2017 Core Exhibition

Core Program artist residents present new work at annual showcase

Title
2017 Core Exhibition

Dates
Exhibition on view Friday, March 17, though Saturday, April 22
Opening Reception on Friday, March 17, from 6 to 8 p.m.
            
Overview
Each year, the acclaimed Core Program at the Glassell School of Art awards residencies to artists and critical writers, culminating each spring with an exhibition and yearbook. The 2017 Core Exhibition will be held at the Lawndale Art Center while the new facility for the Glassell School of Art is being constructed to open next spring. The exhibition features work by the following artists-in-residence: Tsuyoshi Anzai, Adam Crosson, Shana Hoehn, Yue Nakayama, Sondra Perry, Felipe Steinberg, and Kenneth Tam. Core critics-in-residence Taraneh Fazeli, Ruslana Lichtzier, and Laura A.L. Wellen contribute essays based on their independent research to the Core 2017 publication, issued in conjunction with the exhibition. Visit www.lawndaleartcenter.org for exhibition viewing hours and details. 

Biographies
Artists-In-Residence: 
Tsuyoshi Anzai (second-year artist) specializes in Kinetic art and video. He creates simple-structured machines by making impromptu combinations of everyday items, exploring the relationships between humans and objects. He received his master of film and new media degree from Tokyo University of the Arts in 2011, and he has participated in artist residencies at Akiyoshidai International Art Village, Kawasaki City Museum, and the National Art Studio, Korea. His solo exhibitions include Reinventing the Real (2015), Biyong Point, Akita, Japan; and Origins Originated from Originative Originals (2014), Chimera-Project, Budapest, Hungary.

Adam Crosson (first-year artist) makes sculptures, photographs, and installations that reference uncanny instances of place and time. He has been awarded fellowships to attend the Royal College of Art in London and the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont. Crosson received a master of fine arts degree from the University of Texas and a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the Fay Jones School of Architecture at the University of Arkansas.

Shana Hoehn (first-year artist) creates videos that are informed by the implicit order and decorum inside spaces that imply a form of social regulation. Hoehn has participated in residencies such as Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in New York City, Acre Residency in Chicago, and SOMA Summer in Mexico City. Hoehn is a recipient of a 2013 Fulbright Research Fellowship. She received her bachelor of fine arts in Painting from Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and her master of fine art degree in Sculpture and Extended Media at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Yue Nakayama (first-year artist) creates work that is concerned with everyday incidents and archived newspaper articles. Stories told by authority, by strangers on the street, and by herself are combined into video, audio, and performance pieces. Alienation and existential contemplation are frequent subjects. She received her master of fine arts from University of Pennsylvania, bachelor of fine art from Denison University in Granville, Ohio, and participated in Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in New York City. Her works have been shown at Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, Tiger Strikes Asteroid at Satellite Project in Miami, and MAMA Gallery in Los Angeles.

Sondra Perry (second-year artist) makes performance and video installations that play with slippages of identity through manifesting “paraspaces,” a term coined by science-fiction author Samuel Delany, meaning a space existing parallel to the normal or ordinary. Perry has participated in residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Vermont Studio Center, Ox-Bow, and the Experimental Television Center, and she has performed at the Artist’s Institute and Pioneer Works in New York City. She received a BFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2012 and an MFA from Columbia University in 2015.

Felipe Steinberg (first-year artist) creates work relating largely to an examination of global political structures explored through micro relationships in everyday life and culture. He received his master of fine art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016 and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in New York City in 2014. Exhibitions and participations include Anthology Film Archives in New York, Grimm Museum in Berlin, SESC, along with the Oscar Niemeyer Museum in Brazil and Museu de Arte Moderna Aloísio Magalhães in Brazil.

Kenneth Tam (second-year artist) is an artist working in a variety of media, with a focus on video and sculpture. His work explores the fraught spaces of the male body. He received his BFA from the Cooper Union and his MFA from the University of Southern California. He has shown in various venues across Los Angeles, including the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Honor Fraser, the Box, 5 Car Garage, and Occidental College, and he had a solo exhibition at Night Gallery in 2013. He is a recipient of an Art Matters grant and was awarded a California Community Foundation Fellowship.

