The Savannah College of Art and Design presents deFINE ART

The acclaimed signature series features insightful programming and new exhibitions at the SCAD Museum of Art, as the university celebrates 45 years.

SAVANNAH AND ATLANTA, GEORGIA — The Savannah College of Art and Design presents the 15th edition of SCAD deFINE ART, the university’s annual series of exhibitions, talks, tours, and celebrations with contemporary art’s most influential creators. This year’s programming, presented Feb. 26–March 1, features conversations with culture-shaping visionaries, including SCAD deFINE ART 2024 honoree Cao Fei and conceptual artist Awol Erizku, as well as special performances of Hakanaï directed by Claire Bardainne and Adrien Mondot in both Savannah and Atlanta.

In dynamic new exhibitions at the SCAD Museum of Art, today’s most resonant artists — Cao Fei and Erizku, as well as Holly Hendry, Cindy Ji Hye Kim, Iván Argote, Sujay Shah, Cammie Staros, and others — awaken inspiration, expressing the myriad ways we shape our identities, search for meaning and purpose in life, and imagine alternate realities that embrace transformation. The museum also highlights the imaginative work of artist Saul Steinberg, renowned for his drawings for The New Yorker, and welcomes prestigious fashion journalist Stefano Tonchi as guest-curator of the group show GENDERQUAKE: Liberation, Appropriation, Rejection. Exhibition programming also includes student and alumni presentations, including Power in Perspective, organized in collaboration with Leica, at Gutstein Gallery, and a painting and photography showcase at Alexander Hall. Many of the artists and special guests will join the SCAD community in person in Savannah and Atlanta for fascinating discussions and engaging experiences. SCAD will also honor alum Lavar Munroe (B.F.A., illustration, 2007) with the SCAD45 award, on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of the university’s founding.

This year’s featured artists represent distinctly global perspectives, drawing from lived experiences across geographies including China, Colombia, Ethiopia, France, Kenya, Korea, Romania, the U.K., and the U.S. In critical yet playful works, Iván Argote (b. 1983, Bogotá, Colombia; lives and works in Paris) reimagines historical monuments, challenging the collective memories and dominant histories commonly presented in public spaces. Cao Fei’s (b. 1978, Guangzhou, China; lives and works in Beijing) immersive mixed-reality installation blurs distinctions between the terrestrial and the cyber, the familiar and the futuristic.

In his debut solo museum exhibition, Awol Erizku (b. 1988, Ethiopia; lives and works in Los Angeles) focuses on pioneering American Muslim human rights activist El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X), linking ancient mythology, diasporic tradition, and contemporary culture. Holly Hendry’s (b. 1990, London) intricate diorama-like installations give life to the hidden aspects of our surroundings — elements that might be concealed from our view yet nevertheless undergird our reality. Cindy Ji Hye Kim’s (b. 1990, Incheon, Korea; lives and works in New York) site-responsive installation reflects the artist’s preoccupation with the psychological space of the unconscious, its secrets and symbols, and its narrative potential within the anatomy of an image.

In his first solo museum exhibition, Sujay Shah (b. 1991, Nairobi, Kenya; SCAD B.F.A., painting, 2013) presents bold works on canvas juxtaposing the untamable animal with Western colonial ornamentation, upending preconceived notions of order and civility. In a winding layout mirroring the labyrinth of the ancient myth of the minotaur, Cammie Staros (b. 1983, Nashville, Tenn.) engages the visual language of antiquities to explore how stories of the past are told through objects and how those objects and their meanings might change in an imagined future.

Recently gifted to the SCAD Museum of Art Permanent Collection, works from across Saul Steinberg’s (b. 1914, Râmnicu Sărat, Romania; d. 1999, New York) prolific career trace the development of his visual vocabulary and demonstrate the emotive power of his linework. Organized by Stefano Tonchi with Marta Franceschini, the group exhibition GENDERQUAKE analyzes fashion as a creative practice, examining how people have adapted, confronted, and reinvented diverse and evolving definitions of gender to materialize messages and support the expression of individual and collective identities.

