Senior Show Two 2018
OPENING RECEPTION
Thursday, March 29, 2018
6-8pm
Gulf + Western Gallery & 8th Floor Gallery
721 Broadway (at Waverly Pl.)
An exhibition featuring works in photography, digital imaging, and multimedia by 22 graduating seniors from the Department of Photography & Imaging, Class of 2018.
SHOW TWO is the second and final BFA exhibition of the work of the entire graduating Photography and Imaging class.
It will remain on view from March 29 through May 18, 2018.
Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays, and noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays. Admission is free. Photo identification is required for access to the building. For more information, visit tisch.nyu.edu/photo or call 212.998.1930.
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Gregory Alders: Children of the Middle Class intimately explores a selection of students and their families across suburban New Jersey. Some have dropped out of college, some have never attended, but all seem to have been marginalized by their class status. These families are not “in-need-enough” to receive aid. On the other hand, they also do not earn high enough of an income, in the eyes of the Federal Government, to facilitate these gargantuan, mortgage-like tuition bills. No doubt the American Dream has changed since the white picket fence era of the nineteen-fifties; however, working two jobs to make monthly payments that mirror that of a mortgage does not seem to be much of a dream, either. Children of the Middle Class invites you into these families' lives to highlight a struggle that has become all too common in our country.
Jilly Awner: From a freshwater quarry in Pennsylvania -- to a saltwater sanctuary in the Florida Keys -- and several wrecks in between, I am exploring artificial reefs with my dive gear in one hand and my camera in the other. Rather than operating my camera as an autopsy tool, I am photographing to shine light on thriving underwater habitats. By using the photograph as evidence, reefs can be brought to the surface of conversation surrounding conservation, inspiring positive change through action.
Arthur Cooke: add in the smiles and i’ll be the outlines is a visual and audio project centered around a video piece concerning grief and faith. Paired with the video are photographs of and around the places I’ve been in while figuring out how to give into life in a more honest and inspired way. While both building and corroding expectations, this collection of work is an immediate response to feeling unsettled and working on navigating oneself toward belonging.
Philip Garip: Compartmentalize explores the formation of identity in the context of loss. Through the use of archival family photographs and visual cues from films, television, music, and food labels, each piece is a representation of the facets of my personality as retained from my relationship with my mother.
Lisa Giris: The images I have created are inspired by my personal archive. Each one draws from a specific time or phase in my life––from what I saw and what I was feeling. I have been obsessed with color for a long time and have used color and light in this series to define those times and phases. I have removed the details, making the photographs just about the colors of which they are composed. These images, broken down to their simplest forms, are what my life looks like. Maybe it looks a lot like yours. Maybe it doesn’t.
Francine Hernandez: Bodies in Motion, is an exploration of rhythm and movement of the body through collage.
Yashna Kaul: A photograph is too many things. Is it a reminder of the sitter or the one whose memory it belongs to? The Image World is a transmedia exploration of a family archive dedicated to my father. It is also a consideration of the shifting nature of photography and recordkeeping; and a contemplation on the concepts of memory, family, mourning, melancholia, and the very many things in between.
Dylan Kenseth: A Queer Discourse explores the divisions between queerness’ inherent radicality and widespread acceptance, cultural transmission in the face of generational erasure, and the changing ideas of what it means to be queer examined across multiple cultures and generations. The series utilizes a series of environmental portraits and interviews to trace threads of a narrative that runs from Stonewall into the present day.
Rachel Kober: Envisioning an exchange among space, place and changing personhood, Roadside Shrine mines simmering uncertainty in Vermont's isolated and ephemeral geography.
Marilyn Lamanna: Inspired by Relational Theory––and the idea that a person’s relationships and experiences shape their personality––this self-portrait series serves as a visual roadmap of varying identities. Each portrait acts as both a disguise and a confession and are all singular parts to a cohesive whole. Identity is multifaceted, and rather than viewing these portraits as several different versions of herself, she views them cohesively as a single self-portrait.
Isa Mejía: Ser Queer (in English, Being Queer or Queer Being) is a series of tintype portraits of Queer Latinx identified people I have met in NYC. Because I am using a 19th century process to make the photographs and focusing on Latinx queer subjects, I am speaking directly to photo history and implying a revision of narratives. By choosing subjects that would have been normally excluded of archives, I make it my priority to make their narratives visible. The final portraits are a collaborative effort between photographer and subject at the materialization of identity and serve as a record of appearance and trust. The images are concerned with how we present ourselves to show identity as well as how appearance is used as a tool to control how others view us, and therefore treat us.
