School Notes: School of Art
January/February 2023

Alumna appointed inaugural post-colonial critic

Sculptor Rina Banerjee ’95MFA served as the inaugural post-colonial critic for the fall 2022 semester. A visiting critic at the school in painting/printmaking since 2020, Banerjee joined MFA students across the four areas of graduate study for critiques, lectures, and museum walk-throughs, all executed through a post-colonial lens.

As part of her engagement, Banerjee appeared at the School of Art for three visits during the fall semester, in a new interdepartmental position supported by the Cross-Cultural Curriculum Fund. “Rina approached me with this idea, and I considered how she could have the most impact on students and faculty,” Kymberly Pinder, Stavros Niarchos Foundation dean, shared of Banerjee’s appointment. “The critic’s role in art school is to assess an object and then provide questions about it that deepen the artist’s inquiry into what they are doing and its impact. Each critic has their lens—which is why we offer so many perspectives to our students.”

Celebrating two years of MacArthur alums

Last fall, Tavares Strachan ’06MFA (sculpture) was one of 25 individuals named a 2022 MacArthur Fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. This marks two years in a row that recent Yale School of Art alums have been so honored, after Jordan Casteel ’14MFA was awarded a MacArthur in 2021. While no alums were named in 2020 or 2019, Titus Kaphar ’06MFA was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2018 and other Yale School of Art alums have been recognized as what were formerly called MacArthur “geniuses” since the fellowship program began in 1981.