To further commemorate 45 years of SCAD, the university partnered with Leica, the leading camera manufacturer and global photography brand, to present Power in Perspective at the university’s Gutstein Gallery, on view Feb. 23–April 29. The group exhibition of 45 images by SCAD student photographers explores expressions of female empowerment and is presented in collaboration with the Leica Women Foto Project and International Women’s Day.

Many of the university’s top-ranked degree programs — including sculpture, painting, photography, film, illustration, and immersive reality — are represented in this year’s exhibitions and programming. SCAD students and community members can engage with the artists and special guests through talks, class visits, celebrations, and public gatherings.

An opening reception will take place in Savannah at the SCAD Museum of Art, Tuesday, Feb. 27, at 6:30 p.m. For more information, visit scad.edu/defineart2024.

SCAD deFINE ART 2024 exhibitions

Sujay Shah
The Slant of Thirsting Mouths | On view through April 28
For his first solo museum exhibition, artist Sujay Shah (SCAD B.F.A., painting, 2013) presents bold, colorful paintings that depict wild animals in lush domestic interiors. In Shah’s works, fauna native to his homeland — lions, zebras, gazelles, leopards, and wildebeest — express their feral nature in spaces adorned with big-game taxidermy hunting trophies and Victorian-style furnishings commonly found in luxury tourist safari lodges in Africa. By juxtaposing the untamable animal with Western colonial ornamentation, Shah upends preconceived notions of order and civility.

Saul Steinberg
Drawing, Looking, Living | On view through June 10
The SCAD Museum of Art celebrates the ingenuity and spirit of famed artist Saul Steinberg, presenting a selection of his drawings, prints, and sculptures generously gifted to the museum by The Saul Steinberg Foundation. Steinberg is perhaps best known for his drawings that were published in The New Yorker throughout the mid-to-late 20th century. This exhibition illuminates the artist’s process, focusing on his extraordinary ability to communicate complex ideas through accessible pictures. Works from across Steinberg’s prolific career are organized in vignette displays that trace the development of his visual vocabulary and demonstrate the emotive power of his linework. Made in response to the artist’s own turbulent contemporary moment, yet expressed with flair, a zest for life, and a sense of humor remarkably intact, each work on view is a creative feat that continues to inspire and profoundly resonate today.

Cammie Staros
Sunken City | On view through June 24
Cammie Staros engages the visual language of antiquities to examine the role objects play in understanding culture. Staros references Greco-Roman artifacts to reimagine age-old expressions of grand Western narratives, playfully mixing materials like ceramic, acrylic, marble, and neon. She incorporates systems of display as integral parts of her sculptures and installations, simultaneously exploring how stories of the past are told through objects and how those objects and their meanings might change in an imagined future.

Sunken City presents Staros’ work in a winding layout, mirroring the labyrinth of the ancient myth of the minotaur, which has been a recent source of inspiration for the artist. Within this structure, Staros presents new ceramic vessels, carved marble sculptures, and wall hangings meticulously conjoining forms cast from Greek coins. Adorned with delicate chains resembling spiderwebs, they evoke the eventual decay of even the most valued systems of functional human societies.

GENDERQUAKE: Liberation, Appropriation, Rejection
Group exhibition | On view through July 2
With its unique relationship to time, fashion functions as a barometer, detecting and often anticipating societal and cultural shifts. As creative practice, fashion is also used to experiment with and express the performance of identity, clothing the body in ideas and concepts that either conform to or resist diverse and evolving definitions of gender. GENDERQUAKE: Liberation, Appropriation, Rejection uses fashion as a privileged lens to analyze how people have adapted, confronted, and reinvented these notions.

Distilled in shapes and silhouettes, gender stereotypes — and challenges to these stereotypes — are explored through iconic garments representing either specific historical moments or timeless stances. Spanning the beginning of the 20th century to today, and including designs by Mariano Fortuny, Chanel, Christian Dior, Mary Quant, Paco Rabanne, Rudi Gernreich, Jean Paul Gaultier, Kim Jones for Fendi, Versace, and Comme des Garçons, GENDERQUAKE invites viewers to acknowledge the ability of fashion to materialize messages and support the expression of individual and collective identities. GENDERQUAKE is guest-curated by Stefano Tonchi with Marta Franceschini.

