AIB Photography BFA Thesis: Marrow Mending featuing the work of Liz Affa, Kate Bullen, Malin Sjoberg, and Tiffany Ulrich

April 30th from 6 - 8 PM at the Art Institute of Boston Gallery

601 Newbury Street, Boston, MA

This is the fourth BFA Photography exhibition for the 2010 graduation class at the Art Institute of Boston.

Liz Affa's work deals with how her perception of men has been tainted because of thought patterns she has inherited from generations of women in her family. The work is multi-media based involving illustration on fabric then sewn on a sampler and stained. Themes of domesticity and the idea of the house vs the home are inter-woven throughout the work.

Kate Bullen's photographs transport you to a constructed reality that is both inviting and disturbing. The black and white photographs trigger a sense of familiarity within these constructed worlds.

You can visit Kate's website here.

Malin Sjoberg's still lives explore psychological states of the mind as well as weaving in stories from her families past.

Tiffany Ulrich explores the idea of materials and their value and what happens when you strip them of their worth or elevate them through sentimentality. Tiffany's sculptures are embedded with her own family mythology as she attempts to mend the issues that have occurred to her family within her lifetime.

Fred Ricthin Lecture | PRC @ Northeastern University

Fred Ritchin After Photography

Thursday, April 29, 2010
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Northeastern University (Building 20F, in West Village)
MBTA T-Stop (E-Line - Northeastern)
Click for campus map with directions

In a digital environment, what can emerge from a medium transformed? How will it change us as people? And how can we influence what comes next?

Fred Ritchin is author of the recently published book, After Photography, and has been writing on the digital challenge for media since a major article for The New York Times Magazine in 1984. He is professor of Photography and Imaging at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, and directs PixelPress. Ritchin was picture editor of The New York Times Magazine, executive editor of Camera Arts magazine, and founding director of the Photojournalism and Documentary Photography Program at the International Center of Photography. Ritchin has also authored In Our Own Image: The Coming Revolution in Photography (1990), and his essays have appeared in other books such as In Our Time: The World As Seen by Magnum PHotographers, An Uncertain Grace: THe Photographs of Sebastiao Salgado, Mexico Through Foreign Eyes, Sahel: End of the Road, and Under Fire: Great Photographers and Writers in Vietnam. He is currently finishing another book Outside the Frame, on photography and human rights. He also writes the blog afterphotography.org.

Interview with Jenn Warren | Sudan

April 27, 2010

AIB alumna Jenn Warren will join AiC via Skype and discuss her recent documentary projects in Sudan.



Jenn Warren is a documentary photographer based in East Africa, specializing in NGO, humanitarian, and development projects. Clients include Medecins sans Frontieres, UNICEF, CARE, WFP/PAM, Amnesty International, PSI, the National Democratic Institute, SafePoint, and TASC. She was recently awarded the 2008 Nikon Emerging Professional Scholarship to attend the Missouri Photo Workshop 60 and is featured in the Best of ASMP 2008, Alligator Juniper Photography Annual 2008, and the 2008 Center for Fine Art Photography Peace Corps Exhibition.

PLASTIC FOREST | NYT OP-ART

AIB alumn Bryan Graf was recently featured in the New York Times OP-ART.


From the sereies Roadside Wildflowers
Photographs copyright Bryan Graf

These are photographs of plastic bags that I pulled from trees and shrubs in the woods near my home in New Jersey. To make these pictures — photograms — I took the bags into my darkroom and gently dropped them between my enlarger’s lens and a piece of light-sensitive paper. I then illuminated the scene with a flash of light for less than a second. The resulting images trace the objects gliding in the air moments before they come to rest. Like Earth Day, they are for me a prompt to reflect on the relationship — sometimes vexed, sometimes beautiful, always complicated — between humankind and nature.

—BRYAN GRAF

Photography BFA Thesis, On Life and Death: Molly Geiger, Christopher Hoodlet, Tara Sellios, & Paul Yem

April 19-24th at The Art Institute of Boston Gallery at University Hall

1815 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA, 02239

Reception: 5-7 PM Thursday, April 22nd.

This is the third BFA Photography exhibition for the 2010 graduating class at the Art Institute of Boston.

Molly Geiger has been working on an on-going documentary project photographing midwives and home birth.

