May 8, 2002

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Brien McDaniel, Senior Press Officer
401 454-6342, bmcdanie@risd.edu

Note to the Media: In celebration of their academic achievement, many of RISD’s graduates creatively reconstruct their caps and gowns into works of art. This highly individualized self-expression adds improvisational excitement to the ceremony. To attend RISD’s Commencement, contact Brien McDaniel at 401 454-6342 by Friday, June 7, 2002.

RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN COMMENCEMENT TO BE HELD ON SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2002

RISD’s 119th Commencement will be held outdoors on South Main Street (between College and Waterman streets), beginning at 10am

Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degrees will be conferred on Szymon Bojko, Ph.D.; Henry Louis Gates Jr., Ph.D.; Ann Hamilton; Pauline Trigère

Henry Louis Gates Jr., Ph.D., will deliver commencement address

PROVIDENCE, RI — Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) will hold its 119th Commencement on Saturday, June 8, 2002, outdoors on South Main Street (between College and Waterman streets), beginning at 10am. At the ceremony, RISD will confer approximately 120 graduate-level degrees and 490 Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees. Additionally, the college will confer Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degrees on Szymon Bojko, Ph.D., retired RISD Liberal Arts Professor; Henry Louis Gates Jr., Ph.D., W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of Humanities at Harvard University; Ann Hamilton, internationally known artist; and Pauline Trigère (awarded posthumously), one of the most influential apparel designers of the 20th century. Henry Louis Gates Jr., Ph.D., will deliver the commencement address. Immediately following the ceremony, a reception for the new RISD alumni will take place on Benefit Street.

RISD’s 2002 Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degree recipients are:

Henry Louis Gates Jr., Ph.D.
Cultural critic Henry Louis Gates Jr., Ph.D. is the W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of Humanities at Harvard University and chair of its Afro-American Studies program. He has written 12 books, including Figures in Black: Words, Signs and the “Racial” Self (Oxford University Press, 1987); The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism (Oxford University Press, 1988), 1989 winner of the American Book Award; and Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars (Oxford University Press, 1992). Most recently, he edited The Bondwoman’s Narrative (Warner, 2002) by Hannah Crafts, which he acquired at an auction of African Americana last year. The book is thought to be, in his words, “possibly the first novel written by a black woman and definitely the first novel written by a woman who had been a slave.” He has also authored Colored People: A Memoir (Knopf, 1994), which traces his childhood experiences in a small West Virginia town in the 1950s and 1960s; The Future of the Race (Knopf, 1996), co-authored with Cornel West; and Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man (Random House, 1997). Dr. Gates has also edited several anthologies, including The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (W.W. Norton, 1966); and the Oxford-Schomburg Library of Nineteenth Century Black Women Writers (Oxford, 1991). Additionally, he is co-editor of Transition magazine. Dr. Gates’s publications include a 1994 cover story for Time magazine on the new black Renaissance in art, as well as numerous articles for The New Yorker. He earned his M.A. and his Ph.D. in English literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge, and a B.A. summa cum laude from Yale University in 1973 in English language and literature. Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard University, Dr. Gates taught at Yale, Cornell and Duke Universities. He is a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the George Polk Award for Social Commentary, the Chicago Tribune Heartland Award, the Golden Plate Achievement Award and has been on Time’s “25 Most Influential Americans” list.

Szymon Bojko, Ph.D.
Art historian and cultural scholar Szymon Bojko first traveled to RISD from his native Poland in 1984 to lecture on modern European art and culture. Within two years, this elderly statesman had instigated an avant-garde happening at RISD that brought the world’s major art movements alive for students. Over the next 13 years, Bojko won a passionate following by collaborating with students and fellow faculty to produce the annual RISD Cabaret, a series of original theater productions based largely on his own extensive research and travels. In 1992, he entrusted the RISD Library with his prized collection of 20th century Polish posters, dating from 1949 to 1980, and in 1999, his collected materials from Solidarity before retiring from teaching in 2001. Last spring, the RISD Library celebrated Szymon Bojko’s life of teaching and scholarship with an exhibition entitled Life and Legends of Szymon Bojko.

Ann Hamilton
Highly respected for her video and installation art, Ann Hamilton’s installations favor the kind of visceral knowledge delivered through smell and touch, as well as through primary experiences of hearing and vision. Hamilton distrusts most written and spoken language, even as she exploits it in her work. Ann Hamilton studied textile design at the University of Kansas (B.F.A., 1979) before receiving her M.F.A. in sculpture from Yale University in 1985. From 1985-1991, she taught on the faculty of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Since 1992, she has made her home in Columbus, OH. Hamilton represented the United States at the São Paulo Bienal in 1991 and at the Venice Biennale in 1999. In addition to environmental projects created for museums and exhibition spaces from Los Angeles to Tokyo. In 1993, she was the only visual artist to receive a MacArthur Fellowship (1993), an especially significant honor given her relatively young age. Her other numerous honors and awards include an NEA Visual Arts Fellowship (1993), the Skowegan Medal for Sculpture (1992), Awards in the Visual Arts (1992), a Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship (1989), a NY Dance as Performance “Bessie” Award (1988), and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Award. Her work is represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York City; the Tate Gallery in London, England; the Musée d’Art Contemporain in Lyon, France; and most recently, The RISD Museum, which presented an exhibition of her work earlier this year entitled, By Mouth and Hand: Ann Hamilton, 1990-2001. Ann Hamilton is represented by Sean Kelly Gallery in New York City.

