From alumni spotlights to interdisciplinary lectures and screenings, SVA kicks off fall with exhibitions and events that explore art’s intersections with science, politics, identity, and community.
Gabrielle Benak (BFA 2019 Fine Arts), Help Me Do a Backbend 01, 2024, pencil and pen on wood panel, 12 x 9 inches. On view at “Wavelengths.”
Gabrielle Benak, Help Me Do a Backbend 01, 2024, pencil and pen on wood panel, 12 x 9 inches. On view at “Wavelengths.”
Amid the frenzied back-to-school hubbub, SVA’s galleries and gathering spaces offer a respite and reminder of the creative community blossoming all around. September is always a full month, and this year is no exception, with the College hosting its first major alumni exhibition since 2019, plus an exciting collaborative poster show, and lectures and screenings to broaden perspectives on politics, environmental issues, and the relationship between art and violence.
EXHIBITIONS
Through Wednesday, September 24 | “Sublunar” | SVA Flatiron Project Space
BFA Visual and Critical Studies presents “Sublunar,” an exhibition of large-scale drawings by faculty member Taney Roniger (BFA 1992 Fine Arts). Inspired by the new non-mechanistic materialism emerging in the sciences and humanities, “Sublunar” explores the living presence of the natural world. With subtly glowing fields made with charcoal and graphite, the drawings conjure atmospheric phenomena in which light and shadow are material actors.
Tuesday, September 2 – Saturday, December 6 | “Wavelengths” | SVA Chelsea Gallery
A juried survey of recent alumni work across the College, as selected by a panel of renowned alumni practitioners in their respective fields. Spanning a range of materials and concepts, the work on view takes particular interest in process-based practices and pursuing joy amidst adversity. From drawing to painting, sculpture to new and mixed media, the exhibition demonstrates the breadth and variety of SVA’s diverse alumni network.
Poster by Emma Tutty (BFA 2025 Illustration). On view at “SVA + NASA: The Artemis II/Earthrise Poster Project.”
Poster by Emma Tutty (BFA 2025 Illustration). On view at “SVA + NASA: The Artemis II/Earthrise Poster Project.”
SVA, in collaboration with the NASA Office of STEM Engagement at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, will present an exhibition of posters created by students in the BFA Design and BFA Illustration programs. For the Artemis II mission, four astronauts will venture around the Moon on the first crewed mission on NASA’s path to establishing a long-term presence at the Moon. The two dozen posters creatively interpret and communicate the mission’s goals and values.
Saturday, September 27 – Saturday, October 18 | “Not Yet, Yet Still” | SVA Gramercy Gallery
An exhibition of thesis work by the MPS Digital Photography class of 2025, curated by New York City gallerist and SVA faculty member Debra Klomp Ching, who says, “Across the different projects, there is a recurring theme of being in-between; neither quite here, nor quite there. The idea about who we are, what we have been, and who we can be is explored in varying ways, including the passage of time.”
Hung-Kuan (Aqua) Hsu (MPS Digital Photography), Mahjong and Tangyuan, Self Portrait 02. On view at “Not Yet, Yet Still.”
Hung-Kuan (Aqua) Hsu (MPS Digital Photography), Mahjong and Tangyuan, Self Portrait 02. On view at “Not Yet, Yet Still.”
EVENTS
Tuesday, September 2, 3:00 – 5:00pm | Suzanne McClelland | 133/141 W 21st St.,room 101C
MFA Fine Arts presents a talk by faculty member Suzanne McClelland (MFA 1989 Fine Arts), whose practice includes large-scale paintings, works on paper, and books. These often extract fragments of speech or text from various cultural sources; explore the social, symbolic, and material possibilities within language; and celebrate the physicality of speech and sound.
Tuesday, September 2, 6:00 – 9:00pm | Thesis Screening 2025 | SVA Theatre
MFA Photography, Video and Related Media presents a film screening of works by four graduates of the class of 2025: Boya Lei, Jiaqi Mao, Mengyao Xu, and Yunchang Zhang. While varied in form and content, the projects pull firmly towards understanding cultural, generational, and familial relationships, and interpolating personal experiences to more universal understandings of each artist’s place in the world.
Wednesday, September 3, 9:00 – 10:00am | The Curatorial Roundtable: Adam Budak (Kraków) | Online
MA Curatorial Practice presents a talk with Adam Budak, the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Kraków. A curator of contemporary art and author of texts on art, Budak served as artistic director of Kestner Gesellschaft in Hannover, Germany (2020–2024), where he developed an interdisciplinary curatorial program focused on the notions of tenderness, anabasis, and amor mundi.
