January 22, 2024

Dear Alumni,

I hope you enjoyed some time off during the holiday season and that 2025 is off to a good start for you.

As many of you know, The Winter Show in New York City begins on Friday, January 24 and runs through Sunday, February 2 at the Park Avenue Armory. We expect strong turnout from the BGC community, so please let us know if you meet up with BGC friends (and you can even send us pictures)! I’ll be around as well and would love to say hello!

There are two opportunities coming up at BGC that might appeal to you or to others in your network: visiting fellowships and the Horowitz Book Prize. You’ll find more information about these in the Select Career Opportunities section—please spread the word!

As always, you can submit news via the online form. The special survey for exhibition news is also still active—take a moment to fill it out if you’ve recently worked on a curatorial project! The marketing team at BGC has been having a great time shouting them out on social media.

All best,
Julia Carabatsos (MA ’22)
alumni@bgc.bard.edu

Alumni Spotlight

Several BGC alumni contributed chapters to the book Fashion in American Life, edited by Hazel Clark and Lauren Downing Peters. Laura Allen (MA ’20) wrote “Sovereignty Every Day: Mobilizing Indigenous Fashion from the Northwest Coast,” Rebecca Jumper Matheson (PhD ’22) contributed “‘Smart Togs for Action’: Everyday Clothes for Rural Women in Texas in the 1950s,” and current PhD candidate Amanda Thompson (MA ’16) wrote “Playing Seminole Indian: The Cultural Appropriation of Seminole Men’s Fashion.” Well done, all!

Congratulations to Maude Bass-Krueger (PhD ’16), who was awarded tenure and promoted to associate professor in art history at Ghent University.

Cynthia Kok (MA ’16) has been appointed Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts at LACMA. Congratulations, Cynthia!

Select Career Opportunities

Yale will host its annual American Art Graduate Symposium on April 5. This year’s theme is “Underground.” Abstracts are due on January 31.

Applications are due March 1 for BGC’s visiting fellowships for scholars from university, museum, and independent backgrounds with a PhD or equivalent professional experience to participate in BGC’s dynamic intellectual community. Intended for those who have already secured a means of funding, these non-stipendiary fellowships provide workspace in the BGC Research Center and access to the BGC library and collections.

The Department of History of Art & Architecture at Boston University invites applications for the 2025–26 Horowitz Visiting Professorship in American Art, a one-year position open to post-PhD applicants of all ranks. The Horowitz Professor will contribute to the Americanist community at BU by pursuing research in their area of specialization, mentoring graduate students, participating in workshops and other scholarly programming, and teaching one course per semester in a field that complements departmental offerings in nineteenth- and twentieth-century American art (broadly defined), architecture, and material culture.

Bard Graduate Center welcomes submissions for the Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Book Prize, awarded annually to the best book on the decorative arts, design history, or material culture of the Americas. The prize rewards scholarly excellence and commitment to cross-disciplinary conversation. The winning author(s) or editor(s) will be chosen by a committee of Bard Graduate Center faculty and will be honored with a research event exploring new directions, critical applications, and intersections of the awarded book’s argument. Submissions must have a 2024 publication date and be received by April 4, 2025.

For more opportunities please visit the BGC job board.

username: career.services@bgc.bard.edu
password: CareersBGC2024-5*=*

BGC Events

Speculative Objects: A presentation by Beatrice Glow
Wednesday, February 5, 6 pm

Responding to archival research on lesser-known public histories, artist Beatrice Glow creates objects that blend digital processes (such as virtual reality sculpting and 3D printing) with meticulous handcrafting to envision speculative futures. In this talk, Glow will introduce two of her recent projects that leverage playful artistry to foster a deeper public understanding of cultural inheritance. First, she will unpack her recent New York Historical solo exhibition, When Our Rivers Meet, in which she collaborated with culture bearers whose heritages were impacted by Dutch colonialism to create an alternative commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the founding of New Amsterdam. This exploration has continued beyond the exhibition and has taken a new form as a board game—Finding Magic Turtle (Unpacking the Four Continents)—commissioned by the Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego. Glow will also share her current work-in-progress, Gilt/Guilt, a performance-installation imagined as a speculative auction. The hauntingly luxurious collectibles in this project reveal the cascading impacts of colonial violence and environmental extraction.

Select External Events

Rediscovering the Federal Art Project at the Saint Louis Art Museum
Tuesday, February 4, 8–9 pm
Online

This webinar features John Ott, professor of art history at James Madison University, and Amy Torbert, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Associate Curator of American Art at the Saint Louis Art Museum and cocurator of the current exhibition The Work of Art: The Federal Art Project, 1935–1943. Their conversation will offer a behind-the-scenes look at the planning process for this show, relate forgotten and untold stories from our nation’s artistic past, and illuminate neglected contributions from women, immigrant, and minority artists.

Robert Goldwater Roundtable on African Art History: “Other Africas”
Tuesday, February 4, 6 pm
NYU Institute of Fine Arts
The James B. Duke House, 1 East 78th Street

BGC faculty members Drew Thompson and Annissa Malvoisin will be in conversation with Antawan Byrd (Northwestern) exploring the critical stakes and future directions of Africanist art history in the twenty-first century. Moderated by Kinaya Hassane and Prita Meier.

Shop the BGC Store!

Visit our online store at store.bgc.bard.edu for 40% off all items. Enter code ALUMNI at checkout to receive the discount.

Sign up for Gaggle!

Gaggle.mail is an opt-in list-serv that serves as a place to share job openings, conference attendance, published books/articles, and exhibition openings directly with fellow alums. It’s a communication forum for alumni, by alumni. To circulate your news in the Gaggle group, send an email to bgcalumni@gaggle.email.