All Bard News by Date
September 2014
09-07-2014
Professor Suchenski talks about “Also Like Life: The Films of Hou Hsiao-hsien,” an exhibition coordinated through Bard's Center for Moving Image Arts and touring internationally.
09-01-2014
The Irish Times praises Reichardt as the American "film-maker poet laureate," examining her new film, Night Moves, and tracing an uncommon career.
09-01-2014
Exhibition tours at CCS Bard feature comedy, piracy, and laughter en masse. Current exhibitions are on view through September 21.
August 2014
08-28-2014
The Center for Curatorial Studies and the Human Rights Project are pleased to announce that Jeanne van Heeswijk, an artist based in the Netherlands, has been selected for the first Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism at Bard College. Made possible through a five year-grant from the Keith Haring Foundation, the Keith Haring Fellowship is a cross-disciplinary, annual, visiting Fellowship for a scholar, activist, or artist to teach and conduct research at both the Center for Curatorial Studies and the Human Rights Project at Bard College.
08-22-2014
Peter N. Miller considers the power of artifacts to conjure human history.
08-13-2014
Bard alumna Lisa Oppenheim MFA '02 has made the short list for the Aimia | AGO Photography Prize. She and three other artists will compete for the $50,000 award.
08-13-2014
This fall, The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College presents an extraordinary series of music, dance, art, and theater programs. The season features world-class musical performances, orchestral and chamber concerts, contemporary performance and art events, and innovative student productions from September through December.
08-11-2014
Bard MFA faculty and alumna Amy Sillman '95 offers surprises and inspiration in new exhibition.
08-10-2014
Works by Israeli artist and Bard graduate Orit Raff MFA '03 "transcend national identities, challenge assumptions and transport viewers."
08-07-2014
The National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC) has named Peggy Ahwesh, Bard College professor of film and electronic arts, as the winner of the 2014 NAMAC Artist Award. A faculty member at Bard since 1990, Ahwesh's expertise includes film production, feminist studies, and media advocacy. "Ultimately, Ahwesh has developed a practice that insists on political and social topicality, handled with theoretical and formal rigor, while remembering the audience," writes NAMAC’s board of directors in its award announcement. "It is her lighter touch that has helped make her work, densely critical as it is, so accessible to so many people." Professor Ahwesh will receive the award at NAMAC's State & Main conference in Philadelphia on August 8.
08-06-2014
Bard College and the University of Witwatersrand collaborated on an innovative, interdisciplinary workshop on the arts and human rights at the Wits campus in Johannesburg, South Africa, August 5 to 7. A project of Bard and the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, the event featured presentations by curators, practicing artists, legal advocates, and social scientists. The workshop explored the intersections of human rights and the arts, aiming to foster an intellectual community across disciplines and institutions.
08-02-2014
A midcareer retrospective of the work of photographer Anne Collier puts women with cameras front and center.
July 2014
07-29-2014
Acclaimed dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones has received the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama.
07-21-2014
Bard's Euryanthe "marks a major historical milestone" with the first U.S. production in 100 years. Carl Maria von Weber's remarkable opera opens Friday.
07-21-2014
Unknown: Pictures of Strangers, a new exhibition at Cleveland's Transformer Station, includes video by Bard photography faculty Tim Davis.
07-17-2014
The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard presents "two magnificent but very different solo exhibitions," Amy Sillman: one lump or two and Anne Collier.
07-15-2014
Bard writer in residence Teju Cole asked his 160,000 Twitter followers to tweet photos of their TVs during the World Cup. The result was an art project offering a synchronized global view of the games.
07-15-2014
Bard College photography major turned couture model Louise Parker provides a unique look at quiet scenes backstage with her fellow models.
07-14-2014
President Botstein's 20th season directing the American Symphony Orchestra featured "impressively conducted," "exhilarating," and "masterful" performances.
07-11-2014
"Waterweavers ... is the most unassumingly beautiful show I’ve seen in New York this summer," writes Holland Cotter, and "you won't want to miss" Carrying Coca.
