Special Projects

The Kossak Program funds one of a kind events that specifically involve painting. Collaborations with The Artist’s Institute have have brought  artists Joe Baer, Lucy McKenzie and Carolee Schneemann to Hunter as Kossak Artists in Residence in the Spring of 2011, the Fall of 2013, and the Fall of 2015 respectively. During her residency, Lucy McKenzie led a series of sessions with MFA students on the topic of decorative painting as a tool in contemporary art. In the Fall of 2017, Kossak Artist in Residence Gary Stephan met with a group of twelve MFA students over five weeks in late October and November in his nearby studio, in addition to conducting individual studio visits at 205 Hudson with those participating. Major public lectures accompanied all of these residencies. Faculty requests to bring painters to a class session in any area of the department are funded under this heading. Answering a need felt by both faculty and students, Figure Drawing sessions, six per semester, have been supported here. Kossak Special Projects funded panelist fees and other expenses for a 2012 forum on painting moderated by Katy Siegel in discussion with Dana Schutz, Merlin James, Raphael Rubinstein and Richard Shiff as part of that semester’s MFA thesis exhibition , and supported public programming for the Sanford Wurmfeld exhibition at the Times Square Gallery in the Spring of 2013. Special Projects covered the expenses of a small group of students to travel to see a major Fernand Leger exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art the following fall, and supported the bus rental for a student trip to Bard in September of 2014, led by Carrie Moyer, to view the survey exhibition of Amy Sillman at the Hessel Museum of Art.