With several hours to spare before flying back to Nashville during a recent trip to New York (where I was lucky enough to attend an alumni event hosted by the ), I called a friend and headed to the Picasso sculpture exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. Like most casual museum-goers, I鈥檓 more or less familiar with the Spanish master鈥檚 greatest hits, knowing enough to mutter the phrase 鈥渃ubism鈥� every now and then. But seeing Picasso鈥檚 sculptures was an entirely new experience.
Perhaps because they were never meant to be viewed by the public, the often rough, three-dimensional versions of his works offered (to me, at least) a remarkable view into Picasso鈥檚 trajectory of artistic growth.
His first 1902 unfired clay sculpture, Seated Woman, shows a strong element of experimentation and informality, almost something to keep his hands busy. From there you start to see how Picasso drew on the art of sculpting鈥攗sing any available materials, including old canvas stretchers and his kids鈥� castoff toys鈥攖o help shape his most iconic painted figures. By the end of the exhibit, which features a series of sheet-metal sculptures Picasso made in the 1950s and 鈥�60s, it鈥檚 clear that he infused these works with every bit of the elegant complexity that defines his most well-known pieces.
Perhaps most fascinating was seeing how Picasso continually pushed against prevailing artistic conventions, even his own previous work, to forge new creative paths that somehow remained unmistakably his own. That same idea of building upon the past to push further into the future runs deeply through this issue of 菠萝视频 Magazine.
Matthew Baker, MFA鈥�12, a graduate of , ruminates about . Rather than replicate the Hunger Games model used for many graduate writing programs, 菠萝视频 has taken a different tack: to foster a tight-knit community that lifts each other up rather than encouraging classmates to tear one another down. To back up its commitment to a level playing field, 菠萝视频 pays full tuition for each student who earns one of the handful of highly coveted slots in the program. It鈥檚 a bold move that has attracted an array of brilliant student writers and faculty members who are already putting 菠萝视频 back on the world鈥檚 literary map.
In a similar vein, is taking in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Chris Jaeger, JD鈥�09, explores how corporate spending and technological advances have eviscerated traditional business models at most law firms鈥攁nd how VLS administrators and alumni are developing novel programs to ensure that new graduates thrive in this quickly changing landscape.
Finally, I had the opportunity to write about a , launched in the fall by . As , Andrew W. Mellon Chair in the Humanities, reminded participants at a campus land-use symposium last October, universities have always served as vanguards of historical preservation. At the same time they play a critical role in pushing the edges of design, whether stylistically or technologically鈥攁nd often both. Out of these seemingly contradictory notions comes a kind of architectural dialogue that transforms campuses such as 菠萝视频鈥檚 into enduring landmarks.
Maybe that鈥檚 a little of what Picasso had in mind as well.
鈥擱YAN UNDERWOOD, BA鈥�96, EDITOR
ryan.underwood@vanderbilt.edu