SEPTEMBER 25 – DECEMBER 6, 2008 at the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery
SEPTEMBER 25 – NOVEMBER 22, 2008 at the Hunter College/Times Square Gallery

CLICK HERE to see installation views from the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery and Times Square Gallery

to: Night brings together a selection of contemporary works which explore the theme of night through a variety of approaches. Curated by Joachim Pissarro, Mara Hoberman and Julia Moreno, this exhibition opens at the Hunter College Art Galleries in September 2008 coinciding with the exhibition of Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night at The Museum of Modern Art curated by Joachim Pissarro, Adjunct Curator of the exhibition and co-author of the catalogue. to: Night will be on view at both the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery on Hunter College’s main campus and the Hunter College/Times Square Gallery located at the MFA Building in Midtown Manhattan. The exhibition features work by over forty artists and focuses mainly on works created since 2000, but also includes important historical works from the 1960s-90s. In the context of this exhibition, “night” is taken as a descriptive term which encompasses a wide range of meanings and associations—from the literal to the psychological. This vast subject is divided into thematic sub-categories, which range in character from romantic to disquieting. Included in these sub-categories are works that relate to, among other topics: celestial bodies, the “after-hours” urban experience, sleep, the nocturnal impact on color and light perception, surveillance, and voyeurism. to: Night explores the cultural, emotional, environmental, political, and aesthetic implications of the nocturnal as represented through a wide range of artistic interpretations and media. Seen together, the works included in to: Night offer a rich and diverse portrait of our complex, multi-layered perceptions of night.

Artists featured in this exhibition include Sebastian Bear-McClard, Vija Celmins, David Claerbout, Jennifer Coates, Susan Crile, Gregory Crewdson, Russell Crotty, Tim Davis, Jen DeNike, Stan Douglas, Juliane Eirich, Spencer Finch, Ewan Gibbs, Susan Graham, Laurent Grasso, Neil Gust, David Hammons, Todd Hido, Yvonne Jacquette, Yeon Jin Kim, Halina Kliem, Doina Kraal, Barney Kulok, Charles LaBelle, Claude Lévêque, Robert Longo, Britta Lumer, Vera Lutter, Florian Maier-Aichen, Vik Muniz, Lauren Orchowski, John Pilson, Thomas Ruff, Pat Steir, Deborah Stratman, Marc Swanson, Susanna Thornton, Jeff Wall, Andy Warhol, Thomas Weaver, Shizuka Yokomizo, Kohei Yoshiyuki, and John Zurier.

The exhibition will be on view at the Hunter College/Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery, Hunter College West Building, SW corner of 68th Street and Lexington Avenue from September 25 – December 6, 2008. Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 1 – 6 pm. An opening reception will be held from 6 – 7:30 pm on Thursday, September 25.

The exhibition will be on view at the Hunter College/Times Square Gallery, 450 West 41st Street (between 9th and 10th Avenue) from September 25 – November 15, 2008. Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 1 – 6 pm. An opening reception will be held from 7-9 pm on Thursday, September 25.

Neon sculpture to be mounted on pedestrian bridges at Hunter College:
Infinite Light by Laurent Grasso
In connection with these exhibitions, a work entitled Infinite Light created by the French artist Laurent Grasso, is intended to span the exterior of the pedestrian bridges that connect the main buildings at Hunter College. This marks the first time an art event of such scale has graced the exterior of the college. The piece is comprised of the words “day for night” illuminated in neon and repeated several times. The fluorescent tubes cast a blue tint which is similar to the filters used by cinematographers when filming scenes during the day to represent nighttime. By playing with the technique of “day for night,” Infinite Light produces an effect which is both spectacular—in the visual seductiveness of the material used, the scale of the piece, and the repetition of the words—and deceptive because the intensity of the light it produces means that paradoxically, it is only visible once night begins to fall.

The work will be unveiled on Thursday, September 25 at 6:45 pm on the Hunter West Building Plaza located at 68th Street and Lexington Avenue, SW corner

HUNTER COLLEGE ART GALLERIES FALL 2008-SPRING 2009 EXHIBITIONS

Hunter College MFA Thesis Exhibition
DECEMBER 17, 2008 – JANUARY 17, 2009
Held at the end of each semester, the Hunter College MFA Thesis Exhibition presents the work of graduating Hunter MFA candidates as a partial degree requirement. The exhibition offers the public an opportunity to see recent work of emerging artists.The exhibition will be on view at the Hunter College/Times Square Gallery, 450 West 41st Street (between 9th and 10th Avenue). Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 1 – 6 pm. An opening reception will be held from 6 – 8 pm on Wednesday, December 17.