Cindy Ji Hye Kim
Silhouettes in Lune | On view through July 29
Cindy Ji Hye Kim presents Silhouettes in Lune, a site-responsive installation of paintings, sculptures, and a hand-drawn mural that spans the upper portion of the gallery. The exhibition reflects the artist’s preoccupation with the psychological space of the unconscious, its secrets and symbols, and its narrative potential within the anatomy of an image.

Kim’s spectral paintings are created on translucent silk, revealing the silhouettes of their intricately shaped stretchers on the opposite side. These paintings are suspended from the ceiling alongside carved wooden archways, creating paths to be navigated by viewers, while simultaneously presenting enigmatic images that slip between tangible and obscure. Executed predominately in softly rendered shades of gray with subtle touches of color, they depict human figures in relation to support systems like scaffolding and artist’s easels — structures that function similarly to stretcher bars: skeletal, ghostlike, and often overlooked yet integral to the act of creation.

Above her floating works, Kim adorns a frieze at the top of the gallery walls. Only viewable from afar, the frieze depicts a procession of swirling clocks and numbers, as well as the artist’s signature characters in a reimagination of a phenakistoscope, an animation device from the early 19th century. The mural is further adorned with images of Kokdu, a carved funerary figure that is placed on biers to guide the dead to the afterlife in Korean tradition. Presented on a continuous horizontal strip, the imagery collapses notions of time, depicting both the physical world and spaces beyond.

SCAD deFINE ART 2024 Painting and Photography Showcase
Group exhibition | On view Feb. 16–March 24 | Alexander Hall Gallery
In connection with the university’s annual SCAD deFINE ART event series, Alexander Hall Gallery presents the first SCAD deFINE ART Painting and Photography Showcase, an exhibition of works by graduate students nominated by SCAD faculty and juried by SCAD Museum of Art curators. The works on view exemplify the creativity and ingenuity of these two degree programs, introducing viewers to the next generation of innovative artists and the art of tomorrow.

Iván Argote
The Burden of the Invisible | On view Feb. 21–July 29
In The Burden of the Invisible, multidisciplinary artist Iván Argote presents critical yet playful works that challenge collective memories and the narrow, dominant histories commonly presented in public spaces. Through sculpture, film, painting, and photography, the artist reimagines historical monuments in Savannah and around the world, reflecting on their purpose and proposing alternate realities. Argote’s new installation Señores creates an uncanny scene, grouping archetypal statues in states of decay and overgrown with various plants. His film Levitate and recent series of concrete paintings also contend with monuments’ supposed permanence and their militaristic iconography, revealing how notions of power and domination are present within our history and daily lives. By representing real sites of commemoration, albeit fictitiously and satirically, Argote advocates for decentralized, constantly evolving public spaces that acknowledge other narratives.

SCAD x Leica: Power in Perspective
Group exhibition | On view Feb. 23–April 29 | Gutstein Gallery
In Power in Perspective, SCAD student photographers convey the limitless ways women harness strength, resilience, and lived experience to challenge societal norms, break barriers, create change, and exist freely. The 45 photographs on view were selected by a jury of ambassadors from Leica, the leading camera manufacturer and global photography brand. Embodying ideas, scenes, or stories of empowerment, these works offer diverse interpretations through formal portraits, candid moments, or symbolic imagery that demonstrate how women uniquely shape their communities and the world at large. Celebrating 45 years of SCAD, the exhibition is presented in partnership with Leica as part of SCAD deFINE ART 2024 in connection with the Leica Women Foto Project and International Women’s Day.

Holly Hendry
Watermarks | On view Feb. 26–June 24
Sculptor Holly Hendry approaches the SCAD Museum of Art’s historic edifice as a porous network of passages and conduits. Framed within the glass vitrines on the building’s façade, the artist’s new diorama-like installations offer imagined cross-sections of the museum’s inner workings and infrastructure. Each work evokes looped industrial pipes, deflated mechanical gears, and strange anatomical forms to encourage reflection on the relationships between sculpture, the human body, and the built and natural environment.

