Class of 2026: Double Take

The Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College (Bard MFA) is pleased to present Double Take, the thesis exhibition for the class of 2026. The exhibition convenes 22 MFA candidates in the disciplines of Moving Image, Music/Sound, Painting, Photography, Sculpture, and Writing. The majority hail from outside of New York, and many will be exhibiting in the region for the first time.

Double Take will be on view from July 12 through July 20 at the Bard College Exhibition Center/UBS Gallery in the village of Red Hook, New York, located at 29 O’Callaghan Lane. An opening reception will be held at the gallery on Saturday, July 12, from 1–4pm; the exhibition will then be open daily July 13–20 from 11am–5pm. Additionally, candidates in the Music/Sound and Writing disciplines will present an evening of performances on Friday, July 11, on Bard’s campus at Olin Hall, located at 35 Henderson Circle Drive, in Red Hook; doors open at 6pm. For more information about exhibition hours, presentation locations, and accessibility, visit bard.edu/mfa/thesis.

“The diverse practices of these 22 artists are unified by a careful deliberation of methods and materials, and an interest in slowing down the pace at which their work is consumed,” writes Mike R. Curran, the exhibition coordinator and a graduate student at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. “Double Take features objects and installations that reward a long look and a close listen. Spending time with meticulously composed canvases and photographs may conjure memories or evoke new visual worlds. Attuning to the silent stretches of a sound composition might open other sensory possibilities. Examining the materials at play may uncover conventional media—chalk, paper, twine—used in unexpected ways.”

“In a context where political, social, and ecological crises accelerate at a rapid speed, the demands placed on art to act as an antidote have become increasingly incoherent. Resisting these conditions, the works invite you to move through the exhibition with intention and invest in their provocations.”

The exhibition includes works by Juan Cisneros, Antonio Darden, Caroline David, Quinha Faria, Talia Fox, Lizzy Gabay, Shem Goldman, Bryce Hackford, Zoe Hamersly, Jeffrey Heiman, Rosa Maria de los Heros, Adrien Howard, Estefanía Landesmann, Alma Laprida, David Lindsay, Jonas Monka, Frances Grace Mortel, Daisy Noyes, Martha Schnee, Cameron Sneddon, Maia Taber Ayerza, and Maria VMier.

For 25 years, Bard MFA has hosted the thesis exhibition at the Bard College Exhibition Center/UBS Gallery, a 16,000-square-foot facility dedicated to the presentation of student work. Double Take will be the final exhibition of Bard MFA at this location.

About the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College
Founded in 1981, Bard MFA is a nontraditional school for visual, written, and time-based arts. At Bard, the community itself is the primary resource for the student—serving as audience, teacher, and peer group in an ongoing dialogue. In interdisciplinary group critiques, seminars, and school presentations, as well as discipline caucuses and one-on-one conferences, the artist-student engages with accomplished faculty members while developing their individual studio practice. The program probes a diversity of approaches and fosters imaginative responses and insights to aesthetic concerns across the disciplines of moving image, music/sound, painting, photography, sculpture, and writing.

Bard MFA is a low-residency program that takes place over two years and two months. Students are on campus for three consecutive eight-week summer sessions and off campus for two independent study sessions completed during the intervening winters.