07-10-2014
Bard alumna Gia Coppola '09 talks about making her first film, working with actor and author James Franco, and how professor Stephen Shore helped her get started.
07-09-2014
In the Bardian
By William Stavru '87
During the past year, Gia Coppola ’09, somewhat reluctantly, has become a regular on the film festival circuit, with her feature film directorial and writing debut, Palo Alto, being screened—and lauded—at such prestigious venues as the Telluride, Venice, Toronto, and Tribeca film festivals. Coppola says, “Film festivals are scary to me, but if the cast and crew are with me, then they can be fun. We’re able to celebrate the work.” Based on the eponymous collection of stories by James Franco (Scribner’s, 2010), who also stars in the film, Palo Alto details the troubled lives of a group of high school students in Palo Alto, California, exploring the teenagers’ characters and how their exploits and relationships become searches for meaning.
Coppola, who admits that her own high school years were neither fun nor productive, says she felt a kinship to the characters and was drawn to the dialogue and sense of teen malaise conveyed in the book. “In 2010, I met James Franco and we started talking about photography and about his book. I read it and thought the language and mood were spot on for the world he was creating, so we decided to turn it into a film,” she says.
In the book, myriad characters wander in and out of interlinked stories, so Coppola had a challenge in adapting the collection. “I had to combine characters and focus on the meatier stories, letting others go. James gave me some good advice along the way,” she says. “One of my biggest surprises in writing the screenplay—aside from discovering how lonely and draining writing can be—is that the film goes through several filtrations until it becomes something very different than what you’ve started with. Over time, the script almost starts to tell you what it needs to be.”
Coppola and her small crew started filming on Halloween 2012 in Woodland Hills and other neighborhoods of the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles. She says, “The shoot was low-budget and very familial; the boys [the crew] lived in my mom’s house and I often cooked dinner for them.” They wrapped in 30 days.
With the surname Coppola, one can expect that Gia is genetically predisposed to a life behind a camera lens. She is matter of fact when discussing her large, dynastic Hollywood family. Sticking to a short list of who’s who: Her grandfather is director/writer/wine producer/hotelier Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather films, Apocalypse Now); her aunt is director/writer Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation, The Virgin Suicides); her cousins are accomplished actors Nicholas Cage and Jason Schwartzman. She appreciates the many talents of each, especially her aunt and grandfather. “I love my grandfather’s work—I just rewatched The Conversation—and Sofia’s films,” she says.
Although she was determined to maintain a healthy distance from her family in order to find her own voice as a writer and a filmmaker, she did seek guidance regarding the business aspects of filmmaking. “My grandpa gave me some advice in dealing with industry executives and the money people—it’s incredibly hard to find financing, and even harder to figure out distribution. Sofia, as a young, soft-spoken woman director, had dealt with the same issues I was facing. Even though I know I have great people to turn to, I didn’t want my family’s ideas to infiltrate my work too much or rely too heavily on those connections.”
Coppola maintains that, regardless of the amount of help, nothing could have equipped her for directing her first project. “There’s no way you can be prepared for your first film; you just feel like a teenager going through very teenage insecurity,” she says. “My grandpa likes to say that directing is all about problem solving and that you need to learn to love anxiety. That’s true.”
Postproduction brought the young filmmaker other important teachable moments. Coppola says, “I learned the most in the editing room. When you’re shooting, you work from a script and let the film take its course. But I didn’t fully understand how important editing is and how it can dramatically change the look and tone of the film.”
One thing Coppola did understand before directing her film is how to use a camera, which she learned as a photography major at Bard. She chose the College in order to study with Stephen Shore, Susan Weber Professor in the Arts and director of Bard’s Photography Program. “I was a fan of Stephen’s work, so I studied photography,” she says, adding that she also enjoyed working with Gregory Moynahan and Robert Culp, both associate professors of history, who taught “an interesting class on revolutions.” Shore agreed to advise Coppola; her Senior Project was an exhibition of street and diaristic photography. “I liked the idea that Bard was close to New York City, but I could have a rural college experience,” she says. “I also liked that Bard is a liberal arts college but one that has a very creative environment.”
