Four students enrolled in the Department of Art History and Archaeology’s MA in Modern Art: Critical and Curatorial Studies program (MODA), working in collaboration with Professor Kaira M. Cabañas, are serving as curators: A.E. Benenson, Kristen Chappa, Donald Johnson-Montenegro, and Tomoko Kanamitsu. They have selected work by recent graduates of Columbia’s MFA program in Visual Arts, to create a compelling and meaningful narrative. The exhibition comprises paintings, photographs, sculpture, video, and site-specific installations by 13 artists: Dave Arnold (’97), Ronnie Bass (’07), Guy Ben-Ner (’03), Sean Dack (’02), N Dash (’10), Marc Handelman (’03), Tim Hyde (’05), Will Kwan (’04), Mads Lynnerup (’08), Yasue Maetake (’06), Gabriel Martinez (’09), Gedi Sibony (’00), Mika Tajima (’03), Christian de Vietri (’09), and Rona Yefman (’09).

The works included in Common Love explore love as a way to participate in the production of a contemporary world where physical, cultural, and virtual space is shared. Shed of its conventional packaging, the transformative power of love can be identified in the artists’ work.

The exhibition is accompanied by the catalogue Common Love, Aesthetics of Becoming, edited by Kaira M. Cabañas. Published by the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, the catalogue features fully illustrated essays, as well as a transcript of Michael Hardt’s round table discussion with the curators. Contributors include Gregory Amenoff, Robert E. Harrist Jr., A.E. Benenson, Kristen Chappa, Donald Johnson-Montenegro, and Tomoko Kanamitsu.