|
2008 BFA Senior Thesis Exhibitions February 13–May 26, 2008
|
|
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The 2008 Bachelor of Fine Arts graduating class at the Corcoran College of Art + Design will display their senior projects at the Corcoran Gallery of Art from February 13 to May 26, 2008. The 2008 BFA Senior Thesis Exhibitions consist of a series of week-long, rotating exhibitions in Gallery 31, the Corcoran’s dedicated exhibition space for the College. The exhibitions feature photojournalism, photography, graphic design, digital media design and fine art produced by members of the graduating class, grouped by major. Seniors in the College’s BFA program are responsible for all aspects of their thesis exhibitions, from exhibition design to installation—an experience vital to the students’ professional and artistic development. “The BFA Senior Thesis Exhibitions allow our students to share their work publicly with a broad audience,” said Corcoran College of Art + Design’s Vice Dean Kirk Pillow. “Countless hours go into preparing each exhibition, and they reach a very high level of quality.” The individual shows culminate in May at the 2008 All-Senior Exhibition, a dynamic exhibition installed in four museum galleries, representing all disciplines and featuring work by every student in the BFA degree program. The 2008 All-Senior Exhibition will be on view at the Corcoran May 7–26.
Students in the photojournalism program at the Corcoran are trained to become a new generation of photojournalists who, by their education within an art school environment and their innate visual talent, extend and revivify the profession beyond the clichés we use to describe it. Using image, sound and video, this year’s senior photojournalism show consists of the students’ final projects, picture essays on subjects of their own choosing. These are “enterprise” stories in the sense of being planned and developed by the photographers themselves, and they demonstrate both the professionalism and the visual sophistication of their makers. Photojournalism Senior Thesis I Photojournalism Senior Thesis II Fine Art Photography Senior Thesis Exhibitions Students in the fine-art photography program at the Corcoran benefit from a thorough grounding in the techniques, traditions and current understandings of their medium. Since the means for making photographs are rapidly changing, the department’s faculty ensures that students are familiar with both digital and traditional darkroom technologies. The main thrust of the program, however, is the development of each student’s creative potentials through critiques, open-ended assignments, and exposure to other artists working today. The result of this process of combining technical instruction and aesthetic support can be seen in the artworks presented in the exhibitions by one group of senior photography students. They represent no single style or approach to the assertion that a photograph can be a work of art; rather, they demonstrate that the art of photography lies at least in part in its versatility as an expressive instrument. Whether these students go on to graduate school, find work in the field, or eventually succeed as contemporary artists, they already have demonstrated an enviable ability to locate art in the intersection of the optical world and their own personal experience. Fine Art Photography Senior Thesis I Fine Art Photography Senior Thesis II Fine Arts Senior Thesis Exhibitions Delving into a variety of media, the Fine Arts Senior Thesis Exhibitions present works by graduating students. It is the outcome of a process of experimentation that began in their third year. The students explore the range of practices that can be found in contemporary art: painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, installation, video, performance and the digital arts. Through a series of installations and critiques of the students’ work throughout the last two years of the program, they have been led to find the most suitable material expression for their ideas. These concerns include narratives of everyday life, investigated in paint, video, or ceramic sculpture; commentaries on how mainstream film and TV culture mediate our perception; critiques of suburban culture, corporate capitalism and a society of waste; investigations of the construction of identity through found and manipulated objects or text; and explorations of the role of fantasy in our visual culture, from low budget horror films to children's story books. Fine Arts Senior Thesis I Fine Arts Senior Thesis II Fine Arts Senior Thesis III Fine Arts Senior Thesis IV Fine Arts Senior Thesis V Fine Arts Senior Thesis VI Graphic Design and Digital Media Design Senior Thesis Exhibition The Graphic Design and Digital Media Senior Thesis Exhibition includes
interactive media, publications, posters, three-dimensional exhibits, animation
and digital video. The projects are diverse and include: a way finding system
for a college campus, a prototype for dispensing medicine to senior citizens,
a design campaign for an environmentally conscious fashion line, a series of
experimental books, and manga. Some students have chosen to examine the past
by studying the use of nostalgia and kitsch, branding and advertising. Other
students are looking to the future by addressing issues of sustainability,
new directions for print and digital media, and interface design. ABOUT GALLERY 31 ABOUT THE CORCORAN The Corcoran Gallery of Art and College of Art + Design is located at 500
Seventeenth Avenue NW in Washington, DC. For more information, visit www.corcoran.edu. :: View images and further details from this exhibition
|
CONTACT:
Media Resources:
|
