Archive | December, 2017
Alumni News, Fall 2017
4 DecTremendous thanks to all of the Art History, Urban Design & Architecture Studies, and Historical & Sustainable Architecture alumni who responded to our recent call for news, and congratulations on your splendid achievements! It is wonderful to hear from you and to learn about your activities. We hope to hear from more of you for our next Alumni News round-up, which we’ll post sometime in Spring 2018. Hearty thanks, too, to Professor Carol H. Krinsky, who provided news about some of our distinguished alumni with whom she keeps in touch.
Gregory Long (B.A. Fine Arts ’70), CEO and William C. Steere Sr. President of the New York Botanical Garden will step down as president effective June 30, 2018. He joined the Garden in 1989, and the NYBG notes that his 29-year tenure will be the longest since that of NYBG’s founder, Nathaniel L. Britton. “It will also have been one of the most transformational,” continues the Garden’s press release. “Under Gregory Long’s leadership, NYBG has carried out 43 major capital projects, including 15 new gardens and landscape renovations, thoroughly revitalizing our 250-acre living museum of plants. Moreover, attendance and membership have quadrupled under his leadership. The endowment has risen twentyfold. Scientific and scholarly programs have flourished. A series of widely admired exhibitions have married botany and horticulture to the arts and humanities. NYBG has raised more than $1.1 billion for these initiatives, 80 percent of it from the private sector, while enjoying a balanced budget for the past 28 consecutive years. It would be difficult to think of a chief executive at any major cultural organization who has done more for the institution and the public it serves.”
Margaret (Polly) Myhrum (B.A. Fine Arts ’76) continues her pottery business, based in New Hamburg, NY.
Polly Myhrum in her studio, 2017
Janet Hester (B. A. Fine Arts ’78), now Janet Gerrish, lives near New York City. Her two children are now married, and one has a son, making Janet a delighted grandmother. Janet is the daughter of the late NYU President James M Hester. “Janet was a good student—and a responsible babysitter,” affirms Professor Krinsky.
Ivy L. Barsky (B.A. Fine Arts ’80s), is now the Chief Executive Officer and Gwen Goodman Director of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia.
Matthew Drutt (B.A. Fine Arts ’80s) has had a career as a curator and is now the Director of Exhibitions at the El Lissitzky Foundation based in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, as well as the principal of Drutt Creative Arts Management, located in Manhattan.
Elizabeth Eidler’s (B. A. Fine Arts ’80s) daughter, Isabel (“Izzy”) Roser, is now a student in the Urban Design & Architecture Studies Program. Elizabeth studied with Professor Krinsky years ago and Izzy is studying with Prof. Broderick in Fall, 2017.
Shari Kantor (B.A. Fine Arts ’80s), now Shari Goldberg, has been a happy and successful teacher for thirty years in middle school in the Coney Island area of Brooklyn. She says that her experience at NYU empowers her to instill a love of the arts in her pupils.
Edith Taichman (B.A. Fine Arts ‘99) reports, “I‘ve recently joined APPARATUS as VP of Marketing. APPARATUS is a New York-based design studio with locations in New York and Milan, and produces lighting, furniture and objects in an historic space that was a school at the turn of the century, and later, the studio of the artist Philip Taaffe.
Gabriel Wick (B. A. Gallatin, Urban Design & Architecture Studies ’00) filed his dissertation on landscape history and will teach for NYU Paris in Spring 2018. He organized an exhibition and conference based on his thesis.
Gabriel Wick, Colloque Hubert Robert, 2017
Katherine Kasdorf (B.A. Fine Arts ’03; Ph.D. Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University ’13) joined the Detroit Institute of Arts in May, as Assistant Curator for Arts of Asia and the Islamic World. At the DIA, she has helped bring the new gallery for Japanese art to completion in time for its opening on November 4. She is currently working with a team of interpretive and design staff on new galleries for art from China, Korea, and South and Southeast Asia, and for Buddhist art from across Asia, set to open in November 2018. Previously, Katherine held a Wieler-Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellowship at the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, where she curated the exhibition, Ferocious Beauty: Wrathful Deities from Tibet and Nepal (Nov. 13, 2016–April 23, 2017), and contributed to exhibition and gallery projects for the Department of Islamic and South & Southeast Asian Art.
Caroline O. Fowler’s (B.A. Fine Arts ’05, Ph.D. Art & Archaeology, Princeton University ’13) first book, Drawing and the Senses: An Early Modern History was published by the Harvey Miller imprint of Brepols Publishers in 2016.
Caroline currently holds a Mellon Post-doctoral Fellowship in the History of Art at Yale.
