This Parsons’ Gallery Space Is the New School’s Secret Paradise

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Mar 10, 2016

Within the New School lies a gallery space that is not only open to the public, but a place for students and faculty alike to display works of their own.

The Parsons building on 66 5th Avenue is home to the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, a New School gallery where students and faculty have the ability to curate their own exhibit. The previous exhibition, Dress and Emotion, was a three-year long research project done by a professor with the both Lang and Parsons students. The Design Center houses various exhibitions done by professionals, teachers, and students, ranging from design to the humanities.

The facility was funded by Sheila Johnson, the first black American female billionaire in the world. Johnson is also a New School trustee and chair of the Parsons’ board of governors. The center, housed inside the 66 5th Avenue Parsons building, holds two galleries. The Arnold and Sheila Aronson Gallery in the front of the building and the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery, which is a bigger space in the back.
“Both are intended to bring together art, design, and the humanities in conversation with the world,” said Radhika Subramaniam,director and chief curator of the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center. The space has been open since 2008 and has hosted several exhibits ranging from the birth of Cuban socialism to a 10 year MFA alum photography exhibition.

Inside the Arnold and Sheila Aronson Gallery, of the Shelia C. Johnson Design Center. Photo by Julia Himmel.

The smaller of the two spaces, the Arnold and Sheila Aronson Gallery, or the Aronson Gallery for short, is home to the majority of the student and faculty curated exhibits. The process of submission and selection to host an exhibition in the gallery takes about a year. Anyone interested in creating an exhibition in the space may submit a proposal to the Design Center in December. After a thorough review process the Design Center staff makes a decision. Subramaniam and her curatorial team then provide art direction plus a $1,000 starter budget for exhibitions. “We help them develop the project into something that could be in an exhibition,” said Subramaniam.
One of the most recent exhibitions was led by Fiona Dieffenbacher, the BFA director and professor of Fashion Design at Parsons. Her project was Dress and Emotion:The Exhibition, which was a three-year long research project that Dieffenbacher worked on with Lang and Parsons students. The project started as a personal faculty research project with the help of a research fund provided by Parsons. Over the years different funding was awarded to the project and among them was a fund for students.

One component of the exhibition was the ‘profiles’, which featured a range of people including New School Security Guards. Photo by Julia Himmel.

“Parsons really wanted to bring students into that space as well,” said Dieffenbacher. Through the Parsons Faculty Research Fund, students are recruited to be research assistants through personal connection, recommendation, or online. Over the course of the three years, Dieffenbacher had at least two currently enrolled students each semester who were paid a stipend through the research fund.
What started as an afterthought of a recently finished book she wrote, Dieffenbacher thought a lot about the relationship between dress and emotion. “I just didn’t feel like anyone captured the concept of emotion in dress,” said Dieffenbacher. She then decided to launch a research project, which turned into the exhibition in the Aronson gallery. “It couldn’t have happened without the students,” Dieffenbacher said.

Accessories from the editor of Paper Magazine, Mickey Boardman, otherwise known as “Mr. Mickey”, was one component of Dress and Emotion. Photo by Julia Himmel.

Aside from turning a project or idea into an exhibition, students can apply to do work study at the Design Center. Students are able to participate in the process of making an exhibition by being a gallery attendant or part of the installation crew.

“A lot of professors will bring their classes down and have discussions based on the exhibitions. It’s a learning environment even if it is not a student curated exhibition,” said Parsons senior and gallery attendant, Stephanie Ferreira.

The next exhibition that will be on display in the Aronson gallery this month is called E-Waste Tsunami. The exhibition is a project by the Parsons’ School of Constructed Environments and Industrial Design MFA program and STUDIOFYNN about technology waste. It will be open from March 5th through the 26th.