The Yellow Chair Salon is excited to introduce a new Symposia! led by Astrid Dick and Michael David.

This is a 10-month intensive virtual program for artists with an advanced studio practice currently working towards an exhibition or exhibition proposal and searching to refine an existing body of work.

Throughout the year and right from the outset, you will have the chance to present your work in depth to your mentors Astrid and Michael and to the group. In addition, during several cycles of critiques, you will present your work to a guest critic. Every artist will receive feedback from several invited guests and also learn from participating in other artists’ critiques. We will do our best depending on guests’ schedules to have every participant receive feedback from as many guests as possible. There will also be plenty of occasions to meet individually with your mentors to check progress, prepare for upcoming critiques, and, importantly, debrief after critiques.

This is an opportunity to take your work to the next level and to get professional feedback from some of today’s leading artists, art critics and gallerists. The program is tailored to help you prepare a body of work that is ready to be exhibited, including related aspects such as artist statement, communication, portfolio aesthetics and professional practices.

Our selection of invited critics offers a unique range of voices. Our guest critics are used to often wearing several hats as artists/gallerists/art critics/writers, making them particularly insightful in their feedback to artists wishing to refine their work and professional practices.

The proposition is to be specific to your practice but also more broad, as you will learn about other related artists and ways of making both in the visual arts and beyond, through readings, prompts, exercises.

This is a rigorous program with a set plan of meetings and activities month by month over the course of a year to give you the guidance but also the time for your work to realistically develop with the goals of the course in mind.

The program will run from October 2024 through July 2025.

GUEST CRITICS:

• Wallace Whitney is both an artist and co-founder of Canada Gallery in New York.

• Amanda Millet-Sorsa is an artist, art writer and has been curator at Below Grand Gallery in New York.

• Tom McGlynn is both an artist and art writer and critic for the Brooklyn Rail.

• David Rhodes is both an artist and art writer and critic for the Brooklyn Rail.

• Donovan Johnson is Director and partner of Johnson Lowe Gallery in Atlanta.

• Gaby Collins-Fernández is an artist, writer and co-founder of Precog Magazine.

  Expect a few other visitors as well.

What to expect:

• Focus on preparing a refined body of work ready to be exhibited

• Honing professional practices beyond the studio

• One on one meetings with Astrid/Michael

• Group meetings with presentations in depth of your work to mentors and to various critics throughout the year

• Readings, prompts, exercises tailored to you and your practice

Cost: $4,500, partial scholarships available

Instructor Bios:

Astrid Dick: is a painter born (1972) and raised in Buenos Aires and currently living and working in Paris. She began to paint intensively on her own at 13, and later, excited by mathematics and social frictions, begins her studies in economics in Buenos Aires, while continuing to draw in her free time. In 2002, she is awarded a Ph.D. in economics from MIT. After a life as an art double-agent, at age 36 she abandoned her life as university professor to to devote herself entirely to art. She has been awarded fellowships from Yaddo, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, was artist-in-residence at the Leipzig Spinnerei, and has shown her work through solo and group shows in Europe, the US and Argentina, such as the Grand Palais in Paris and the Manoir de la Ville de Martigny, Switzerland. Most recently, she had shows at MDavid & Co. Gallery and at Below Grand Gallery in New York, and at Johnson Lowe Gallery in Atlanta, and her work was reviewed by John Yau in Hyperallergic. She has taught undergraduate and graduate university courses at INSEAD in France, where she was tenure-track faculty, as well as New York University and Columbia University.

Michael David: Guggenheim Fellow, recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, Yaddo and Edward Albee Fellow, Michael David has been exhibiting internationally since 1981, first with the historical Sidney Janis and then with M. Knoedler & Co. Exhibiting widely throughout the United States for 40 years, he has been the subject of much historical and curatorial acclaim. His most recent solo shows “The Mirror Stage” and "Night Time with Dreams and Mirror" were held at Johnson Lowe Gallery in Atlanta, GA. His work is included in many prominent private collections and the permanent public collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, The Brooklyn Museum, The Houston Museum of Contemporary Art, the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Margulies Collection in Miami and the Edward Albee Foundation in Montauk NY, and was the subject of a one-person exhibition at Aspen Museum of Art.  Considered an inheritor of Abstract Expressionism, David’s abstract work primarily centers on the use of a densely layered surface to facilitate a direct and immediate spiritual experience. He often incorporates religious iconography and symbolism, art historical themes such as the nude, and contemporary politics into his paintings resulting in a critical dialogue between the layered abstraction of the surface and the integrated representational imagery. Over the last decade, David established the Fine Arts Workshop in Atlanta and the Yellow Chair Salon, working with artists on an immersive one-on-one basis, helping to develop their voice and professional practices, finding exhibition opportunities and taking their individual expressions to the next level. His mentorship practice expanded to include residencies and workshops in Atlanta , Dallas, TX, Truro, MA and Brooklyn, NY. He has taught painting at Princeton, was head of the Graduate Painting Department at SCAD in Atlanta, and lectured and served as keynote speaker at many universities and art centers across the United States.  Over the last 12  years David has established, directed and curated two of the most successful galleries in Brooklyn: Life On Mars and M. David & Co.