Alicia Cooper (B.A. Fine Arts ’07) is currently working as a Development Officer for the Jewish Museum. She fundraises for the annual fund, exhibitions, education programs, and planned giving. She daily uses her knowledge of art history, critical thinking, and close looking, learned at NYU, to cultivate and steward donors. In addition, she participated in a panel at the New York Studio School entitled “Continuities of American Art: 1908-1968” in October 2016. That year, she also managed the launch of a public tour program of the New York Studio School’s historic building, the original site of the Whitney Museum for American Art, in partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Ryan Grim (B.A. Fine Arts / Urban Design & Architecture Studies,‘07) is editor of the Time Inc. breakfast website Extra Crispy
Andrew Kinney (B.A. Urban Design & Architecture Studies ’08) was admitted to the Dual M.A., Civil Engineering and City Planning program at the University of California, Berkeley.
Anna K. Gargarian (B.A. Art History ’09) sent in this news: “In 2014 I moved to Yerevan, Armenia, where I co-founded a nomadic art space called HAYP Pop Up Gallery. This year has been a breakthrough year for us as we were invited by the European Cultural Centre to participate in “Personal Structures: No Borders,” an international collective exhibition in the framework of the 2017 Venice International Art Biennale. I curated a neo-dadaist project entitled “NOR DADA” featuring a site-specific installation by Gayane Yerkanyan and performance by Aram Atamian. The exhibition is on-view at Palazzo Mora (Strada Nova #3695, Venice) until November 26, 2017. This fall, I also curated a project in Armenia called CETI Lab, which included an artist residency and exhibition at the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory. CETI Lab invited a diverse group of artists to work alongside astrophysicists in order to imagine communications with extraterrestrial intelligence (CETI). The projects were exhibited throughout the botanical gardens of the observatory, and included a sound installation by Berlin-based artist Lvis Mejia at an abandoned Soviet era radio-optic telescope.
Check out video of the sound installation by Lvis Mejia for CETI lab.
And please enjoy these photos of the CETI Lab installations and the NOR DADA installation in Venice.
CETILAB Karen_Mirzoyan / Photocredits Ani Djaferian
CETILAB Lvis Mejia / Photocredits Ani Djaferian
CETILAB Samvel Saghatelian / Photocredits Ani Djaferian
NOR DADA installation1
NOR DADA installation 2
NOR DADA installation 3
James Newhouse (B.A. Art History / B.S. Chemistry ’12) celebrated his five-year anniversary working at BASF, the world’s largest chemical company. This summer, James moved into a new position as global product development chemist for cosmetic effect pigments, evaluating cutting-edge pigments in color cosmetic formulations. His years of study and experience in color science have culminated in a role dedicated to innovating the color of makeup palettes across the globe.
Oliver Ames (B.A. Urban Design & Architecture Studies ’10) sends this news: “I am currently down in Washington, DC working at Kellogg Hansen, a litigation boutique in the District. I just climbed Denali and Mont Blanc this past year, and I am in the process of applying to business school! Hope to have the opportunity to visit the department soon.”
Nicole Pesce (B.A. Art History / History ’12) relocated from New York to Washington, DC last year! This past summer she started the MBA program at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and also works full-time in GU’s Office of Advancement. She’s enjoyed getting to know another urban university and new city. Nicole hopes to segue her experiences in art history, business, and fundraising to a new career marketing or consulting. As Nicole further puts it, “Business school is definitely a change! It’s been interesting the see the overlap between that and art history — both really require you to be very detail-oriented.”
Joey Steigelman (B.A. Art History ’12) was promoted to Senior Researcher & Product Lead in the Post-War & Contemporary Art department at Christie’s. Prior to joining Christie’s, Joey worked at the Menil Collection’s Jasper Johns Catalogue Raisonné of Drawings Project and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Joey continues to practice art, and her sculpture was recently featured on the front page of CreativeTime.org while exhibited in the Christie’s Staff Art Show and Auction.
Anne F. LaGatta (B.A. Art History / Classics ’16) is pleased to announce her admission to the Ph.D. program in Art History at the University of Southern California, where she began this August. She is thrilled to continue her study of Greek and Roman art.
Julia Katz (B.A. Art History ’16) accepted an offer to do graduate work in art history at the University of Delaware, where she began this fall.
Kaylee Alexander (B.A. Art History ’13; M.A. Institute of Fine Arts ’15) is currently working towards her Ph.D. in Art History and Visual Culture at Duke University. Under the supervision of Professor Neil McWilliam, Kaylee is currently conducting research for her dissertation, tentatively titled “Sépultures (non)remarquables: The Production of Parisian Funerary Monuments, 1804–1870.” In examining the production and consumption of funerary monuments in the aggregate, her dissertation will reconstruct the picture of the nineteenth-century Parisian cemetery at the intersection of visual studies, material culture and cultural economics. Specifically she will define the popular market for funerary monuments in Paris after Napoleon’s burial reforms of 1804 and through the first phases of Haussmannization in the 1850s and 1860s. At Duke, Kaylee also works as a teaching and research assistant for the Duke Art, Law & Markets Initiative (DALMI).