After graduation she tried bartending (“I liked making gin martinis, served cold, cold, cold!”) and booked work as a fashion photographer. “I was just trying to find work that inspired me. Then I shot behind the scenes on the set of Twixt, my grandfather’s film that came out in 2011. That’s where I learned a lot about how a movie is made.”
Variety said Palo Alto “brings a fresh humanity” to the topic of disaffected modern youth: “Coppola’s adaptation balances the tired sensationalism of kids behaving badly with a welcome dose of sympathy. . . . Coppola cycles through a wide range of emotions, from humor to horror, as these not-quite-kids, not-quite-adults pick fights, deface public property and seek easy gratification . . . [Palo Alto] boasts a clear and confident voice of its own, and it will be exciting to see where the young Coppola goes from here.”
With her first feature film complete, Coppola is enjoying having more down time, which she spends reading books (she was in the middle of John O’Hara’s Appointment in Samarra at the time of this interview) and considering future projects. “I’m not sure what I will do next,” she says. “I have some original ideas, but I don’t know if they will go anywhere. A dream project would be to adapt a story by Raymond Chandler. It would be fun to modernize an old mystery the way [director Robert] Altman did with The Long Goodbye.”
Palo Alto is set for wide release in June, following a limited release in Los Angeles and New York.
Read the spring 2014 issue of the Bardian:
By William Stavru '87
During the past year, Gia Coppola ’09, somewhat reluctantly, has become a regular on the film festival circuit, with her feature film directorial and writing debut, Palo Alto, being screened—and lauded—at such prestigious venues as the Telluride, Venice, Toronto, and Tribeca film festivals. Coppola says, “Film festivals are scary to me, but if the cast and crew are with me, then they can be fun. We’re able to celebrate the work.” Based on the eponymous collection of stories by James Franco (Scribner’s, 2010), who also stars in the film, Palo Alto details the troubled lives of a group of high school students in Palo Alto, California, exploring the teenagers’ characters and how their exploits and relationships become searches for meaning.
Coppola, who admits that her own high school years were neither fun nor productive, says she felt a kinship to the characters and was drawn to the dialogue and sense of teen malaise conveyed in the book. “In 2010, I met James Franco and we started talking about photography and about his book. I read it and thought the language and mood were spot on for the world he was creating, so we decided to turn it into a film,” she says.
In the book, myriad characters wander in and out of interlinked stories, so Coppola had a challenge in adapting the collection. “I had to combine characters and focus on the meatier stories, letting others go. James gave me some good advice along the way,” she says. “One of my biggest surprises in writing the screenplay—aside from discovering how lonely and draining writing can be—is that the film goes through several filtrations until it becomes something very different than what you’ve started with. Over time, the script almost starts to tell you what it needs to be.”
Coppola and her small crew started filming on Halloween 2012 in Woodland Hills and other neighborhoods of the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles. She says, “The shoot was low-budget and very familial; the boys [the crew] lived in my mom’s house and I often cooked dinner for them.” They wrapped in 30 days.
With the surname Coppola, one can expect that Gia is genetically predisposed to a life behind a camera lens. She is matter of fact when discussing her large, dynastic Hollywood family. Sticking to a short list of who’s who: Her grandfather is director/writer/wine producer/hotelier Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather films, Apocalypse Now); her aunt is director/writer Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation, The Virgin Suicides); her cousins are accomplished actors Nicholas Cage and Jason Schwartzman. She appreciates the many talents of each, especially her aunt and grandfather. “I love my grandfather’s work—I just rewatched The Conversation—and Sofia’s films,” she says.
Although she was determined to maintain a healthy distance from her family in order to find her own voice as a writer and a filmmaker, she did seek guidance regarding the business aspects of filmmaking. “My grandpa gave me some advice in dealing with industry executives and the money people—it’s incredibly hard to find financing, and even harder to figure out distribution. Sofia, as a young, soft-spoken woman director, had dealt with the same issues I was facing. Even though I know I have great people to turn to, I didn’t want my family’s ideas to infiltrate my work too much or rely too heavily on those connections.”
