Students, faculty, and guests turned out en masse at the SCAD Museum of Art for the opening of "Other Situations" by Liliana Porter. The exhibition presents 30 object-based works and two video pieces by the New York-based Argentinian artist.
 
Porter and SCAD curator of exhibitions Humberto Moro reposed as the crowd coalesced. Prints and photographs lined the walls. Platforms topped with sculptural works were scrutinized by admiring attendees.
 
Moro introduced the gallery talk by describing the exhibition as "a revision" of Porter’s works from a career spanning five decades. Porter ruminated on the role of time in her creations. "I am really interested in the possibility of making simultaneous things that are fragmented," she said.
 
One of the exhibition’s thematic groupings collects several of Porter’s photographs of novel iterations of cultural icons. A Che Guevara mousepad and a Jesus keychain appear alongside a photograph titled "Joan of Arc, Elvis, Che." Miniature busts of Elvis Presley and Che Guevara are depicted with a slice of Brie from a brand named for the Maid of Orléans. As Porter previously noted, "This is what time does to heroes."

 
The bare settings of the work are intentional. "In general my work happens in an empty background, to try not to use context," she explained. "Context implies time. If you take the context away, you are able to see more directly, as a pure metaphor."
 
Porter’s installations include several from her "Forced Labor" series: Tiny figurines holding a paintbrush, a pickaxe, or a broom appear to be working on a relatively gargantuan scale.

 
"They are metaphors of us in front of tasks that are superior to our ability," Porter noted. "They don’t seem to be aware that maybe they won’t be able to succeed. That ignorance creates humor."

 
Porter discussed her small sculpture, "Disguise Dog," a canine figurine wearing a mask of another canine. "The subject of disguise is perfect for me because it is impossible to have a disguise. The mask you choose describes you."
 
Earlier this year, Porter wrote a description of one of her mixed media pieces, "Breaking News/The Way Out." Cards printed with Porter’s essay guide the viewer through "Other Situations," suggesting interpretations. The essay adds another layer to the combination of objects, drawings and photographs that comprise the exhibition.
 
The center of the gallery includes a space for viewing Porter’s video works "Matinee" and "Actualidades/Breaking News." Porter explained that her original foray into video arose from one of the subjects of her photographs, a toy that plays cymbals. She noticed the silence that followed each cymbal crash. "In order to show that silence, I have to show the noise. The only way to do it was with video."
 
At the conversation’s conclusion, the crowd mingled in the galleries. In the lobby, guests of a certain age joined General Consul Jorge López Menardi to sample Argentinian libations, courtesy of the Consulate General of Argentina in Atlanta. The art and conversation of Liliana Porter filled the evening with meaning for all.

"Other Situations" is on view through Sunday, Jan. 7, 2018 at the SCAD Musuem of Art.

Supremely savvy style site Fashionista is currently assembling their annual list of the world's top fashion schools. If you're a SCAD alumnus with a degree in fashion, take a moment to make your voice heard. And if you're here familiarizing yourself with what the SCAD School of Fashion has to offer, read on.

At the undergraduate and graduate level, SCAD fashion students prepare to lead the ever-evolving world of fashion through a rigorous curriculum anchored by creative thinking and dynamic technology. Led by Michael Fink, dean for School of Fashion, and guided by professors with extensive industry experience, students explore fashion from the conceptual to the commercial, merging technical dexterity with personal vision to develop original fashion collections.
 
The SCAD School of Fashion offers degrees in accessory design, fashion, fashion marketing and management, and luxury and fashion management. SCAD offers related minors in menswear, fashion photography, fashion journalism, jewelry, fragrance marketing and management and more, allowing students to refine their focus and build expertise in their disciplines.
 
At SCAD, students converse with critics, designers, buyers and thought leaders like Imran Amed, Norma Kamali, Robin Givhan, Brandon Maxwell and Carolina Herrera who visit SCAD's global campuses to share their experience and insight. Each year, the Style Lab Mentor program affords SCAD fashion students the opportunity to interact one-on-one with established designers like Zac Posen, Catherine Malandrino, Stephen Burrows, Rachel Roy, Christian Siriano and Rafé Totengco. Students liaise with top industry professionals during signature events SCADstyle and SCAD FASHWKND, and the many unique workshops and critiques that bring fashion elite to the university.
 
