Zoning Bonus to Zucotti Park: Public Space, Private Property, and Social Protest

Join us for a panel discussion about the original plan and continuing life of the privately-owned public plaza now known as Zucotti Park.  Architect Tom Killian will speak about his role in planning Liberty Plaza in conjunction with the construction of the U.S. Steel Building beginning in the late 1960’s.  Zak Cunningham, activist and occupier, will discuss the use of this space by Occupy Wall Street.

Tom Killian, Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill (retired)
Zak Cunningham, Class War Camp, Occupy Wall Street
Jim Morgan, Architect and Adjunct Professor, NYU
Jon Ritter, Clinical Assistant Professor, NYU

Tuesday, November 1, 12:30-1:45
307 Silver Center, 100 Washington Square East

New DAH Colleague

M.A. Program Open House on November 3rd

Information Session on November 8th

Alumni News, Fall 2011

Hearty thanks to all of the Art History and Urban Design alumni who responded to our recent call for news.  It is wonderful to hear from you and to learn about your activities and achievements since graduation.  We hope to hear from more of you for our next “alumni news” round-up, which will be in winter or spring 2012.  Please send your news, links, photos, videos and podcasts to Professor Kathryn Smith (kathryn.smith@nyu.edu) with a copy to Peggy Coon (peggy@nyu.edu), and thank you.

Gabriel P. Weisberg, (Art History, Fine Arts Department, Washington Square College, ‘63) continues to teach as Professor of Art History at the University of Minnesota. He organized two recent exhibitions.  The first is Illusions of Reality: Naturalist Painting, Photography, Theatre and Cinema, 1875-1918 for the Van Gogh Museum (2010-11) and the Ateneum, Helsinki, Finland (2011); the second is The Orient Expressed: Japan’s Influence on Western Art, 1854-1918 for The Mississippi Museum of Art and The Koogler McNay Museum, San Antonio (2011). Both shows had extensive publications, with Illusions distributed by DAP in New York City and The Orient Expressed published through the University of Washington Press, Seattle. Professor Weisberg is now serving as Guest Curator for the Snite Museum of Art (University of Notre Dame) on Breaking the Mold: The Legacy of Noah and Muriel Butkin, an exhibition of nineteenth-century paintings and drawings drawn from the donations the Butkins made to the Snite and The Cleveland Museum of Art. This exhibition, with catalogue, opens in September 2012.

David Penny (Art History, Fine Arts Department, Washington Square College, ’78) was appointed Associate Director for Museum Scholarship at the Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC.  Penney is also an adjunct professor of art history at Wayne State University.

Jennifer Garrett (Art History, ’93) began a new position as Associate Producer of Lectures and Special Programs at The Museum of Science, Boston in July of this year. The Museum of Science annually hosts dozens of cutting-edge special events for adult audiences featuring everything from astronauts to artists.  Her first project, Dinner in Pompeii, supported the recently opened temporary exhibit, A Day in Pompeii, on view through February 12, 2012.  Held at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Cambridge, and part of the Museum’s “Discussions Over Dinner Series,” Dinner at Pompeii featured a six-course Pompeian tasting menu developed by chef and art historian Maite Gomez-Rejón, founder of Artbites. For more information about the museum and its programs, see http://www.mos.org/.

Edmund Ryder (Art History, ’98) earned his M.A. and Ph.D. from NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts.  His research at the IFA was funded by a Dumbarton Oaks Summer Fellowship in Byzantine Studies, a Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum, an A.G. Leventis Foundation Award, as well as by internal IFA fellowships.  Since receiving his Ph.D. in 2007, he has taught as a visiting assistant professor at Binghamton University, Connecticut College, and currently at Yale University.  He has published a number of on-line essays on the Metropolitan Museum’s Timeline of Art, and, recently, “An Epigram in honor of Saint Anastasia Pharmakolitria Commissioned by the Panhypersebaste Eirene Palaiologina,” in Anathemata Eortika: Early Christian, Byzantine and Armenian Studies In Honor of Thomas F. Mathews (2009), and “The Despoina of the Mongols and Her Patronage at The Church of the Theotokos tōn Magouliōn,” in The Journal of Modern Hellenism (2010).