Critics-In-Residence:
Taraneh Fazeli (second-year critic) is a curator, editor, educator, and researcher from New York. She graduated from the Cooper Union, studied sociology and art history at CUNY Graduate Center, and participated in the Art & Law Residency Program at Fordham Law School. Her work at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York included serving as co-organizer of the postgraduate R&D Seminars; editor of Six Degrees; and co-organizer of the 2015 R&D SPECULATION season. She was a contributing editor to Triple Canopy and managing director of e-flux, where she oversaw publications such as art-agenda and organized exhibitions with artists including Raqs Media Collective, Martha Rosler, Allan Sekula, and Mladen Stilinović. In 2015 she co-taught the thesis project course at City College’s Digital and Interdisciplinary Art Practice MFA program and is a member of Pedagogy Group, a collective of socially engaged art educators

Ruslana Lichtzier (first-year critic) is a writer, curator and artist. Born in Russia and raised in Israel, she received her bachelor of fine arts with honors from Bezalel Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Jerusalem, Israel, and master of art in Visual and Critical Studies from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. Her background is a principal force in creating cultural productions that push toward the radicalization of differences while highlighting ethical stands. Recent productions include the 2015 group exhibition Terrorists in The Library at Harold Washington College and the group exhibition Familiar Malaise, part of a curatorial fellowship at Artists’ Cooperative Residency and Exhibitions (ACRE) in Chicago. Lichtzier was recently head curator of Efrain Lopez Gallery and an instructor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Laura Wellen (first-year critic) a critic, art historian, essayist, and translator, she writes about the points of connection language creates between our emotional lives, our regional histories, and the objects and images with which we surround ourselves. She received her master of art and PhD in Art History from The University of Texas, and is the co-founder of Barometry Projects and Francine in Houston. Since 2014, she has been working between Houston and Guatemala City, where she runs the apartment gallery Yvonne. Her writing has been published in ArtForum, Art Lies, Artishock, and Pastelegram, among other international publications. In 2016, her writing has appeared in artist monographs for Diana de Solares of Guatemala, Andrés Ramírez Gaviria of Colombia, and Darío Escobar of Guatemala.

Related Programs
Opening Reception
Lawndale Art Center / 4912 Main Street
Friday, March 17, from 6 to 8 p.m.

Performance by Fia Backstrom
Organized by Core Critic-In-Residence Taraneh Fazeli
Lawndale Art Center / 4912 Main Street
Saturday, April 8, from 6 to 8 p.m.

Core Artists-In-Residence Films Screening
Brown Auditorium / Caroline Wiess Law Building
Tuesday, April 11, at 7 p.m.

Presentation by Ruslana Lichtzer, Core Critic-In-Residence
Lawndale Art Center / 4912 Main Street
Saturday, April 15, at 4 p.m.

Screenings of films by Jen Liu and Sondra Perry
Lawndale Art Center / 4912 Main Street
Saturday, April 22, from 2 to 5 p.m.

All related programs are free and open to the public.

Location
2017 Core Exhibition
Lawndale Art Center / 4912 Main Street

The Core Program
Each nine-month Core Program fellowship (renewable for a second year) gives artists and critical studies residents studio space or an office, a stipend and access to the Glassell School of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. These resources allow the fellows to further their practices within a dynamic arts community, guided by Core Program associate director Mary Leclère and Glassell School of Art director Joseph Havel, and to engage in creative dialogue with each other and with a host of visiting artists and critics. For nearly 30 years, Core fellows have been a vibrant presence within the Houston arts scene through teaching, engaging in community projects, interacting with other artists and sometimes making a permanent home here. 

The Core Program is now established as an internationally regarded platform and Core fellows have proceeded to show their work at prestigious venues as the Venice, Whitney, Istanbul and Lyon biennials or assume positions at prominent national art publications, among other achievements.

The Glassell School
The Glassell School of Art is the teaching wing of the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston. Established in 1927, it was renamed in honor of Alfred C. Glassell, Jr., in 1979, in recognition of his generous gift. The school has a reputation for outstanding training in the fine arts, and offers a wide variety of programs and classes for adults and children through its Studio School and Junior School. The Glassell Community Outreach Program serves more than 2,000 individuals, including hospitalized children and hearing and visually impaired people. The Glassell School of Art is open Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Friday through Sunday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The Core Exhibition Program merges the Glassell School of Art exhibition program with that of the Museum’s Core Residency Program. Visit www.mfah.org/core or call 713.639.7500 for more information. 

Funding
The Core Program at the Glassell School of Art receives generous funding from The Joseph and Sylvia Slifka Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Core fellowships have been underwritten by Joan and Stanford Alexander; Mr. and Mrs. Jamal H. Daniel; The Dickson-Allen Foundation; The Francis L. Lederer Foundation; Dr. Penelope Marks and Mr. Lester Marks; McClain Gallery; Mr. Marc Melcher; The Powell Foundation; Karen Pulaski ; The Arch and Stella Rowan Foundation, Inc.

Press Contacts
Sarah Baker Hobson, associate publicist
713.800.5345 / shobson@mfah.org