In May 2017, at the inaugural SCAD FASHWKND, 43 students debuted their collections at a runway show in Savannah, held in the courtyard of the SCAD Museum of Art, featuring a recent installation by the internationally renowned Carlos Cruz-Diez. In Atlanta, the collections were displayed in tableaux vivants throughout the third floor of the university's main building. Both SCAD FASHWKND events featured a Shop The Runway retail component, where SCAD alumni shared and sold their designs.
 
In 2017, SCAD students won 20 YMA Fashion Scholarships, more than any other university in the history of the competition. SCAD graduates have won the Supima Design Competition for two consecutive years: In 2016 womenswear designer Jeffrey Taylor (B.F.A., fashion, 2016) earned the $10,000 grand prize in the 9th annual Supima Design Competition. He was invited to show his collection at Lincoln Center during NYFW, and later showed his collection during Paris Fashion Week. In 2015 SCAD alumna Kate McKenna-Schliep (B.F.A., fashion, 2015) won the Supima competition and showed her collection during Paris Fashion Week.
 
In Atlanta, SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film hosts exhibitions of work by world-renowned designers like Oscar de la Renta and Carolina Herrera, as well as historic compendiums including “Embellished: Adornment Through the Ages” and “Shoes: Pleasure and Pain.” To elucidate the themes of each exhibition, SCAD commissions complementary films that are screened in the adjacent SCAD FASH Film Salon. Students can further their studies through the SCAD FASH permanent collection, an archive of more than 1,000 museum quality garments from designers like Oscar de la Renta, Coco Chanel, Marc Jacobs, Yves Saint Laurent, Vera Wang, and Givenchy.

Visit SCAD to learn more about the university's incomparable contributions to the world of fashion.

SCAD is proud to announce the signing of artist-angler C.J. Guest of Shelby, North Carolina to the SCAD fishing team. Guest will matriculate at the university in September, 2017, joining a SCAD fishing program building on its history-making inaugural season under the guidance of Coach Isaac Payne (B.F.A., industrial design, 2015).

Held in Poetter Hall, SCAD's flagship building, the signing ceremony was attended by SCAD executive staff, as well as Guest's parents, Timothia and Chris, and his younger brother Louis.

Guest has long been a notable presence in the world of competitive fishing, dating to his first-place finish in the 7- to 10-year-olds age division at the 2009 BASS Federation Nation Southern Divisional. At the 2016 Bassmaster High School national championships, Guest and his partner placed ninth among 175 competing teams. "I have video of C.J. fishing when he's four years old," said his father, Chris Guest. "He's always wanted that fishing rod in his hands."

A graduate of Crest High School, Guest was a varsity standout in basketball and soccer, and an academic high achiever. In 2017 he received Bassmaster North Carolina All-State High School honors. Guest's signing is the culmination of recruitment efforts by SCAD fishing coach Isaac Payne.

"Last year at the Bassmaster High School National Championships, I watched C.J. and his partner weighing in and introduced myself," Payne explained. "We spoke about lure design, and my own experience earning my bachelor's degree in industrial design here at SCAD. It was important for me to emphasize the highly specialized and advanced degree courses SCAD offers. I met C.J. again at Nationals this year, at Kentucky Lake in Paris Landing State Park in Tennessee, and we discussed the inaugural year of SCAD fishing."

In its augural season, SCAD sent two two-person teams to the 2017 Bassmaster College Series National Championship in Bemidji, Minnesota, where Daniel Kennedy and Cody Stahl placed 13th and Noah Pescitelli and Sean Hall finished 22nd in an 86-team field.

"I followed SCAD fishing online this year and saw how they were doing," C.J. said. "After getting to know Coach Payne and visiting Savannah, I knew this was the place for me."

Guest joins a co-ed team that includes the first female scholarship recipient in the history of collegiate fishing, Laura Ann Foshee, and new signing Oakley Connor, a 2017 All-American from Travelers Rest, South Carolina.

"C.J. is already actualizing his extraordinary potential as a student-athlete and we look forward his future as a SCAD artist-angler," added Payne. "The best is yet to come."

The university welcomes C.J. Guest to the SCAD family.

Deborah Mosch (M.F.A., illustration, 1991) is a SCAD foundation studies professor specializing in color theory. Here she shares her informed perspective on the remarkable "Chroma" exhibit by Carlos Cruz-Diez, on view at the SCAD Museum of Art through August 20.

