|
Project Website: http://slought.org/content/11327/
Slought Foundation, a non-profit organization rethinking contemporary art, is pleased to announce "The Day After: MFA Graduates from Three Philadelphia Art Schools," an exhibition in the galleries from June 10-July 10, 2006 featuring work by recent Philadelphia-area MFA graduates. An opening reception with the artists in attendance willl take place on Saturday, June 10th from 6:30-8:30pm.
The exhibition features work by Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts graduates Blaine Siegel, Amy Walsh, Michelle LeClaire, and Max Maddox; Tyler School of Art graduates Joe Protheroe, Anna Neighbor, Timothy Belknap, and Tricia Lopez; and University of Pennsylvania graduates Wil Medearis, Pernot Hudson, and Brent Wahl.
"When a student receives a Masters of Fine Arts, what has he or she learned and achieved? Originality? Capacity for self-criticism? Theoretical or technical proficiency? Knowledge of the historical or contemporary scene? What influences can be detected in the work of these graduates? Their teachers? The work of other students in the program? The magazines and exhibitions available to them in cultural centers and art markets? How much time should it take to graduate, to understand the rules of the game, and to be able to either submit to or subvert those rules? How many of these graduates will support themselves as artists in the coming years? How many will move from the periphery to the center of the action? How many will compromise and accept peripherical jobs in fields such as illustration and graphic design? How many of these graduates understand, from the beginning, that nobody asked them to be artists, and that the life of an artist is not like other professions, and is not always easy? How many of these graduates will be able to survive the activity of making art without the critique and reflexivity that art schools aim to provide? Are these artists going to be able to cultivate their own sense of self-criticism, and is such a thing ever truly possible without community? What would an exhibition of work by the same artists look like in five years? We would very much like to organize that exhibition."
Read the full curatorial essay by Osvaldo Romberg
|
