2016 Newsletter

Number 51 – Fall 2016 NEWSLETTERAlumni Published by the Alumni Association of 1 Contents From the Director ...............3 Teaching Art History in New York Faculty Updates ...............19 State Prisons .................10 Conceptual Spaces: Alumni Updates ...............24 Beyond Vitrines on the Staircase Institute Graduate Students and the in the Great Hall ................4 IFA/Frick Symposium 1940-2016. 12 Doctors of Philosophy Conferred in 2015-2016 .................34 The Institute in May 1970 .........7 In Memoriam: Warren Sanderson ..16 Institute Donors ...............35 ‘Olympia’ Made Me Do It: The Year in Pictures ............17 An Art Historian Writes Memoir ....8 Institute of Fine Arts Alumni Association Officers: Advisory Council Members: Committees: President Susan Galassi Walter S. Cook Lecture Jennifer Eskin [email protected] Jay Levenson, Chair [email protected] William Hood [email protected] [email protected] Yvonne Elet Vice-President Matthew Israel Jennifer Eskin Alicia Lubowski-Jahn [email protected] Susan Galassi [email protected] Lynda Klich Debra Pincus [email protected] Katherine Schwab Treasurer Anne Hrychuk Kontokosta Lisa Rotmil [email protected] Newsletter [email protected] Jennifer Perry Martha Dunkelman, Editor [email protected] [email protected] Debra Pincus Lauren Durling [email protected] Alison West History of the Institute of Fine Arts [email protected] Rebecca Rushfield, Chair Gertje Utley [email protected] [email protected] Jennifer Perry Alison West Alumni Reunion Mary Tavener Holmes [email protected] 2 From the Director Patricia Rubin, Judy and Michael Steinhardt Director our programming and change the look exploiting digital technology, keeping up of the website, among other areas. One with the new episteme it represents while of the simplest, but extremely, important maintaining the Institute’s commitment decisions to make was what we should to the actual matter of our studies: the be called, with the conclusion that we works of art and cultural artifacts that we should lose our nickname, IFA, and return scrutinize, analyze, recover, and preserve. to being known as the Institute. What All of those facts and more add up to is in a name? “The Institute” states our reasons for justified pride and confidence, fundamental identity as a community of but give no justification for complacency. scholarship and stakes out our unique place in America as a teaching and research Perhaps more than usual, the future holds institute focused on the advanced study of many challenges and unknowns. Among the visual arts, broadly defined. them are the directions the University might take under its new president, From the Director Another component of our self- Andrew Hamilton, and the appointment Patricia Rubin examination was the assembly and writing of the next director of the Institute. I have of a comprehensive review document, faith that the Institute will meet those Two famous slogans came to mind as reported to the Provost and submitted to challenges, relying on the strength of its I was thinking about this year’s Newsletter: an external committee (the document is exceptional body of students, faculty, staff, Hertz’s claim to be No. 1 and Avis’s now available to read on the Institute’s and alumni. It has been my honor to serve counter-claim, “We try harder.” Car rentals website). In the Review Report we were that community for the past seven years. aside, what strikes me is that it is precisely able to register our graduates’ extraordinary I can say with heartfelt conviction that because we try harder that we can aspire success in taking up leadership roles in getting to know the Institute’s graduates has to be number one in our disciplines. We academia, in museums and galleries, been among the greatest pleasures of those devoted considerable energy to that end and in a wide variety of other careers. years. With similar conviction and pleasure this year reviewing who we are, what we do, We documented our wealth of research I can share one of our proudest boasts and how we do it. One part of answering programming – lecture series, seminars, of the year: the Institute is No. 1 in the those questions was to consider how we workshops, and conferences – with 629 proportion of alumni giving at NYU. That express our identity and communicate our public presentations and lectures by remarkable achievement owes everything aims and achievements. We were guided 652 speakers invited from all over the to the fact that you – our alumni – do all by a consultant experienced in higher world, representing a wide intellectual, that you can to support the Institute as we education and the arts. The results of our methodological, and artistic spectrum. We continue to try as hard as possible to earn various brainstorming sessions will guide demonstrated that we are exploring and the description of being number one. Institute of Fine Arts Alumni Association Mission Statement The mission of the Alumni Association of the Institute of Fine Arts is to foster a strong sense of community among the alumni through social and scholarly events, and through the publication of the Newsletter; to support student research through travel grants with funds raised by the Association; and to preserve the history of the IFA through recording oral histories and the collecting of archival documents. 