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By ARTSpeak, September 29, 2010 1:21 pm

The FIT community is incredibly diverse, consisting of individuals with a wide range of histories and experiences. ARTSpeak aims to create a group conversation about the wonderful richness and complexity those diverse experiences have given us as creative individuals. ARTSpeak consists of a number of different forums, including, but not limited to: A lecture series featuring distinguished artists whose work speaks about their own diverse lives, an FIT blog site where anyone in the FIT community can contribute commentary, and an upcoming exhibition of FIT student artwork.

We urge all FIT students, faculty, and staff to become part of the conversation.

Share your stories with us: submit a comment or reply about how your own diversity influences your work, and be included in our blog. Click here to go to comment page.

ARTSpeak is co-sponsored by the Fine Arts Department of The Fashion Institute of Technology and a 2010-2011 Diversity Council Grant.

You can now watch videos on the ARTspeak blog! Go to the tab (at the top of this page) that says Watch Videos! and click on that. You will be able to watch a video of ARTspeak lecturer Nayland Blake giving his talk at FIT. Or just click here to get to the video: http://www.kaltura.com/index.php/kmc/preview/partner_id/483591/uiconf_id/6652122/entry_id/0_t8b1l82o/delivery/http

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By ARTSpeak, April 9, 2012 3:00 pm

On Tuesday, April 17th, 2012, from 2:30 – 3:30 pm, artist Vitaly Komar will speak in the Katie Murphy Amphitheatre, in the Fred P. Pomerantz Art and Design Center (D Building), at the Fashion Institute of Technology, located at 27th Street and Seventh Avenue, New York, NY. The event is open to the public. The ARTSpeak 2011-2012 Lecture Series is sponsored by the School of Art and Design and the School of Liberal Arts.

Vitaly Komar is a Russian painter and performance artist who was born in Moscow. He and fellow Russian artist Alexander Melamid collaborated as the conceptual art duo Komar & Melamid until 2003. In 1972, Komar & Melamid founded a movement they called Sots Art, a unique version of Soviet Pop and Conceptual Art that combines the principles of Dadaism and Socialist Realism. Komar currently resides in New York City, and has had solo exhibitions at the Moscow Biennale and the Galerie Sandmann, Berlin, Germany.

For more information on Vitaly Komar, go to his page on the website of the Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York City: http://www.feldmangallery.com/pages/artistsrffa/artkom01.html

Vitaly Komar

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By ARTSpeak, November 23, 2011 8:05 pm

On Thursday December 1st, 2011, from 1 – 2 pm, Tim Rollins + K.O.S will speak in D-211 Lecture Hall, in the Fred P. Pomerantz Art and Design Center (D Building), at the Fashion Institute of Technology, located at 27th Street and Seventh Avenue, New York, NY. The event is open to the public. The ARTSpeak 2011-2012 Lecture Series is sponsored by the School of Art and Design and the School of Liberal Arts.

In 1984, artist Tim Rollins launched a workshop with a group of students in the Bronx who adopted the name K.O.S. (Kids of Survival).  Together the group has collaborated on art inspired by literary and historical texts.  They have exhibited at LA MoCA; the Tate Gallery, London; and the Whitney Biennial, among others.  A traveling retrospective of the group’s 20-year career opened at the Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College in 2009.

Tim Rollins + KOS, Second Study for Amerika VII, 1987, Gold watercolor on book pages on linen, 24x24 inches, photo by Larry Qualls

Tim Rollins + KOS, Incident in the Life of a Slave Girl (after Harriet Jacobs), 1998, Satin ribbon on book pages on linen, 84 x 108 inches, photo by Larry Qualls

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By ARTSpeak, March 20, 2011 6:32 pm

On Thursday, March 31, 2011, the artist Chie Fueki will give a talk on her artwork and her life. The talk will take place from 2:30 to 3:30 pm in FIT’s Katie Murphy Amphitheatre, in the D Building, at 27th Street and Seventh Avenue.

Fueki’s intricate and colorful paintings interweave images from diverse cultures and customs, from motifs often present in traditional Japanese art, to images of American athletes. Folk art, textiles, and patterning are also strong visual influences on her work. Each one of Fueki’s paintings is composed of paper collage, graphite rubbing, colored pencil, and washes and beads of paint, creating a brocade-like skin on the painting’s surface.

Now living in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and Brooklyn, NY, Fueki was born in Japan, and was raised in Brazil.

