News

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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."

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Taylor Davis's sculptures necessitate engaged reorientation on the part of the viewer. Her works—for example, the text cylinders in this exhibition—require "at least six orbital journeys" in order to be fully understood.

Bard alumni/ae Sean Colonna '12, Thomas "Parker" Hatley '13, and Molly McFadden MFA '12 have been awarded 2014–2015 Fulbright Scholarships. Colonna and McFadden will be working in Germany, Colonna teaching English and McFadden investigating current movements in the field of art and disabilities. Hatley has been selected for an English Teaching Assistant Award to Mexico.

With her debut film—Palo Alto, based on the short story collection by James Franco—the 27-year-old Coppola makes her own place in the family film dynasty.

When comics legends Neil Gaiman and Art Spiegelman shared the stage at the Fisher Center earlier this month, their discussion ranged across art forms and into history both personal and global.