Last Art School, a project by Lindsey White
Image by Lindsey White. Courtesy of the artist.
Opening Reception: Wednesday, August 27, 6–9pm
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
In Fall 2025, the Hunter College Art Galleries will present Last Art School, an exhibition and programming series curated by Lindsey White, Arthur & Carol Kaufman Goldberg Visiting Curator and Artist in Residence. Last Art School offers a platform for investigating and documenting the current crisis moment within higher arts education. As educators, researchers, and students across the United States have been silenced, reprimanded, fired, and even deported, this project emphasizes the power of personal networks and structures of connectivity, calling upon socio-cultural histories of activism and mutual aid in a search for community empowerment and fellowship.
In Hunter College’s 205 Hudson Gallery, White creates a theatrical environment for the presentation of her own artworks, alongside those of her peers, which implicate art schools and their internal dynamics as a formidable and complex subject.
Participating artists and collections: Mario Ayala, Alex Bradley Cohen, Dewey Crumpler, Henry Fey, Whitney Hubbs, Alicia McCarthy, Sandra Ono, Ralph Pugay, Jon Rubin, Maryam Yousif, Rhoda Kellogg Children’s Art Collection, and the San Francisco Art Institute Legacy Foundation and Archive.
In addition to artworks by White’s friends and colleagues, Last Art School features a collection of finger paintings from the Rhoda Kellogg Children’s Art Collection and materials from the San Francisco Art Institute Legacy Foundation and Archive (SFAI LF+A). A pioneer in the field of child art, Rhoda Kellogg believed in the fundamental role visual language plays in the emergence of consciousness and proposed that the aim of art education should be independent and spontaneous. Archival documents and images from the SFAI LF+A serve as a case study on how creative communities can collaborate, resist, and take action in unstable political and economic moments. One of the oldest fine art schools in the country, SFAI closed its doors in 2022 after 151 years.
The lower gallery of 205 Hudson will host a community gathering space modeled after a cozy local restaurant. An integral part of White’s residency will be dynamic collaborations with student fellows and the development of free public programming, including lectures, screenings, conversations, performances, and other unusual and unexpected events. This space is also available for the MFA and MA community for class meetings, events, and hangouts. White will serve lunch one day a week for Hunter students, faculty, and staff throughout the run of the exhibition.
Last Art School also contains a recording studio and interview archive. In response to the active erasure of records and archives by the United States government, White will conduct interviews with arts educators in and around the New York City area to document the complex and critical moment facing higher education. Gallery visitors will have the chance to hear these interviews in the space.
Lindsey White is an artist and curator in San Francisco who left academia in 2023. She is the 2025 Arthur & Carol Kaufman Goldberg Visiting Curator and Artist in Residence at the Hunter College Art Galleries. This exhibition model establishes a platform for long-term visiting artist engagement and represents the start of an experimental collaboration between the galleries and the MFA Studio Art program.
Last Art School is curated by Lindsey White and organized by Katie Hood Morgan, Chief Curator and Deputy Director, Hunter College Art Galleries, with Tara Ohanian, Phi Nguyen, Aleeq Kroshian, and Amy Tidwell, and student curatorial fellows Andee Berberich and Rebecca Miralrio. Special thanks for fabrication support from Caitlyn Galloway, Nicole Hayden, Don Miller, Hunter College Art Galleries, and Cushion Works. This exhibition is made possible by The Foundation To-Life, Inc. and the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Fund.
GALLERY HOURS: Tuesday–Saturday, 12–6pm
