Beatriz Milhazes. Sinfonia Nordestina, 2008; acrylic on canvas; 96 7/8 X 144 7/8 inches

I’ve been accepted to an MFA program that begins this September. As the month approaches, I find myself getting increasingly nervous and anxious (as I always do on the first day of school). It’s been a few years since I’ve participated in group critiques, and while I’m excited about this program, I also feel very vulnerable right now. Can you offer any advice to new MFA students? I wonder what former students “wish they’d known” before going into a program.

There are so many things I wish I’d known before I started my graduate program that I could answer your question with a book. Work hard, show up for everything, and say thank you are timeless tips, of course, but you’re looking for other suggestions calibrated to the specifics of the MFA. First, make friends with the Graduate Program Manager (or whatever they call the initial line of defense in your grad office). This individual will be your conduit to advisor selection, the assignment of teaching assistantships, and much more; woe betide the student who cops an attitude and treats the manager rudely. Second (and this is related to the above), the most bureaucratic rules only apply to students who don’t apply themselves. I’m not suggesting that you engage in risky behavior, but all fences have gates. If you are kind and polite and work diligently, someone may show you where they are. Also, if you are moving to attend school, consider staying in that city for a few years after graduation. You will make a lot of friends and contacts in two years, but if you move away immediately, you will lose them. (This last piece of advice was given to me by a colleague who still regrets that he moved away a week after receiving his degree.) Finally, stay away from drama queens, bastards, and bullies, even the ones who are powerful and who seem to hold the potential for your future professional advancement. If I were dying right now and had to give counsel with my last breath, it would be this: Assholes only ever help themselves.

Read the full article here.

Rhonda Holberton. Knights of the Sky (2015); digital video projection; 3:24. Courtesy of City Limits Gallery.

A chilly, overcast afternoon seemed like the perfect conditions for experiencing Cold Storage, the dual exhibitions of artists James Cordas and Rhonda Holberton. The gallery resonates with stillness as the slow, measured pace of the video projections and an even-toned white noise settle over the room. The sobriety of the atmosphere, however, masks the underlying tensions in the exhibition’s design.

With Holberton occupying the back wall with the hypnotic three-minute video projection Knights of the Sky (2015), and Cordas on the perimeter, a tug-of-war for the gallery’s limited floor space ensues. Sharing a space the size of City Limits would be a challenge to anyone, but Cordas and Holberton make unlikely bedfellows and feel somewhat disconnected. Though both artists’ showings are strong and compelling in their own right, it is not immediately obvious how they are meant to fit together—or if they even are. For example, the press release for Cold Storage features a short statement about the show written collaboratively between “the artists.” However, the artists referred to here are not Cordas and Holberton, but Cordas and the poet James Gendron, a collaborative partner of Cordas’s for one of the works in the show, Sexual Boat (Sex Boats). While the poem/artist statement allows for a subtler and more complex read of the collaboration between Cordas and Holberton, it also runs the risk of obscuring a definitive thread that holds the show together.

Holberton’s presence in the show is immediately striking and commanding. In addition to claiming the back wall with her expansive projection, Holberton’s polyurethane sculptures of “fallen pixels” are separated prominently around the room like the points of a triangle, giving the artist equal weight and equal measure in the room. Her sculpture N-O U-N-R-E-A-L T-H-I-N-G E-X-I-S-T-S (2015), of a clenched fist raised high atop a white plinth, stands out and stands against the cold, hard gray of Cordas’ steel cage in A Mason Jar Full of Wasps. Cordas juxtaposes perforated images of dark silhouettes and colorful flowers, video screens and steel panels, throughout his portion of the show, engaging in a dialogue of contradictions more with his own work than with Holberton’s.

Where the two do seem to meet is in the contested spaces of digital and analog, closeness and distance. While Holberton renders digitized data into physical objects with Fallen Pixels (2015), Cordas explores this terrain through works like Chair (2015), which combines a vertical LED screen and hardcover book in one. More than just the space between objects, the many surfaces employed in each’s work keep one at a constant distance—Knights of the Sky being uninhabitable, and Cordas’ ultrachrome mirrors, overlaid with vinyl screens, making one’s reflection always just out of reach.

Cold Storage: James Cordas and Rhonda Holberton is on view at City Limits Gallery in Oakland through December 19, 2015.

________

Elena Gross is a writer currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Visual & Critical Studies from California College of the Arts. She lives and works in the Bay Area and her writing focuses on gender, race, and sexuality in contemporary visual culture.