In particular, Hendry focuses on the theme of flowing water, referring both to the liquid movements found across Savannah’s aquatic landscape and to our human anatomy. Some of her caricature-like sculptures appear to be inundated by floods, while others undulate and tumble in wave-like formations or leak teardrop-shaped blown glass drips. The artworks’ titles also reiterate this intermingling of body and water, referencing lines from Ovid’s story of the water nymph Cyane, who dissolves in her own tears — an apt metaphor for the effects of the global climate crisis and rising sea levels. Hendry’s richly detailed creations give life to the hidden aspects of our surroundings — elements that might be concealed from our view yet nevertheless undergird our reality.

Awol Erizku
X | On view Feb. 26–July 3
In his debut solo museum exhibition, Awol Erizku focuses on pioneering American Muslim human rights activist El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) as a subject of personal inspiration and complex cultural significance. Erizku views the historic figure as a metaphorical prism of faith, masculinity, transformation, and a vessel for truth. This ambitious exhibition is composed of new and recent works by Erizku, including iconic photographs, sculptures, works on paper, a powerful film, and an installation of a rare historic manuscript. Together, they collectively convey the artist’s multidisciplinary practice and dynamic approach to a diverse range of media. Presented in the SCAD Museum of Art’s Walter and Linda Evans Center for African American Studies, the exhibition critiques the Eurocentric canon of art and history, with Malcolm X serving as a key figure connecting the U.S. and Africa. Erizku posits his singular aesthetic as a means to link ancient mythology, diasporic tradition, and contemporary culture as an antidote to closed-mindedness — striving toward Malcolm X’s late-life universalism and dedication to the “overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood.”

Cao Fei
At the Edge of Superhumanity | On view Feb. 26–July 29
Since the early 2000s, SCAD deFINE ART honoree Cao Fei has produced forward-thinking work that acutely responds to and reflects on — in real time — shifts in our perception and experience of reality during periods of rapid globalization, urban development, and technological advancement. A pioneer of creating digital worlds, Cao Fei transforms two galleries at the SCAD Museum of Art into an immersive multimedia installation featuring live-action films, as well as virtual, augmented, and mixed-reality environments for visitors to explore. Blurring distinctions between the terrestrial and the cyber, the familiar and the futuristic, Cao Fei reveals how the spaces we inhabit shape our identities and social interactions, and ultimately redirect our search for meaning and purpose in life.

SCAD deFINE ART 2024 schedule of events

All events take place at the SCAD Museum of Art, 601 Turner Blvd., Savannah, unless otherwise noted, and are free and open to the public.

Monday, Feb. 26, 2 P.M.
Artist talks with Cindy Ji Hye Kim and Holly Hendry
Join Cindy Ji Hye Kim and Holly Hendry for two artist talks that examine the motivations behind their new exhibitions. Kim addresses the psychological motifs that inform her otherworldly paintings and new site-specific mural in Silhouettes in Lune. Hendry offers insight on the installation of Watermarks in the museum’s street-facing vitrines, with each sculpture appearing to reveal an imaginative view into the inner workings and infrastructure of the building’s systems and networks.

Monday, Feb. 26 2 P.M.
Atlanta keynote lecture with Awol Erizku
SCADshow Stage 2, 1470 Spring St., Atlanta, Ga.
On the occasion of his first solo museum exhibition, X, at the SCAD Museum of Art, Awol Erizku will deliver a keynote lecture at SCAD Atlanta. Gain insight on Erizku’s impressive career as he discusses his multidisciplinary artistic practice and the inspiration behind his compelling work.

Tuesday, Feb. 27 11 A.M.
Artist talks with Cammie Staros and Awol Erizku
Join artists Cammie Staros and Awol Erizku for an in-depth conversation exploring their new exhibitions. Journey through Sunken City with Staros as she speaks on her use of both traditional and contemporary sculptural practices and techniques to evoke ancient Greco-Roman narratives that have shaped many aspects of Western culture. Erizku takes guests through X, his first solo museum exhibition, a multimedia display centering the American Muslim activist Malcolm X as a subject of personal inspiration and complex cultural significance.

