Alumni Activities: Zohreh Soltani at the Frick Symposium on the History of Art

Every spring, the Art History Department sends a graduate student speaker to the Annual Symposium in the History of Art, held at the Frick Collection and the Institute of Fine Arts in New York. The symposium is organized by the Graduate Student Organization of the IFA, in collaboration with the Frick Collection curatorial staff. Fourteen graduate programs in Art History in the region participate. 
This past spring, the symposium was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been rescheduled for this fall as a four-part webinar, during which graduate students will present their papers remotely on Zoom. On Thursday, October 23, from 3:00-5:00 p.m. EDT, Zohreh Soltani (Phd 2020) will present her paper, “Between  Shahyad and Azadi: The Meanings of Monumentality in Revolutionary Tehran.”
More information at https://mailchi.mp/frick/edu_ifasymposium_oct_2020?e=2002903301

Alumni Activities: Na’ama Klorman-Eraqi in Art and Activism in the Age of Systemic Crisis: Aesthetic Resilience

Na’ama Klorman Eraqu (PhD 2013) has contributed the essay “Feminist and Anti-Racist Graffiti Disrupting Public Space in the 1970s in Britain” to the anthology Art and Activism in the Age of Systemic Crisis: Aesthetic Resilience, edited by Eliza Steinbock, Bram Ieven, and Marijke de Valck (New York and London: Routledge, 2021). Find more information and links at https://www.routledge.com/Art-and-Activism-in-the-Age-of-Systemic-Crisis-Aesthetic-Resilience/Steinbock-Ieven-Valck/p/book/9780367219840.

Angel Szymanek in Art Journal

Angel Szymanek (PhD 2015) has contributed the essay “Haptic Encounters: Margarita Cabrera’s Space in Between” to the Fall 2020 issue of Art Journal. Find more information and links at https://www.collegeart.org/publications/art-journal.

Alumni Activities: Zohreh Soltani at Ithaca College

Congratulations to Zohreh Soltani (PhD 2020), who has been appointed Assistant Professor of Architectural Studies in the Department of Art History at Ithaca College!

Na’ama Klorman-Eraqi publishes The Visual is Political

Na’ama Klorman-Eraqi (PhD, 2013) publishes the Visual Is Political: Feminist Photography and Countercultural Activity in 1970s Britain (Rutgers University Press). For more information: https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/the-visual-is-political/9781978800311

Paulina Banas’ article in Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide

Binghamton alumna Paulina Banas published the article, “From Picturesque Cairo to Abstract Islamic Designs: L’Art arabe and the Economy of Nineteenth-Century Book Publishing,” in the most recent issue of Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide: a journal of nineteenth-century visual culture 17:1 (Spring 2018). Read the piece here [http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring18/banas-on-l-art-arabe-and-the-economy-of-nineteenth-century-book-publishing].

Émile Prisse d’Avennes (artist) and Daniel Vierge Urrabieta (lithographer), Arabesques: Pavement de mosaïque, fragments disposée sur le plan des dorqâah (du XVIe. au XVIIIe. siècle) (Arabesques: Mosaic Pavement, Fragments Arranged on the Plan of the Dorqâah [from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century]), 1869–77. Chromolithograph. Published in L’Art arabe (Paris: Vve A. Morel et Cie., 1869–77), I: pl. 56.

Na’ama Klorman-Eraqi (PhD, ’13) presents at “Art & Activism” conference in The Netherlands

Na’ama Klorman-Eraqi, Art History PhD 2013 and currently affiliated with the Department of Art History at Tel Aviv University (Israel), delivered a talk on “Agitating Public Space: Affective Encounters with Feminist and Punk Cultural Strategies” at the “Art & Activism: Resilience Techniques in Times of Crisis” conference, December 13-15, 2017, at the Research Center for Material Culture, Museum Volkenkunde, in Leiden, The Netherlands. For more information, see https://artandactivismcon.wordpress.com/

Alumni Activities: Josh Franco at the Archives of American Art

Congratulations to Josh Franco (PhD 2016), who was recently named national collector for the Archives of American Art. Josh began work at the Archives in July 2015 on a contract basis, collecting papers documenting Latinx art. For that special project, Josh built and strengthening the Archives’ Latinx holdings and quickly developed relationships with a network of artists and arts communities across the United States. In a little more than two years, he acquired significant collections, including the papers of “Chaz” Bojórquez, Jaime Davidovich, Kathy Vargas, Jari “WERC” Alvarez and Geraldine “Gera” Lozano, Victor Zamudio-Taylor, Paul Ramirez Jonas, Andres Serrano, and many others. Josh’s new, permanent position as national collector will ensure that Latinx collections remain a vital part of the Archives’ collecting program, and that they continue to play an essential role in the ongoing interpretation of the history of visual arts in the US.

Alumni Activities: Alison Ferris

Binghamton alumna Alison Ferris (MA 1991), Senior Curator at Des Moines Art Center, has been recognized by the Center for Curatorial Leadership as one of twelve curators selected to participate in its annual fellowship program for 2018. The program meets in New York City in January for an initial two weeks of instruction, followed by residencies with leading museum directors, the development of an individual Diversity Mentoring Initiative, and a final week of coursework in May. Other Fellows come from leading institutions including the Harvard Art Museums, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The Andy Warhol Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Congratulations to Alison for this recognition of her achievements, her leadership and her distinctive curatorial vision that is certain to energize the upcoming fellowship program as it looks to deepen engagement with a more representative and nuanced expression of art history and culture.

Alison joined the Des Moines Art Center in February 2016. Since then, she has reinstalled the permanent collection and curated two major 2017 exhibitions: Ruptures and Drawing in Space. She is currently organizing the first major solo exhibitions in the United States for British artist Susan Collis (2019) and Scottish artist Karla Black (2020).

Alumni Activities: Na’ama Klorman-Eraqi at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity

On October 14, Na’ama Klorman-Eraqi (PhD 2013) presented a paper, titled “Feminist Graffiti as Reclaiming Urban Space,” at the 2017 Conference of the Universities Art Association of Canada at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Na’ama is currently a lecturer in the Art History Department at Tel Aviv University. 

 

Alumni Activities: Hala Auji on BBC’s The Forum

 

Hala Auji (PhD 2013), Assistant Professor of Islamic Art at the American University Beirut, was featured on September 2’s episode of BBC’s program The Forum. The episode, “First Impressions: The Printing Press,” is currently available for download on BBC’s site.

Alumni Activities: Kivanç Kilinç

Congratulations to Kivanç Kilinç (PhD 2010), who will be joining the American University of Beirut next year as Visiting Assistant Professor of Art and Architectural History in the Department of Architecture and Design. His research focuses on the transnational connections and their consequences, which shaped contemporary social housing practices in the Middle East. Other points of interest include domestic architectural culture in early twentieth century Turkey; Islamic art and architecture; and urban history and theory. Prior to his appointment at the AUB, Kilinç taught courses in architectural history, theory and criticism, as well as first year architectural design studio at Izmir University of Economics and Yaşar University in Turkey. Kilinç has published in journals such as The Journal of Architecture, New Perspectives on Turkey, and METU JFA, and is co-editor of a forthcoming book, Social Housing in the Middle East: Architecture, Urban Development, and Transnational Modernity (Indiana University Press, 2018). Currently he serves as the associate editor of The International Journal of Islamic Architecture (IJIA).