Work by Massachusetts College of Art and Design students now has a home in Boston’s SoWa district. MassArt x SoWa is a brand-new gallery devoted to art by current enrollees and alumni of the college’s graduate programs. The space arrives at a time when most college-affiliated art venues remain closed to the general public.
The inaugural MassArt x SoWA show opens Wednesday with work from eight graduating MFA students. “These are emerging artists who are experimenting,” said Lucinda Bliss, the college’s dean of graduate programs. “They’re making all kinds of work: videos, installation performances, traditional painting.”
Over the past week, Bliss has watched the installation of the gallery’s first exhibition. Work by MFA film and video candidate Sebastian Gonzalez Quintero has been a particular standout, Bliss said in a phone interview. The artist’s video projections detail his reaction to the role humans play in climate change and the environmental crisis.
Advertisement
“One of his video pieces is so poetic and gut wrenching,” Bliss said. “He did a performance where his work is projected on a big handled snowbank that then was being taken apart. It was just haunting in the most powerful way. You know, the way art can be.”
After the current show closes, the MassArt x SoWA space will turn over to 2020 graduates who never got the physical thesis show they worked toward. A full schedule of events will be available soon at sowa.massart.edu.
“We’ve learned so much from this last year and I couldn’t be more excited about the timing of this exhibit,” Bliss said of the inaugural display. “I’m really excited about the opportunity for learning. This is just the beginning.”
MASSART MFA THESIS 2021
At MassArt x SoWA, 460 Harrison Ave. May 5-June 6. sowa.massart.edu
Natachi Onwuamaegbu can be reached at natachi.onwuamaegbu@globe.com.