A Summer of SAIC Faculty and Alumni in the New York Times

The New York Times has been keen on SAIC's faculty and alumni lately. Read what they're talking about:

In August, SAIC faculty member Nick Cave (Fashion Design) was profiled by the New York Times in an article titled "The Artist Nick Cave Gets Personal About Race and Gun Violence." The piece was published in anticipation of Cave's new show at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Known for his intricate wearable garments called Soundsuits, Cave has created new work with found objects for the Mass MoCA show titled Until. The author Ted Loos visited Cave’s studio, where the artist explained the focus of the show: “Looking past what [Cave] called the 'bling bling, sparkle sparkle' factor of the exhibition is a grave theme: the fraught nexus of gun violence and race, in particular the deaths of African-Americans in police custody in places like Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere.”

Earlier in the summer, the New York Times Magazine consulted with another SAIC faculty member, David Raskin (Art History). Raskin weighed in on recent design trends of simplicity and scarcity in a recent article called “The Oppressive Gospel of Minimalism.” Raskin spoke on the merits of minimalism: “Minimalism can return you to this basic state where you’re perceiving purely. Less is more because you strip away the familiar.” However, Raskin also noted that the style is not without flaws, noting, “One of the real problems with design-world minimalism is that it’s just become a signifier of the global elite. The richer you are, the less you have.”

The New York Times also recently profiled SAIC alum Rirkrit Tiravanija (MFA 1987) in a piece titled “The Professional Pop-Up Artist.” The article discussed Tiravanija’s new pop-up restaurant in Germany, as well as the artist’s previous culinary collaborations—from cookbooks to installations at Art Basel. “Food has been a consistent medium for Tiravanija since his first solo show,” the Times noted. “Sharing meals with strangers in unexpected venues has been a way for the collaborative artist to express an important theme in his work: the communal.”