Class of 2024 first year MFA exhibition

The Columbia University School of the Arts Visual Arts Program presents the 2024 first year MFA 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 their first year of the Visual Arts MFA Program this May. Curated by Amy Sadao. March 25–April 9, 2023 / Gallery hours: Wednesday–Sunday, 12–6pm

Participating artists
Sound artists: A.M. DeVito, Colm Keady-Tabbal, and Julian Zehnder. Visual artists: Candela Bado, Andie Carver, Olivia Drusin, Erica Enriquez, Laurena Finéus, Sasha Fishman, Aristotle Forrester, Krista Gay, Valeria Guillén, Ian Ha, Jing Harren, Sharon Yaoxi He, Nima Jeizan, JOHANNA, Roxana Kadyrova, claudia yeejae kim, Kristian Kragelund, Chuqiao (Chloe) Li, Yiwei Lu, Kai Oh, Youngmin Park, Benjamin Salesse, SÉAN, Sofya Shpurova, Steven Stallings, Tk (Taekyung) Suh, and Zhiqian Wang

About the curator
Amy Sadao is a curator and a strategist. Her firm, Sadao Ghosh, was founded to help museums and arts organizations operationalize racial justice. She is part of the curatorial team for FotoFest 2022, Houston and is organizing an exhibition on the Feminist Art Program for REDCAT. She is the curator of Columbia University’s MFA exhibitions 2020, 2021 and 2022. Previously she was the Daniel W. Dietrich, II Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania. Sadao fulfilled a plan focused on ICA’s audience, local and global partnerships, staffing, and programming reflected the racial demographics of Philadelphia and secured the largest gift in the museum’s history: a $10 million endowment extending curatorial research. Sadao also served for ten years as Executive Director of Visual AIDS in New York City, leading the organization through its first strategic planning process and reestablishing its exhibition, publication, and artist-edition programs while diversifying its income stream with unique, branded events.

Sadao is Board Chair of Asian Arts Initiative, Board Secretary of the Leeway Foundation, and is a Director Emeritus of Visual AIDS. She earned an MA in comparative ethnic studies from the University of California, Berkeley, a BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art, and began her career as an intern at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Philip Morris branch.