Our new series, ‘The Five,’ highlights recent press coverage of SVA’s talented community members.
Left: Emily Weiner’s Spiral (Alizarin), 2023. Right: Weiner’s Ad Infinitum, 2023.
Emily Weiner’s Spiral (Alizarin), 2023.
In our new series, “The Five,” we highlight a handful of press picks celebrating the work of our community of alumni, faculty and students. Last week, SVA reached far and wide in the news, from Miami to Venice, Italy, to the Hudson Valley, Nashville and Mexico. Solo shows, career retrospectives, milestones and new projects were illuminated through interviews and profiles of alumni and faculty from across a range of art practices.
1. At the Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello in Venice, Italy, Cassie Zeng (MPS 2022 Fashion Photography) talks to It’s Liquid about shifting toward an exploration of identity in her work. “During my studies at SVA, I learnt to appreciate the nuanced language of photography,” she says. The interview is accompanied by images from Zeng’s ongoing series “Camouflage,” which she began in 2021. Selections from the series were recently on view at the 18th annual Venice International Art Fair.
Image courtesy of It's Liquid.
Image courtesy of It's Liquid.
Image courtesy of It's Liquid.
Image courtesy of It's Liquid.
2. The first-ever career retrospective from Gary Simmons (BFA 1988 Fine Arts) has moved from its original home at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, to Miami’s Perez Art Museum. The Miami Herald calls “Gary Simmons: Public Enemy” an “ambitious and timely” exhibition that “touches on race, class, identity, masculinity and pop culture.” Featuring a poignant mix of Simmons’ signature chalkboard paintings, object sculptures and more, the show is on view through April 28. (via Yahoo! News)
3. In a Professional Photographer magazine profile, Doron Gild (BFA 2005 Photography and Video, MPS 2012 Fashion Photography) recalls career-defining advice he received from one of his instructors at SVA. “He said that you’ll become a photographer when you start making instead of taking pictures,” says Gild. “He said there is no big pile of photographs out there that you can just take from. You need to make your own. That has always stuck with me and that’s what I hoped to do when I started working.” Gild shares his journey from commercial work for major brands and publications like New York Magazine and the Wall Street Journal, to his recent family portraiture work in upstate New York.
Doron Gild, The Steeles.
Doron Gild, The Steeles.
4. Alumnus and former SVA faculty member Emily Weiner’s (MFA 2011 Fine Arts) new pieces, on view in a solo show at Red Arrow Gallery in Nashville this month and included in the inaugural group exhibition at König Galerie’s Mexico City outpost through next month, are included in the “T List” roundup from T: The New York Times Style Magazine, which calls Weiner’s oil paintings “vibrant, almost-spiritual.”
5. The legendary cartoonist and SVA faculty member Bill Griffith recently turned 80, and the CT Examiner paid tribute with an ode to his contributions to the comic counterculture. In the interview, Griffith talks about why “cartoons are a marriage of drawing and writing,” and says he encourages his students to also practice creative writing as a way to hone their storytelling skills.