Deborah Mosch: I wrote a book "Color, a love story: a color theory course companion." It's for students and anybody who wants to learn about color. My main influences are Josef Albers and Georges Seurat. Seurat had a lot to do with finding light in paint and Albers is all about color relativity. Carlos Cruz-Diez took those developments to the highest power. Cruz-Diez is so far ahead of his time.

I'm fascinated with Cruz-Diez because his work is about color. Color is a character. It's a surrounding. It is a personality. I think of color as having life.

Back in the 1940s, Cruz-Diez was thinking, 'I can't paint these ideas I have fast enough.' So he started working collaboratively with lots of people, and fast-forward to today, that's how people work. He's in his nineties now, and still has thousands of new ideas in his head.

I just can't believe how prolific he is and how many new ideas he’s come up with, especially when you think about what was unfolding in the mid-20th century when a lot of contemporary art really exploded. He had to really stick to his guns and be very strong.

He puts color in big spaces so you have to interact with it. If you look at it an inch off one side, or another side, or you get further or closer, even by a foot, it changes the experience.

The word "experience" is important with his work. That is his gift to the world. He's giving us experiences, not just a theory, an experience. Clearly his work is non-representational. The way I teach color theory is with all non-representational or non-objective imagery because I want students to think only about color so we do it in shape and line.

With his work, it's incredible that he can create so many compositions with just line. Most of his pieces don't have more than six or eight colors in them, but in how they're distributed and how they start and stop and interconnect with each other, they form or imply other shapes. A line and a few colors — it's a very simple concept really, but he puts them together over and over and over in different computations.

I can't help wondering if he ever thinks in terms of, Will this work calm my viewer down or will it activate them? He seems so activated himself and I tend to think that his work isn't meant to be peaceful. It reminds me of "2001: A Space Odyssey." It feels like another dimension.

Cruz-Diez has figured out how the brain reacts to color. He gets it so completely and he understands that it is such a big subject. His work excites me. That someone can say so much with so little is incredible.

What will air travel be like in the year 2027?

This simple prompt got the engines humming for the spring quarter SCAD Collaborative Learning Center (CLC) project with Delta Air Lines.

At a Kiah Hall kick-off meeting on March 30, ten Delta employees—including Carrie Moore, a SCAD alumna currently working at Delta in the airline's global innovation center, The Hangar—met with fifteen SCAD students chosen to participate in the project. The distilled brief: Design a better experience for Delta customers of the future. Nicole Jones, global innovation leader at Delta, added a jocular caveat: "Whatever we say, don't let it sway what you want to do."

The Delta project epitomizes SCAD CLC, where students engage with top businesses to find solutions to timely challenges. The collaborative learning opportunities are devised expressly to prepare SCAD students for successful careers.

"These CLC partnerships are some of the most important things we have to offer students," said Professor Bethany Armstrong, who along with Professor Xenia Viladas guided the SCAD/Delta CLC. "Building real world experiences is the future of education."

As the quarter progressed, students traveled to Atlanta to visit The Hangar and learn more about Delta. Founded in 1924 in Macon, Georgia as an aerial crop dusting enterprise, Delta Air Lines now operates from the global hub at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport with over 325 destinations worldwide.

SCAD CLC students explored service concepts and experience prototypes while factoring in technical trends, physical environments and social factors to create the Delta experience of tomorrow. Ten weeks and innumerable inspired white-board sessions later, the project culminated in a presentation in the SCAD MOA theater, with the Delta team in attendance.

In the future, CLC student Alex Sander explained, "Security becomes care, time is flow, and control moves to conversation." As fellow student Disharee Mathur put it: "In 2027, Delta is going to take the best care of its customers because it will know them before they get on board."

The students proffered an interactive visual rendering of a theoretical trip taken by two travelers to Sweden in the year 2027. This case study format allowed students to explain how a number of concepts will work in practice, including:

• Thread Talk: The use of "smart" textiles connecting everything from flight attendant uniforms to in-flight seating, creating a superior communication channel between flight crew, onramp staff, customers and virtual assistants.
• Delta Green: A fluid security process utilizing plant-based biometric scanning to allow customers to flow through a checkpoint without stopping to create a seamless experience on the way to the gate.
• Delta Lite: A solution to the pain points of packing and checking bags, allowing travelers to 3D print their clothes and select amenities that will be waiting for them at their destination.

