RISD : Rhode Island School of Design : VISITING ARTISTS

GRADUATE STUDIES: VISITING ARTISTS

RISD students benefit from the hundreds of visiting artists, designers, curators, critics and other professionals who come to campus each year and bring fresh critical perspectives to the studio dialogue. This discourse fuels a compelling mix of creative activitiy that makes RISD a rich environment for funded research and development. As a result, a growing number of partnerships has been forged with institiutions such as Brown, Columbia, Harvard and MIT; community and government organizations; and corporations and foundations.

2008 AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE
Each year Graduate Studies presents awards to students who have mastery in their particular fields of study. Jurors for the 2008 awards are Deborah Berke, Ian Berry and Julie Lasky.

Deborah Berke [RISD ’75/77, Architecture] | excellence in architecture
Deborah Berke, FAIA, creates buildings that have presence and character — that rely on a discourse between a subtle hand and bold composition to become arresting architecture. In an evolution of her “philosophy of the everyday,” which earned her international renown, her work over the past decade is decidedly of a larger scale — distinguished by mixed-use, hospitality, retail, and arts-related buildings.

Berke is a professor of architectural design at Yale University, a post she has held since 1987. Previously she taught at the University of Maryland, RISD, the University of Miami, and The Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, where she was a Fellow. Of her numerous professional contributions, Berke was for six years chair of the Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture at Columbia University and continues in her role as a founding trustee of the Design Trust for Public Space in New York City. She serves as a juror in numerous architecture and design award programs and ectures around the country.

She is the co-editor, with Steven Harris, of Architecture of the Everyday (Princeton Architectural Press, 1998). In 2009 Yale University Press will publish a book focusing on the firm's work -- the first book on a contemporary architect to be published by this esteemed academic press. In addition to her RISD degree, Berke has a Master’s degree in urban planning from The City University of New York (1984); in 2005 she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from RISD.

Ian Berry | excellence in fine arts
Ian Berry is Associate Director and The Susan Rabinowitz Malloy Curator of The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College. A specialist in contemporary art, he has organized several exhibitions for the Tang that combine collections of antique maps, scientific equipment, Edward Curtis photographs, Rube Goldberg cartoons and Shaker furniture with new works of international contemporary art. Among his many solo contemporary projects, Berry has produced exhibitions and catalogs on artists such as Jim Hodges, Alyson Shotz, Lee Boroson, Joseph Grigely, Shahzia Sikander, Nina Katchadourian, Martin Kersels and Nayland Blake.

Berry received his MA from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College and served as Assistant Curator at the Williams College Museum of Art before going to Skidmore. Recent publications include Kara Walker: Narratives of A Negress (MIT Press, 2003), Richard Pettibone: A Retrospective (Tang and Laguna, 2005) and America Starts Here: Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler (MIT Press, 2006). Forthcoming publications include Dario Robleto: Alloy of Love (University of Washington Press, 2008) and Tim Rollins and K.O.S.: A History (MIT Press, 2009).

He is the former chair of the Visual Arts Panel of The New York State Council on the Arts and serves on the artistic advisory committee for Etant Donnes — The French American Fund for Contemporary Art.

Julie Lasky | excellence in design
Julie Lasky is editor-in-chief of I.D., the award-winning magazine of international design. Before that, she was editor-in-chief of Interiors magazine, which she led to several national honors. A widely published writer and critic, she has contributed to The New York Times, Metropolis, Dwell, Architecture, Slate, Surface, The National Scholar and NPR, and is the author of two books: Borrowed Design: Use and Abuse of Historical Form (written with Steven Heller), and Some People Can’t Surf: The Graphic Design of Art Chantry. Among Lasky’s honors is a National Arts Journalism Program Fellowship at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and the Richard J. Margolis Award for writings on the cultural life of postwar Sarajevo. She recently joined the MFA design criticism faculty at the School of Visual Arts.