New Applicant Reviews Feb. 15 and Feb. 22; Interviews

MFA Faculty and current students will review the portfolios and materials of applicants for 2009-11 on Sunday, February 15 in AB 200, beginning at 9 a.m. We will continue through the day until we arrive at a short list.

During the next week Social Practice and Studio Practice students are asked to organize and conduct interviews (in-person for locals, phone for out-of-state) with the short-listed applicants. (Pat has a list of the questions the Studio Practice students devised last year; Harrell or one of the second-year Social Practice students may have the ones they used. Current students may want to draft new questions.)

On Sunday, February 22, 10 a.m., we will meet at Shattuck Annex to discuss the interviews and compile our final acceptance list and wait list.

Though the process may not take as long as it did last year, it can be a long day. Let's plan on bringing something for a potluck brunch.

Please contact Pat if you have any questions.

PSU, Otis, and CCA at SFMoMA

SFMoMa invited Ted Purves (CCA), Susanne Lacey (Otis) and Harrell Fletcher (PSU) to speak on a panel to mark the closing of the exhibition: The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now.
In true Social/Public Practice fashion, they turned it over their students, both to shape and to people the panels. The three panel topics were: Responsiblity, moderated by Ted Purves, Consensus and Decent, moderated by Jen Delos Reyes, and Proffesional and Amateur, moderated by Randal Stott. With a couple of exceptions all students sat on a panel.
Pictured above are Cyrus, from PSU, Paige from Otis, and Brin from CCA participating on the panel Professional and Amateur. Panel participants met up before hand to discuss and frame our panel topics in person, following up on recent email exchanges. There was a great deal of lively conversation and passionate involvement between students before, during and after the panel discussions.

Michael Brophy Lecture!

Thank You Michael for coming to PSU and giving a lecture + more!
In the above photos we see the MFA post lecture talk with Michael sitting in the low chair, then a packed annex of lecture-watchers, and a photo of Bethany Hays reading to us at dinner!

Social Practice Symposium in Victoria, Canada

A group of the Social Practice MFA students will be presenting our program and our work at the Assume Nothing Symposium. We will also be attending the opening of Harrell Fletcher's play The Responsibility Is Shared By All The People Here.

Lucky Dragons Lecture and Visit

We were happy [lucky] to have the art group Lucky Dragons lecture at PSU and visit the MFA program through studio visits and a dinner conversation. Check out the Lucky Dragons website.

Thanks to Lori (and Eric) (and Incoming Anna)

We owe Lori Gilbert a round of applause for her great work as MFA program assistant last term. She ably and creatively filled the considerable shoes of the previous MFA-PA Eric Steen (who was never properly blog-thanked himself for his awesome assistance last spring) and, like Eric, was somehow able to coherently interpret my rambling requests for assistance. Next up is Anna Gray, who, as you know, is already organizing the Vancouver trip and preparing for our new applicant reviews coming up next month (watch for the date).

Welcome Back and Heads Up!

Welcome back after one the of the weirdest breaks ever, weather-wise. To get oriented, we will have an informational meeting for first-year students on Monday, Jan. 5 at noon in AB 135. The talk will be about registration issues and the mid-term reviews scheduled for Jan 9 and 16 (schedule below).

Winter Term Reviews
15 min powerpoint presentation (no websites or blogs!); 15 min discussion
attendance mandatory for all MFA students; location TBA

Friday, January 9
10:00 Helen
10:30 Ryan
11:00 Hannah
11:30-12:30 lunch
12:30 Zach
1:00 Anna
1:30 Lori
2:00 session end

Friday, January 16
10:00 Motoya
10:30 Ariana
11:00 Jason
11:30-12:30 lunch
12:30 Miles
1:00 Connie
1:30 Ralph
2:00 session end

HAMZA WALKER LECTURE AT PSU, Monday Dec 1st

Since 1994, Hamza Walker has served as Director of Education/Associate Curator for The Renaissance Society at The University of Chicago - a non-collecting museum devoted to contemporary art. His most recent group exhibitions include