Molly's website can be seen here.

Chris Hoodlet's work chronicles his experiences within the land and his journey of life affirmation through landscape.

Paul Yem photographs the changes within the land he grew up in and how a photograph can function as a memory of an ideal landscape.

You can see Paul's other projects on his website here.

Tara Sellios translates her vision of the seven deadly sins through still lives depicting both beauty and repulsion.

Teenage Girls Explore Their Lives Through a Camera’s Eye | NYT

By COREY KILGANNON

for the New York Times, March 2010



Visit NYT's slideshow

Alessandra Sanguinetti Lecture | AIB

Strauch-Mosse Artist's Lecture
The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University

APRIL 20, 2010 | 6:30 pm
Room 101, Boston University Kenmore Classroom Building
565 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston


Copyright Alessandra Sanguinetti

AiC GOES TO MassMOCA

APRIL 20, 2010

InVisible: Art at the Edge of Perception

InVisible brings together a small selection of international artists working in a variety of mediums, and features Uta Barth, Christian Capurro, Joanne Lefrak, Janet Passehl, Jaime Pitarch, and Karin Sander. Curated by Katia Zavistovski, an intern from the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art.


Uta Barth, Sundial (07.14)

Gravity is a Force to be Reckoned With

Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle's project Gravity Is a Force to be Reckoned With is based upon Mies van der Rohe's uncompleted project, the House with Four Columns (1951), a square structure open to view on all four sides through glass walls. In Manglano-Ovalle's work, the house will be constructed at approximately half scale and inverted, the ceiling of the original becoming the sculpture's floor, the floor becoming the ceiling, and all interior elements such as Mies-designed furniture and partition walls installed upside down.


Manglano-Ovalle's Gravity Is a Force to be Reckoned With at MassMOCA 2010

Guy Ben-Nur: Thursday the 12th

Over the past decade Guy Ben-Ner has become known for a series of playful videos which often star the artist and his young children. The humorous, home-made films have an authentic, do-it-yourself appeal, though their deceptive simplicity quickly reveals sophisticated cinematic and literary influences - ranging from the physical comedy of Buster Keaton and the humanist films of François Truffaut to literary classics such as Herman Melville's Moby Dick and Daniel Dafoe's Robinson Crusoe.


Guy Ben-Ner's video installation Tursday the 12th at MassMOCA 2010

Photography BFA Thesis | AIB

Carlie Bristow, Jena Duncan, Sam Matsumoto & Jennifer Morgan

April 12-17 at the Art Institute of Boston Gallery
601 Newbury Street, Boston, MA

Reception: 6 -8 PM on Friday April 16th
This is the second BFA Photography exhibition for the 2010 graduation class at the Art Institute of Boston.

Carlie Bristow's work is a combination of performance and video exploring her relationship with food. The videos show her playing out this relationship through narratives of pleasure seeking and resistance.

Her website can be seen here.

lobster adventure from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

Jena Duncan has taken on the task of eating within a hundred miles of Boston for 60 days as a performance-based art piece. Her work exhibits the perks of local-eating but also the struggles and conflicts that it creates on oneself in today's society. She works with many different mediums to go along with this performance and her exhibition includes plants she is growing, photographs, a map of where her food has come from, a cook book, as well as videos posted on her blog chronicling her experience.

Jena's blog "Jena Performing Local" can be seen here as well as her website of her past work here.

Sam Matsumoto has two different bodies of work on display at this exhibition. The photographs in the World of Rugby series investigates the strength and fragility of female rugby players.

The Self Myth series explores issues of identity and how we invest personal narrative into photographs.

Sam's other work can be seen on her website.

Jen Morgan's documentary “Gone Phishing” is a film about the journey of a Phish fan. Living on the road, going from one concert to another regardless of the passage of time, Jen shows how this life can actually sustain Phish followers and how they always come back to do it again. This film represents her own quest for self-discovery and the next step on the path to pursue in life.

A trailer to her previous exploration of the Phish fan can be seen here.

ART REVIEW | Roni Horn aka Roni Horn @ ICA Boston

BY JARED KUZIA

Roni Horn aka Roni Horn, organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, is now on display at The Institute of Contemporary Art, which lies quite literally on the shore of the Atlantic ocean in Boston, Massachusetts. The show spans several floors and is divided into seven quaint sections. Horn has worked in several medias over the last thirty years, and this retrospective display includes her eclectic choice of materials and media including glass and gold sculptures, color and black and white photographs, collaged drawings, sound, books, and installation.