I’ve been accepted to an MFA program that begins this September. As the month approaches, I find myself getting increasingly nervous and anxious (as I always do on the first day of school). It’s been a few years since I’ve participated in group critiques, and while I’m excited about this program, I also feel very vulnerable right now. Can you offer any advice to new MFA students? I wonder what former students “wish they’d known” before going into a program.

Beatriz Milhazes. Sinfonia Nordestina, 2008; acrylic on canvas; 96 7/8 x 144 7/8 in.

There are so many things I wish I’d known before I started my graduate program that I could answer your question with a book. Work hard, show up for everything, and say thank you are timeless tips, of course, but you’re looking for other suggestions calibrated to the specifics of the MFA. First, make friends with the Graduate Program Manager (or whatever they call the initial line of defense in your grad office). This individual will be your conduit to advisor selection, the assignment of teaching assistantships, and much more; woe betide the student who cops an attitude and treats the manager rudely. Second (and this is related to the above), the most bureaucratic rules only apply to students who don’t apply themselves. I’m not suggesting that you engage in risky behavior, but all fences have gates. If you are kind and polite and work diligently, someone may show you where they are. Also, if you are moving to attend school, consider staying in that city for a few years after graduation. You will make a lot of friends and contacts in two years, but if you move away immediately, you will lose them. (This last piece of advice was given to me by a colleague who still regrets that he moved away a week after receiving his degree.) Finally, stay away from drama queens, bastards, and bullies, even the ones who are powerful and who seem to hold the potential for your future professional advancement. If I were dying right now and had to give counsel with my last breath, it would be this: Assholes only ever help themselves.

Now that we’ve gotten the more cheerful part of this Q&A wrapped up, let’s move on to studio critiques in specific. I reached out to artist and instructor Whitney Lynn, and she said, “My advice to new MFA students is always to recognize that your time in the program is incredibly short. Blink and it’s over. So make lots of new work, meet as many people as you can, and take advantage of everything the program offers.”

Lynn continued: “In terms of being nervous about critiques, you should recognize that most people (myself included) feel anxiety when thrown into new situations where there is pressure to perform. The graduate critique seminar is a place where a whole room is going to focus on, analyze, and debate your work’s intentions and execution. It’s also a place where you will sharpen your ability to talk about—and sometimes defend—your work. This is a precious opportunity and it will never happen again, so don’t waste it. Come to critiques prepared, not only with new work, but also questions about your work and points of conversation you want to raise. Take control of your critiques and you’ll feel less nervous.”

“And if there’s a jerk in the seminar? Think of it as training for the rest of your career as an artist. There’s always going to be jerks, or just people who don’t like and/or understand your work. The task of the person leading the seminar is to keep things relatively objective, and your job is to take everyone’s comments—negative or positive—with a grain of salt. Begin the process of defining your own measures of success, your audience, and the appropriate context for your work. Everything is not for everyone—and that’s okay. With that said, it’s equally important to understand the difference between defending your work, when necessary, and being defensive. You’re in school because you wanted to challenge yourself and your work; if you already have it all figured out, don’t waste your time and money. You’re going to have to learn how to balance being open to criticism and not being overly persuaded/affected by others’ opinions.”

Lynn concluded her advice with, “It’s also important to keep in mind that once you go through [the MFA], you don’t need it anymore. It’s expected that you might enter feeling nervous, vulnerable, and unsure about the direction of your work. It’s also expected that by the time you graduate you feel more confident, secure, and ready to make that next step into your career as an artist. Last but not least, I highly recommend watching Howard Fried’s Burghers of Fort Worth before your first critique.”

I also asked artist Rhonda Holberton to weigh in, and she said, “Be generous in critique. Listen to your peers and take notes, even if you don’t agree with the opinions offered at the time. Recognize that whatever the contribution, it is a generous thing for someone to expend energy really looking and thinking and speaking about your work. Learn how to answer questions about the work without defensiveness and how to say ‘I don’t know’ with confidence. You are expected to experiment, to be unsure. Allow yourself that. As much as you can, detach your ego from the work and learn how to ask questions that give you the answers you need. I took part in more than one critique where insights were buried by ego and defensiveness, and conversations were derailed by minutiae. There will always be politics and gossip, but ultimately the whole thing is for you and your work. Don’t lose sight of that.”

Let’s wrap up with some fast-and-dirty tips:

— You must record your critiques, because in the moment of the meeting, you will be full of adrenaline and trying to track four different comment threads at once. Playing back a critique a day or two later when you are calmer will help you really hear what was said.

