School Notes: School of Art
July/August 2009

Art alums at commencement

The university awarded an honorary doctor of fine arts degree to sculptor Richard Serra ’62BFA, ’64MFA, at the 308th commencement in May. The degree citation reads in part: "Your focus on process does not end in your studio, but extends to the viewer's mind and movement.  In sculpture that is massive in scale, intimate in involvement, and delicate in balance, you use materials, time, and space to make art that challenges, disorients, and surprises." In a separate ceremony during commencement weekend, the School of Art welcomed painter Lisa Yuskavage ’86MFA as its commencement speaker.

Summer exhibitions by faculty

Jessica Stockholder ’85MFA, professor and director of graduate studies in sculpture, is the featured artist in this summer's Mad. Sq. Art exhibition in New York City's Madison Square Park. Flooded Chambers Maid is a site-specific multimedia installation that features a colorful, 1,300-square-foot arrow-shaped platform sprawling across the northern end of the park's Oval Lawn. Mad. Sq. Art is the free gallery without walls presented by the Madison Square Park Conservancy in the historic 6.2-acre park. Flooded Chambers Maid is on view through August 15.

Also in New York City this summer is an exhibition of photographs by Tod Papageorge, Walker Evans Professor and director of graduate studies in photography. American Sports, 1970 or, How We Spent the War in Vietnam is a display of more than 40 gelatin silver prints from photographs that Papageorge took on travels around the United States in 1970 when he received a Guggenheim Fellowship to "document as clearly and as completely as possible the phenomenon of professional sport in America." American Sports 1970 is on view at the Pace/MacGill Gallery through August 28.