Molly O'Brien: Marbled is a work emphasizing the technical elements of what it means to make art. Rather than emphasizing symbolism or documentation, the project is meant to show how beautiful types of commercial artistry (fashion and marbling) can be in a new context. The project is a compilation of handmade paper marbled backgrounds, frames, and clothing that are placed on models to create a simply aesthetically pleasing image.
Munachimso Osegbu: My love affair with art started from a young age, as I spent most of my young years experimenting with every visual and performative medium. Growing up inspired by MTV and classical fine artists like Monet and Remedios Varo, I was about 14 when I discovered Steven Klein, Mert Alas, Tim Walker, and Guy Bourdin and understood the synthesis between those two worlds. I will never forget that day I found myself looking at the March 2012 edition of W Magazine and stumbled upon Steven Klein's editorial "institutional white". I realized that fashion photography is its own art form with depth and a lyricism that tells the story [of] materialism, capitalism, fame, and beauty, and how they can ruin us while simultaneously fulfilling our deepest carnal desires, bringing our innermost dreams to life. I strive to use an almost folkloric, suspended reality in all my images, creating stories from my own fears and desires that can be manifested freely to an almost obnoxious extent. A maximalist expression of emotion and intent. When I do this, I am free to exist in my own metaphysical space, liberated from social and societal standards and pressures. For me, this form of expression is the dismantling of my own personal matrix.
Natalie Sereda: THE LETTER V is a multimedia installation that addresses contemporary celebrity culture and the social media generation. The work consists of a single-channel video, hashtag-powered dye dispensers, and a large tank of water. In real time, viewers can tweet to activate the dispensers, ultimately affecting the color of the water and subsequently the look of the video. Dedicated to Princess Diana and Kim Kardashian, THE LETTER V explores how public exposure and online visibility are catalysts for both personal vanity and vulnerability.
Ed Shao: Headphone Portraits is a portrait series of people on the street with headphones. I believe that everyone has multiple layers within and all the layers as a whole represent one’s identity. People choose to present some of their layers to the world to share their identities, but at the same time they use those layers to protect their inner layers. While creating the Headphone Portraits, I realized that the project is a process of peeling other people’s layers, because one’s taste in music is a layer of self-identity. I walk up to strangers on the street, introduce myself, talk to them, take their photos, and inquire about the songs they are listening to. As each person that I approached has shown different level and number of layers with me, I have also chosen to reveal different layers of myself to each of my subjects. Through Headphone Portraits, I intend to capture the interesting and thought-provoking way people view their own identities, how they present them, and how they protect them.
Samantha Soon: Archives are important. They map out where we have been and can pave the way for where we might go. However, history has a way of placing certain lives at its center and pushing others to the peripheries of history, creating gaps and silences within the archive. And so, what do we do with those silences? What do we do when our lives and our families lives are contained within those silences? And are they really silences at all? Maybe they are just quietnesses instead. Tell Me Who You Are grapples with these broad questions as I excavate my own family's archive as a potential site of knowledge production to further my understanding of the "quietnesses" contained within the Chinese diasporic archive and within the human archive as a whole.
Colby Tarsitano: Querida Cuba aims to re-contextualize the island and culture of Cuba. Compelled to capture profound moments, intricate details, and fleeting beauty, the artist began to form a nonconventional vision of Cuba, one revealed in its simple graces. Paired with accounts of personal experiences, the images convey her sense of the realities and depth of the country she experienced.
Maddy VDK: Basement Freakshow is a “video installation” exploring the underground lives and strange hidden behaviors of the freaks that walk among us. Videos taken of freaks by freaks for freaks. The revival of camp, baby! The sweet, sweet melody of “art” that is trash! The satisfying juice of instant gratification! Come one, come all, let the show make you chuckle, let the show make you sweat!
Zachary Wolff: This body of work is a sampling of answers to my favorite question, “How do you connect to Judaism?” Photographing these subjects, I had the opportunity to push and pry several of my Jewish peers to reveal impressions from years of emotions and feelings, resulting in authentic representations of their responses in the form of images and vocal tracks. During the crafting of these pieces, I learned about facets of Judaism I had not previously explored. I engaged in some of my all-time favorite discussions, really getting under the hood of the car of what Judaism meant to each of my subjects. Ultimately, I began to reflect on my own connection to Judaism, initiating my personal internal soul-searching mission. Simply stated, you won’t be catching me eating bacon anytime soon. TheQuestionBegs.com
The exhibition will also feature works by Kiukl Adelbai, Bayley Baumgarten, and Emerald Chan.