3 Conceptual Spaces: Beyond Vitrines on the Staircase in the Great Hall Lisa A. Banner, ‘06 A few weeks ago, as I was installing an exhibition of paintings by David Fertig in the vitrines on the central staircase at the Institute, Professor Tom Crow stopped to look at them, pausing to discuss the contemporary painter’s interpretation of 18th century scenes and mores. One of Crow’s courses at Princeton first inspired my study of reception theory and paintings. Several weeks later, Günter Kopcke was speaking with artist Piers Secunda on the staircase in the same spot with a small group of collectors. We looked at his installation of paintings inspired by Hellenistic works from Berlin’s Pergamon Museum and perforated with molds of ISIS bullet holes that Secunda personally gathered as forensic record in Iraq. In both situations works on view in the vitrines provided direct connections to the interests of faculty and students of the Institute. Both times we looked at historical The Great Hall staircase with vitrines Photo: Nita Lee Roberts questions with contemporary eyes. Rather than following traditional or obvious paths to effect change, artists often quietly make the vitrines, to demonstrate how we can to reach students and a larger community statements that efficiently create bridges and create exhibitions in alternative spaces and of scholars and historians. Supported by the open dialogues, even when those bridges seem explore the unseen or neglected possibilities Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, ephemeral or distant. of unusual spaces that may be lying fallow. Hristoff’s innovative approach brings together Exhibitions in the display cases are present, diverse audiences and formats to unsettle Motivation for the Conceptual Spaces though unobtrusive, and a surprise each time. old ways subtly, respecting the past while exhibition series is simple: the cases occupy reinterpreting it. I am honored to be able to a transitional space, where people are in Diplomacy and the museum are often present his Silhouettes later this year, and bring movement, going up and going down between commingled, as United States Ambassador to some of his quiet magic to the Display Cases floors. Responding to the contained spaces the United Nations Samantha Power proved for the Institute community. within those two display cases, I began by making a historic visit to the Metropolitan in 2013 to curate intimate and focused Museum of Art’s exhibition “Court & In a rapidly changing world, one of my exhibitions that explore a single concept or Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs” with colleagues is involved in an international idea in depth, seen through the lid of the several high-ranking international United movement called “Museum Futures,” looking vitrine. This contained location allows me to Nations diplomats to open discussion and at the alternative spaces for exhibition and place contemporary art in front of the Institute provide new perspectives. Quietly, off-site, engagement. A recent call for contributions of Fine Arts community, and share ideas that she brought together diplomats who needed was titled, “Beyond the Vitrine, Across the seem current with contemporary trends in to see things differently. Art was the vehicle to Street, and With the Security Guard.” This thought or philosophy. Many artists work in effect change and offer new ways to explore is almost an exact description of what I have conceptual ways that are large and require ideas. Similarly, when the Met brought in been doing with the display cases at the large spaces, and some are able to contain their their first Artist in Residence, Peter Hrsitoff, Institute. They are vitrines, slightly more than ideas and present them in more formal spaces, his mandate was a sort of diplomacy, to across the street from our great Metropolitan like these vitrines. My ongoing commitment change perspectives through interpreting Museum, and permission to enter the building to curate these exhibitions on a continuing the collection and enlightening viewers and and view them remains at the discretion of basis provides me a way to contribute visitors. When Hristoff came to see the cases, the security guard on duty. Sometimes artists something unique and valuable and to remain it seemed a natural marriage of the sort of wrap the vitrines to create an installation. involved with the Institute community. I interpretive work he has created while in Sometimes they carefully respect their bring students, critics, and collectors to see residence at the Met, with the opportunity containment and context within a library to 4 present artist books, or folios that have been universal.

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