For the Thanksgiving break we will be closing at 1 pm on Wed., Nov. 25th and will return to normal hours on Mon., Nov. 30th.

(CC image via GlyphJockey)

Among the many benefits of attending SVA is the location in New York
City, one of the cultural capitals of the world. The number of museums of
fine art and design available here is staggering, including some of the most important collections of art to be found anywhere. SVA has a reciprocal relationship with two of the key museums featuring modern art, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Whitney Museum, that allows students (and a guest) FREE access to their collections and many special events (such as the renowned MoMA Film series). While you are in NYC you should most definitely take advantage of the cultural offerings – and while you are at SVA be sure to make the most of this easy access. An adult ticket to the MoMA is normally $20 and $18 at the Whitney.

Both museums are known for their groundbreaking shows as well as incredible permanent collections.

A new show has just opened at MoMA that surveys the cultural contributions of the Bauhaus school, Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity. As part of the who they are also presenting a series of classes to give attendees a sense of what it was like to be a student of the Bauhaus.

For books on the Bauhaus at the SVA Library, check the call number area N332.G33 or do a Subject search: ‘Bauhaus’ in the library’s catalog – vision.sva.edu

Among the other special exhibits currently up at the MoMA:
Polish Posters 1945–89 – May 6–November 30, 2009
Looking at Music: Side 2- June 10–November 30, 2009
What Was Good Design? MoMA’s Message 1944–56 – May 6–November 30, 2009
Compass in Hand: Selections from The Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection – April 22, 2009–January 4, 2010
The Erotic Object: Surrealist Sculpture from the Collection – June 24, 2009–January 4, 2010

Currently on display at the Whitney:
Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction through Jan. 17
Roni Horn aka Roni Horn through Jan. 24
Alice Guy Blaché: Cinema Pioneer through Jan. 24
Steve Wolfe on Paper through Nov. 29
A Few Frames: Photography and the Contact Sheet through Jan. 3

SVA’s MPS Art Therapy Department is presenting an exhibition of work by the Women Veterans Art Therapy Group titled Tears Dried Solid (slideshow). The reception and show opening are this Wednesday, Nov. 11 (click above for details).

To learn more about art therapy, one place to take a look at the American Art Therapy Association website. The Visual Arts Library has a subscription to Art Therapy – the Journal of the AATA that goes back to 1990. You can find full text articles from Art Therapy dating from 1990 to 2002 in the subscription database Academic Search Elite (available from anywhere – login in off-campus using your MySVA username/password). For more recent issues, you can search their archive here and locate the issue you need in the library’s periodical archive.
If you are researching a topic in Art Therapy, be sure to check out education databases, ERIC & the Professional Development Collection, as well as JStor.

To browse Art Therapy books in the collection, take a look at the RC 451-RC489 range on the shelves.

Other periodicals in the library:
Art Psychotherapy.
Arts in Psychotherapy.
Bulletin of Art Therapy.
Canadian Art Therapy Association Journal.

For more research tips on the subject, take a look at this guide created by the American Art Therapy Association.

As you may know, for a relatively small library (click for a map of the library) we have a number of nooks and crannies. One area you may not be familiar with is our Rare Book / Artist Book collections. They are closed shelves that are kept locked to maintain the security of the collection. But all of the items there can be checked out for use in the library. You can browse the shelves through the door windows. Alternately, if you come across a title in the catalog (vision.sva.edu) that has a location of Rare Book or Artist Book, just ask at the Reference Desk or the Circulation Desk and we will retrieve it for you.
Books may be classified as rare because they are hard to find, hence the name of the section, or have become collector’s items since they were published, or just so we ensure we always have a copy available, as with some SVA faculty and alumni productions. Artists’ Books are pieces of art in the form of a book.

The collections continue to grow and here are some of the new titles recently added:

Jeff Wall: Catalogue Raisonné 1978-2004 / edited by Theodora Vischer
TR647 .W355 2005
–

Martin Munkacsi / edited by F.C. Gundlach ; texts and research by Klaus Honnef
TR647 .M86 2006
–

Brakhage Scrapbook : Collected Writings, 1964-1980 / Stan Brakhage
PN1995 .B715 1982
–

One Thousand Drawings / Tracey Emin
NC242.E45 A4 2009
–

And for Advertising / Graphic Design students and all who are curious, take a look at the Senior Library series. Each year the BFA Advertising / Graphic Design program puts out a collection of some of the best work by that year’s graduating class. We have just added six volumes, from 2003 to 2008. Each year’s production takes a different, often ground-breaking, form. For inspiration or just to see what rules to break when your turn comes, come in and check out a volume.
NC1000 .S45 2003-2008

One of our student workers, Alysha Colangeli, created this collage to celebrate the season (with some help from Arcimboldo!). Come in and take a look, because this photo doesn’t do it justice. You’ll find the collage above the water fountain on the south side of the library.