Saturday, September 6, 12:00 – 3:00pm | The 2025 Junior Jammies | SVA Theatre
BFA Animation presents its annual celebration and exhibition of the group films created by the previous year’s junior classes. A filmmaker panel follows the screening, allowing students to share their experiences and represent their group projects publicly.
Tuesday, September 9, 7:00 – 8:30pm | i3 Photo Lecture: Louie Palu | 136 W 21st St., room 418F
MPS Digital Photography presents a talk with Canadian-American photographer and filmmaker Louie Palu, part of its i3: Images, Ideas, Inspiration lecture series. Palu’s award-winning work has examined social and political issues, such as human rights and conflict, for 30 years. Based in Washington, D.C., he has been focused on a project looking at post-9/11 America, which includes an ongoing in-depth project covering U.S. politics. His work has been widely published, and his documentary films have been broadcast and screened worldwide.
Wednesday, September 10, 9:00 – 10:00am | The Curatorial Roundtable: Daniela Zyman (Madrid) | Online
MA Curatorial Practice presents a talk with Vienna-based writer, curator, and artistic director of Madrid-based TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Daniela Zyman. Zyman will discuss exhibitions she has made concerning the current condition in Europe and how political discourse is increasingly stripping away the language of climate urgency, reframing environmental issues as threats to national identity or economic growth.
MA Curatorial Practice presents a talk with Philippe Pirotte, art history professor at the Städelschule Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and recently, co-artistic director of Busan Biennale 2024.
Wednesday, September 17 – Sunday, September 21 | After School Special | SVA Theatre
Featuring some of SVA’s most accomplished film, television, animation, and visual effects alumni, this multi-day festival will include screenings and Q&As with industry insiders that offer behind-the-scenes looks at the world of television and cinema. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.
Tuesday, September 23, 7:00 – 8:30pm | i3 Photo Lecture: Ali Rajabi | 136 W 21st St., room 418F
MPS Digital Photography presents a talk with New York-based fine art photographer and Hasselblad Master Ali Rajabi, part of its i3: Images, Ideas, Inspiration lecture series. With a career spanning over two decades, Rajabi’s work has been exhibited in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East and featured in international publications.
MA Curatorial Practice presents a talk with Solvita Krese, director and curator at the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (LCCA) in Riga. Krese has been curator and co-curator of many large-scale international exhibitions. In 2009, Krese initiated the annual contemporary art festival, Survival Kit, which she has been curating or co-curating ever since.
Thursday, September 25 – Friday, September 26 | 11th Pictoplasma NYC | SVA Theatre
BFA Animation, BFA 3D Animation and Visual Effects, BFA Comics, and BFA Illustration present the 11th edition of Pictoplasma NYC, a unique opportunity to explore how character creation is evolving in response to generative image technologies, shifting aesthetic norms, and new forms of visual communication. With a program that is both critically engaged and creatively energizing, Pictoplasma NYC blends reflection and celebration—offering fresh perspectives, artistic inspiration, and meaningful connections across disciplines.
MFA Illustration as Visual Essay presents a talk with faculty members Steve Brodner and Frances Jetter on Jetter’s new book, Amalgam: An Immigrant, His Labor Union, and His American Family in Brooklyn (Fantagraphics), and her other images, over five decades, blending the political and the personal.
BFA Visual and Critical Studies and the SVA Honors Program present noted American historian Ellen Schrecker to speak on political repression and the universities from McCarthyism to Trump. Schrecker is an American historian who researched McCarthyism, political repression, and American higher education. Her latest book, edited with Valerie C. Johnson and Jennifer Ruth, is The Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing War on Academic Freedom (2024).
MPS Art Therapy presents a lecture by David E. Gussak, PhD, ATR-BC, HLM, which will explore the natural interrelationship between art and violence—and indeed, how messy and complex it can become—with the ultimate aim of providing mechanisms from which art therapists can benefit when working with volatile populations. A series of discussions will be followed by simple yet powerful art directives that the facilitator has often used to explore and mitigate aggressive and impulsive tendencies. Ultimately, this discussion will emphasize and underscore through these vignettes how art emerges from and how art therapy techniques may assuage aggression and violence.
Vanessa Powers, Glory, 2023, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches. On view at “Wavelengths.”
Vanessa Powers, Glory, 2023, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches. On view at “Wavelengths.”