SCAD deFINE ART Returns for 2022

Press Release February 24, 2022

Katharina Grosse, Untitled, 2021. Acrylic on canvas. 117 3/4 x 387 in.

SAVANNAH, GEORGIA — The Savannah College of Art and Design presents SCAD deFINE ART 2022, honoring visionary artist Katharina Grosse. Taking place Feb. 28–March 2 with in-person and streaming events in Savannah and Atlanta, the 13th edition of the university’s annual program of conversations, curated experiences, and exhibitions at the SCAD Museum of Art brings together an international roster of vital voices in art and design — from countries including Canada, Cameroon, Germany, Iraq, South Korea, and the U.S. — to share thought-provoking work and ideas.

New exhibitions encourage deeper engagement with the histories we inherit, creating spaces in the present moment to envision a future full of opportunity, and include a site-specific installation by Elaine Cameron-Weir (b. 1985, Red Deer, Alberta, Canada); a solo presentation of recent works by Matthew Angelo Harrison (b. 1989, Detroit) in the museum’s Evans Center for African American Studies; exhibitions of new works by artist Norbert Bisky (b. 1970, Leipzig, Germany) and designer Sang Hoon Kim (b. 1979, South Korea); a presentation of recent paintings by Hayv Kahraman (b. 1981, Baghdad, Iraq); new large-scale commissions by Doreen Lynette Garner (b. 1986, Philadelphia); a survey of work by Barthélémy Toguo (b. 1967, Mbalmayo, Cameroon); the first museum exhibition for SCAD alum Carter Flachbarth (b. 1996, Atlanta; B.F.A., painting, 2020); and an expansive site-related textile installation by Grosse (b. 1961, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany) as well as large-scale works on canvas created between 2006 and the present. Exhibitions programming also includes the group photography shows Icons Only and Taking Shape.

“Coinciding with the 10th anniversary of the opening of the SCAD Museum of Art, the world’s finest teaching museum, this year’s SCAD deFINE ART promises special magic. From honoree Katharina Grosse’s extraordinary paintings of incendiary color to Matthew Angelo Harrison’s sculptures that explore diasporic identities, SCAD deFINE ART 2022 both interrogates the zeitgeist and begets boundless beauty.” — Paula Wallace, SCAD President and Founder

Courtesy of the SCAD Museum of Art Collection, gift of Shirrel Rhoades.

Featured in the group exhibition: Icons Only. Richard Avedon, Versace campaign, 1994, featuring Nadja Auermann, Christy Turlington, Claudia Schiffer, Cindy Crawford, and Stephanie Seymour. Image Detail.

Many of the university’s top-ranked degree programs, including sculpture, painting, fibers, and furniture design, are represented in the signature event’s exhibitions and programming. SCAD students and community members can interact with the artists during the three-day event through gallery talks, conversations, master classes, collaborations, and public art.

Exhibitions featured in SCAD deFINE ART 2022 include but are not limited to:

Taking Shape, Group exhibition | On view through March 2

Exhibited in Alexander Hall, home to the SCAD School of Fine Arts, Taking Shape assembles spectacular photographic works by SCAD students and alumni that suggest a newfound physicality as we collectively re-engage in a changed world. Many of the works illustrate processes of forming or becoming and capture moments in which figures simultaneously connect and dissociate as they redefine their place within this present space.

Icons Only, Group exhibition | On view through June 13

Curated from SCAD MOA’s modern and contemporary photography collection with a selection of portraits by SCAD alumni photographers, Icons Only traces the evolution of iconography and its modern embrace in popular media from the Golden Age of Hollywood to our current era of viral social media fame. The works on view — icons of the 20th and 21st centuries — feature individuals whose names have become synonymous with images of their faces and bodies, from supermodels and actresses to musicians and visual artists. Excelling in the art of posing for a portrait — performing in front of and for the camera with a special awareness of how they position themselves, figuratively and literally — they enact a delicate balance between empowerment and objectification.

Doreen Lynette, Garner Pale In Comparison | Feb. 21–July 21

Garner’s sculptures and performances engage the history of medical experimentation on Black women’s bodies in the U.S., portraying their brutal humiliation and objectification, while clearly identifying the white perpetrators who enacted this suffering. Informed by deep research, her experimental and accumulative approach combines a wide range of materials — silicon, glass-fiber insulation, plastic, Vaseline, artificial hair, crystals, pearls — in anthropomorphic forms resembling fragmented or amputated body parts and human remains.

Barthélémy Toguo, Urban Requiem | Feb. 21–July 21

Working across painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, performance, and installation, Toguo addresses enduring and urgently relevant issues of exile, displacement, migration, colonialism, race, and the relationship between the Global North and South. At the core of his practice is the notion of belonging, which stems from his dual French-Cameroonian nationality. Through poetic, hopeful, and often figurative gestures connecting nature with the human body, Toguo foregrounds concerns that have both ecological and societal implications. The artist’s recent works are informed by political and social movements and humanitarian tragedies, including Black Lives Matter and refugee crises.

Sang Hoon Kim, Soft Spot | Feb. 28–Aug. 1

Kim has developed a signature technique for originating organic and colorful works with an unlikely material: foam. His unique treatment of the design object — making use of color, texture, and multi- perspectival shapes — creates a rich connection to sculptural practices. For his solo exhibition at SCAD MOA, the artist presents a group of recent objects that are diverse in function but cohesive in their playful and innovative approach to design.

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