Time in Harlem: Isaac Diggs and Edward Hillel in Conversation

Flex Space, Hunter College MFA Building
205 Hudson Street at Canal
Thursday, March 23, 2023, 6-8pm

 

In celebration of their exhibition Isaac Diggs & Edward Hillel: Time in Harlem, the artists will be in conversation with Kunbi Oni, Collection Specialist in the department of Drawings and Prints at MOMA, on Thursday, March 23, 6-8pm, to discuss the rewards and challenges of revisiting past work, designing and publishing photo books, and long term artistic collaboration. Available for sale will be Hunter East Harlem Gallery’s publication, 125th Street: Photography in Harlem (Hirmer Verlag, 2022), which features many of Diggs & Hillel’s images as well as dozens of other artists who have documented the historic thoroughfare. 

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/time-in-harlem-isaac-diggs-and-edward-hillel-in-conversation-tickets-558936733817

C. C. Wang: Lines of Abstraction Tour & Reception for Asia Week NY

Friday, March 17

Leubsdorf Gallery
132 East 68th Street
New York, NY, 10065

Tour 10:30–11:30am, followed by a coffee/tea reception

RSVP here

Join the Hunter College Art Galleries during Asia Week NY for a morning tour and reception of C. C. Wang: Lines of Abstraction. Led by exhibition co-curator Daniel M. Greenberg, this walkthrough will introduce viewers to the life and art of C.C. Wang (1907-2003).  Born to a family of scholar-officials at the twilight of the Qing dynasty, Wang mastered the traditional ink and brush techniques in Republican Shanghai and immigrated to New York City in 1949.  Although he is well known for his discerning connoisseurial eye and world class collection of classical Chinese art, Wang’s own artistic practice has long been overlooked.  In this walkthrough, we will explore how Wang built upon both his deep knowledge of Chinese painting and the artistic climate in postwar New York to create distinctly cross-cultural works of modern American art. 

Curated by Wen-shing Chou and Daniel M. Greenberg with Hans Hofmann Graduate Curatorial Fellow Margaret Liu Clinton.

C. C. Wang: Lines of Abstraction was developed through a two-semester curatorial seminar at Hunter College led by Professor Wen-shing Chou with M.A. Art History students Thais Bignardi-Engstrom, Carolyn Bishop, Rawls Bolton, Jeremy Gloster, Sophie Kaufman, Emerald Lucas, Lindsey Poremba, and Mia Ye.

C. C. Wang: Lines of Abstraction is made possible by the generous support of the James Howell Foundation, the Leubsdorf Fund, the Wolf Kahn Foundation and Emily Mason and Alice Trumbull Mason Foundation on behalf of artists Emily Mason and Wolf Kahn, and the Renate, Hans, and Maria Hofmann Trust.

 

MFA & BFA Open Studios / March 4, 5 – 9pm

 

MFA & BFA Open Studios
March 4, 5 – 9pm
205 Hudson Street, NYC 10013 (Entrance on Canal Street)

More than 120 studios will be open, showcasing the work of current MFA & BFA students. There will be a fundraising exhibition featuring student work, with all proceeds benefiting the MFA & BFA programs.

 

In accordance with CUNY policy, all guests must show valid proof of vaccination upon entry.
Minimum requirement is two does of Moderna or Pfizer; or one dose of J&J. Masking is encouraged.

No pets allowed unless they are ADA service animals.

Doors will close at 8:30pm. All visitors must vacate the building by 9pm.

https://www.huntermfastudio.org/mfa-bfa-open-studios-spring-2023

Terrible Terrible Through March 4

Terrible Terrible is an exhibition of work by 35 artists who are entering their second semester of the MFA program at Hunter College. 

205 Hudson Gallery
Hunter College MFA Campus
205 Hudson Street
New York, NY

Through March 4

The gallery is open to the 205 Hudson Community and by appointment.

Terrible Terrible was organized by Dana Notine.

