Public talks 2017–18

Each year, the SVA MFA Fine Arts program brings in a select group of artists, critics and curators to give talks and visit students in their studios. Unless otherwise noted, all talks start at 6:30pm and are free and open to the public. Schedule is subject to change.

Mika Rottenberg (Faculty)
October 3, 2017
Exploring the seduction, magic, and desperation of our hyper-capitalist, globally-connected reality, her elaborate visual narratives draw on cinematic and sculptural traditions to forge a new language.

Franklin Boyd (Faculty)
October 10, 2017
Combines multiple perspectives on the art market: lawyer, professor, collector, board member, advisor and entrepreneur.

Tsibi Geva (Faculty)
October 17, 2017
Represented Israel at the 2015 Venice Biennale.

Seph Rodney (Faculty)
October 24, 2017
Staff writer and editor for the Hyperallergic blog, writing about contemporary art and related issues. 

Mark Tribe (Program Chair)
October 31, 2017
Artist who works across media and forms, including drawing, photography, installation, video and performance. 

Anna Ogier-Bloomer (Faculty)
November 7, 2017
Feminist artist and photographer whose work has been published widely online, including Feature Shoot, Refinery29, The Huffington Post, The Daily Mail, BUST Magazine, among others.

Mei Lum
November 14, 2017
Since May 2016, she has been working to bring community members’ concerns of a rapidly changing Chinatown into a space for dialogue through her work with The W.O.W Project, a community initiative reclaiming ownership over Chinatown’s future by reviving, protecting and encouraging Chinatown’s creative culture through arts, culture and activism.

Elaine Byrne and Mario Marchese
November 21, 2017
Elaine Byrne utilizes a research-based methodology to explore a wide range of topics. She will discuss her work “Woman Boxed” in dialog with barrier-breaking magician Dorothy Deitrich. Mario “the MakerMagician” Marchese will join in with one of his signature magic performances, for which he invents and creates his own props.

Sharon Louden (Faculty)
November 28, 2017
Artist, educator, advocate for artists, and editor of the Living and Sustaining a Creative Life series of books including The Artist as Culture Producer.

Devin Kenny
December 5, 2017
Interdisciplinary artist, writer, musician, and independent curator, and a 2017 CORE Fellow in Houston, Texas.

Amy Whitaker
December 12, 2017
Holding both an MBA and an MFA, she approaches economics and finance as creative design mediums themselves, and teaches business to artists and arts administrators.

Robyn O’Neil
January 9, 2018
LA based artist who soley makes drawings. She will screen her short film, WE THE MASSES which was conceived of at Werner Herzog’s Rogue Film School.

Alison Kuo (Faculty)
January 16, 2018
Artist who uses performance and food to explore power dynamics, secret histories, and markers of class and wealth.

Temporary Services
January 23, 2018
Temporary Services is Brett Bloom and Marc Fischer. They are based in Ft. Wayne (IN) and Chicago. Salem Collo-Julin worked with them from 2001–14. They produce exhibitions, events, projects, and publications. The distinction between art practice and other creative human endeavors is irrelevant to them.

David Xu Borgonjon
February 6, 2018
Founding member of the bilingual Chinese/English media art platform SCREEN and independent curator.

Risa Puleo
Feb 20, 2018
Independent curator and critic. She is the inaugural curator-in-residence at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska, and will speak about her concurrent exhibition there: MONARCHS: Brown and Native Artists in the Path of the Butterfly.

Omar Lopez-Chahoud (Faculty)
March 20, 2018
Artistic Director of UNTITLED, ART, Miami Beach and independent curator. 

Legacy Russell
March 27, 2017
Writer, artist, and cultural producer. She is the founding theorist behind Glitch Feminism as a cultural manifesto and movement; #GLITCHFEMINISM aims to use the digital as a means of resisting the hegemony of the corporeal.