Bird, 2008
Copyright Roni Horn

One might ask, how do all of these medias work together? Well, you can either walk from room to room and draw your own conclusions like I did on my first round, or you can use the assistance of the seven postcard descriptions located in each section of the show. The cards offer a description of the materials used, and give some insight into Horn’s concepts, even quoting her at times. To top it off, they all fit nicely into an envelope acquired in the first room stamped “RONI HORN AKA RONI HORN”. Personally I loved these cards; they allowed me to walk around and spend time with my own thoughts for a while rather then being instantly confronted by a statement giving it all away. Having them all together at the end also helps to draw connections between the different periods and mediums involved in her work. It also gave me a wonderful object to take home and cherish, reminding me of the experience (and her name…).



This is me, This is you (detail), 1998–2000 (ninety-six chromogenic prints)
Copyrigth Roni Horn

Horn was born and studied in the U.S., but her love for Iceland plays a large role in a lot of the work. The geography and climate of Iceland quite clearly fit into her reoccurring themes of weather. It also holds a certain aesthetic that is also translated into the work not directly involved with the particular location. The theme of weather, and themes of our relationships with nature, translate as metaphors for her themes of perception and more importantly identity in flux. The theme of shifting identity is quite eloquently spoken about in several places throughout the show, one of my favorites being room three: “Is this me?”. This curatorial masterpiece separates onto two opposing walls, the photographs of her niece over the course of a couple years. The viewer is caught in between these walls physically engaged in the act of looking back and fourth, questioning exactly what are the signifiers of identity and how it is changing this girl.


River Thames 2
Copyright Roni Horn

Also attributed to the curator is the location in which these works of art are housed. Visitors actually have the opportunity to sit down on the upper floor and listen to recordings of philosophies surrounding the idea of water, while looking out the floor to ceiling windows onto the Atlantic. Other work that is close enough to the windows is also able to change as clouds move in and out and the sun rises and sets, correlating directly to these issues of flux.

This is well thought out curating accompanied by well thought out work. I was able to go from room to room drawing strong connections between the different pieces, with only a couple of the rooms feeling a bit out of step. With the opportunity I would remove some of the drawings and collages, as it feels much less connected and far less emotive than the photographs and some of the incredibly involving sculpture. All things considered, the show is well worth your time.


Jared Kuzia is a photography junior at the Art Institute of Boston.

Visiting guest artist SHARON HARPER

The Art Institute of Boston
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
1:30pm

Moon Studies and Star Scratches, No.1
July - October, 2003
New York, New York; Boston, Massachusetts
Copyright Sharon Harper

Sharon Harper uses photographs and video to record a subjective experience of landscape. Geographically descriptive elements in the work transform, giving way to a psychological, interior rendition of the natural world. Technology has a dual purpose in the work. It interferes with a direct experience of nature by mediating the encounter, yet it offers perceptual experiences unseen and unattainable without it via camera optics, high-speed trains and nighttime digital vision. This work seeks out the spirit of the experiences celebrated by the Transcendentalists in a landscape irrevocably altered by technology while offering perceptual experiences that new technology affords. It engages traditional notions of the sublime and re-evaluates them in the context of the contemporary natural world in an experiential manner.

Harper received an MFA in photography and related media from the School of Visual Art in New York in 1997 and a BA from Middlebury College in literary studies. She has had solo exhibitions at Rick Wester Fine Art (2010), NY, Marcel Sitcoske Gallery in San Francisco, Savage Art Resources in Portland, Oregon, and the Goethe Institute in New York, among others. Her work was also included in the Greater New York exhibition at PS1 Contemporary Art Center in February 2000.

Harper’s work is in permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Portland Art Museum, and Bayerische Vereinsbank. She was an artist-in-residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, California, in 2002 and she has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony, Ucross Foundation, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She received a Meredith S. Moody Residency Fellowship at Yaddo, the Sam and Dusty Boynton Residency Fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center, and a Film Study Center Fellowship at Harvard University in 2006.