Poster designed by E. Rady and Aashish Gadani.

 

C. C. Wang: Lines of Abstraction through April 29

February 2–April 29, 2023
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 12–5 pm

Opening Reception: February 2, 7–9 pm

Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery
132 East 68th Street
New York, NY 10065
Entrance between Lexington and Park Avenues

 

Born to a family of scholar-officials at the twilight of the Qing dynasty, C. C. Wang (Wang Chi-ch’ien 王己千, 1907–2003) mastered the traditional ink and brush techniques in Republican Shanghai and immigrated to New York City in 1949. There he sought to preserve the tradition of classical Chinese painting through engagement with new ideas, materials, and forms. Drawing inspiration from past masters in the history of Chinese painting, as well as New York’s artistic climate in the wake of World War II, Wang advanced breakthrough transformations in ink painting.

C. C. Wang is best known as a preeminent twentieth-century connoisseur and collector of pre-modern Chinese art, a reputation that often overshadows his own art. Held twenty years after the artist’s death, C. C. Wang: Lines of Abstraction recenters Wang’s extraordinary career on his own artistic practice to reveal an original quest for tradition and innovation in the global twentieth century. Spanning seven decades, the exhibition focuses on the artist’s distinctive synthesis of Chinese ink painting and American postwar abstraction.

In concert with the exhibition, the Hunter College Art Galleries are producing a comprehensive catalogue published in collaboration with the Weisman Museum of Art at the University of Minnesota and Hirmer Publishers. This book is the first retrospective monograph on the renowned artist, collector, and connoisseur C. C. Wang (1907–2003) and features texts by scholars Wen-shing Chou, Daniel M. Greenberg, Joseph Scheier-Dolberg, and Arnold Chang with additional contributions by Hunter College Graduate Art History candidates and an undergraduate student from the University of Minnesota. Support for this publication is provided by the Wolf Kahn Foundation and Emily Mason and Alice Trumbull Mason Foundation on behalf of artists Emily Mason and Wolf Kahn.

Curated by Wen-shing Chou and Daniel M. Greenberg with Hans Hofmann Graduate Curatorial Fellow Margaret Liu Clinton.

C. C. Wang: Lines of Abstraction was developed through a two-semester curatorial seminar at Hunter College led by Professor Wen-shing Chou with M.A. Art History students Thais Bignardi-Engstrom, Carolyn Bishop, Rawls Bolton, Jeremy Gloster, Sophie Kaufman, Emerald Lucas, Lindsey Poremba, and Mia Ye.

C. C. Wang: Lines of Abstraction is made possible by the generous support of the James Howell Foundation, the Leubsdorf Fund, the Wolf Kahn Foundation and Emily Mason and Alice Trumbull Mason Foundation on behalf of artists Emily Mason and Wolf Kahn, and the Renate, Hans, and Maria Hofmann Trust.

Please find the full press kit here. For further press inquiries please contact Sarah Watson, Chief Curator, at swat@hunter.cuny.edu.

 

 

Linda Goode Bryant in conversation with Thomas (T.) Lax / February 8

Linda Bryant at the Project EATS farm on Randall’s Island for Hauser & Wirth.

Linda Goode Bryant, founder of Just Above Midtown and Project EATS in conversation with Thomas (T.) Lax, co-organizing curator of Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces at the Museum of Modern Art Foundation To-Life Arthur and Carol Kaufman Goldberg Curatorial Lecture

Wednesday, February 8 at 7pm
Roosevelt House
47-49 East 65th Street, New York, NY

 

Linda Goode Bryant’s decades of art-based activism began with her founding of Just Above Midtown gallery (JAM), a self-described laboratory that foregrounded the work of African American artists. After closing JAM, Goode Bryant dedicated herself to filmmaking. Over her nearly 50-year career, Goode Bryant continues to advocate for a connection to “our innate ability to use what we have to create what we need.” Most recently, Goode Bryant has founded Project EATS, a “living installation” of neighborhood-based, small-plot, high-yield farms that use art, urban agriculture, partnerships, and social enterprise to sustainably grow and equitably distribute fresh, local, organically grown food in communities across New York City.