Pauline Trigère
As one of the most influential fashion designers of the 20th century, Pauline Trigère is best known for combining European couture skills with a pragmatic American vision to create her now-classic coats and dresses. Having introduced the reversible coat, wool evening dresses, mobile collars, black dresses with sheer tops, and sleeveless and cape-collared coats, Trigère had a reputation for flawless tailoring, which won her four Coty American Fashion Critics Awards, and induction into the Coty Hall of Fame. Her business lasted over fifty years to become the longest-running house in Seventh Avenue history. In 1993, the Council of Fashion Designers of America honored Trigère with their Lifetime Achievement Award. A native of France, she was also given the silver and vermeil medals of the City of Paris, and the Legion of Honor in December 2001. At 92, Trigère continued to design; her most recent venture was a sleek line of accessories for seniors. Her vintage clothing has seen a popular revival in recent years, especially among Hollywood’s younger actresses; and the perfume she introduced in 1973, Liquid Chic, is still in production. Metropolis, The New York Times, and other major publications have featured Trigère and her work in recent months. A graduate of Paris’s College Victor Hugo, she first worked in the salon of Martial et Armand, then moved to the United States in 1937. Trigère continued to work until her death, at 93, in March 2002.

RISD Commencement 2002 related activities:

Exhibition featuring the work of RISD alumni Suzi Cozzens (’99) and Katherine Lovell (’84)
This exhibition will feature work by Suzi Cozzens, graphic designer for the Providence Public Library and Katherine Lovell, faculty member for RISD’s Continuing Education program. Cozzens’ small-scale assemblages are made from bits of text and images, combined to create precious wall-mounted fine-art boxes. Lovell’s fine-art paintings are surrealistic combinations of natural and man-made objects.
Thursday, May 9 through June 10, 2002
risd|works, 10 Westminster Street, Providence
Hours: Monday-Saturday, 10am-6pm; open until 9pm on Friday, June 7 and Saturday, June 8; Sunday, June 9, 10am-4pm.
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 16, 2002, Gallery Night Providence, 6-7:30pm
Information: 401 277-4949

Senior Film/Animation/Video Festival
Wednesday, May 22-Sunday, May 26, 2002
RISD Auditorium (Market Square, corner of South Main and College streets)
7pm each evening
Tickets: $5 general public, $3 senior citizens and students
Information: 401 454-6233

Voila: Work by MFA Degree Candidates in Sculpture
Tuesday, May 28-Saturday, June 8, 2002
Alice Building, 236 Westminster Street, Providence
Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 1-6:00pm
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 23, 2002, 6:30-9pm
Information: 401 454-6190

RISD Graduate Student Exhibition
Contemporary issues and practices surface in new work by RISD graduates receiving Master of Fine Arts degrees in ceramics, furniture design, glass, graphic design, jewelry and metalsmithing, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture and textiles; Master of Landscape Architecture, and Master of Industrial Design.
Frida, May 24-Sunday, June 9, 2002
The RISD Museum, 224 Benefit Street, Providence
Hours: Tuesday-Sunday, 10am-5pm
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 23, 5:30-7:30pm
Information: 401 454-6500

Exhibit on RISD’s Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts Degree Recipients
An exhibit on Szymon Bojko, Ph.D.; Henry Louis Gates Jr., Ph.D.; Ann Hamilton; and Pauline Trigère, RISD’s 2002 Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degree recipients.
Tuesday, May 28-Saturday, June 8, 2002
The RISD Library, 236 Benefit Street, Providence
Hours: May 28, 29 and 30, 8:30am-11pm; May 31, 8:30am-8pm; June 3-7, 8:30am-6pm; June 8, 12-3pm; closed June 1 and 2
Information: 401 454-6225

Senior Invitational: Work by RISD Graduating Seniors
Thursday, June 6-Sunday, June 9, 2002
Woods-Gerry Gallery, 62 Prospect Street, Providence
Hours: Friday and Saturday, 10am-4pm; Sunday, 2-5pm
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 6, 2002, 6-7:30pm
Information: 401 454-6141

RISD’s Graduate Student Galleries
Sol Koffler Gallery, 30 North Main Street, 1st Floor, Providence
Monday, June 3-Friday, June 7, 2002
This exhibition, entitled Interdisciplined, highlights work by students in RISD’s graduate interdisciplinary critique class
Hours: Monday-Friday, 12-6pm
Information: 401-743-2938

Graduate Summer Show,
Market House Gallery, 4 South Main Street, 1st Floor, Providence
Monday, June 3-Friday, June 7, 2002
The exhibition features work by RISD graduate students from this past year
Hours: Monday-Friday, 10am-4pm
Information: 401 743-2938

Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) has earned a worldwide reputation as the preeminent art and design college in the country. Today, with more than 16,000 alumni, the college enrolls approximately 1,800 undergraduates and 275 graduate students from the United States and more than 47 countries, offering degree programs in the fine arts, architecture and design disciplines and art education. Academic programs include research and design initiatives, the exploration of art criticism and contemporary cultural concerns as well as international exchange programs. Each year, RISD hosts prominent and accomplished artists, critics and authors to its campus. Included within the college is The RISD Museum, housing 80,000 works of art in its permanent collection. RISD Information: 401 454-6100