Happy Birthday Matt!

Last night we celebrated my friend Matt's 30th Birthday. We went to a local pool hall to celebrate and have a dance party. I had an amazing time and brought him a snake charmer's head as a birthday gift. The weather has been warming up compared to what we have been used to this past season, which is excellent news so I decided to go out for a change.


I hope all of you in Chicago are enjoying the warm weather; for those of you outside of the city, I hope the sun is gracing you with it's presence as well!


Cheers to the coming of Spring and a Happy Easter too!


Happy Birthday Matt.



A photo of Matt Brennan at his birthday party.



Matt Brennan, Alexander Ferrando, and Matthew Hilshorst on the dance floor.



Alexander and I are holding the snake charmer sculpture that I presented Matt with for his birthday.

BFA SHOW!!!

Last Friday was the opening of the 2008 Undergraduate Exhibition. I installed a new piece from 2008 entitled, "Karate & Dolphins". The show contained the work of 250 SAIC students that will be completing their undergraduate degrees this spring. The innovative work by the students covered quite a range of media from ceramics; designed objects; fashion design; fiber and material studies; film, video, and new media; painting and drawing; performance; photography; printmedia; sculpture; and sound.


Every year I attend the opening for the BFA show because it is a great opportunity to see the work that is being created by students, a large collection of work in fact. The BFA show, is the largest and only show of its kind in the country. There is always such a great turn out rate and the crowds grow larger and larger as the night goes on. This last show seemed a bit more overwhelming than usual though, with a line that formed around an entire city block leaving many people waiting till 10 pm to enter the door. A VIP opening lasted for the first hour and then the gallery opened its doors to the general public thereafter.



My installation entitled Karate & Dolphins for more work similar to this please refer to http://samiamirza.com/home.html.



Tamia and I standing in front of Erin Gigl's wall piece of an elephants ears and nose on the opening night.



Paintings by artist, Marley Freeman.



Clayton Flynn's giant cardboard room in which a video of the last lunar eclipse of 2008 was projected through prisms is seen on the left in this image. For more work by Clayton Flynn please refer to his website http://claytonflynn.com/home.htmlOn the right is the work of Esteban Schimpf entitled, An Arrangement of Things, for more work by Esteban please refer to his website http://estebanschimpf.com/home.html.



Image of the curated section containing the work of John Friel, Korey Vincent http://www.graystatic.com/, Justin Swinburne http://www.artic.edu/~jswinb/, and Sang Ho.


It was a long night indeed. Some friends and I headed over to home of Ms. Weiss, Mr. Lehman, and Mr. Furman, where an after party was being held in honor of the graduating seniors who have worked so hard to finish this year with strength and leading with their best foot forward. I had a wonderful time!



Michael Lehman, Alexander Ferrando, Elizabeth Weiss, Clayton Flynn, Esteban Schimpf, Caroline Askew, Hsin, Alex Bailey, and myself are captured in the photos above while enjoying the post-bfa show celebration!


CONGRATULATIONS GRADUATES!

Craziest Time of the Year!

This time of the year has got to be one of the most stressful and busiest in my history here as a student. I will be graduating in May, great great news of course, but with that comes the deadlines, requirements, installations, midterms, applications for fellowships etc. etc. Thus far I have completed most of my responsibilities and considering this is the busiest time of year, I'd say I'm doing pretty well. Last week I stood in a 50+ person line to try and register for a study trip which filled up pretty quickly, leaving me 13th on the waitlist...my summer plans will need to change now, I've managed to find something just as exciting to do for my final courses at this school. On top of that, scholarship applications were due last week for Ox-bow, a summer retreat residency program run by SAIC. Over the weekend, I had to deinstall a show at estudiotres gallery and then install the BFA thesis show which took a lot more time than I had expected.






The BFA thesis show is the culminating event for undergraduate students who plan to graduate in May. 250 talented SAIC students completing undergraduate degrees this
spring exhibit their innovative work in a range of media including ceramics; designed objects; fashion design; fiber and material studies; film, video, and new media; painting and drawing; performance; photography; printmedia; sculpture; and sound.


For more information about the show opening this Friday, March 14, 2008, please see below:

Undergraduate Exhibition
Gallery 2 & Project Space, 847 W. Jackson Blvd., 2nd & 3rd Floors
March 15 - April 4
Opening reception: Friday, March 14, 7:00 - 10:00 pm
Extended viewing hours: March 19 and April 4, 11:00 am - 9:00 pm

Ed Ruscha Symposium

Today was the opening of the Art Institute of Chicago's new exhibit entitled Ed Ruscha and Photography! I had the pleasure of hearing Ed Ruscha speak at the free daylong symposium. He opened the symposium with a slideshow of past work as well as influetial objects and artists in his life. His opening was followed by several lectures later in the day. Thomas Crow, Rosalie Solow Professor of Modern Art at New York University presented his own interpretation of Ruscha in the lecture titled, "Screen Memories in the Art of Ed Ruscha". Ken Allan, Assistant Professor of Art History at Seattle University spoke about "Space, Place & Spectatorship in Ed Ruscha's Los Angeles". The closing conversation between Ed Ruscha; Dave Hickey, Professor of English at UNLV; and Sylvia Wolf, exhibition curator; was one of the most memorable exchanges that day. Rather than describe Los Angeles, Dave Hickey said, "Ruscha's photographs are of images of the fallen world. Instead of the lines of parking lots we see their stains and soiled grounds..."



Many subjects mentioned throughout the day include the palindrome paintings of mountains and text by Ruscha, as well as the influence that Los Angeles had on his work. Ruscha's accordion book "Every building on the Sunset Strip" was discussed in depth as well as his photographs of parking lots, all to be seen in the show. It was a great experience to hear such an accomplished and important art history figure speak of his work today, and thanks to being a student, it was all free of charge!



An image of a portion of Ed Ruscha's book entitled, "Every building on the sunset strip"



Ed Ruscha standing beside one of his paintings.



A palindrome painting entilted "Lion in Oil" by Ed Ruscha