 

Thomas (T.) Jean Lax is a curator, writer, and scholar specializing in Black art and performance. At the Museum of Modern Art, they co-organized the exhibition Just Above Midtown: 1974 to the Present (2022) with Lilia Rocio Taboada in collaboration with JAM’s founder Linda Goode Bryant. In 2019, they worked with colleagues across MoMA on a major rehang of its collection and co-organized the exhibition Judson Dance Theater: The Work is Never Done (2018) with Ana Janevski and Martha Joseph. Their other collaboratively-organized exhibitions include the Projects Series for emerging artists; Unfinished Conversations, inspired by the cultural theorist Stuart Hall; the contemporary art quintennial, Greater New York; and commissions with artists including Neïl Beloufa, Maria Hassabi, and Steffani Jemison. Previously, they worked at The Studio Museum in Harlem for seven years, where they organized When the Stars Begin to Fall: Imagination and the American South and participated in the landmark “f show” contemporary art series.

 

Goode Bryant photo: Oresti Tsonopoulos

Thomas (T.) Jean Lax © 2021 The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo: Peter Ross

 

The Foundation To-Life, Inc. Arthur and Carol Kaufman Goldberg Curatorial Lectures bring curators of international stature to the Hunter campus to engage with students in the MA program in Art History and the MFA program in Studio Art, and with the broader Hunter community. Previous Goldberg Curators have included Ann Goldstein, Hamza Walker, Fabrice Stroun, Valerie Cassel Oliver, Omar Kholeif, Pablo Helguera, Lynne Cooke, and Koyo Kouoh.

 

 

William (Bill) Agee / September 26, 1936-December 24, 2022

The Department of Art and Art History mourns the loss of our friend and colleague, Bill Agee.  Bill taught at Hunter for nearly a quarter-century, from 1990, when he was hired as a full professor in Modern American Art, until his retirement in 2014.  He was named the Evelyn Kranes Kossak Chair in Art History in 2004. 

By the time Bill came to Hunter he had already had at least two full careers.  Just out of the program in Art History at Yale, he worked for the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art, directing research on the New Deal and the arts.  He joined the Whitney Museum of American Art as Associate Curator in 1966, where he organized one-person exhibitions of Donald Judd and Conrad Marca-Relli, and curated the lauded and controversial exhibition The 1930s: Painting and Sculpture in America.  He served briefly as Associate Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art before being appointed as Director of Exhibitions and Collections at the Pasadena Art Museum in1971.  Just 34 at the time he elevated to the full directorship at Pasadena, he was one of the youngest museum leaders in the United States.  After Pasadena, Bill would go on to serve as Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, from 1974 to 1982. 

After stepping down from the MFA Houston, Bill worked as an independent curator, organizing monographic exhibitions and publishing on key figures of American Modernism, including Ralston Crawford, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Sam Francis, Stanton Macdonald-Wright, Kenneth Noland, and Morgan Russell. He also turned his lens on less familiar artists.  While at Hunter, Bill helped to organize two important traveling exhibitions of American art for the Addison Gallery at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA, where he had gone to high school and where he discovered his calling: Coming of Age: American Art, 1850s to 1950s (2006) and American Vanguards: Graham, Davis, Gorky, de Kooning, and Their Circle, 1927-1942 (2011).  After he retirement, he published the survey Modern Art in America 1908-68 (2016), which the Wall Street Journal called “that rarity of rarities, an opinionated but not eccentric scholarly history by a veteran museum curator whose every page crackles with original thinking and bears the stamp of a preternaturally sharp eye.”   ―The Wall Street Journal

Bill Agee brought that sharp eye and his original thinking to Hunter, and helped to shape the vision and careers of a generation of Hunter Art History students.  His long curatorial experience and the insights he gained by working with closely with works of art fed his teaching, and his approach helped to center the idea of exhibition-making as a crucial aspect of art historical research. It is part of Bill’s legacy that curatorial practice remains integral to the teaching of Art History at Hunter.  Among the exhibitions Bill realized here at Hunter with his students were Ray Parker: A Retrospective Exhibition (1990); Fairfield Porter: Paintings (1992); Paths of Abstraction: Painting in New York 1944-1981 (1994); and Tony Smith’s Tau (2004).

