Opening: April 22, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., 66 Fifth Avenue, New York
Participating artists: Ashleigh Abbott, Aliya Al-Adwani, Bel Andrade, Katie Chin, Fiel Guhit, Lisa Hennig-Olsen, Molly Bliss Kiefer, Summer McCroskey, Luke McCusker, Ash Moniz, Hali Nelson, Evelina Nolin, Henrik Nordahl, Libby Paloma, Nat Peterson, Gino Romero, Pauline Rossignol, Shay Salehi, Fahmy Shahin, Michelle Silva, Chelsea Steinberg-Gay, Richard Valentín, Yifei Wang, Boya Ye, Noah Zhou, Shining Zhu, Xianfan Zhu
In Matter as fallen light — on view April 23 through May 7 at the Sheila Johnson Design Center in Manhattan’s Union Square neighborhood — the 27 practices in this year’s graduating cohort defy a single rubric, but together manifest more than the sum of their parts . Back in their studios and in the company of others as pandemic restrictions ease, many are approaching space and presence, whether physical or virtual, with a new urgency. A surplus of sculptures and installations extend beyond two storefront galleries into the adjoining hallways, windows, entrances, exterior and street of the building. Lines of sight produce a theater of changing objects of blued steel, whorled paper, baked clay, neon, textiles, string, even a 1969 Lincoln Continental – as well as electronic light and projected. Forms give way to overlapping subjects, drawn from personal and cultural memory; translation, linguistic or technological; dead time, economic abstractions and ecological fragility.
Parsons Fine Arts MFA is a two-year, interdisciplinary program led by an internationally renowned faculty committed to expanding the formal, intellectual and conceptual dimensions of the work of emerging artists. Adopting interdisciplinary approaches to creating and thinking about visual culture, the program promotes a holistic understanding of the arts. Guest artists and curators in 2022 and 2023 included ektor garcia, Dora Budor, Shaun Leonardo, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Arghavan Khosravi, Eric N. Mack, Jules Gimbrone, Institute for Queer Ecology, Eugene Ofori Agyei and Victoria Fu. In 2022, the QS World University Rankings named Parsons the top art and design college in the United States and number three in the world for the fifth consecutive year.
For more information visit the exhibition page Or our website.
