Press Releases
September 8, 2011
After School Special: The 2011 Alumni Show
On view October 14 through December 10, 2011
Curated by Ken Johnson
Opening Reception and Wine Tasting
Friday, October 14 – 5-7 PM, Homecoming Weekend
Fall Festival Gallery Tours
Saturday, October 15, 11:00 – 11:45 AM; 1:00 – 1:45 PM
Lecture and Book Signing by Ken Johnson
Monday, November 7, 7:00 PM
Ken Johnson M.A. ‘78, author of Are You Experienced? How Psychedelic Consciousness Transformed Modern Art (2011).
Co-sponsored by New York State Writers Institute.
All events are free and open to the public.
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ALBANY, NY--- The University Art Museum is pleased to present After School Special, a major exhibition of the work by UAlbany alumni artists. Featuring 72 artists, the exhibition occupies the entire museum and includes all media: painting, sculpture, photography, video, installation, and works on paper. Based on a long-standing record of success among its graduates in the visual arts field, the exhibition highlights the individual accomplishments of working alumni artists. After School Special is curated by Ken Johnson, MA '78, a freelance critic, who writes regularly for the New York Times.
According to Johnson, "The beauty, originality and exuberant energy of the works in After School Special eloquently testify to what an extraordinarily productive incubator of artist talent the University at Albany has been for more than four decades." The University Art Museum will be bursting with a lively mix of over 100 works, all of which reflect the technical mastery and visual complexity that are hallmarks of the UAlbany art program. From Michael Oatman’s large-scale virtuoso collage culled from hundreds of vintage encyclopedia and magazine illustrations to Ben Godward 's towering fluorescent polyurethane foam sculpture that doubles as beer dispenser, or Israel Hershberg 's intimate Italian landscape oil paintings, After School Special promises a visual feast for museum-goers of every aesthetic inclination. Also featured are Sandra Scolnik's allegorical and psychologically-charged self-portraits, Dawn Clements's large-scale idiosyncratic ink drawing of a skewed domestic interior, Judith Braun's delicate symmetrical graphite drawings, Luca Buvoli 's wall-mounted sculptures of translucent shards that reference the Futurist Manifesto of 1909, and acclaimed filmmaker David Shapiro's trenchant parody of the graduate critique process featuring UAlbany art students and faculty. These are but a sampling of After School Special highlights.
From 28 to 72 years-old, the alumni artists in After School Special live across the United States and as far as New Zealand. The diversity of their backgrounds and the scope of their contributions to the art world is equally expansive. Many teach at colleges and universities across the country including Georgetown University,Rhode Island School of Design, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Syracuse University, Parsons The New School for Design, and The College of St. Rose. They are the recipients of numerous honors such as Fulbright Scholar and Guggenheim Fellowships and residencies at select programs such as Yaddo and Skowhegan. UAlbany artists have shown in exhibitions world-wide including the Venice Biennale; the Whitney Biennial; and the Gwangju Biennale, as well as at such venerable institutions as the Tel Aviv Museum of Art; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Corcoran Gallery of Art; The Jewish Museum of New York; National Museum of Women in the Arts; Brooklyn Museum of Art; and MoMA PS1 to name a few.
Alumni Artists
Serdar Arat, Justin Baker, Donald Bartholomay, Liz Blum, Andrew Boardman, Roberto Bocci, Judith Braun, Luca Buvoli, Christian Carson, Brian Caverly, James Charlton, Brian Cirmo, Dawn Clements, Gigi Cohen, Colleen Cox, Page Darrow, Linda Dennis, Sara Di Donato, Alex Dunwoodie, Nancy Engel, Benjamin Entner, Anthony Faiola, Abraham Ferraro, Maryann Ficker, Tara Fracalossi, Randall Friedman, J.C. Garrett, Michael Gaynes, Rakefet Gilad, Ben Godward, Allen Grindle, Gwen Gugell, John Hampshire, Israel Hershberg, Doug Holst, Aaron Holz, Judith Hugentobler, Kim Hugo, Marta Jaremko, Peter Jogo, Gayle Johnson, Larry Kagan, Adrienne Klein, Thomas Lail, Jude Lewis, P. Lipman, Phil Lonergan, Ingrid Ludt, Mark Miller, Sanford Mirling, Gerri Moore, Brant Moorefield, Lillian Mulero, Gail Nadeau, Michael Oatman, Matthew Peebles, Steven Perkins, Ken Ragsdale, Tom Richard, G.G. Roberts, Lou Schellenberg, Michael Schuetz, Sandra Scolnik, David Shapiro, Rebecca Shepard, Jackie Skrzynski, Bruce Stiglich, Susan Stuart, Jake Winiski, Ann Wolf, Michele Wright, Allen Yates
Catalogue
After School Special will be documented by a full-color catalogue with an essay by the curator.
About the Curator:
Ken Johnson, MA '78 is a freelance critic, who writes regularly for the New York Times. He has been writing art criticism professionally for more than 20 years. He graduated from Brown University in 1976 with a degree in art, followed in 1978 by a master’s degree in studio art with a concentration in painting from UAlbany. In 1983, he started writing art reviews for the Albany Times Union and other capital region publications. In 1987 he began writing articles on contemporary artists for Arts Magazine, and a year later he moved on to Art in America, where he wrote reviews and articles regularly for the next nine years. Since 1997, he has been writing art criticism for the New York Times, where he reviews six to eight current exhibitions each week. He is the author of the recently released book, Are You Experienced? How Psychedelic Consciousness Transformed Modern Art, published by Prestel Books.
Supported by a generous grant from the Alumni Association through the Grandma Moses Fund and the Office of the President, Office of the Provost, The University at Albany Foundation, the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation, University Auxiliary Service (UAS), the College of Arts and Sciences, the Art Department, Shirley W. Brand, Marijo Dougherty & Norman Bauman, and H. Patrick Swygert.
Museum Hours: Tuesday, 10 AM – 8 PM; Wednesday - Friday, 10 AM – 5 PM; Saturday, 12 – 4 PM. Expanded Homecoming and Fall Festival Hours: Saturday, October 15 and Sunday, October 16, 10 AM – 4 PM; closed Thursday, November 24. Telephone: 518-442-4035, www.albany.edu/museum
Media contact: Naomi Lewis, Exhibition & Outreach Coordinator, nlewis@albany.edu
After School Special: The 2011 Alumni Show is part of
MoHu 2011 and First Friday: Albany.