After graduation, Edith Taichman (Art History, ’99) went on to work in the fashion industry, beginning with an editorial position at French Vogue.  She then moved to the field of fashion public relations, working for companies such as Valentino, Oscar de la Renta, and Brian Reyes.  She took a slightly different track about a year ago to indulge a long-standing interest in architecture while remaining connected to the fashion world, and is now Director of Communications for Peter Marino Architect, a 125-person, New York-based firm whose principal, Peter Marino, has designed high-end luxury stores worldwide for the likes of Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Zegna, Celine, Fendi, and Barneys New York, among others (www.petermarinoarchitect.com).  Edith recently traveled to Marfa, Texas, where she participated in a Design Build Adventure camp, a week-long program led by Austin-based Jack Sanders. The fifteen participants in the camp identified a community need and built a playground for the children of Marfa.  As Edith herself put it, this was accomplished “while enjoying the art, fantastic food, and charm of the West Texas town, with its amazingly inspiring background of everything Donald Judd, who famously put the sleepy town on the map when he settled there in the 1970’s.”

Alisa Welch (Art History ’00) is in her second year of an MFA in fiction at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. She is also a teaching assistant in an undergraduate Art History course and helps students communicate ideas using the language and analytical skills particular to the study of art. Before graduate school, Alisa worked as an editorial assistant at Sports Illustrated and as an assistant for the French art book publisher, Assouline. For the past four years, she has been a freelance magazine writer and completed several monographs for the Oregon Arts Commission on the state of arts and arts education in Oregon.

On her honeymoon in Paris, 2007, Alisa visits her inspiration for studying art history: Manet's "Olympia", at the Musée d'Orsay

Cathy Origlieri (Art History, ’02) graduated with a major in Fine Arts and double minor in Chemistry and Studio Art. Hoping to fuel her passion for both science and art, she worked briefly in art conservation before deciding to apply to medical school. It was at that time that she realized her true professional calling to become a surgeon. She earned her M.D. degree from University of Medicine and Dentistry of NewJersey in 2008, and after a year-long internship in internal medicine at Georgetown University, she is currently a resident in ophthalmology at UMDNJ.  To this day, “whether I’m examining patients with fine instruments or performing surgery under a microscope, my foundation in art is never far away,” Cathy writes. “In fact I think it’s one of the reasons I ended up in a field that’s as hands-on and visual as ophthalmology.”

Stephanie Swinton (Art History/Urban Design and Architecture Studies, ’02) also minored in French.  Stephanie earned an M.A. in Visual Culture:  Costume Studies from NYU (Steinhardt, ’06), the classes for which were offered in conjunction with the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Stephanie is currently studying as part of the 2012 class for the M.B.A. in International Luxury Brand Management at ESSEC Business School in France and was awarded the prestigious L’Oreal Luxury Division scholarship for the program.  Previously, she worked for NYC apparel company Carole Hochman Design Group.  Stephanie encourages any alumni currently living in Paris to be in touch at s.swinton.1@alumni.nyu.edu or (www.stephanieswinton.blogspot.com)

