News and Events

Bard College alumni/ae Catherine Lamb MFA ’12, Berlin-based composer, and Ben Richter ’08, director of Ghost Ensemble, have released a new collaborative album called interius/exterius, which was engineered by Bard music faculty Matt Sargent and mixed at Bard’s recording studio. The work, which Igloo Magazine calls “a vast, resonant world of sound, where every listening reveals infinite layers of beauty,” is currently in first-round Grammy consideration in the categories of Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance, Best Contemporary Classical Composition, and Best Engineered Album, Classical. “A stellar recording,” wrote Peter Margasak for Bandcamp’s Best Contemporary Classical roundup about Catherine Lamb x Ghost Ensemble’s LP. “This stands as one of more electrifying accounts of [Lamb’s] sound world. It’s thrilling to witness over the last few years how Lamb’s harmonic imagination and compositional voice have been reinforcing one another as they grow inexorably more refined and powerful.” The first round of Grammy voting ends on Oct 15.

The Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College (Bard MFA) is pleased to present Double Take, the thesis exhibition for the class of 2026. The exhibition convenes 22 MFA candidates in the disciplines of Moving Image, Music/Sound, Painting, Photography, Sculpture, and Writing. The majority hail from outside of New York, and many will be exhibiting in the region for the first time.

Double Take will be on view from July 12 through July 20 at the Bard College Exhibition Center/UBS Gallery in the village of Red Hook, New York, located at 29 O’Callaghan Lane. An opening reception will be held at the gallery on Saturday, July 12, from 1-4pm; the exhibition will then be open daily July 13-20 from 11am-5pm. Additionally, candidates in the Music/Sound and Writing disciplines will present an evening of performances on Friday, July 11, on Bard’s campus at Olin Hall, located at 35 Henderson Circle Drive, in Red Hook; doors open at 6pm. For more information about exhibition hours, presentation locations, and accessibility, visit bard.edu/mfa/thesis.

“The diverse practices of these 22 artists are unified by a careful deliberation of methods and materials, and an interest in slowing down the pace at which their work is consumed,” writes Mike R. Curran, the exhibition coordinator and a graduate student at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. “Double Take features objects and installations that reward a long look and a close listen. Spending time with meticulously composed canvases and photographs may conjure memories or evoke new visual worlds. Attuning to the silent stretches of a sound composition might open other sensory possibilities. Examining the materials at play may uncover conventional media—chalk, paper, twine—used in unexpected ways.”

“In a context where political, social, and ecological crises accelerate at a rapid speed, the demands placed on art to act as an antidote have become increasingly incoherent. Resisting these conditions, the works invite you to move through the exhibition with intention and invest in their provocations.”

The exhibition includes works by Juan Cisneros, Antonio Darden, Caroline David, Quinha Faria, Talia Fox, Lizzy Gabay, Shem Goldman, Bryce Hackford, Zoe Hamersly, Jeffrey Heiman, Rosa Maria de los Heros, Adrien Howard, Estefanía Landesmann, Alma Laprida, David Lindsay, Jonas Monka, Frances Grace Mortel, Daisy Noyes, Martha Schnee, Cameron Sneddon, Maia Taber Ayerza, and Maria VMier.

For 25 years, Bard MFA has hosted the thesis exhibition at the Bard College Exhibition Center/UBS Gallery, a 16,000-square-foot facility dedicated to the presentation of student work. Double Take will be the final exhibition of Bard MFA at this location.