2018-19 Student / Faculty Exhibitions
Exhibitions
Crafting Change
Gallery FIT
September 15 – October 6, 2018
The work of FIT students and faculty took center stage in the Gallery FIT exhibition Crafting Change. Organized by the Textile/Surface Design Department in conjunction with New York Textile Month, the works featured in Crafting Change used long-established techniques in a modern context to explore the shifting boundaries between art, design, and technology. Combining hand-crafting techniques with digital processes preserves tradition while pushing textiles into the future. Projects bridging science and textiles have the potential to revolutionize the fashion and textile industries, leading us to a more sustainable world. These works were promising examples of how FIT is successfully encouraging interdisciplinary mergers of craft, technology, and sustainability in order to usher textile arts into the 21st century.
Photo Credit: Laura Gauthier.
The Italian Way, Lessons from the Masters of our Time
Gallery FIT
October 20 – November 10, 2018
The Italian Way presented paintings and sketchbooks created by students who were participants in
FIT’s month-long study abroad program in Florence, Italy. The students – sophomores,
juniors, and seniors – were from the Fine Arts, Illustration, Packaging Design, and
Graphic Design departments within the School of Art and Design at FIT. The goal of
the abroad program was to build a bridge between the art of the Italian Renaissance
and these young, contemporary artists.
Students were taught to paint with egg tempera, the medium of choice for many Renaissance artists. Egg tempera was then used to create all of the paintings in this exhibition, though students were not required to produce a finished painting. Instead, it was important that they experience first-hand what the artists of the Renaissance did to create their masterpieces. Through the process, students gained a better understanding and enhanced appreciation of the work and the craftsmanship of artists during 15th-century Italy.
Image: Courtesy of Megan Brady.
Expressions of Civility
Gallery FIT
November 19, 2018 – January 26, 2019
Expressions of Civility was the annual Fashion Institute of Technology faculty/staff exhibition. For the first time ever, the faculty/staff show included student work. The theme was chosen in order to support and expand upon President Dr. Joyce F. Brown’s campus-wide initiative on civility, which culminated in October with Civility Week. All of the work featured in this multimedia exhibit revolved around this meditation on civility: What does it mean to be civil in a world that is increasingly coarse and unkind? In an era during which personal attacks and inflammatory positions have superseded dialogue and debate, how do we seek to understand that which separates us? How do we build connections that increase empathy, inclusivity, knowledge, and community? Civility, and the ability to reconcile our differences for the greater good, are at the very root of a democratic society. Civility encourages forward movement, it moves us past our points of conflict, it fuels progress. Ultimately, it's the only thing that ever has.
Image: Courtesy of Ni Ouyang.
X-RAYS of Balenciaga, Chanel, Dior, and Givenchy
Gallery FIT
February 6 – February 16, 2019
X-RAYS of Balenciaga, Chanel, Dior, and Givenchy was the result of a collaboration between the students of FIT’s MFA Fashion Design
program and The Museum at FIT. The project was part of a course entitled “Fashion
Creation 3 - Design Archaeology,” which centered on the concept that in order to move
design forward, it is of utmost value to know where it has been.
The students were divided into four groups, and then each group was tasked with producing
a replica of a couture garment from a leading fashion house: Balenciaga, Chanel, Dior,
or Givenchy. The original garments, housed in The Museum at FIT collection, were carefully
researched by the students. In addition to creating the line-for-line replicas, the
students gained a deep understanding of the brand’s heritage. They then developed
a contemporary, technology-driven collection.
The display of process-based design work highlighted each student’s personal development,
resulting in a fully realized look and an advertorial that completed their vision
and projected a new direction for each house.
The Traphagen School: Fostering American Fashion
Gallery FIT
March 5 – March 30, 2019
The Traphagen School: Fostering American Fashion explored the legacy of one of the first institutions dedicated to educating fashion
industry professionals in New York City. The impact of the school, in operation from
1923-1991, will be explored through an introduction to founder Ethel Traphagen, the
main philosophies of the school, and its lasting influence. Highlights include ensembles
by Geoffrey Beene and Anne Klein, evening wear by Luis Estevez and James Galanos,
and illustrations by Antonio Lopez.
This exhibition, the first dedicated to the school, focused on the Traphagen methods of design-by-adaptation and experimentation, both of which are still used in design education and the fashion industry today. The Traphagen School also included never-before seen garments from the school’s study collection, as well as photographs, publications, and advertisements that chronicle the creative environment that Ethel Traphagen created for her students.
Read more about The Traphagen School.
Image: Grenelle-Estevez, evening set, circa 1957, Gift of Sylvia Levine.
Art and Design Graduating Student Exhibition
Gallery FIT & other locations
May 15 – 29, 2019
The Art and Design Graduating Student Exhibition presented the work of more than 800 students receiving AAS and BFA degrees from the
School of Art and Design. It was on view throughout the main floors of the Marvin
Feldman Center, the Shirley Goodman Resource Center, The Museum at FIT, the Art and
Design Gallery in the Pomerantz Center and the John E. Reeves Great Hall.
The art selected was the culmination of each student’s unique experience in the FIT’s diverse, challenging, and demanding undergraduate Art and Design programs. Featuring juried, award–winning, and thesis projects, the exhibition was the manifestation of several years of research, experimentation, critical thinking, and artistic proficiency. The Graduating Student Exhibition advanced the college’s applied philosophy that integrates practice in industry with theory and teaching inside the studio.
The exhibition featured work in 16 areas of study: Accessories Design, Advertising Design, Computer Animation and Interactive Media, Fabric Styling, Fashion Design, Fine Arts, Graphic Design, Illustration, Interior Design, Jewelry Design, Menswear, Packaging Design, Photography, Textile Surface Design, Toy Design, and Visual Presentation and Exhibition Design.
For the first time that year, The Future is In The Making: the processes of thought and ideation leading to the work highlighted in the Graduating Student Exhibition complemented the exhibition, and was seen in the Art and Design Gallery in the Pomerantz Center.
FIT is part of NYCxDESIGN, New York City’s annual celebration of design which attracts hundreds of thousands of attendees and designers from across the globe.
Image: Art and Design Graduating Student Exhibition 2019 poster. Courtesy of FIT School of Art and Design
Six Ways From Sunday
Gallery FIT
June 8 – July 13, 2019
This exhibition represented the culmination of three years of hard work and personal
exploration by six unique artists. Six artists who, side by side during their candidacies
for the MFA degree in Illustration at FIT, found their own voices and developed their
own approaches. The work on display featured depictions of deeply personal narratives,
complex social circumstances, historical blind spots, mental health, media, and merchandise.
Image: Visual Thesis Exhibition 2019 poster. Courtesy of MFA Illustration.