Taylor (Stirek) Pineiro (Art History, ’04) continued at NYU to earn an M.A. in Media Ecology from Steinhardt in 2007. Taylor focuses her extra-curricular energy on several non-profit organizations whose mission she cares deeply about.  She sits on the Junior Board of StreetWise Partners mentoring program and the Advisory Board of the New Leaders Council in NYC. Additionally, Taylor was the President of the Manhattan Young Democrats in 2010. That same year, Taylor and several other friends launched a non-profit, The White Roof Project  http://www.whiteroofproject.com/, which aims to curb climate change by painting city roofs a reflective white. Taylor serves on the board as the Social Media Director (http://twitter.com/#!/roofproject). Since its launch, The White Roof Project has coated thousands of square feet of New York City roof with white paint. Most recently, the organization painted 35,000 square feet in the Lower East Side. This “Model Block” site is home to several non-profits and artist studios as well as low-income housing. The current mission is to spread the word to other New York City neighborhoods’ superintendents and building owners that two coats of white paint can lower the temperature in the building and save money on energy consumption. The goal for 2012 is to create an easy-to-follow “how-to” guide that can be shared with cities and organizations around the world.  On April 30^th, Taylor married fellow NYU Graduate Juan Carlos Pineiro (Tisch ’03), whom she met at NYU in Florence in 2002, in a super-secret elopement in front of the Statue of Liberty!

Roni Sivan (Art History, ‘05) has been working in the cultural exchange industry since 2008 and recently started working with customized and faculty-led programs at a study abroad provider in Austin, TX.  So, although she appears to have veered from the art history track, she maintains a soft spot for the art history-based programs that she works to plan.  Prior to beginning her new job, Roni took a few months to travel around Southeast Asia. She fell in love with Cambodia and, as a result of the time spent volunteering there, founded Austin2Angkor–a volunteer-based project dedicated to raising money to build community centers for villages in need near Siem Reap. “When the volunteer group reaches its goal, I will take them to Cambodia to see the direct impact they made,” Roni writes.

Austin2Angkor: Building Futures in Cambodia
www.austin2angkor.com
www.facebook.com/austin2angkor
roni@austin2angkor.com
To make a quick & safe donation, visit www.crowdrise.com/austin2angkor

Malcolm St. Clair (Urban Design and Architecture Studies, ’09) is living in Brooklyn.  From September, 2010 to August, 2011, he worked at the Archives of the New York Stock Exchange processing the Staff Photographer Collection and assisting in the creation of an internal exhibit on the history of the Exchange.  He has recently begun working at St. Bernard’s School, an independent boys’ school on the Upper East Side, as Database Manager and Development Associate.  He’s spending his off-hours enjoying novels, poetry, art and walks in the park.

Robert Rosenblum Lecture

On October 20, 2011, Professor Alice Friedman came from Wellesley College, where she is the Grace Slack McNeil Professor of Art History, to deliver the Department of Art History’s annual Robert Rosenblum Memorial lecture. Professor Friedman is well known in art and art historical circles for her books on Elizabethan architecture, on women as patrons of important buildings especially in the twentieth century, and for her latest book and current topic, glamour in American architecture, as well as for her many articles and frequent invited lectures.

Glamour is a concept more serious than it sounds at first. By glamour Professor Friedman referred to a post-Second World War style that aspired to an environment of elegance of a kind accessible to the then-expanding middle class. Glamour could include a yearning for something occasionally exotic or as-seen-in-the-movies. Architects and clients wanted to express their aspirations in the modernist forms adapted from progressive European innovations of the years between the World Wars. You can see glamour in the hotels of Miami Beach with their swimming pools surrounded by palm trees, in the glass pavilion house for the Kaufmann family designed by Richard Neutra in the California desert, in the glazed tower of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Beth Sholom temple in suburban Philadelphia, and in the work of Eero Saarinen, one of America’s most prominent postwar architects. Professor Friedman concentrated on his work, including the TWA terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport with its soaring concrete shells that may or may not have been meant to look like an ascending bird, and, by contrast, the precise geometry that expressed the work accomplished at the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. That group of buildings was an early example of a complete suburban campus for work, a characteristic development of the period. Many of the most glamorous buildings were produced for commercial clients and commercial purposes, expressing the prosperity of decades in which the United States exercised world leadership.

