SHARON LOUDEN (Adjunct MFA Faculty)

October 2, 2011 - May 20, 2012  

This solo exhibition for the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis opens to the public on October 2nd, 2011.

Sharon's new installation, "Merge", includes over 225,000 pieces of aluminum strips and takes over an approximately 5,000 square foot space with 21 foot ceilings. In celebrating the reopening of the museum and the new additions, Sharon's installation is designed to be in dialogue with Frank Gehry and his work for the Museum.

Read more...

ARD BERGE (MFA 1997) and JOHN VOLK (MFA 1998) - Palmer Prize Lithograph

Ms. Caecilia Wijgers, a promoter of Cuban
civil society, is presented with the
Palmer Prize, a lithograph by Academy alum
Ard Berge and printed by alum John Volk. 

Seven diplomats were recently recognized for their outstanding service and work in advancing democracy by the Council for a Community of Democracies. It marks the first time an international body has honored diplomats for their contributions to the cause of democracy and human rights. Academy alumnus Ard Berge (MFA 1997) was commissioned to create the lithograph for the award and John Volk, an Academy graduate from 1998, printed the lithograph.

 The awards, bearing the name The Mark Palmer Prize, named for a former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary, were presented at a ceremony at the Vilnius Ministerial of the Community of Democracies. The Palmer Prize was awarded to diplomats from Peru, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Canada, the Netherlands and the United States. In addition, an award has been made posthumously to a Polish diplomat and special recognition was given to a diplomat from India.

ABOUT THE ARTWORK:

Berge was commissioned to draw the image and asked colleague Volk print the lithograph. Volk teaches printmaking at Minnesota State University and is the Master Printer at the Hannaher Print Studio in the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, ND. They collaborated on the print at the New York Academy of Art print studio. Using an aluminum lithographic plate, they printed a proof called a bon a tirer (a French term meaning, "good to pull"). Volk took the plate and bon a tirer back to MN to print an edition  (55, with 10 artist's proofs) matching the bon a tirer.

To learn more, please view the complete press release or find the Countil for a Community of Democracies on facebook.

ALI BANISADR (MFA 2007, Fellow 2008) - Art in America

Ali Banisadr, The Marvels of the East, 2011, oil on linen, 72 by 96 inches.
Courtesy Leslie Tonkonow.

2007 Alumnus and Fellow Ali Banisadr's recent exhibition at Leslie Tonkonow has been reviewed by Art in America.

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By Amanda Church

Published: 6/29/11

New York - In Iranian artist Ali Banisadr's show of explosive, exuberant canvases it's hard to pinpoint the exact nature of the action, but there's a lot of it, and it's compellingly allusive. The exhibition's title, "It Happened and It Never Did," suggests a sort of political machination that merges fact and fiction. With their amassing of so many small marks and strokes in a palette variously fiery or verdant, his paintings are riotous and chaotic, creating scenes of what could be either paradise or a battlefield.

Banisadr's canvases embody a multicultural ethos: he was born in Tehran and lived there for 12 years during the Iran-Iraq War, against a backdrop of bombs and sounds of combat. Now based in New York, he also lived in Turkey and California as a child. Persian miniatures, graffiti, Bosch and Brueghel all come to mind as influences, as well as the painterly brushwork of de Kooning and Cecily Brown, both of whom similarly extract imagery from a mess of paint. Banisadr seems to have processed all this information to produce paintings that embody a mysterious sense of order within their tumult.

In this, the artist's second New York show, the five biggest canvases were more effective than the smaller ones, which lined the gallery's entrance hallway and seemed to give us only parts of a vast picture. The flurry of small brushstrokes that coalesce into imagery is much more dramatic on a larger scale. The larger size also enables areas of grotto-like deep space-replete with shimmering pools of water and minute depictions of figures and objects—to weave a tale that has the evocative power of poetry.

Movement is key. Using writhing calligraphic marks and squiggles, blobs and veils of paint, Banisadr is devising landscapes that are also mindscapes-trippy, visceral and cerebral-with intimations of war and turmoil but also of pure pleasure. Predominantly bluish-green, the paintings are each separated into "land" and "sky," often with flecks and spatters of orange, green and yellow blurring the boundary between the two. Some have a gorgeous misty veil of silvery vertical strokes raining down from the top of the canvas, reinforcing the ambience of a verdant Shangri-La. The Marvels of the East (2011) stands out simply for its hot-pink sky across which flecks of black suggest either confetti or barbed wire. The cobalt blue sky of Nowhere (2010) is punctuated by what look like lingering spirals of battle smoke, and its ground appears strewn with debris. Interrogation (2010) has a similar ashy gray atmosphere of pessimism and despair. These paintings demonstrate the dichotomy in Banisadr's work: that of a joyful celebration juxtaposed against a war-torn world.

Read the article on Art in America's website: http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/reviews/ali-banisadr/

NICOLA VERLATO (Adjunct MFA Faculty) - Artpulse

Adjunct instructor at the New York Academy of Art and recent Venice Biennale artist, Nicola Verlato writes about “The Strange Alliance between the Oldest and the Newest of all Media” in ARTPULSE Magazine.