He will be missed.

MFA THESIS EXHIBITIONS FALL 2022

 

 

The Hunter College MFA Program in Studio Art will be presenting two Thesis Exhibitions this fall at the 205 Hudson Gallery, featuring eleven MFA candidates.

Join us this Thursday evening to celebrate the opening of Part I:

Part I: November 10 – 23

Double Dip

Opening Reception: Thursday, November 10, 6 – 9pm

Shauna Steinbach

Nick Fusaro

Jin Jeong

Xinan Helen Ran

Claire Bendiner

 

 

 

 

 

HMIA Presents PEGGY AHWESH / November 2

HMIA Presents PEGGY AHWESH
Join the Hunter Moving Image Alliance for a conversation with the artist and filmmaker Peggy Ahwesh WEDNESDAY November 2nd, 7:00PM.
Join the Conversation in the zoom link below: https://huntercollege.zoom.us/j/89209315878?pwd=N1pIM3pCSDQ1a1FuUFBHb0l3MXIzdz09
Join us for the in-person screening of films by Peggy Ahwesh on TUESDAY OCT 25th, 5PM
205 Hudson 2nd Floor Flex Space.
Links of works are available through email. Check your email box from HMIA.

Fault Lines: Photography, Memory, and Fragility / October 22

 

Saturday October 22nd, 1-5pm, followed by a reception

Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College
47-49 East 65th Street
New York, NY

Please RSVP to the event here.

 

Dawoud Bey, Fifth Avenue and East 125th Street, 2015, from Harlem Redux. Courtesy, Sean Kelly Gallery

 

About this event

The recuperation of marginalized and fractured histories through photography prompts us to re-interrogate the image and understand its narrative power. This conversation invites artists, curators, and scholars whose recent projects have demonstrated how photography can contribute to the excavation of forgotten histories and shed light on current issues of global migration and displacement. Our discussion pursues many venues, ranging from the scholarly reappraisal of an important history of Black photography through the Kamoinge Workshop, to contemporary curatorial practices that are investigating artists’ involvement with environmental fragility, to the spatial exploration of histories of migration and mourning in the African diaspora, to artworks that provoke us to make connections between memory and sociopolitical histories. The conversation is prompted by a recent Hunter College publication on Harlem’s 125th Street, which has studied photography as a form of belonging to place. We are aiming to foster a debate over the powerful significance of photography to memorialize histories that are brittle and sustain ongoing narratives that explain our relationship to place.

Organized by Antonella Pelizzari, Professor, Department of Art and Art History, Hunter College

 

Hunter MFA & BFA Open Studios / October 15

 

205 Hudson Street
New York, NY
October 15, 3 – 9pm

 

More than 120 studios will be open, showcasing the work of MFA & BFA students.

Be sure to see the exhibition in the ground floor gallery featuring current students. 
All works for sale, and proceeds will benefit our student organizations.

In accordance with CUNY policy, all guests must show valid proof of vaccination upon entry. 
Minimum requirement is two does of Moderna or Pfizer; or one dose of J&J. Masking is encouraged.
No pets allowed unless they are ADA service animals.
Doors will close at 8:30pm. All visitors must vacate the building by 9pm.