The Hunter College BFA Degree Show
DECEMBER 18, 2008 – JANUARY 17, 2009
The Hunter College BFA Degree Show presents recent work by graduating Hunter College undergraduate art students in the BFA program. The exhibition will be on view at the Hunter College/Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery, Hunter College West Building, SW corner of 68th Street and Lexington Avenue. Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 1 – 6 pm. An opening reception will be held from 5:30 – 7:30 pm Thursday, December 18.

Cutters
JANUARY 29 – MARCH 14, 2009
Curated by Mary Birmingham, MA alumna in Art History, Cutters presents work by contemporary artists who employ processes of cutting, shredding, tearing and perforating to make art. Using knives, razors, pins, scissors, hole punches, lasers, shredders and even plasma cutters, the artists in this show alter surfaces and entire objects to enhance their visual and symbolic meanings. Exploring formal and contextual issues, the works in the exhibition comprise a wide range of media, incorporating painting, drawing, photography, sculpture and installation. The use of an invasive, even destructive action as a creative force is paradoxical and provocative. Cutting is a transformative activity that can add an element of depth to a two-dimensional surface. Perforations can dematerialize surfaces, integrating space directly into objects. Shredding radically alters the shape of an object, often obliterating its original function.

Additionally, the act of cutting has a kind of meditative quality, the repetitive nature of the work creating its own ritual. In all of these activities the artists are making marks of the most absolute kind—once cut, objects will never be whole again. This exhibition will also examine the possible meanings and metaphors connected with these processes.

The exhibition will take place simultaneously at two venues—the Leubsdorf Gallery and the Hunterdon Museum of Art in Clinton, NJ, where Mary Birmingham is the Director of Exhibitions. This will provide the opportunity to examine this issue in greater depth, in two vastly different spaces.

The exhibition will be on view at the Hunter College/Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery, Hunter College West Building, SW corner of 68th Street and Lexington Avenue. Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 1 – 6 pm. An opening reception will be held from 5:30 – 7:30 pm Thursday, January 29.

MAs Select MFAs
MARCH 5 – APRIL 18, 2009
The exhibition MAs Select MFAs featuring work by students in the MFA program in Studio Art selected by MA students in Art History demonstrates the wide range of work produced by the MFA program at Hunter College and the growing curatorial expertise of the department’s MA candidates. Student curators spent the Fall 2008 semester examining major issues in curatorial studies in preparation for this project, guided by Joachim Pissarro, Bershad Professor of Art History and Director the Hunter College Art Galleries. Displaying the work of approximately twenty artists, MAs Select MFAs not only demonstrates the breadth of the Hunter College MFA program, but also the vibrant dialogue taking place among the department’s artists and art historians.

The exhibition will be on view at the Hunter College/Times Square Gallery, 450 West 41st Street (between 9th and 10th Avenue). Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 1 – 6 pm. An opening reception will be held from 6 – 8 pm on Thursday, March 5.

Personal Structures
MARCH 26 – MAY 9, 2009
Curated by MFA alumnus Thomas Pihl, Personal Structures stands for the observation that a flexible and personal way of appropriation of or confrontation within abstraction has recently offered a promising new direction for many young artists working in a nonobjective mode. By abandoning the representation of external reality, artistic parameters themselves (such as color, size, composition, material, etc.) have become themes of non-representational art. Artworks are created, exist, and recognized in time and space. Personal Structures, as a forum for artists working in a non-representational manner, focuses on art which favors a very concentrated, but subjective, form of language.

The exhibition will be on view at the Hunter College/Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery, Hunter College West Building, SW corner of 68th Street and Lexington Avenue. Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 1 – 6 pm. An opening reception will be held from 5:30 – 7:30 pm Thursday, March 26.

Hunter College MFA Thesis Exhibition
MAY 13 – JUNE 13, 2009
Held at the end of each semester, the Hunter College MFA Thesis Exhibition presents the work of graduating Hunter MFA candidates as a partial degree requirement. The exhibition offers the public an opportunity to see recent work of emerging artists.The exhibition will be on view at the Hunter College/Times Square Gallery, 450 West 41st Street (between 9th and 10th Avenue). Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 1 – 6 pm. An opening reception will be held from 6 – 8 pm on Wednesday, May 13.

Hunter College BFA Degree Show
MAY 14 – JUNE 13, 2008
The Hunter College BFA Degree Show presents recent work by graduating Hunter College undergraduate art students in the BFA program. The exhibition will be on view at the Hunter College/Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery, Hunter College West Building, SW corner of 68th Street and Lexington Avenue. Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 1 – 6 pm. An opening reception will be held from 5:30 – 7:30 pm Thursday, May 14.