Concept / Organizers:
Kari Marboe & Claire Colette
Exhibition Juror:
Kevin B. Chen, Intersection for the Arts
Publication & Logo Design:
Gold Collective
Root Division presents MFA Now 2012, an archive project featuring over 140 Bay Area MFA Candidates and juried exhibition presenting nineteen selected artists.
According to the US News and World Report survey from 2010, the Bay Area is home to six of the top one hundred MFA Programs in Visual Arts in the country: California College of the Arts, Mills College, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco State University, Stanford University, and the University of California, Berkeley. MFA Now is an unprecedented look at these artists and institutions with the aim of promoting dialogue and archiving current art-making practices and models.
The MFA Now 2012 Archive, is an inclusionary publication of all eligible MFA candidates, released in February 2012 with a full page dedicated to each contributing MFA candidate and a compilation of essays by the organizers, Root Division, juror, and MFA program professors. Designed by the Gold Collective, this printed archive will serve to navigate the contemporary moment in Bay Area MFA programs and find connections between the artists and institutions.
Juror, Kevin B. Chen, Program Director of Visual Arts, Intersection for the Arts, selected nineteen works from the submitted archive materials to be shown in Root Division's gallery for the month of February. This Second Saturday event serves as an exhibition opening and release party for the archive project.