With DALMI she has co-developed an interdisciplinary research initiative, supported by Bass Connections, for graduate and undergraduate students to study the economic impact of creative urban planning and the presence of the Creative Class in the metropolitan area of Durham, North Carolina (Creative Industries and the Urban Environment). Check out Kaylee’s website.
Natalie Schwich (B.A. Art History ’15) began her post-grad career in the Press Office of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has recently joined the Park Avenue Armory as Press & Editorial Manager handling media relations for the institution’s multidisciplinary arts programming. Prior to the Armory, Natalie designed and produced events and fundraisers for clients in the visual arts such as the New Museum, Pioneer Works, and the Museum of Arts & Design. She continues to visit New York’s many museums regularly.
Re’al S. Christian (B.A. Art History / Communications ‘16) now works in the Director’s Office at The Studio Museum in Harlem. “I feel so incredibly lucky in this position, and to work with such an incredibly dedicated group of people. It is an especially exciting time for us as we approach our new building expansion, which coincides with the Museum’s 50th anniversary. Our current exhibitions will be on view through January 15, after which time we will close for the duration of our construction. The Studio Museum offers free admission to NYU students, so I hope that everyone will find time to visit before then!”
Jiawei (Jerry) He (B.A. Urban Design & Architecture Studies ’17) is studying architecture at Princeton. During a long break during the fall semester, he went to Rome, where he toured modern buildings, housing projects, and some older buildings. He took some memorable photographs that he has given the department permission to use. The first is of the interior cupola of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane by Borromini, with the symbol of the Trinitarian Order in the center; the second shows a statue of the 1930s in the EUR buildings erected on the order of Benito Mussolini in the suburbs of Rome.
Interior cupola of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Rome by Borromini / Jerry He, 2017
Statue erected on the order of Benito Mussolini in the suburbs of Rome / Jerry He, 2017
Emma Holter (B. A. Art History ’17) reports this news: “After graduating this past May I spent the summer working as a curatorial intern in the Modern & Contemporary Drawings Department at The Morgan Library & Museum. I performed bibliographic research in relation to three unannounced exhibitions that are slated for 2018 and 2019. In September, I began working full-time in the Visitor Engagement Department at the Museum of Modern Art. The position has only strengthened my drive to eventually earn my Masters in Art History and pursue further work in the museum world.” It was a pleasure to see Emma back in the department at Sarah Blake McHam’s lecture on Donatello.
Yinan (Ina) Li (B.A. Urban Design & Architecture Studies ’17) reports from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design that the workload is “on another level” and that “the overall pace … is just like a mini-Manhattan.” Nevertheless, as her professors in the Urban Design program expected, she seems to be holding her own. One of her courses is in history and theory and asks provocative questions such as “Should planning exist as a profession?” Ina is enjoying Cambridge but misses New York.
Sarah Meyers (B. A. Art History, German minor ’17) writes, “I graduated last spring (2017) and completed my thesis, titled “A Model World: Constructing Reality in Contemporary Photography,” with high honors. I am currently pursuing my Masters at the Institute of Fine Arts. I am also a curatorial intern at the Whitney Museum of American Art in the contemporary exhibitions and permanent collections department. This spring, I will be interning in the Photography department at the Museum of Modern Art. I am a writer for the IFA’s contemporary art Journal (IFAContemporary). You can read my first published article, “The Usable Past”,
Cindy Qi (B.A. Art History ’17) accepted a place in the IFA’s MA program, where she began this fall.
Rachel Robinson (M.A. Historical & Sustainable Architecture ’16) earned a Euston Arch Memorial Award.
Rawson Projects
4 Dec
Image: Liz Nielsen Orbiting Landscape III, 2017. Unique analog chromogenic photograph on Fuji Flex paper. 40 x 30 inches
The gallery is very excited to announce its participation in UNTITLED, Miami Beach.
Located at Booth #A1, the gallery will be presenting work by LEAH BEEFERMAN, LILJA BIRGISDÓTTIR, BARB CHOIT, BAHAREH KHOSHOOEE, LIZ NIELSEN and WENDY WHITE
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UNTITLED
December 6–10, 2017
For inquiries please contact the gallery at info@rawsonprojects.com or call646 275 4701
Fields of Vision 