Popular Culture Is Where The Pedagogy Is

Explorations of Provocation and Praxis, MFA Thesis Exhibition Kaja 'Cxzy' Andersen, Yael Azoulay, Eli Barak, AnnaLiisa Benston, Shannon Broder, D. Myntia Daniels, Sean Donovan, Delano Dunn, Ron Erlih, Noelle Fitzsimmons, Ruth Freeman, Franco Frontera, Michal Geva, Marilyn Gomez, Ragnheidur Karadottir, Georgia Lale, Younghoo Lee, Scarlett Lingwood, Susan Luss, Amalia Mourad, Sophie Parker, Juan Camilo Rodelo, Jonathan Schouela, Hyunwook Seo, Ali Shrago-Spechler, Michelle Sumaray, Marvin Touré, Richard Vivenzio, Dàreece Walker Curated by Jasmine Wahi Popular Culture Is Where The Pedagogy Is explores various foundational impetuses for art making praxis'. Bringing together nearly 30 artists from a variety of visual disciplines, the show identifies three categories by which this group of cultural practitioners frame their processes; “Observational Aesthetics”- a practice that may both objectively or subjectively regard social phenomenon through the object making; “Active Engagement”- a practice reliant on performance, and other forms of physical and participatory interaction with the artists audience as a response, commentary, or deliberately agendized means of reshaping a facet of contemporary/future society; “Aesthetic Neo-Formalism”- a methodology concerned with the idea of ‘art for art's sake’ in the contemporary context. Each of these classifications originates in the general idea of Popular Culture (defined within the exhibition as the aspects of social life, ranging from politics to mass media to art and everything in between, that are most commonly pervasive amongst a wide population). This larger concern with popular culture is what ultimately defines the exhibition's flow, and larger discourse around foundations, motivations, and inspirations for making art.