— Don’t be afraid to ask commenters to explain or rephrase; not everyone is a great communicator. I once had a peer tell me flatly, “This work is boring”—and yet once I asked her to flesh her comment out a bit, her criticism turned out to be very constructive.

— On crit days, make sure you have a bar/jogging/karaoke buddy lined up for after. Whether it’s a great session or a terrible one, you’ll need to blow off steam with a pal.

— Whether you are first in the day’s lineup or last, serve snacks, because no one in the history of art school ever got a useful critique from a group with low blood sugar. Good luck!

Help Desk is where I answer your queries about making, exhibiting, finding, marketing, buying, selling–or any other activity related to contemporary art. Submit your questions anonymously here. All submissions become the property of Daily Serving.

Rhonda Holberton. YOU BECAUSE FREE INSTANTLY NEW, 2014; installation view; Pro Arts Gallery, Oakland, California. Courtesy of the Artist and Pro Arts Gallery.

Pro Arts Gallery in downtown Oakland is currently host to YOU BECAUSE FREE INSTANTLY NEW, a 2 x 2 Solos exhibition of work by Rhonda Holberton, curated by FICTILIS.[1]Mere footsteps from the former epicenter of Occupy Oakland’s nightly clashes with police, Holberton’s work serves as a critical commentary and an eerie reminder of the (sometimes camouflaged) structures of authority that govern civilian life. The exhibition is a series of visual iterations on military technology, consumer culture, and concealment, in the form of textiles, video and sound installations, computer-aided sculpture, and product design.

All the Actors Have Withdrawn (2014) is a digital video projected onto a frosted acrylic panel placed upright on a pedestal. The video depicts a gray-toned, three-dimensional rendering of what appears to be three nude female figures melding into a single conjoined form. Arms, elbows, and fists protrude outward at various angles in combat-like stances. The image rotates upon a central point to reveal a 360-degree view of this grainy, broken, and disintegrating form frozen in space. While the pedestal, figurative form, and rotation at first call reference to classical bronze sculpture, the momentum of the rotation suggests a deeper intent that challenges classical conventions. With less emphasis placed upon the aesthetics of the object, All the Actors Have Withdrawn depicts, rather, a violent conflict carefully paused at an opportune moment.

But the piece itself is only half the experience. The projector from which the video emanates is mounted above the piece and is directed at the viewer. Its lens is carefully taped to reveal just a slit of light that shines and flickers uncomfortably downward. As I stood there, I found myself conflicted. Instinct and experience said to move away from the voyeuristic projector lens, at the risk of being unable to experience the work, but the video’s movement called me to stay put. Such a conflict raises the question, at what point do we sacrifice our personal privacy for the sake of participating in or even simply experiencing contemporary culture? Or, in light of contemporary government surveillance, are we even afforded such a choice today?

Like the content it addresses, Holberton’s work is surprisingly subtle and strategic in its execution. The exhibition’s carefully curated objects—flowing ponchos, perfume bottles, and digitally rendered wallpaper—reference our everyday lives with a comfortable familiarity. With time, the initial ease one might feel dissipates as the camouflaged works reveal themselves: video masked as reality, war marketed as fashion, and an installation that brands gallery-goers not as passive recipients of the works’ messages, but rather as active participants, implicated by their very presence in the space.

YOU BECAUSE FREE INSTANTLY NEW is on view at Pro Arts Gallery, Oakland, California, through September 19, 2014.

Amanda N. Simons is an artist, writer, and educator who lives in Oakland. She received an MFA in Studio Art and an MA in Visual and Critical Studies from California College of the Arts, and is the Exhibition Coordinator for San Francisco’s Queer Cultural Center.

[1] FICTILIS is the collaborative practice of Andrea Steves and Timothy Furstnau.

I’ve been accepted to an MFA program that begins this September. As the month approaches, I find myself getting increasingly nervous and anxious (as I always do on the first day of school). It’s been a few years since I’ve participated in group critiques, and while I’m excited about this program, I also feel very vulnerable right now. Can you offer any advice to new MFA students? I wonder what former students “wish they’d known” before going into a program.

Beatriz Milhazes. Sinfonia Nordestina, 2008; acrylic on canvas; 96 7/8 x 144 7/8 in.