Our late Professor Rosenblum would have enjoyed this talk. Like his own work, it had substance, fresh interpretations of familiar material, an accessible vocabulary, and appropriate humor. The audience, which filled the lecture hall, showed its appreciation of the talk by applauding Professor Friedman vigorously at the end.

The Robert Rosenblum Memorial lecture is made possible each year through the office of the Dean for the Humanities at NYU.  We thank Dean Lauren Benton.

Carol H. Krinsky

Archival Treasure Hunt in Shelley Rice’s Class

Shelley Rice’s Toward a Critical Vocabulary of Photography class is spending part of the fall 2011 semester exploring the holdings of the Tamiment Library, searching for buried pictorial treasure. The Tamiment acquired the archives of the American Communist Party about five years ago, and the photo morgue of the party newspaper, The Daily Worker, is now part of the NYU Library. With the help of Associate Curator Michael Nash, students in Rice’s class are going through boxes of files, which cover the years from 1919 to 2003. They are looking at images from 20^th century labor negotiations and protests, Soviet trade shows and American farming and fishing, conflicts from World War 2 to Vietnam, independence movements in countries like Algeria and of course Civil Rights, Feminist and other demonstrations here at home. Research papers will be written about their findings, and the ultimate goal is to work with Nash to curate an exhibition of photographs to be shown in the Tisch Photography Department Galleries that can inform the NYU community about this remarkable addition to Bobst Library.

Students rifle through boxes of files in Tamiment Library

Lecture on October 20, 2011

Art History Writing Tutors

Although the Arts and Science College Learning Center has offered subject-specific assistance in the past and continues to do so in biology, chemistry, math, languages and the like, in recent years our own Department has taken the lead in providing art history-specific tutoring to its undergraduates. The program kicked off in October 2008 and, according to our students’ feedback, has already proven to be a great success.

Without exception, our tutors are all graduate candidates at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU’s graduate art history program. A tutor is available in the Department of Art History, every weekday, from 12.30 to 2pm. Students may see them on a walk-in basis.

This semester brings us two outstanding tutors:

Maggie Popkin graduated magna cum laude with a degree in the History of Art from Williams College, where she was a tutor in the College’s Writing Workshop. She is in the final year of her Ph.D. in classical art history and archaeology at the IFA, having returned to New York after a year in Italy on a Fulbright Fellowship. Her dissertation focuses on ancient Roman triumphal monuments. In addition to Roman art and architecture, her research interests include Greek and Hellenistic art and the relationship between visual culture and memory in the ancient Mediterranean. Maggie has worked at NYU’s excavations at Selinunte, Italy and Samothrace, Greece and has also lived abroad in Paris and Rome. She has been an adjunct instructor in NYU’s Department of Art History and an adjunct professor of art history at the University of Hartford. Maggie can be seen on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

Meggie Morris graduated cum laude from the University of Richmond in 2006.  Since then, she has interned at institutions such as the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, in Richmond, and Marlborough Graphics of the Marlborough Gallery, in New York.  She is currently in her fifth year as a PhD candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, completing a dissertation on the art and film of Spain from the late 1970s and 1980s.  Her main areas of interest cover the art, graphics, and cinema of the 20th century in America and Europe, with a particular focus on various iterations of Pop art.  She currently teaches the History of Illustration at Parsons The New School for Design.  Meggie can be seen on Mondays and Fridays.

Finally, just a few words about the kinds of issues our tutors address in their one-on-one sessions — and the things they won’t. Since each meeting runs no longer than approximately 20 minutes, tutors will not be able to read entire drafts. Instead, they will work on developing each student’s writing and organizational skills (and, to some extent, research strategies) in specific ways. He or she will be responsible for clarifying the general rules of grammar, sentence structure and structure of argument, proper forms of citation, bibliographic format and art history-specific terminology.

Suffice it to say, our faculty is extremely excited about this support system for our majors and non-majors alike, and we hope that it continues to develop and grow in the years to come.

Dennis Geronimus

Peggy Coon