Class of 2023 MFA thesis exhibition

The Columbia University School of the Arts Visual Arts Program presents the 2023 MFA thesis exhibition in collaboration with the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery at the Lenfest Center for the Arts. This exhibition encompasses work by the 30 artists who will complete the Visual Arts MFA Program May 2023. Curator Jasmine Wahi notes the exhibition “instills a glowing spark of excitement for the future of contemporary art.”

Exhibition dates: April 23–May 21, 2023
Gallery hours: Wednesday–Sunday, 12–6pm
Opening reception: Saturday, April 22, 3–6pm

Participating artists
Sound artists: Gladstone Butler, Char Jeré, Merry Sun. Visual artists: Garrett Ball, Ray Barsante, Cecilia Caldiera, Kevin Cobb, Conor Dowdle, Nick Farhi, Elisheva Gavra, Jeffrey Halstead, Calvin Kim, Sangmin Lee, Kat Lowish, Meaghan Elyse Lueck, Anna Ting Möller, Amadeo Morelos Favela, Levi Nelson, Alison Nguyen, Paul Rho, Robbie Rogers, Albert Samreth, Cal Siegel, Jairo Sosa, Motohiro Takeda, Christopher Michel Torres, Vivian Vivas, Li Wang, Ming Wang, Shuai Yang.

“The ways in which artists in this exhibition are thinking critically about materials, history(ies), social dynamics, and much more, is truly a map for how our current reality unfolds. This exhibition is a marker of the end of one chapter for this group of thinkers and makers, and the start of a bold and promising movement forward for all of us.” —Jasmine Wahi, curator.

About the curator
Jasmine Wahi is the Founder and Co-Director of Project for Empty Space, a nonprofit organization in New York City and Newark, New Jersey. Her multifaceted curatorial practice predominantly focuses on issues of femme empowerment, complicating binary structures within social discourses, and exploring multi-positional cultural identities through the lens of intersectional feminism.

In 2023, Ms. Wahi was honored by The Metropolitan Museum of Art for exemplary social impact work. In 2020, Project for Empty Space (PES), Ms. Wahi became the inaugural Holly Block Social Justice Curator at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, while simultaneously Co-Directing PES. While at the museum she curated several renowned exhibitions, including Born In Flames: Feminist Futures and Wardell Milan: AMERIKA. God Bless You If It’s Good To You, which were oriented around the thesis that visibility is the primary tenet of Social Justice. In 2019, Ms. Wahi gave her first TED Talk on intersectionality and visibility, entitled All The Women In Me Are Tired.

A lover of learning and sharing, Ms. Wahi has taught at a number of art institutions, including Yale University, and the School of Visual Arts: MFA Fine Arts department. She is currently on the Faculty of Brooklyn College in New York City. Ms. Wahi received her own Art History education from New York University, where she has a BA in Art History from the College of Arts and Sciences, and an MA from the Institute of Fine Arts.

About the Visual Arts + Sound Art Program
The Visual Arts + Sound Art Program at Columbia University School of the Arts attracts emerging artists of unusual promise from around the world. They join a vigorous community, working alongside an exceptional faculty at a world-renowned research institution in New York City.

The Visual Arts Program is interdisciplinary and offers an MFA degree in Visual Arts rather than in one specific medium. The two-year studio program, taught by internationally celebrated artists, allows students to pursue moving image, new genres, painting, photography, printmaking, and sculpture.

The Sounds Art Program is a studio-based program in conjunction with the Visual Arts Program. As such, it gives the students the freedom to explore work in sculpture, video, wood as well as computer programming, performance and conceptual strategies.