Category Archives: Events

Giant Robot announces an exhibition with Illustration Alum Jill Bliss

jill bliss @ giant robot

 

Jill Bliss and Saelee Oh at GR2
Los Angeles, CA
December 8 – January 9

Giant Robot presents Hidden Habitats, an art show featuring the work of Jill Bliss and Salee Oh. Jill graduated from the Illustration department and has since given presentations to our students as an alum & visiting artist. Here is an excerpt from the official press release:

Jill Bliss grew up on a family farm in Northern California where everything was hand-built or cultivated-the food, the house, the farm machinery, and even the family computers. Since graduating from the Parsons School of Design & the California College of the Arts, her professional background has included fashion design, illustration, and design theory. Whether designing limited-edition paper goods or fine art pieces, all of her work reveals a fondness for combining fabric, paper, and other found materials.

For this show, the artists will make individual and collaborative drawings, paper cut-outs, sewn soft sculptures, and other pieces that expand on the theme of their third collaborative calendar, Hidden Habitats. The artwork depicts houses, shelters, buildings, and dwellings incorporating and blending into nature. These dwellings are sometimes human-sized, but more often than not sized for real and imagined animals, reptiles, or bugs.

In this body of work, both artists explore the underlying structures of nature, the inherent beauty and interdependence of these structures, and human nature’s interpretation of and dependence upon them. The original drawings, many of which have been altered or expanded upon since the making of the calendar, will also provide insight into the artists’ digital and hand-drawn collaborative process.

For more information about the exhibition, visit the Giant Robot site.

GR2
2062 Sawtelle Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90025
gr2.net
(310) 445-9276

Ted McGrath, Jillian Tamaki, & Sam Weber visit Illustration

sam weberted mcgrath jillian tamaki

Ted McGrath, Jillian Tamaki, & Sam Weber
10 a.m. on Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
2 W. 13th, Room 311

George Bates’s $ketchbook Warehouse class will play host to a fantastic array of illustrators this upcoming week. Published by the New York Times Op-Ed page, Texas Monthly, Society of Illustrators, Bust, Paste, SEED and a plethora of others, Ted McGrath, Jillian Tamaki, & Sam Weber will be visiting to show their sketchbooks and discuss their work.

All are welcome to attend this unique & exciting event!
(Illustrations by [in order]: Sam Weber, Ted McGrath, and Jillian Tamaki)

News about Illustration Alumni David Horvath & Ugly Dolls

bossy bear bookbossy bear with box

David Horvath, Illustration Department alum and co-creator of Ugly Dolls (with his wife Sun Min Kim, who is also an Illustration alum!), has a new toy out based on the title character from his first picture book, Bossy Bear. Both the book and the toy are available now at Giant Robot and online.

Additionally, the first ever Uglycon will be held this December. Here’s some info from David’s blog:

uglycon

UGLYCON!
Saturday December 8th at 6PM!
GIANT ROBOT
618 Shrader St
San Francisco, CA 94117

COSTUME CONTEST! Dress up as your favorite or least favorite UGLY
and win super secret prizes!

What is Uglycon? It’s original art, prints, paintings, hand made Uglys,
limited production Uglycon exclusives, and fun for all!

____

Congratulations to David and Sun Min on their continued success after Parsons!

(all images by David Horvath and Giant Robot)

Gagosian mixed media exhibition: Fit to Print

fit to print

Fit to Print
Printed Media in Recent Collage
November 12th-December 22nd, 2007

Gagosian Gallery
New York, NY

Fit to Print exposes the artist’s compulsion to react to the steady stream of information that the print media delivers on a daily basis. The works on view range from meditations on formal composition to personal perspectives on current events.

All works included in this exhibition have been made since January 2000, illuminating the vast extent to which contemporary international artists share an interest in the myriad forms of printed media while working within the traditional definition of collage. A thoroughly modernist invention, the use of collage first appeared in the work of Picasso and Braque and was embraced by the international Dada movement as a mode of political critique. Whether referring to autobiography, disposable pop culture, or actualities of global politics, the artists in this exhibition acknowledge the legacy of past practice by immediately utilizing mass-distributed, readymade print, and incorporating it directly into their work.

Read more information and see additional images here.

Gagosian Gallery
980 Madison Ave.
New York, NY
info@gagosian.com

Rian Hughes @ the ADC November 15th

 

rian hughes

Veer Presents: Rian Hughes Design, Tea and Biscuits
Thursday, November 15, 2007 @ ADC Gallery
106 West 29th Street, NYC
6:30-9:30 PM

Make your way to the Art Directors Club for an evening of genteel design discussion and civilized refreshment with British illustrator, graphic designer, comics artist and typographer Rian Hughes.

For over 20 years, Rian Hughes has been fusing visual design with pop aesthetics. His distinctive panel art revolutionized the British comic industry, and his modernist graphic design and illustration style have been widely copied. Since 1996, Rian has released an astoundingly diverse range of display and text typefaces under the Device Fonts moniker.