Following a spirited Q&A session, Professor Xenia Viladas observed: "The students are not only able to present their ideas, but have the valuable opportunity to discuss them in real-time with the client."

"I was blown away by the presentation," said Delta's Nicole Jones. "This CLC has been an immersive chance to really hear SCAD students' new thinking and fresh perspectives. In return, we're able to expose students to the Delta brand and the challenges we face in the travel industry. It's a win-win."

Diversity of ideation derived in part from the diversity of SCAD students. The following Bees participated in the Delta CLC:

Dipali Bajaj (B.F.A., user experience design, Bangalore, India)
Marco Cirri (B.F.A., service design, Rome, Italy)
Michelle Compton (B.F.A., graphic design, Little Rock, Arkansas)
Shreya Dhawan (M.F.A., service design, Noida, India)
Disharee Mathur (B.F.A., interior design, Jaipur, India)
Craig Matola (B.F.A., industrial design, Lake Orion, Michigan)
Oluwatoyin Obasa (B.F.A., visual effects, Katy, Texas)
Natalie Ouma (B.A., interior design, Niceville, Florida)
Niket Madhav Parekh (B.F.A., service design, San Francisco, California)
Breana Russell (B.F.A., service design, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina)
Tanmay Rajiv Sabharwal (M.Arch., architecture, Thane, India)
Alex Sander (B.F.A., user experience design, Lakeland, Tennessee)
Eliska Skarolkova (M.A., design for sustainability, Prague, Czech Republic)
Abigail Toon (B.F.A., graphic design, Columbus, Georgia)
Jiayu Zhou (M.F.A., industrial design, Jiangsu, China)

"The great honor of my life is sharing in these defining moments with you," announced SCAD president and founder Paula Wallace to the 2017 graduating class of SCAD Hong Kong. "I can say with absolute certainty: All of you are career ready."

Set in the heart of the Sham Shui Po district, SCAD Hong Kong offers the largest concentration of art and design degree programs in Asia's world city. A fusion of ancient heritage and high-tech resources inspires students from around the globe who study in the former North Kowloon Magistracy building, a grand courthouse revitalized by SCAD to include a library, digital labs and studios, darkrooms, a green screen studio, and sound design and editing suites.

For commencement, the Diamond Ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong shone with accessible opulence as SCAD families came to celebrate their Bees’ big day. The conferment of degrees was followed by a reception in the hotel's three-level foyer.

Here are five memorable remarks from the Hong Kong edition of SCAD commencement 2017:

1. SCAD alumna Sofia Borromeo (B.F.A. fashion, 2010; M.A. luxury and fashion management, 2014):
"With your SCAD degree, anything is possible. Just think, I was once where you are now. After graduating, I now have my own fashion label, my own company, and the consummation of my vision. Keep this in mind as you go out into the professional world."

2. Valedictorian Mohini Khadaria (B.F.A. advertising, 2017):
"From all the early experience that shaped who I've become, I have found my final year to be the most gratifying of all. We have all forged connections that, though they may have been sparked by chance, grew into friendships that will last long after we walk out those doors today, from the final pages of our SCAD story in Hong Kong and into the new chapters around the globe."

3. Excelsus Laureate Kenny Xinda Li (M.A. photography, 2017):
"Each of us is skilled and knowledgeable in our chosen disciplines, and we all have wide-ranging interests and abilities — but like each of you, I'm just one person. That's why it's important to work with others who are experts in their fields. All together, we have expertise across the entire creative landscape. We form a community that is capable of everything."

4. Joyce Wang, award-winning interior designer, Joyce Wang Studio, SCAD Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters recipient:
"You represent the best in art and design education, and you take what you're taught and make the world a brighter place. What you have accomplished as students impresses me and portends tremendous achievement still to come in your professional careers. All of you make this university a special place indeed."

5. Douglas Young, CEO and founder of Goods of Desire (G.O.D.), SCAD Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters recipient:
"The present world order is in constant flux. What we think is the norm today will be replaced by something else very soon. From the way we dress to the movies we see to the food we eat and the music we listen to, all that will change for certain. It is up to us how we change it."