Black Is, Black Ain’t, 2008
Meanwhile in Baghdad…, 2008
All the Pretty Corpses, 2005
The Here and Now, 2005
A Perfect Union…more or less, 2004
New Video, New Europe: A Survey of East European Video, 2004

Monographic exhibitions include

Katerina Seda: It Doesn’t Matter, 2008
Katharina Grosse: Atoms Inside Balloons, 2007
Scott Short: A Survey, 2007
Mai-Thu Perret, 2006
Peter Welz, 2005

He was the recipient of the 1999 Norton Curatorial Grant and the 2005 Walter Hopps Award for curatorial achievement. In addition to serving on numerous panels and juries in Europe and the United States, he has written for numerous catalogues, magazines and journals such as Artforum and Parkett.

Stephanie Smith Lecture at PSU, Monday Nov 17th

Stephanie Smith is Director of Collections and Exhibitions and Curator of Contemporary Art at the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art. We had a great Question and Answer session with Smith after the lecture.

Smith’s traveling exhibit, Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art, is currently in the Hoffman Gallery of Contemporary Art until December 7th. The gallery is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11-4 PM at Lewis and Clark College where parking is free!

Adaption, conceived and organized by Smith, is at the Henry Art Gallery's Stroum Gallery in Seattle, WA, November 22, 2008 – March 22, 2009.

Portland in the desert!
A group of 7 MFA students and 1 professor drove down to Joshua Tree for the High Desert Test Sites. Andrea Zittel is a founder of this project, and through meeting her when she gave a lecture here at the beginning of the term, she invited us to come down, see the art and camp on her land for the weekend! More photos of this trip to come on PSU's art deptartment flickr page

Now we're printing!

The Poster Committee is up and running this term...we're screen-printing each poster for our free monday night lecture series...
Each part of these posters is a collaborative effort of a small group of MFA students...it's an honor and an excercize!

Fall term Reviews

Second-year student reviews will be held from 10:00 to 3:30 on Friday, October 31 in AB 200 (location may be changed so stay tuned). Please submit your digital images to Helen Reed by October 29. More info to follow.

Andrea Zittel Lecture Was Packed!

Andrea Zittel, our first visiting artist of the year, lectured to an overflow crowd in PMMNLS's new location in Shattuck Hall 212.

2008-2009 Monday Night Lecture Series

We are very excited about this year's Monday Night Lecture Series. Here is a list of who is to come:

Fall 2008

October 13 Andrea Zittel

October 20 Buster Simpson

October 27 Matt McCormick

November 3 Darren O'Donnell

November 10 Courtney Fink

November 17 Stephanie Smith

November 24 Matthew Higgs

December 1 Hamza Walker

Winter 2009

January 5 Lucky Dragons

January 12 Daniel Bozhkov

January 19 Holiday (no lecture)

January 26 Michael Brophy

February 2 Edgar Arceneaux

February 9 Julie Ault

February 16 Mark Beasley

February 23 Althea Thauberger

March 2 Modou Dieng

March 9 J. Morgan Puett

Spring 2009

March 30 MK Guth

April 6 Michael Rakowitz

April 13 Larry Sultan

April 20 Neighborhood Public Radio

April 27 Doug Blandy

May 4 Mark Dion

May 11 Frances Stark

May 18 Mierle Laderman Ukeles

PMMNLS Archives

Missed seeing your favorite artist speak at the PMMNLS? Want to see them again? Stop by the PICA Resource Room (open Monday through Friday from 10 AM until 6 PM) and watch past PMMNLS lectures by Dan Attoe; Julia Bryan-Wilson; Yan Chung-Hsien; Anne Daems; Bill Daniel; Jim Drain; Kate Fowle; Jo Jackson; Chris Johanson; Arnold Kemp; Jeffry Mitchell; Frédéric Paul; Vanessa Renwick; Simparch, Steven Badgett; Edie Tsong; and Kathryn Van Dyke. Looking for someone else? Contact PICA for availability.

Neighborhood Projects at TBA

Neighborhood Projects seeks volunteers, laborers, eagle eyes, listeners, and interested citizens to participate in neighborhood-generated public projects.