Coppola maintains that, regardless of the amount of help, nothing could have equipped her for directing her first project. “There’s no way you can be prepared for your first film; you just feel like a teenager going through very teenage insecurity,” she says. “My grandpa likes to say that directing is all about problem solving and that you need to learn to love anxiety. That’s true.”
Postproduction brought the young filmmaker other important teachable moments. Coppola says, “I learned the most in the editing room. When you’re shooting, you work from a script and let the film take its course. But I didn’t fully understand how important editing is and how it can dramatically change the look and tone of the film.”
One thing Coppola did understand before directing her film is how to use a camera, which she learned as a photography major at Bard. She chose the College in order to study with Stephen Shore, Susan Weber Professor in the Arts and director of Bard’s Photography Program. “I was a fan of Stephen’s work, so I studied photography,” she says, adding that she also enjoyed working with Gregory Moynahan and Robert Culp, both associate professors of history, who taught “an interesting class on revolutions.” Shore agreed to advise Coppola; her Senior Project was an exhibition of street and diaristic photography. “I liked the idea that Bard was close to New York City, but I could have a rural college experience,” she says. “I also liked that Bard is a liberal arts college but one that has a very creative environment.”
After graduation she tried bartending (“I liked making gin martinis, served cold, cold, cold!”) and booked work as a fashion photographer. “I was just trying to find work that inspired me. Then I shot behind the scenes on the set of Twixt, my grandfather’s film that came out in 2011. That’s where I learned a lot about how a movie is made.”
Variety said Palo Alto “brings a fresh humanity” to the topic of disaffected modern youth: “Coppola’s adaptation balances the tired sensationalism of kids behaving badly with a welcome dose of sympathy. . . . Coppola cycles through a wide range of emotions, from humor to horror, as these not-quite-kids, not-quite-adults pick fights, deface public property and seek easy gratification . . . [Palo Alto] boasts a clear and confident voice of its own, and it will be exciting to see where the young Coppola goes from here.”
With her first feature film complete, Coppola is enjoying having more down time, which she spends reading books (she was in the middle of John O’Hara’s Appointment in Samarra at the time of this interview) and considering future projects. “I’m not sure what I will do next,” she says. “I have some original ideas, but I don’t know if they will go anywhere. A dream project would be to adapt a story by Raymond Chandler. It would be fun to modernize an old mystery the way [director Robert] Altman did with The Long Goodbye.”
Palo Alto is set for wide release in June, following a limited release in Los Angeles and New York.
Read the spring 2014 issue of the Bardian:
07-04-2014
"Abstract painting is on the move in 'Amy Sillman: one lump or two,' a spirited midcareer survey at Bard College’s Center for Curatorial Studies."
07-03-2014
Nina Stritzler-Levine, gallery director at the BGC, gives NYC-Arts a tour of the exhibition Waterweavers: The River in Contemporary Colombian Visual and Material Culture.
07-01-2014
An unpublished novel, a record deal, and crumble for dinner ... Hayley Campbell, author of The Art of Neil Gaiman, reveals fun facts about legendary writer and Bard faculty member Neil Gaiman.
07-01-2014
In this interview, director Kevin Newbury describes how Euryanthe, in spite of being conceived nearly 200 years ago, remains unfortunately contemporary in addressing the shaming of a woman who is accused of infidelity.
June 2014
06-25-2014
Bard Conservatory faculty comprising the group So Percussion "lavished their talents" while Bardian ensemble Contemporaneous "attacked, with passion" at the Bang on a Can Marathon in New York City.
06-23-2014
The Bard MFA is noted for its unique low-residency program, in which "the focus is on creating art, rather than credits, grades, or classes."