Her next solo show will be featured at the Mary Boone Gallery, at 745 Fifth Avenue, between E. 57 and E. 58 Streets, in New York City. Fueki has had numerous solo gallery exhibitions, as well as being featured in many group shows, including PS1′s 2005 installment of the Greater New York exhibition.

Her page on the Mary Boone website: www.maryboonegallery.com/artist_info/fueki_info.html

Josh, 72 x 96 inches, 2010, Acrylic and mixed media on paper and wood, by Chie Fueki

Chie Fueki at work

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By ARTSpeak, January 21, 2011 12:38 pm

Artist Wangechi Mutu will give a talk on her work and life on Tuesday, February 15, 2011, from 1 to 2 pm, in the Katie Murphy Amphitheatre. The Amphitheatre is located in the Fred P. Pomerantz Art and Design Center (also known as the “D” Building), 27th Street and 7th Avenue, at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Kenya-born Wanechi Mutu creates compelling and intricate artworks containing painted and collaged images, often using female figures constructed with photographic fragments of idealized women collected from print magazines. Her visually complex work can also be seen as a critique of the portrayal of black women as either tribal aborigines or hypersexualized pinups.

Mutu’s artwork has been exhibited extensively in the U.S. and abroad. Her most recent solo shows include Hunt Bury Flee at the Gladstone Gallery in Chelsea, New York City, My Dirty Little Heaven at the Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, Germany, and the Wiels Contemporary Museum, Brussels, Belgium, and This You Call Civilization? at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada. She has won numerous awards including the Deutsche Guggenheim Artist of the Year for 2010, a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant, and a Cooper Union Urban Visionaries Emerging Talent Award.

You can find out more about Wangechi’s artwork by going to her website:  http://www.wangechimutu.com/

Wangechi Mutu, Before Punk Came Funk, 2010, Mixed media, ink, paint, collage on mylar, 54 x 51 inches

Wangechi Mutu, photo by Flora Hanitijo

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By ARTSpeak, October 17, 2010 10:51 am

Nayland Blake gave a talk on his life and work on Tuesday, November 2, from 1:30 to 2:30 pm, in the Katie Murphy Amphitheatre.

An artist, writer, curator, and educator, Nayland Blake addresses issues of his own racially mixed background, sexual identity, and body identity. His work is included in the collections of MoMA, the Whitney Museum, the Studio Museum of Harlem, LA MoCa, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, among others. In 1994 he curated the exhibition, In a Different Light, the first major museum exhibition to examine the impact of queer artists on contemporary art. He is represented by Matthew Marks Gallery.

He is currently the Chair of the International Center of Photography – Bard College Program in Advanced Photographic Studies in New York City.

You can watch the video of Nayland Blakes lecture at FIT here: http://www.kaltura.com/index.php/kmc/preview/partner_id/483591/uiconf_id/6652122/entry_id/0_t8b1l82o/delivery/http

You can find out more about Nayland Blake by linking to the following sites:

The artist’s blog: http://www.naylandblake.net/

The Matthew Marks website: http://www.matthewmarks.com/artists/nayland-blake/

Nayland Blake, video still from Starting Over, 2000

Nayland Blake at home in Brooklyn, NY

Nayland Blake, Feeder 2, 1998, Gingerbread and steel, 7 by 10 by 7 feet, photo: Larry Qualls

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By ARTSpeak, September 29, 2010 10:35 pm

The first ARTSpeak lecture will feature artist David Diao. He will be speaking on Monday, October 4, from 6:30 to 7:30 pm, in FIT’s Katie Murphy Amphitheatre, in the Fred P. Pomerantz Art and Design Center (also known as the “D Building”). The building’s entrance is on the northwest corner of 7th Avenue and 27th Street.

David Diao was born in China, and emigrated to the U.S. at the age of twelve. Diao is an influential painter and teacher, whose work melds personal and art historical references. His 2009 New York solo exhibition was based on his return to his childhood home in Chengdu and finding it destroyed. Through the use of text, drawing, images, and painterly surfaces, his work explores the intersection of the history of art, culture, and personal meaning.

David Diao, Slanted MoMA, 1995, Vinyl and acrylic on canvas, 46 x 70 inches

David Diao in Dessau, Germany, 2009.

David Diao, Odd Man Out, 1974, Acrylic on canvas, 90 x 84 inches