Tuesday, Feb. 27 6:30 P.M.
Opening party
Join the SCAD Museum of Art to celebrate exciting new exhibitions at the opening party for SCAD deFINE ART 2024! Meet and mingle with culture-shaping visionaries like honoree Cao Fei and artists Iván Argote, Awol Erizku, Holly Hendry, Cindy Ji Hye Kim, Sujay Shah, and Cammie Staros. Explore imaginative works by Saul Steinberg and norm-defying fashions in the group show GENDERQUAKE. Experience the dynamic transformation of large-scale canvases by student artists from the university’s illustration, animation, and immersive reality programs during a live-action drawing challenge in the museum’s Alex Townsend Memorial Courtyard.

Tuesday, Feb. 27 8 P.M.
Hakanaï performance by company Adrien M & Claire B
Close out the SCAD deFINE ART 2024 opening party with a special presentation of Hakanaï, an ephemeral choreographed light performance based on physical movement modeling directed by Claire Bardainne and Adrien Mondot.

Wednesday, Feb. 28 11 A.M.
Artist talk with Iván Argote
Join artist Iván Argote and SCAD Museum of Art assistant curator Haley Clouser as they discuss his new exhibition The Burden of the Invisible. In his recent paintings, sculpture, and film, Argote re-envisions public spaces and historical monuments around the world. His multidisciplinary practice encourages contemplation on the narrowed histories public spaces and objects often commemorate while offering the possibility to reflect multiple narratives.

Wednesday, Feb. 28 2 P.M.
Arts and culture journalism panel
Join prominent writers, editors, and critics as they share how arts and culture journalism offers an expansive career of curiosity and discovery. The panelists will provide guidance on starting and sustaining a writing practice, including pitching stories to publications and strategies for freelancing, as they reflect on how their personal interests and specializations inform their work. The conversation also includes advice for artists on positioning and marketing themselves in the professional art world through bios, statements, press releases, and more.

Wednesday, Feb. 28 5 P.M.
Bronze pour with Cammie Staros
SCAD Sculpture Studio, 1280 Peachtree St. NE, Atlanta
Join the SCAD Atlanta sculpture department and artist Cammie Staros to view a live bronze pour of one of Staros’ original creations. Watch as molten metal is poured in molds and cast as a bronze sculpture, while Staros shares insight on her practice and the project.

Wednesday, Feb. 28 5 P.M.
Keynote conversation with SCAD deFINE ART 2024 honoree Cao Fei and presentation of the SCAD45 award to Lavar Munroe
Trustees Theater, 216 E. Broughton St., Savannah
On the occasion of her solo exhibition At the Edge of Superhumanity at the SCAD Museum of Art, SCAD deFINE ART 2024 honoree Cao Fei joins New York-based art historian and curator RoseLee Goldberg for this year’s keynote conversation. Looking back at highlights of Cao Fei’s career, they will contextualize the works on view, discussing the artist’s approach to unearthing the past, engaging with the present, and imagining the future. SCAD alum Lavar Munroe (B.F.A., illustration, 2007) will also be presented with the SCAD45 award.

Wednesday, Feb. 28 6 P.M.
Power in Perspective opening reception
Gutstein Gallery, 201 E. Broughton St., Savannah
Join SCAD in partnership with Leica, the leading camera manufacturer and global photography brand, for a celebration of the group exhibition Power in Perspective, featuring 45 images by SCAD student photographers. Selected by a jury of Leica ambassadors, the works on view embody ideas, scenes, or stories of empowerment, offering diverse interpretations through formal portraits, candid moments, or symbolic imagery that demonstrate how women uniquely shape their communities and the world at large. The reception immediately follows the SCAD deFINE ART 2024 keynote conversation with honoree Cao Fei at Trustees Theater.

Thursday, Feb. 29 2 P.M.
Master class with SCAD alum Lavar Munroe
River, 640 Indian St., Savannah
In this special master class, SCAD45 award honoree Lavar Munroe (SCAD B.F.A., illustration, 2007) shares insight on the creative process and reflects on the personal dimension of his practice. Munroe’s hybrid works combine painting and relief sculpture, engaging conceptions of love, magic, and utopia with fantastical, dreamlike imagery. He is joined in conversation by Honor Bowman, dean of the SCAD Schools of Fine Arts and Visual Communication, followed by a Q&A. This event is open exclusively to SCAD Card holders and SCAD Museum of Art members.

