News and Events

Before the coronavirus pandemic began, performance artist NIC Kay was bouncing around the country, producing work in cities such as Chicago, New York City, and Portland, Oregon. But when the virus arrived and most of the arts world moved online, Kay didn’t follow. It was unexpected for someone who’s explored Black and queer internet communities through movement, music, and documentation with the hashtag #blackpeopledancingontheinternet.

The Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College (Bard MFA) presents close alternative, the class of 2022 thesis presentation, which brings together works by MFA candidates in the disciplines film/video, music/sound, painting, photography, sculpture, and writing. The exhibition will be on view from July 17 through July 25, 2021 at the Bard College Exhibition Center/UBS Gallery, 29 O’Callaghan Lane, Red Hook, New York. An opening day takes place on Saturday, July 17, from 12 to 6 p.m. with timed entry for visitors by appointment using this link. Evening presentations of time-based works, including performances, readings, and screenings, will be held at several locations on the Bard College campus during the week of July 19. For more information about the exhibition, please visit bard.edu/mfa/thesis.

The Bard MFA thesis presentations feature works by Lorenzo Bueno, Edythe Woolley, Ben Bennett, William Bradley, Andrew Lee, Rahul Nair, Geneva Skeen, Wibke Tiarks, Harry Davies, Corbin Furguson, Samuel Hindolo, Beaux Mendes, Christopher Baliwas, Sophie Byerley, Dani Lessnau, John Pike, Andrea Sisson, Cecilia Bjartmar Hylta, MJ Daines, Claudette Gacuti, Mindy Solis, Katz Tepper, Riel Bellow, Samuel Breslin, Valerie Hsiung, Aristilde Kirby, Sarah Passino, and Shaheen Qureshi.

The title of this year’s thesis exhibition was conceived from the graduating class’s shared hopes, desires, vulnerabilities, and anxieties. The hope to share space with one another again; the desire to prioritize accessibility, vulnerability, and compromise; and the eagerness to unlearn and redefine what (un)productivity for an artist can mean, look, or sound like. In a way, this loose thread also points to the various adaptive shifts artists must often (un)make in their practice. The exhibition is coordinated by Shehab Awad MA’17, a graduate of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (CCS Bard). Shehab Awad is a writer and curator from Cairo living in New York City. He/she operates as Executive Care*, an all-encompassing self-as-agency at the service of artists.

The Bard College Exhibition Center will be open Monday through Friday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m., and Saturday/Sunday, 1–5 p.m. For the opening reception, a return shuttle service will be offered from Rhinecliff Amtrak station. Schedules and more information are available here. Parking is available in the Saint Christopher’s Church lot at 7411 South Broadway or on Garden Road. Accessibility: Bard College Exhibition Center/UBS Gallery is located by an unpaved gravel road, and the building is accessible by a 19-foot-wide roll gate entrance positioned at the west side of the building. There are three accessible parking spots adjacent to the entrance. We encourage guests who do not require accessible parking to park at the Saint Christopher’s Church lot, located at 7411 South Broadway, or on Garden Road. Please note that the shuttle return service from Rhinecliff station is not wheelchair accessible. The building has a wheelchair-accessible, all-gender restroom. We provide scent-free soaps and encourage guests to consider attending our events scent-free. Please contact the MFA Administrative Office at T 845-758-7481 or [email protected] for any questions or requests regarding accessibility, including audio or film descriptions.

Founded in 1981, Bard MFA is a nontraditional school for visual, written, and time-based arts. At Bard, the community itself is the primary resource for the student—serving as audience, teacher, and peer group in an ongoing dialogue. In interdisciplinary group critiques, seminars, school presentations, as well as discipline caucuses and one-on-one conferences, the artist students engage with accomplished faculty members, while developing their individual studio practices. The program probes a diversity of approaches and fosters imaginative responses and insights to aesthetic concerns across the disciplines of film/video, writing, painting, sculpture, photography, and music/sound. Bard MFA is a low-residency program that takes place over two years and two months, with students on campus during three consecutive eight-week summer sessions and two independent study sessions off campus completed during the intervening winters. For more information please contact Lawre Stone, associate director, Bard MFA, at [email protected] or 845-758-7481, or visit bard.edu/mfa.

 (7/13/21)