06-23-2014
Four covers from Bard's La Voz magazine will be displayed in the exhibition “Vive La Guelaguetza: An Encounter with Oaxaca” at the Mid-Hudson Heritage Center in Poughkeepsie, New York, through July 19. The exhibition commemorates La Guelaguetza, a world-famous cultural festival from Oaxaca, Mexico, which for the last five years has been celebrated locally at Waryas Park in Poughkeepsie. The festival, which attracts thousands of spectators, will take place on August 3 this year. The La Voz covers on display feature the town's past La Guelaguetza celebrations, and are on view alongside paintings, photography, and traditional costumes from the state of Oaxaca. Bard College students Mariel Fiori '05 and Emily Schmall '05 founded La Voz in 2004 as a Trustee Leader Scholar (TLS) project, aiming to serve the Latino community of the Hudson Valley with a free Spanish-language magazine. Fiori is still editor at La Voz, and the award-winning publication now has an estimated 20,000 readers in the area. La Voz will mark its 10th anniversary with a celebratory evening at the Spiegeltent at Bard's Fisher Center on August 12.
06-22-2014
Bard alumna Michelle Dunn Marsh, the new executive director of Photographic Center Northwest, is not only a photography expert but also the owner of an impressive collection.
06-20-2014
Jay Nelson blurs the lines between art and architecture with his remarkable and functional creations, including refurbished boats and campers as well as one-of-a-kind tree houses.
06-18-2014
This summer The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College presents three new exhibitions opening on June 28. Amy Sillman: one lump or two, a major traveling exhibition, is the first museum survey of New York-based painter, Bard MFA faculty member, and alumna Amy Sillman '95. SCORE!, curated by Amy Sillman and Cheyney Thompson, comprises works from the Marieluise Hessel Collection, works on loan by John Cage (from Bard College’s John Cage Trust), Carolee Schneemann, and a new painting by Cheyney Thompson created for the exhibition. Anne Collier is the photographer’s first major exhibition, tracing her career from 2002 to the present with a selection of more than 40 works. All three exhibitions open on June 28 with a reception beginning at 1:00, and will be on view through September 21.
06-10-2014
Photographer Arthur Tress '62 unearthed a trunk of negatives in his sister's closet and rediscovered San Francisco's summer '64.
06-06-2014
Professor Shore's new book is the culmination of his extended project photographing Palestinian and Jewish communities in Israel and the West Bank. He spoke recently at the International Center for Photography in New York City with Jeff Rosenheim, curator of photography at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
06-06-2014
Bard alumni Joel Clark '05, Tavit Geudelekian '05, Andrew Kopas '08, and Mark Perloff '08 are part of King Post Studios, which last year launched a board game based on Herman Melville's Moby Dick, and is now working on a new game for the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf.
06-03-2014
Judy Pfaff has recently been given the International Sculpture Center’s 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award. In this interview, she discusses using new materials, how she constructs large installations, and what makes her "a little bit feral" in the studio.
06-02-2014
Gideon Lester, director of Bard's Theater and Performance Program, invited Dutch actor Adelheid Roosen to teach her "adoption method," in which actors live with a stranger for two weeks and develop a performance together.
May 2014
05-28-2014
The world-renowned Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, in residence at Bard College this spring, gave a site-specific performance at Fishkill Correctional Facility in Beacon, New York, on May 7. The Bard Prison Initiative (BPI), which operates one of its six academic programs at Fishkill, invited the Company to perform and meet with students. Bill T. Jones choreographed a new piece for the event, entitled Fishkill / Movements 1 Through 45.
Hundreds of men incarcerated at Fishkill attended the performance, during which Jones also collaborated with a BPI student who sang duets of Down by the Riverside and We Shall Overcome with Rev. J. Edward Lewis, the prison's Protestant chaplain. Following the performance, Jones led a question and answer session, which included in-depth discussion about the role of the arts, and particularly dance, in American society.
In the program Jones wrote, "Movements 1 Through 45 is yet another opportunity to identify that important conversation that happens between the performers in the Company and a specific audience. In our life as a dance company, we travel a great deal and perform for many people we don’t really know. We are excited when we run into a situation such as this one, where we can create a dialogue and even the possibility of sharing the stage with members of the community."
This performance was made possible by the partnership between New York Live Arts and the Bard College Dance Program.