Admission: $15.00
RSVP: http://www.veer.com/ideas/rianhughes/

The Art of William Steig at the Jewish Museum

steig donkeys

 

From The New Yorker to Shrek:
The Art of William Steig
November 4, 2007 – March 16, 2008
The Jewish Museum
New York, NY

Hailed as the “King of Cartoons,” William Steig had a long and acclaimed career as both a brilliant cartoonist and an award-winning, beloved author of children’s literature, including his 1990 picture book Shrek! (“fear” in Yiddish) which has been turned into a series of popular animated films. Born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 14, 1907, to Eastern European Jewish immigrants, Steig grew up in the Bronx and began illustrating for The New Yorker in 1930. His prolific association with the magazine is the longest by far of any of its cartoonists, with over 1,600 drawings as well as over 120 covers published during a period of 73 years. Scheduled for the centennial of the artist’s birth, this exhibition pays tribute to Steig’s incredible creativity by featuring a wide selection of original drawings for both his New Yorker cartoons and his children’s books such as Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, Doctor De Soto, Amos & Boris, Brave Irene, Gorky Rises, Dominic, When Everybody Wore a Hat, and of course Shrek! as well as his less known mid-life “symbolic drawings.” This in-depth presentation also sheds light on Steig’s life as it relates to his work and will be complemented by a range of public and educational programs for both adults and children.

The Jewish Museum
1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street
New York, New York 10128
Phone: 212.423.3200

Admission for students is $7.50 and free for all on Saturdays from 11:00 a.m. to 5:45 p.m.

For an online exhibition component as well as other information, visit the Jewish Museum’s website here.

See a list of Steig-related events taking place in November here.

(artwork from Sylvester and the Magic Pebble (1969) by William Steig)

Bookish: An Exhibition of Contemporary Handmade Books

bookish sign

Bookish: Contemporary Handmade Books
Curated by the Illustration Department, Parsons the New School for Design

Adam & Sophie Gimbel Design Library
The New School Libraries
2 West 13th Street 2nd Fl.
New York NY 10011

In these digital days, there remains nothing quite like a handmade
book. Silkscreened covers, staples, construction paper, thread, markers,
and, of course, drawings all add up to a singular object. The handmade
books on display here are steeped in drawing and narrative. The last 10
years have seen a burst in handmade books that evolve out of communities
of illustrators, cartoonists and fine artists. Perhaps seeking a more
personal and intimate way of displaying their work, these creators have
produced a large body of work across addressing multiple visual and
literary themes. They all share a commitment to image-based drawing and
crafting books that don’t just contain art: they are art.

The present exhibition is organized by community. Providence, Rhode
Island has been the home to a variety of zine and poster making activity
for the past decade. Led by artists including Brian Chippendale, Mat
Brinkman, Paper Rad, and Brian Ralph, Providence art tends to emphasize
psychedelic and adventure-based narratives. To the north, the Canadian
cities of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver have long housed a productive
group of artists who mail their work to one another. Julie Doucet, Marc
Bell, Mark Connery, Peter Thompson and many others specialize in
wordplay, single image narratives, and finely wrought doodles. And in
Marseille, France, Le Dernier Cri, a book arts publishing house, has
been unleashing extreme, often grotesque imagery in silkscreen form for
over a decade by artists such as Blexbolex, Caroline Sury, and Moulinex.
The influence of these three centers of handmade books can be felt
around the globe. The final section of this exhibition presents a
sampling of this influence on a group of disparate and diverse works.

Handmade books satisfy artists and viewers alike with an immediacy like nothing else.

Don’t miss this special exhibition curated by the Illustration Department!

Upcoming Designism Event at Art Directors Club

designism button

Designism 2.0::An Event in 3 Parts
SEE::TALK::ACT
Thursday, December 13, 2007
4:45-9:30 PM @ADC Gallery


Immerse yourself in design activism during a half-day event at the ADC with presentations from Milton Glaser, Steven Heller, Elizabeth Resnick, Tony Hendra, and more.

SCHEDULE:
4:45-6 PM Designism 2.0::SEE
Speakers include:
Kay Sloan, President, Massachusetts College of Art + Design
Elizabeth Resnick, Co–Curator of Selections from The Graphic Imperative and Associate Professor, Communication Design for the Massachusetts College of Art + Design
Ji Lee, droga5, The Bubble Project

6-6:30 PM Break

6:30-7:50 PM Designism 2.0::TALK
Masters of Designism and Panel Discussion
Tony Hendra, Manifesto
Steven Heller (Moderator)
Milton Glaser
Janet Kestin, Ogilvy & Mather
Ellen Sitkin, ideo, Project M
Andrew Sloat, Designer
Michael Wolff, Journalist

Idealist.org Presentation
Ami Dar is the founder and executive director of Action Without Borders, the organization that runs Idealist.org.

8 PM: Designism 2.0::ACT
Cocktail reception – how to put intention into action with Idealist.org and others.

TICKETS:
ADC Members: $24.50, Non-members: $35.00, Students & Non Profit Organization Members: $20.00
Space is limited and reserved on a first-come, first-served basis.

Please RSVP by calling 212-643-1440 x10.

See the ADC calendar of events here.