May 15–28, 2016
Opening: Friday, May 20, 6–9pm
Sideshow Gallery
319 Bedford Ave
Brooklyn, New York
qcmfa.com
socialpracticequeens.org
www.qc.cuny.edu
Curated by Sarah Fritchey
Queens College MFA in Studio Art, City University of New York (CUNY), is pleased to announce Dining with Vultures, an ecologically-minded exhibition that contemplates art school as an ecosystem of scavenged thinking, gregarious collaboration, intergenerational slaughter and material transformation. The show features recent work of 21 emerging artists from nine countries, currently enrolled in the MFA and Social Practice Queens programs.
This exhibition is fascinated with the eating habits of urban vultures who remove death and decay from city spaces as they feast. The show highlights five behaviors characteristic of the vulture that the exhibiting artists share, including an ever-present resourcefulness, an ability to transform death into new forms, an openness to working collaboratively, a propensity to look long and work slow, and an attraction to consuming marginalized material.
In addition to works created during their time at Queens College, the artists will present new works produced specifically for the show that scavenge material from the cutting blocks, trash bins, laptops, and floors of each other’s studios. This assignment was conceived by Curator Sarah Fritchey, who will present the results as a Food Web that charts lines of production, consumption, and material concern.
Featured artists: Ghazaleh Abbasnazari, Tabitha St Cyr, Scott Braun, Nancy Bruno, Alejandro Salgado Cendales, Alix Camacho, Amy Cheng, Arber Dabaj, Eliesha Grant, Floor Grootenhuis & Setare S. Arashloo, Effi Ibok, Zaid Islam, Jeff Kasper, Maria K. Karlberg-Levin, Alan Lien, Jenna Makuh, Raina Marie Panagiotopoulos, Gina Minielli, Nicole Mouriño, Uno Nam, and Erin Turner
About Queens College
The Queens College (CUNY) MFA in Studio Art is a comprehensive, studio-based graduate program focused on contemporary painting, sculpture, installation, digital media, critical theory, and a specialization in social practice art. Started as a pilot program in Spring 2011, Social Practice Queens (SPQ) is a growing MFA concentration in partnership with Queens Museum that involves cross-disciplinary theory and research into the production of project-based community art, “new genre” public art, social sculpture, and urban interventions. Every MFA candidate enjoys a large, private workspace with access to wood, metal, plaster, ceramic, printmaking, digital, traditional photo facilities, and an on-site bronze foundry that is unique within CUNY.
Full-time Studio and Social Practice Faculty: Chloë Bass, Glenn Goldberg, Tony Gonzalez, Sin-ying Ho, Kurt Kauper, Tyrone Mitchell, Debra Priestly, and Gregory Sholette
Recent visiting artists and critics: Doug Ashford, Angela Dufresne, Dana Schutz, Xenobia Bailey, Larry Bogad, Robert Boyd, Amy Cutler, John Currin, Lois Dodd, Torkwase Dyson, Spencer Finch, Yevgeniy Fiks, Tom Finkelpearl, inCUBATE, Jim Lee, Pepon Osorio, Saul Ostrow, Elizabeth Peyton, Ted Purves, Sal Randolph, David Reed, Mika Rottenberg, Gregory Sale, Dread Scott, Elsie Siegel, Eve Sussman, Nato Thompson, T. J. Wilcox, and The Yes Men
Special thanks to the office of the President of Queens College, CUNY for their generous support.
*Image above: Alan Lien, older than Caligula but not quite there, 2016. Found hardware, cement, aluminum pipe, aluminum chain, artificial grapes, dimensions variable. Photo: Gina Minielli. Courtesy of the artist.
