worked as a Teaching Assistant for two semesters, you're less than four steps from getting a Teaching Certificate from Penn's Center for Teaching and Learning. These are the requirements:

1. TA for two semesters
2. Take a few workshops (about an hour each; take during your coffee break)http://www.ctl.sas.upenn.edu/grad/grad_workshops.html
3. Write a teaching philosophy
4. Have a CTL staff observe one class

And you're done: http://www.ctl.sas.upenn.edu/grad/certificate.html
Contact Bruce Lenthall for more info lenthall[at]sas.upenn.edu(This is available to doctoral students and MFAs -- those pursuing a terminal degree.)

-------------------

CONCERNED ABOUT TAKING AN ELECTIVE OUTSIDE OF PENNDESIGN?Check out Penn's course and instructor ratings for that elective
(click on a category in the "Browse Courses" section on the left):http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/coursereview/
While this electronic publication lists mostly professors and courses from the undergraduate program, many graduate professors are listed as well (almost all of our MFA professors are listed).

Image Resource for MFA Teaching Fellows

HIGH-RES images on the web:
http://www.artstor.org/index.shtml

This resource is paid for by the university. Full access requires your Penn email. To view images, "unblock" the "Popup" tab on your web browser.