Thursday, Feb. 29 5 P.M.
Painting and Photography Showcase opening reception
Alexander Hall, 668 Indian St., Savannah
Connect with exhibiting student artists at the opening reception for the inaugural SCAD deFINE ART 2024 Painting and Photography Showcase. Juried by SCAD Museum of Art curators, the works on view capture contemporary explorations in painting and photography by a new wave of innovative, emerging artists. Get to know these fresh talents and their mentoring faculty members as we celebrate their achievements.

Friday, March 1 7 P.M.
Hakanaï performance by company Adrien M & Claire B
SCADshow, 1470 Spring St., Atlanta
Experience the fleetingness of dreams in Hakanaï, directed by Claire Bardainne and Adrien Mondot. In this minimalist transposition of images drawn from the imaginary realm, a haiku of choreography is performed by Japanese dancer Akiko Kajihara within a translucent cube that defies the senses, evolving through live projected motion media based on physical movement modeling with a soundscape by Christophe Sartori and Loïs Drouglazet. A space where the impossible becomes possible and all physical points of reference and certitudes are shaken, the immersive environment and the very real movements that ground it in our reality embody the elusiveness of the human condition.

SCAD Museum of Art

The SCAD Museum of Art features more than 10 dynamic gallery spaces presenting exhibitions and commissioned works by international emerging and established artists. The museum serves visitors and students alike, enriching both the high caliber of education at SCAD and the cultural life of the Savannah community and beyond. Exhibitions range from painting, sculpture, and photography to digital media, fashion, and jewelry, complementing the artistic disciplines offered at the university. The museum also hosts public programming year-round, including lectures, gallery talks, workshops, and film screenings.

SCAD MOA has presented exhibitions by artists including Miya Ando, Radcliffe Bailey, Nick Cave, Doreen Lynette Garner, Katharina Grosse, Subodh Gupta, Hassan Hajjaj, Chase Hall, Alfredo Jaar, Isaac Julien, Shirin Neshat, Rashaad Newsome, Raúl de Nieves, Lorraine O’Grady, Ebony G. Patterson, Rose B. Simpson, Carrie Mae Weems, Kehinde Wiley, and Saya Woolfalk, as well as site-specific installations by Rachel Feinstein, Jorge Pardo, Odili Donald Odita, Daniel Arsham, Jose Dávila, and others.

An award-winning architectural icon, the museum attracts visitors from around the world to the heart of Savannah’s vibrant downtown historic district and incorporates the oldest surviving pre-Civil War railroad depot into its striking contemporary design. Recognized with awards from the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, the Congress for the New Urbanism, the International Interior Design Association, and the Historic Savannah Foundation, the museum received the American Institute of Architects Honor Award for Architecture, a pinnacle achievement.

Established in 2011, the museum’s Walter and Linda Evans Center for African American Studies celebrates the imaginative breadth and expressive legacy of African American art and culture. In the decade since its founding, the Evans Center and SCAD MOA have presented internationally heralded exhibitions focused on the legacies of Elizabeth Catlett, Frederick Douglass, Aaron Douglas, and Jacob Lawrence, as well as contemporary exhibitions by artists including Hank Willis Thomas, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Matthew Angelo Harrison, and Kenturah Davis. Visit scadmoa.org.

SCAD: The University for Creative Careers

SCAD is a private, nonprofit, accredited university, offering 100 graduate and undergraduate degree programs across locations in Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia; Lacoste, France; and online via SCADnow. SCAD enrolls more than 17,500 undergraduate and graduate students from more than 120 countries. The future-minded SCAD curriculum engages professional-level technology and myriad advanced learning resources, affording students opportunities for internships, professional certifications, and real-world assignments with corporate partners through SCADpro, the university’s renowned research lab and prototype generator. SCAD also has earned top rankings for degree programs in interior design, architecture, film, fashion, digital media, and more. Career success is woven into every fiber of the university, resulting in a superior alumni employment rate. A 2023 study found that 99% of SCAD graduates were employed, pursuing further education, or both within 10 months of graduation. SCAD provides students and alumni with ongoing career support through personal coaching, alumni programs, a professional presentation studio, and more.