And while you’re here, take a moment to browse our New Book Shelf, where we’ve got an ever-flowing stream of cool stuff available for you to check out.
Currently we have a crop of newly added classic jazz cds on display (from artists like John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Thelonius Monk and many more), along with the usual array of current titles on art, politics, design, graphic novels, etc.

And don’t forget the New DVD shelves.

Come in, browse and check out your choices – It’s all free!

Art – Photography – Design – Comics/Graphic Novels – on offer at low, low prices! Come take a look.

(image by Wes Benson)

Richard Wilde, chair of the BFA Advertising and Graphic Design program here at SVA, recently passed the 40 year mark of his service to SVA and its students. In honor of his decades of tutelage, a show of work by just a few of his thousands of his former students is now on display at the Visual Arts Gallery through November 7, 2009: The Wilde Years: Four Decades of Shaping Visual Culture.
Click here for a complete list of the artists/designers who have contributed to the show.
Steven Heller, chair of SVA’s MFA Design program and prolific design critic/blogger, interviewed Wilde about his career for Print Magazine.

The Visual Arts Library has several books by Wilde, including his classic, Visual Literacy (Call #: NC845 .W55), based on his course of the same name.

This year’s Best American Comics 2009, part of the venerable Best American Series family, will premiere at powerHouse Books in Brooklyn this Thursday (rsvp here: rsvp@powerhousearena.com).

The series editors are Jessica Abel and Matt Madden, two accomplished graphic novelists and comics textbook authors, as well as instructors in the Cartooning department here at SVA. This year’s guest editor is Charles Burns, author of Black Hole and cover artist for The Believer.

WHEN: Thursday, October 22 from 7–9pm
WHERE: 37 Main Street (corner of Water & Main St) · DUMBO, Brooklyn
Ph: 1.212.604.9074

Previous years in the Visual Arts Library collection:

PN6726 .B47 2006

PN6726 .B47 2007

PN6726 .B47 2008

Waltz with Bashir : a Lebanon war story by Ari Folman and David Polonsky.
PN6790.I73 .F65 2008
And we also have the film version on DVD: V-F F6717 Wal DVD

The Photographer by Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre and Frédéric Lemercier
TR820.6 .G9513 2009

The Eternal Smile : Three Stories by Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim
PN6727.Y36 E83 2009

Masterpiece Comics by R. Sikoryak
PN6727.S55 M38 2009

SVA Faculty Members:

Life Sucks by Jessica Abel *, Gabe Soria and art by Warren Pleece
PN6727.A25 L54 2008

Stuffed! by Glenn Eichler & Nick Bertozzi *
PN6727.E346 S78 2009

Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli *
PN6726.M19 A78 2009

SVA Alumnus:

Blazing Combat by Archie Goodwin with Frank Frazetta, Wally Wood, et al.
PN6727.G664 B53 2009

Along with the usual flood of great new art/animation/comics books getting added to the Visual Arts Library all the time, there are a couple of new photography series to keep your eyes out for.

The University of California’s press has a series titled “Defining Moments in American Photography” that collect and analyze important images and imagemakers.
Here are three of the titles in this series:

Lynching photographs / Dora Apel , Shawn Michelle Smith.
HV6459 .A64X 2007

On Alexander Gardner’s photographic sketch book of the Civil War / Anthony W. Lee, Elizabeth Young.
TR140.G35 L44 2007

Weegee and Naked city / Anthony W. Lee, Richard Meyer.
TR820 .L44 2008

And the from the publisher Errata Editions, their Books on Books series offers full reproductions of classic works of photography. “These are not reprints or facsimiles but complete studies of those originals. Each in this series presents the entire content, page for page, of an original master bookwork which, up until now, has been too rare or prohibitively expensive for most to experience.”

American photographs / Walker Evans ; with an essay by Lincoln Kirstein.
TR650 .E85 2008

Atget : photographe de Paris / préface par Pierre Mac-Orlan.
TR653 .A83 2008

Fait : Koweit 1991 / [Sophie Ristelhueber] ; essays by Marc Meyer and Jeffrey Ladd.
TR654 .R567 2008

In flagrante / Chris Killip ; with an essay by John Berger & Sylvia Grant.
TR653 .K55 2008