ART REVIEW | Krzysztof Wodiczko @ ICA

BY MOLLY GEIGER

In the darkness of a giant room, patrons struggled to discern the silhouette and unmistakable sound of a landing helicopter. Perplexed by the sight, none were ready for the sniper fire that tore through the windows and the car bomb that sent the outside marketplace scattering. It plays with your senses and makes you question if you’re still in Boston or a real war zone in Baghdad. Adrenaline pumped as the mind scrambled to make sense of the chaos unfolding. That frightening moment of confusion was Krzysztof Wodiczko’s desired effect. The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) on Boston’s waterfront is hosting Wodiczko’s project “…Out Of Here: A Veterans Project” from November 4, 2009 to March 28, 2010. “…Out Of Here“ is an innovative piece that depicts the horror and uncertainty of trauma as it is experienced by soldiers and civilians alike. Wodiczko has broadened the definition of veterans to include any persons who are submerged in harm’s way in his artist statement.


Krzysztof Wodiczko's "…Out Of Here: A Veterans Project" at the ICA

Krzysztof Wodiczko was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1943. He currently works and resides in New York City and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1980, Wodiczko has created over seventy large-scale video and slide projections of politically inspired images and projected them on famous monuments worldwide. His projections are geared towards human rights, democracy, violence, and estrangement. His work acts as a bridge between art, trauma, healing and justice. The mission of these mobile installations has been to identify and expose issues that society would rather neglect or not discuss. The Gallery looks like the interior of an old warehouse or military base with video projections of seven windows near the ceiling that provides a skyward view. Outside this warehouse, on the outside we imagine to be on the other side of the projected windows, the sounds of an Iraqi marketplace echo through the streets. A group of children are laughing and playing as one kicks a soccer ball up into one of the windows, cracking it. All the talking and laughter is replaced by sudden chaos as an explosion detonates and a sniper fires several rounds through the windows. Black smoke billows skyward panic ensues. Between shouting U.S. soldiers and Humvees barreling into the scene, intense automatic gunfire fights erupt all around. After a few moments of radio chatter, machine gun fire and the eventual departure of the soldiers, the street returns to eerie silence. It is at this moment that a woman discovers her mortally wounded son. Her cries fill the abandoned streets, as her son has become collateral damage. Then the project loops back to the beginning and starts again. What is amazing artistically about this piece is the fact that the art is in what the viewer imagines and feels, not much in what we’re actually seeing. To properly portray the realistic spectrum of horror, Wodiczko interviewed U.S. medics and soldiers as well as Iraqi civilians. From their accounts of hit and run guerilla warfare in a public place, Wodiczko created a reenactment of the battle scene. The consequence of war on soldiers and civilians alike became visible and tangible for the general public. From the safety of our homes, we can read literature and reports of first hand accounts of war and watch the news or see combat depicted in film but written or filmed accounts of battle try to encompass all the details, but this may be the closest most people can come to any experience like it. This is something Wodiczko recognizes. He says, “"I believe that if there is any truth, it lies in realizing the impossibility of gaining full access to the truth of such an experience."

The art lies in our senses and minds, and I think its absolutely genius. Stuck inside a giant room, it isn’t very difficult to image you’re actually there. The sounds alone wouldn’t do it, but he sounds in a giant warehouse, where you feel vulnerable and unsure, completely take over. The viewer creates a mental picture of this battle scene and experiences the fear of ambiguity and vulnerability in guerilla warfare, and receives no closure as to what’s actually happening. After experiencing the intensely disturbing simulated conflict, one can start to comprehend the devastation that war has on anyone involved in such close combat. The ability to trick the mind and the senses into a simulated state of survival and momentary panic is the triumph of Wodiczko’s project.


Molly Geiger is a graduating Senior at the Art Institute of Boston. Her recent work includes an expansive documentary essay on Home Births. For more information please visit her website.

Grants Nurture Arts Spaces and Housing

Stephanie Strom for the New York Times

Photo Michael Falco for The New York Times
Luis A. Ubiñas took over as president
of the Ford Foundation in 2008.

As part of an effort to increase the impact of its giving, the Ford Foundation is to announce a plan on Monday to dedicate $100 million to the development of arts spaces nationwide over the next decade. The plan is by far the largest commitment the foundation has ever made to the construction, maintenance and enhancement of arts facilities. More...