 
 
Hunter College MFA & BFA Studios / 205 Hudson Street (Entrance on Canal Street) / New York City

Guadalupe Maravilla / Zabar Visiting Artist October 19

Guadalupe Maravilla is a transdisciplinary visual artist, choreographer, and healer. At the age of eight, Maravilla was part of the first wave of unaccompanied, undocumented children to arrive at the United States border in the 1980s as a result of the Salvadoran Civil War. In 2016, Maravilla became a U.S. citizen and in 2016 he adopted the name Guadalupe Maravilla in solidarity with his undocumented father, who uses Maravilla as his last name. As an acknowledgment to his past, Maravilla grounds his practice in the historical and contemporary contexts belonging to the undocumented and cancer communities.

Maravilla currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami. Additionally, Maravilla has performed and presented his work at the Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Queens Museum, Bronx Museum of the Arts and many more.

Awards and fellowships include; The 2021 Joan Mitchell Fellowship, LatinX Fellowship 2021, Lise Wilhelmsen Art award 2021, Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship 2019, Soros Fellowship: Art Migration and Public Space 2019, Map fund 2019, Creative Capital Grant 2016, Franklin Furnace 2018, Joan Mitchell Emerging Artist Grant 2016, Art Matters Fellowship 2017, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship 2018. Residencies include; LMCC Workspace, SOMA, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and Drawing Center Open Sessions.

_______________

Guadalupe Maravilla es artista visual transdisciplinario, coreógrafo, y sanador. A los ocho años, Maravilla fue parte de la primera ola de niños indocumentados que llegaron a la frontera de los Estados Unidos en los 1980 ‘s, en consecuencia de la Guerra Civil de El Salvador. En 2016, Maravilla se hizo ciudadano Estadounidense y en 2016 adoptó el nombre Guadalupe Maravilla en solidaridad con su padre indocumentado, que usa el nombre Maravilla como apellido. Como reconocimiento a su pasado, Maravilla basa su práctica en los contextos históricos y contemporáneos de la comunidad indocumentada y la comunidad de cáncer.

Maravilla en la actualidad vive en Brooklyn, Nueva York. Sus obras están en las colecciones permanentes del Museum of Modern Art, The Guggenheim Museum, el Whitney Museum of American Art, el Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; y el Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami. Adicionalmente, Maravilla ha hecho performances y ha presentado obras en el Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Queens Museum, Bronx Museum of the Arts, y muchos más.

Premios y becas incluyen; El 2021 Joan Mitchell Fellowship, LatinX Fellowship 2021, Lise Wilhelmsen Art award 2021, Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship 2019, Soros Fellowship: Art Migration and Public Space 2019, Map fund 2019, Creative Capital Grant 2016, y Franklin Furnace 2018. Residencias incluyen LMCC Workspace, SOMA, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture y Drawing Center Open Sessions.

Photographic Portrait by: Emmanuel Sanchez Monsalve

Isaac Diggs & Edward Hillel: Time in Harlem opens September 14

September 14, 2022 – February 2023

Hunter East Harlem Gallery
2180 3rd Ave at 119th St.
New York, NY

“Two men with a camera, thoughtfully observing the visual cacophony of one major thoroughfare and the complicated interplay of its history, its present, and the certainty of change, have laid the groundwork for a dialogue and a vision that reaches farther than human eyes can see.” ~- Vicki Goldberg, 125th: Time in Harlem by Isaac Diggs & Edward Hillel (IDEH, 2014).

From 2008-2011, Isaac Diggs & Edward Hillel made photographs of one of the most iconic streets in New York City: 125th Street. Working collaboratively on film with a 4×5 field camera, the two artists meticulously captured the street during a tumultuous time in NYC after the financial crisis. The images document Harlem when the neighborhood was being sanctioned for rezoning by Mayor Mike Bloomberg and swallowed up by the ever-expanding Columbia University campus, forever changing this “main street” in profound and long lasting ways. The exhibition at Hunter East Harlem Gallery features a selection of the duo’s large-format photographs from their comprehensive 2014 publication, 125th: Time in Harlem. The exhibition re-contextualizes the book into the three-dimensional space of a gallery, showcasing a wall mural comprised of the entirety of their book in sequence as well as archives from the project itself. Through intentional and considered image-making, the duo confronts the audience with the challenges of urban flux, gentrification, the loss of cultural memory, the production of space and the preservation of community.
 

