The Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College (Bard MFA) presents the Class of 2022 thesis presentation titled close alternative. Bringing together works by candidates in the disciplines film/video, music/sound, painting, photography, sculpture, and writing, close alternative was on view from July 17 through July 25 at the Bard College Exhibition Center/UBS Gallery in Red Hook, New York.
close alternative, the title of this year’s thesis exhibition was conceived from the graduating class’ shared hopes, desires, vulnerabilities, and anxieties. The hope to share space with one another again; the desire to prioritize accessibility, vulnerability, and compromise; and the eagerness to unlearn and redefine what (un)productivity for an artist can mean, look, or sound like. In a way, this loose thread also points to the various adaptive shifts artists must often (un)make in their practice.
The exhibition was coordinated by Shehab (Isis) Awad MA’17, a graduate of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (CCS Bard). Shehab (Isis) Awad is a writer and curator from Cairo living in New York City. He/she operates as Executive Care*, an all-encompassing self-as-agency at the service of artists.