Newsmakers

A sculpture by Visiting Artist Tschabalala Self ’12 was unveiled in London’s Trafalgar Square on September 10. Lady in Blue stands prominently on the Square’s fourth plinth, one of the world’s best-known commission spaces for public art. The fourth plinth has been host to a rotating series of contemporary artists including Mark Wallinger, Katharina Fritsch, and David Shrigley.

The Guardian also featured Self in advance of Lady in Blue’s unveiling. Speaking about the sculpture, which the artist describes as an image of an everywoman striding forward into the future, and “a beacon that could shed light into a possible future,” she says, “it’s about there being space for all in places that were formerly weighted down by antiquated gestures, belief systems and impossibilities." The Guardian describes her work as “a lurid, vivid, super-colourful, mega-joyful celebration of everyday bodies” embodying “simplicity, joy, and above all freedom.” Lady in Blue will remain on the plinth for two years.

Self is a visiting artist in Bard’s Studio Arts Program, which provides a breadth of expanded offerings while retaining a strong core of courses that provide a firm grounding in basic techniques and principles, in an era when much contemporary art cannot be contained within the traditional categories and technology is transforming the production of visual images.

Photographer and filmmaker Spencer Vazquez ’22 has been awarded a 2027 artist’s residency from the Visual Studies Workshop, an artist-run organization that has offered more than 500 artists residencies since 1969. The residency, which will take place between February and March 2027, provides resources and space for artists at any stage of their career who are pushing disciplinary and conceptual boundaries in film, photography, or new media. Vazquez’s debut solo show, Glue Traps, was on view earlier this year at the Camera Club of New York. His work has been featured in publications including ARTnews, Hypebeast, Interlocutor, and Musee Magazine. “Vazquez's work explores the intersection of memory, digital media, and the everyday image,” writes Broadway World.

Vazquez graduated from Bard’s Film and Electronic Arts Program, which encourages interest in a wide range of expressive modes in film and electronic arts including animation, narrative and non-narrative filmmaking, documentary, performance, and installation practices. The program emphasizes imaginative engagement and the cultivation of an individual voice that has command over the entire creative process.

Choreographer Alexa West MFA ’14 was featured in ArtNews as part of their “New Talent 2026” series, following the staging of her immersive dance performance Jawbreaker. After premiering at the TONO Festival in Mexico in March, Jawbreaker was staged in August at the New York Museum of Modern Art as part of the museum’s Kravis Studio artist residency program. “West’s uncanny, Rube Goldberg-esque dances have made her one of the stars of the city’s experimental dance scene,” writes Madeleine Seidel for ArtNews. “[Jawbreaker] is a near-perfect distillation of what makes West one of America’s most exciting choreographers: kinetic movement, a hypnotic soundtrack, and props that serve as objects for the dancers to work against.” West, who studied sculpture at Bard’s Milton Avery School of the Arts, says her time in Bard’s sculpture program influenced her dance practice. “I’ve learned how to make dances from a sculptural approach in terms of material, scale, and time,” she told ArtNews.

Bard’s MFA Program is a two-year multidisciplinary program focused on individual process and work in progress, as each student confronts the conceptual and practical questions at the core of all artistic production. Each MFA candidate chooses a primary field: Moving Image, Music/Sound, Painting, Photography, Sculpture, or Writing.