Celebrated creative visionary John Malkovich will address graduates at the Savannah College of Art and Design's Georgia campuses in Savannah and Atlanta, this Saturday, June 3. The occasion will mark the first time Malkovich has delivered a commencement address at a college or university.

"SCAD is overjoyed to welcome John Malkovich as our 2017 SCAD commencement speaker," declared Paula Wallace, SCAD president and founder. "He lives a life of distinct brilliance and intentional artistry. His knowledge and experience is vast, his achievements multiform."

SCAD's recognition of Malkovich epitomizes a belief in the ability of art to transform the world. Malkovich's career as an artistic polymath speaks directly to the vitality of the more than 100 degree programs offered at SCAD, including film and television, cinema studies, dramatic writing, fashion, fashion marketing and management, fibers, performing arts and writing.

A native of Christopher, Illinois and co-founder of the Chicago-based Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Malkovich directed or acted in more than fifty Steppenwolf productions between 1976 and 1982, including his Obie-winning triumph opposite Gary Sinise in Sam Shepard's "True West". In 1986, Malkovich directed fellow actor D.W. Moffett — currently the SCAD chair of film and television — in a "stunning revival" (the New York Times) of the Lanford Wilson drama "Balm in Gilead" at Circle Repertory Theater in New York.

Malkovich's film roles in Spike Jonze's meta classic "Being John Malkovich," Stephen Frears' "Dangerous Liaisons," Steven Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun," Paul Newman's "The Glass Menagerie," Roland Joffe's "The Killing Fields" and Joel and Ethan Coen's "Burn After Reading" are among his more than 70 big screen star turns. Performances in Wolfgang Petersen's "In the Line of Fire" and Robert Benton's "Places in the Heart" earned him nominations for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In 2002, Malkovich made his feature directorial debut with "The Dancer Upstairs." He appeared in the acclaimed feature "Dominion," which made its U.S. premiere at the 2016 Savannah Film Festival.

As a fashion designer, Malkovich is celebrated for his lissome menswear. A passionate fabric collector and selector, he has previously welcomed SCAD Lacoste students on a private tour of his prêt-à-porter collection at a pop-up boutique near SCAD's incomparable campus in Lacoste, France. His latest sartorial endeavor, John Malkovich Fashion, launched in January, 2017 with a collection including gabardine jackets, mandarin-collared shirts and a vented, tartan raincoat, as well scarves printed with Malkovich's own quixotic illustrations.

Malkovich will address graduates Saturday at 9 a.m. the Savannah Civic Center, where he will receive an honorary doctorate of humane letters. He will speak in Atlanta at 6 p.m. at Georgia World Congress Center, where he will be awarded the SCAD Étoile in recognition of his monumental creative work. The SCAD Class of 2017 is the largest in the university's history, with more than 2,400 graduates. We welcome John Malkovich to SCAD for this historic celebration.

On a warm evening on the final Friday of April, art aficionados gathered in the SCAD Museum of Art's Alex Townsend Memorial Courtyard as SCAD president and founder Paula Wallace presided over the unveiling of "Chaos Concepción,” a new sculpture by artist Jedd Novatt.

"'Chaos Concepción' arises to lift the eyes and aspirations of all who study and visit here," President Wallace declared. "Jedd Novatt's work conquers gravity, expressing the soul unbound in an eternal echo of hope."

Novatt's sculpture may have cubism and minimalism as precedents, yet the work projects its own peculiarly provocative dynamism. Conjoined notes of strength and vulnerability rise from an ebony plinth. Stainless steel boxes stack at unsettled angles.

As SCAD MOA head curator Storm Janse van Rensburg stated in his opening remarks: "Jedd creates art that challenges our expectations of scale and structure and imbues our environments with undeniable energy. He doesn't just sculpt works, he sculpts the spaces that surround."

An artist whose work is exhibited and collected internationally, Novatt has a connection to SCAD dating to 1980, when he spent a year working and studying in France at the site of what is now SCAD Lacoste. "Chaos Concepción" is the second permanent Jedd Novatt sculpture donated to SCAD, following the installation of "Chaos Mundaka" in the front green of the SCAD Atlanta's Peachtree Street campus. Furthermore, a series of Novatt's monotypes entitled "Chaos Pacific" is on view at SCAD MOA now through June 4.

Any trip to SCAD MOA is a boon. Now, in the courtyard, a new reason has arisen.