The exhibition coincides with the release of Hunter East Harlem Gallery’s publication, 125th Street: Photography in Harlem (Hirmer Verlag, 2022), which features many of Diggs & Hillel’s images as well as dozens of other artists who have documented the historic thoroughfare.
 

This exhibition is curated by Arden Sherman. Generous support has been provided by the Hunter College Department of Art and Art History, the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation, and the Hunter College Advanced Certificate in Curatorial Studies Program.

Book Launch Party: September 14, 6-9PM

 
125th Street: Photography in Harlem
Edited by Antonella Pelizzari and Arden Sherman
Published by Hirmer Verlag 

Book Launch Party
Hunter East Harlem Gallery
2180 3rd Ave at 119th St.
New York, NY
September 14, 2022, 6-9PM

Featuring: Berenice Abbott, Khalik Allah, Alice Attie, Dawoud Bey, Kwame Brathwaite, Isaac Diggs & Edward Hillel, Lola Flash, Hiram Maristany, Ozier Muhammad, Katsu Naito, Marilyn Nance, Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Lorraine O’Grady, Gordon Parks, Pope.L, Jamel Shabazz, Coreen Simpson, Beuford Smith, Ming Smith, Morgan and Marvin Smith, Shawn Walker, Hai Zhang and more!

Harlem’s 125th Street is a marker of twentieth-century urban experience, a thoroughfare that encapsulates powerful stories of business and consumption, real estate and gentrification, glamour and entertainment, and political uprising. This book explores the constant mutation of this street life through the works of a large roster of photographers and performance artists.

125th Street: Photography in Harlem includes investigations on twenty-four featured artists, four historic landmarks, and two comprehensive timelines.
Contributions by Hunter College MFA and MA, Art History students and recent graduates, and foreword by LeRonn P. Brooks.

This publication was made possible through support by the Crossway Foundation and the Hunter College Advanced Certificate in Curatorial Studies Program. 

2021-22 Department Awards and Prizes

Leeman-Boksenbaum MFA Thesis Prize-Spring 2022
Christina Barrera  /  Amy Bravo  /  Elmer Guevara  /  Pol Morton 

In support of a graduating printmaker the EFA ROBERT BLACKBURN PRINTMAKING WORKSHOP awards a full year membership to Christina Barrera
 
Jason Birmingham, Departmental Honors, BFA Studio Art
 
Viv Bourgeois, Somerville Art Prize, BA Studio Art
 
D’Arcy Blake, Shuster Award for Outstanding Master’s Thesis-2022, for “The Portrait and the Pedagogical Object: Art, Advertising, and Commerce in the works of Marcel Broodthaers, 1968-1971.”  Research for this thesis was funded in part by the Renate, Hans, and Maria Hofmann Trust
 
Kristen Clevenson, The Feminist Institute Research Award-Fall 2021, in support of her thesis “An Early and Feminist History of the Paula Cooper Gallery”
 
Maria José Garcia Estevez is the winner of the 2021-22 Eva Hesse Prize for Excellence at Hunter College
 
Joselyn Garcia, Nancy Ashton Memorial Prize, BA Art History
 
Joselyn Garcia, Departmental Honors, Art History
 
Elizabeth Janoff, The Feminist Institute Research Award-Spring 2022, in support of her thesis “Time, Text, and Image in Bernadette Mayer’s Memory”
 
Amber Sibley, Departmental Honors, Studio Art
 
Tatianna Spotorno, Somerville Art Prize, double major BA Studio Art and Art History
 
Areum Yang, Leeman-Boksenbaum Endowment Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture summer fellowship