There are so many things I wish I’d known before I started my graduate program that I could answer your question with a book. Work hard, show up for everything, and say thank you are timeless tips, of course, but you’re looking for other suggestions calibrated to the specifics of the MFA. First, make friends with the Graduate Program Manager (or whatever they call the initial line of defense in your grad office). This individual will be your conduit to advisor selection, the assignment of teaching assistantships, and much more; woe betide the student who cops an attitude and treats the manager rudely. Second (and this is related to the above), the most bureaucratic rules only apply to students who don’t apply themselves. I’m not suggesting that you engage in risky behavior, but all fences have gates. If you are kind and polite and work diligently, someone may show you where they are. Also, if you are moving to attend school, consider staying in that city for a few years after graduation. You will make a lot of friends and contacts in two years, but if you move away immediately, you will lose them. (This last piece of advice was given to me by a colleague who still regrets that he moved away a week after receiving his degree.) Finally, stay away from drama queens, bastards, and bullies, even the ones who are powerful and who seem to hold the potential for your future professional advancement. If I were dying right now and had to give counsel with my last breath, it would be this: Assholes only ever help themselves.

Beatriz Milhazes. Sal (Salt), 2009; diptych: woodblock and screenprint; 31.5 x 31.5 in. and 31.5 x 39.5 in. respectively; edition of 40.

Now that we’ve gotten the more cheerful part of this Q&A wrapped up, let’s move on to studio critiques in specific. I reached out to artist and instructor Whitney Lynn, and she said, “My advice to new MFA students is always to recognize that your time in the program is incredibly short. Blink and it’s over. So make lots of new work, meet as many people as you can, and take advantage of everything the program offers.”

Lynn continued: “In terms of being nervous about critiques, you should recognize that most people (myself included) feel anxiety when thrown into new situations where there is pressure to perform. The graduate critique seminar is a place where a whole room is going to focus on, analyze, and debate your work’s intentions and execution. It’s also a place where you will sharpen your ability to talk about—and sometimes defend—your work. This is a precious opportunity and it will never happen again, so don’t waste it. Come to critiques prepared, not only with new work, but also questions about your work and points of conversation you want to raise. Take control of your critiques and you’ll feel less nervous.”

“And if there’s a jerk in the seminar? Think of it as training for the rest of your career as an artist. There’s always going to be jerks, or just people who don’t like and/or understand your work. The task of the person leading the seminar is to keep things relatively objective, and your job is to take everyone’s comments—negative or positive—with a grain of salt. Begin the process of defining your own measures of success, your audience, and the appropriate context for your work. Everything is not for everyone—and that’s okay. With that said, it’s equally important to understand the difference between defending your work, when necessary, and being defensive. You’re in school because you wanted to challenge yourself and your work; if you already have it all figured out, don’t waste your time and money. You’re going to have to learn how to balance being open to criticism and not being overly persuaded/affected by others’ opinions.”

Lynn concluded her advice with, “It’s also important to keep in mind that once you go through [the MFA], you don’t need it anymore. It’s expected that you might enter feeling nervous, vulnerable, and unsure about the direction of your work. It’s also expected that by the time you graduate you feel more confident, secure, and ready to make that next step into your career as an artist. Last but not least, I highly recommend watching Howard Fried’s Burghers of Fort Worth before your first critique.”

Beatriz Milhazes. Mariposa, 2004; acrylic on canvas; 98 x 98 in.

I also asked artist Rhonda Holberton to weigh in, and she said, “Be generous in critique. Listen to your peers and take notes, even if you don’t agree with the opinions offered at the time. Recognize that whatever the contribution, it is a generous thing for someone to expend energy really looking and thinking and speaking about your work. Learn how to answer questions about the work without defensiveness and how to say ‘I don’t know’ with confidence. You are expected to experiment, to be unsure. Allow yourself that. As much as you can, detach your ego from the work and learn how to ask questions that give you the answers you need. I took part in more than one critique where insights were buried by ego and defensiveness, and conversations were derailed by minutiae. There will always be politics and gossip, but ultimately the whole thing is for you and your work. Don’t lose sight of that.”

Let’s wrap up with some fast-and-dirty tips:

— You must record your critiques, because in the moment of the meeting, you will be full of adrenaline and trying to track four different comment threads at once. Playing back a critique a day or two later when you are calmer will help you really hear what was said.
 
— Don’t be afraid to ask commenters to explain or rephrase; not everyone is a great communicator. I once had a peer tell me simply, “This work is boring”—and yet once I asked her to flesh it out a bit, her criticism was very constructive.
 
— On crit days, make sure you have a bar/jogging/karaoke buddy lined up for after. Whether it’s a great session or a terrible one, you’ll need to blow off steam with a pal.
 
— Whether you are first in the day’s lineup or last, serve snacks, because no one in the history of art school ever got a useful critique from a group with low blood sugar. Good luck!