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History is always moving in unexpected ways. The paradox of the return of mural painting, the oldest of all media, in the era of the Internet and because of the Internet might well oblige us to change all of our parameters in reading art history. Is it possible that because of its exceptionality, painting is one of the most recognizable manifestations that you can find on the Net, and as such, is the only artistic medium around which it will be possible to create an audience?

Read the entire article: http://artpulsemagazine.com/how-many-of-you-saw-the-gorilla-or-the-return-of-mural-painting/

MATTHEW MILLER (MFA 2008, Fellow 2009) - New York Times

Travis Dubreuil for The New York Times

Recent Alum (2008) Matthew Miller's latest exhibition has been reviewed by Ken Johnson in The New York Times. This article has been Reposted from ArtsBeat, May 21, 2011

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By KEN JOHNSON

Published: May 5, 2011

The five self-portraits that constitute “Matthew Miller: the magic black of an open barn door on a really sunny summer day, when you just cannot see into it,” at the Famous Accountants gallery. (1673 Gates Avenue, between St. Nicholas and Cypress Avenue, Bushwick, Brooklyn, through June 5.)

Lots of painters emulate Renaissance old masters. Few do so to such riveting effect as Matthew Miller, a young, Brooklyn-based artist. Each of the five oil-on-panel works here, dating from 2008 to the present, is a self-portrait of the artist, with closely cropped or shaved hair, against a glossy, jet-black background. He is viewed straight on or in three-quarter profile, with bare neck and upper shoulders, his high forehead deeply furrowed, his eyes heavy-lidded. He could be a spiritually anguished Lutheran monk painted by Lucas Cranach.

Mr. Miller gives his head a striking sculptural solidity. With dark lines emphasizing his nose, full lips and deep eye sockets, his head looks as if it were carved from marble and smoothed to a satiny sheen. Mr. Miller is not a hair-by-hair, warts-and-all realist. He erases fine details while recording his epidermal topography with exquisite attentiveness. The paintings are nearly colorless, but pinkish-beige tones layered over cooler hues create an opalescent glow. They verge on the grotesque.

Mr. Miller comes from a non-mainstream background. Raised as a Mennonite and trained at the New York Academy of Art, which favors traditional figurative representation, he brings to his art a painstaking work ethic and an earnest humanism. His work exudes a feeling of religious devotion — not to any transcendent deity but to the process of painting itself. That’s what makes it modern. No prizes in heaven or on earth are guaranteed for this kind of faith, but he persists because it is, like prayer, its own reward.

A version of this review appeared in print on May 6, 2011, on page C34 of the New York edition with the headline: Matthew Miller: ‘the magic black of an open barn door on a really sunny summer day, when you just cannot see into it’.

SUMMER EXHIBITION – FLOWERS GALLERY

The Academy is pleased to announce the 5th Annual Summer Exhibition will be juried by Julie Heffernan, Matthew Flowers and Carter Foster. The exhibition moves off-site this year due to the Academy's second phase of renovations during the summer and will be held at Flowers Gallery in Chelsea.

This highly anticipated group show brings together a wide range of new work by more than 50 established and emerging talents. Comprised of paintings, drawings, limited-edition prints and sculpture, the chosen works will be selected from over 500 submissions.

Flowers and the Academy have previously collaborated several times, including two 3-person exhibitions by artists who have participated in past Summer Exhibitions. Former jurists include Eric Fischl, Jenny Saville, Will Cotton and David Salle.

JENNY SAVILLE SPEAKS AT COMMENCEMENT 2011

Photograph by Julian Anderson

We are thrilled to announce that this year's commencement speaker will be renowned artist JENNY SAVILLE (represented in New York and London by Gagosian Gallery).

A Senior Critic at the Academy since 2006, Jenny has frequently imparted her insight to our students through dynamic Master Classes. We are honored to award her an Honorary Doctorate at this year's Commencement Ceremony.

We will be streaming the ceremony LIVE on our website, so please join us wherever you are, on Friday, May 20 at 3pm EST!

ISABELLE GARBANI FEATURED ON BRIC ARTS

Click the photo to see the video.

Isabelle Garbani (2004) was recently interviewed by Brooklyn Independent Television, BRIC Arts about her mixed media installation artwork "Knit for Trees" which will be featured on Governor's Island in summer 2011.

On her blog, Knit for Trees, Isabelle states: "According to “reuseit.com”, about 1 million plastic bags are used every minute worldwide... a staggering figure. What is then the best way to fight this ecological disaster and at the same time acknowledge the futility of the task? Use the plastic bags as yarn to knit sweaters, scarves and mittens for trees. Throughout the summer, I will set up a work table and collect unwanted (clean) shopping bags from visitors to Governors Island. These will be cut and used as yarns to knit sweaters, scarves, and mittens for the trees of the island. Visitors are encouraged to participate further by helping me cut the bags, roll the strips into yarns, sort the yarn by color, and knit." See more about her project at Figment NYC 2011.

Isabelle Garbani received an MFA from the New York Academy of Art in 2004 and has since been exhibiting her work throughout the New York metropolitan area and the Northeast. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.