*Addendum to the catalog, September 20th, 2021

Parsons School of Design at The New School is thrilled to announce the upcoming Parsons Fine Arts MFA Thesis Exhibition for the Class of 2020, to be held onsite in the Kellen Gallery, located at the Sheila Johnson Design Center, 2 West 13th Street, New York. The work will be on view from October 5 – 16.

*To register and reserve a time to visit the gallery, please click here.

It has now been 19 months since the Class of 2020 was sent into lock-down with the rest of us due the global pandemic, disrupting their thesis show which was scheduled to open in April of last year. Thankfully, we are now able to resume and pick up where we left off. The MFA Thesis show, curated by Stamatina Gregory, will finally be able to open to the public on Tuesday, October 5th, 2021— a much anticipated event that will be the culmination of a lot of hard work on the part of these recent graduates. It is now time to celebrate with this extraordinary group of emerging artists, in-person, and I want to thank everyone for their patience, perseverance and dedication to one another during these extraordinary times. Once again, Congratulations to the Class of 2020!! Stay safe, stay strong and may your art carry you far and wide into the future.

An Online Celebration, launching in May, 2020

Parsons School of Design at The New School is pleased to launch the 2020 MFA Fine Arts Thesis website, as a lead up to the Thesis Exhibition, Logics of Non-Exchange, to be curated by Stamatina Gregory.

Due to the Covid-19 outbreak, the 2020 MFA Thesis exhibition will take place in New York just as soon as we are able to return to campus safely. This online platform presents the work of our 20 graduating students working across media, methods and materials. We invite you to view the work of these outstanding emerging artists. They include: Collyn Ahrens Aubrey, Kaeten Bonli, Paloma Rosenzweig Castillo, Rhea Jingrou Cheng, Lydia Crouse, Caroline Garcia, John Holland, Luna Jiang, Sidi He, Java Jones, Tania Khouri, Josephine Lee, Rae Lavande Pellerin, Laurel Richardson, Michael Rose, jess saldaña, Jie Shao, Kaili Smith, Coraline (Jingyan) Weng, and Snow Xuecan Ye.

These twenty artists provide a critical view on the shape of our world. They explore our highly mediated vision, and the ways in which we negotiate, consume, and traffic in images. They make tangible the brutality of digital economies on cityscapes and bodies, and throw our traumas and erotics into sharp relief. They explore gift economies, radical generosity, and the politics of individual and collective care. As a cohort, they remain at a distance—but their work remains as intimate as it is urgent.

The Parsons MFA Fine Arts program is a dynamic two-year, cross-disciplinary program committed to expanding the formal, intellectual and conceptual dimensions of emerging artists’ work. Studio-based research and scholarship extends the boundaries of contemporary cultural expression, developed through a global understanding of the arts. Parsons Fine Arts is committed to diversity among students and faculty that provides a potent learning community. Housed within both Parsons School of Design and The New School University, we are uniquely positioned within a progressive educational environment. Our international student body has access to a wide spectrum of activities, ranging from rigorous formal and aesthetic investigations to cross-disciplinary collaborations with design, performing arts and humanities students, to public forums that address pressing social and political concerns.

Our Visiting Artist Lecture Series and our Critic and Curator Series features renowned, multidisciplinary artists, curators and critics. Recent visitors included:  Mark Dion, Xu Bing, Zachary Fabri, Nicole Eisenman, Sheila Pepe, Yamini Nayar, Maria Theresa Alvez, Alfredo Jaar, Jamian Wu Tsang, Carlos Motta, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Heather Hart, Derrick Adams, Mernet Larsen, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Cullen Washington Jr, Jackson Polys, E.V. Day, Mika Tajima, Meleko Mokgosi, David Reed, Carolyn Lazard, Jon Rubin, Javier Tellez, Tschabalala Self, and Steffani Jemison.

Founded in 1896, Parsons School of Design has served as a pioneer in the field of Art and Design for more than a century. Based in New York and internationally active, the school offers undergraduate and graduate programs in the full spectrum of design disciplines. Critical thinking, research and collaboration are at the heart of a Parsons education. An integral part of The New School, Parsons builds on the university’s legacy of progressive ideals, scholarship and pedagogy. Parsons graduates are leaders in their respective fields, with a shared commitment to creatively and critically addressing the complexities of life in the 21st century.

In 2019 and 2020, the QS World University Rankings, a London-based higher education organization, named Parsons the #1 College for Art and Design in the United States, and #3 internationally.

For more information please visit finearts.parsons.edu or contact interim Program Director, Anthony Aziz. e: aziza@newschool.edu