Hundreds of men incarcerated at Fishkill attended the performance, during which Jones also collaborated with a BPI student who sang duets of Down by the Riverside and We Shall Overcome with Rev. J. Edward Lewis, the prison's Protestant chaplain. Following the performance, Jones led a question and answer session, which included in-depth discussion about the role of the arts, and particularly dance, in American society.
In the program Jones wrote, "Movements 1 Through 45 is yet another opportunity to identify that important conversation that happens between the performers in the Company and a specific audience. In our life as a dance company, we travel a great deal and perform for many people we don’t really know. We are excited when we run into a situation such as this one, where we can create a dialogue and even the possibility of sharing the stage with members of the community."
This performance was made possible by the partnership between New York Live Arts and the Bard College Dance Program.
05-21-2014
Bard alumnus Chris Claremont '72 revitalized the X-Men comic book series, creating some of its most iconic characters ... with a little help from studying political theory at Bard.
05-07-2014
Judy Pfaff, acclaimed artist, Richard B. Fisher Professor in the Arts, and codirector of the Studio Arts Program at Bard College, has won the International Sculpture Center (ISC) 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award. ISC awarded two world-renowned sculptors, Judy Pfaff and Ursula von Rydingsvard, with the award. Pfaff will be presented with the award at the 23rd Annual Lifetime Achievement Award Celebration later this spring in New York City.
05-05-2014
The 2014 annual Bard SummerScape festival opens on Friday, June 27 at 7:30pm, with the first of three performances of Proscenium Works: 1979–2011 by the Trisha Brown Dance Company. Now making its farewell tour, these will be some of the esteemed ensemble’s final performances in the New York region.
05-03-2014
"Celebrating its 25th year, the adventurous Bard Music Festival picks a single composer and creates an immersive experience," writes Tom Huizenga, "including music from contemporaries, plus film, dance, drama and lectures."
05-02-2014
"Bard College, which is ranked as one of the best schools and one of the most beautiful campuses in the country, is a mecca of culture both during the school year ... as well as during the summer months," writes Jamie Larson.
05-02-2014
By leaves or play of sunlight, John Cage: Artist and Naturalist at the Horticultural Society of New York is presented with the John Cage Trust at Bard College, and features the composer's poetry and scores with lithographs.
05-02-2014
Ellen Driscoll, distinguished artist and professor of studio arts at Bard College, is the winner of a 2014 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Art. Driscoll is one of five artists to win this year’s award. The prize of $7,500 is given to artists to honor exceptional accomplishment and to encourage creative work.
April 2014
04-29-2014
On April 4, Bard College Professor in the Arts Neil Gaiman and Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoonist Art Spiegelman took the stage at the Fisher Center for a historic conversation about cartooning and writing, working across artistic mediums, friendship, identity, and more.
04-29-2014
Hudson Valley Balinese Gamelan Orchestras will host their annual spring concert on Friday May 9, at Bard College’s Olin Auditorium, with gamelans Giri Mekar and Chandra Kanchana. The program, featuring Balinese music and dance, begins at 8 p.m. Guest artists for this concert include Dr. Pete Steele from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Gamelan Dharmaswara, renowned Balinese dancer Shoko Yamamuro, and artistic director Professor Pak I. Nyoman Suadin, and a cast of over 40 students and community members.
04-28-2014
Photographer Stephen Shore talks about his time in Israel and the West Bank creating work for From Galilee to the Negev, plus a look at his early years working in the medium.
04-25-2014
Governors Island is getting a makeover, and Tom Eccles, executive director of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard, is organizing the park's new public art initiative.
04-22-2014
Jazz musician and Bard MFA music/sound faculty member Matana Roberts is one of the inaugural recipients of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation's Impact Awards. The new awards are part of the Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards, a special, 10-year initiative to support artists with flexible, multiyear funding in response to financial challenges that are specific to the performing arts. Doris Duke Impact Award recipients receive $80,000. Since commencing in April 2012, the program has awarded a total of $18.1 million to artists in the fields of jazz, dance and theater.