Symposia!

Symposia!

The Yellow Chair Salon is excited to introduce Symposia!, a 6-month intensive virtual program for artists with an advanced studio practice. This is a rare opportunity to work with some of the leading artists, educators and critics in contemporary art. Participants will hone their individual voices and professional practices while supporting and challenging each other.

Winter / Spring 2024 Faculty Advisors were Deborah Dancy, Judy Pfaff, Jennifer Samet, Kyle Staver and Molly Zuckerman-Hartung. We are pleased to announce that the second session in 2024 / 2025, Molly Zuckerman-Hartung will be returning to co-teach with Fox Hysen and Judy Pfaff will also be returning. Stay tuned for updates on additional advisor, admission will be opening soon. After admission to the program, you will be paired with a mentor (you will select your preferred faculty advisors in order of preference), and will work closely with them over the next six months in addition to working with Michael David.Symposia! offers:

Symposia! offers:

  • Symposia is an incredibly rare opportunity to work with some of the leading artists and educators in the contemporary art world

  • These are individuals I have known on a close personal and professional basis for years

  • I invited them to be part of Symposia because of their commitment to the program, their generosity of spirit, brilliance, talent and experience in the art world

  • Access to these individuals on an ongoing basis over the six-month period cannot not be matched in any other program

  • Unlike comparable programs, Symposia! offers a small, focused, supportive environment limited to four peer artists per faculty advisor

  • The length of the program reflects the advanced stage of each participants practices and the consistency of your fellow cohorts readiness for high level exhibition opportunities. 

  • Artists will meet twice monthly on zoom (once a month with Michael David in a one hour long private one-on-one, as well as once monthly with Michael David, your faculty advisor and your three group mates in a two hour salon)

  • In-depth critiques of your work on a consistent basis to move the work forward

  • Suggested reading materials and research and discussion of professional practices in preparation for your exhibition

  • These meetings will be opportunities to discuss your studio practice, gaining feedback from your peers and your faculty advisor and engaging in critical thinking

  • Guest lecturers ranging from gallerists, artists and critics

  • A four person show in 2024 / 2025 at the historic M.David & Co. in Brooklyn, NY, formerly Life On Mars, which was instrumental in bringing exposure for many artists over the last decade

Program cost: $4,500. Financial aid is available based on need.

Program dates: Symposia! will begin in September 2024 and will conclude in February 2025

The Winter / Spring 2024 session of Symposia! is currently full. Please check back soon to apply for Fall 2024.

Symposia! Faculty Past and Present

  • Deborah Dancy

    Deborah Dancy is a multi-media artist. Her paintings, drawings, digital photography and small sculptures examine the shifting intersection between abstraction and representation.

    Dancy has been Guggenheim Fellow, a Yaddo Fellow, and a National Endowment of the Arts NEFA awardee. Her work is in numerous collections including: The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Birmingham Museum of Art, The Hunter Museum and The Detroit Institute of Art. She is represented by N’Namdi Contemporary Miami, Robischon Gallery, Denver and Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta. Her most recent solo exhibition was at Marcia Wood gallery in 2022, Body of Evidence and she has an upcoming solo exhibition at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts in NY, NY in 2024.

  • 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. and is currently represented by Johnson & Lowe Gallery in Atlanta, GA, where he had his most recent one person exhibition in 2022, The Mirror Stage.

    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.

    Over the last decade, David established the Yellow Chair Salon and has founded, directed and curated two of the most successful galleries in Brooklyn: Life On Mars and M. David & Co.

  • Judy Pfaff

    Cited by critics as the pioneer of installation-art, this oft-cited label for the sprawling career of Judy Pfaff provides an introductory sense of Pfaff’s legacy, but proves limiting to the ever-changing work she has been making for decades and still today. Born in London in 1946, Pfaff received a BFA from Washington University Saint Louis (1971), and an MFA from Yale University (1973) where she studied with Al Held.

    She exhibited work in the Whitney Biennials of 1975, 1981, and 1987, and represented the United States in the 1998 Sao Paulo Bienal. Her pieces reside in the permanent collections of MOMA, Whitney Museum of Art, Tate Gallery, Brooklyn Museum of Art, and Detroit Institute of Arts, among others. She is the recipient of many awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center (2014), the MacArthur Foundation Award (2004), and the Guggenhiem Fellowship (1983). Pfaff lives and works in Tivoli, New York.

  • Jennifer Samet

    Jennifer Samet is a New York City-based art historian, curator, and writer. She completed her BA at Barnard College and her PHD at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Her major areas of interest include post WWII and contemporary painting. Samet was formerly co-director of Steven Harvey Fine Arts Projects and is currently the director of research at Eric Firestone Gallery. Samet is the author of the column “Beer with a Painter,” in Hyperallergic Weekend Edition. She is published extensively on contemporary and post war painting in MASTER DRAWINGS, ARTNET, Art Critical, New York Sun, and numerous exhibition catalogs.

    Jennifer Samet has taught Art History at the City University of NY and is currently a teaching faculty member at the NY Studio School. She has curated major historical exhibitions on the Jane Street Gallery and the history of the NY Studio School and thematic exhibitions “Rough Cut” (at Morgan Lehman Gallery, NYC), “Dark Matters”, and “Repetitive Motion”. Her latest curatorial effort is In 2023, Samet co-currated with Andrea Belag the Feminine in Abstract Painting at The Milton Resnik and Pat Passlof Foundation.

  • Kyle Staver

    Kyle Staver (Virginia, MN, lives and works in NYC) earned her BFA from Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 1976 and her MFA from Yale University in 1987. In 2015, she was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Prize. She is a member of the National Academy of Design. She has had 2 solo exhibitions at Zürcher Gallery in New York (2018 and 2020) and in 2019, had a solo exhibition at Galerie RX (Paris) curated by Gwenolee Zürcher. In 2020, Zürcher Gallery participated in the Armory Show for the first time with a duo-presentation of Staver and Matt Bollinger in the Focus Section, curated by Jamillah James. Her most recent one person exhibitions include: Moskowitz Bayse, LA (2022), Half Gallery, NY (2022), Nino Mier Gallery, Brussels (2023) Kyle Staver and June Leaf at Steven Harvey Fine Arts Project NY (2023). Her work is in the collections of the National Academy of Design (New York), The American Academy of Arts and Letters (New York), The National Arts Club (New York) and The McEvoy Foundation (San Francisco).

  • Molly Zuckerman-Hartung

    Molly Zuckerman-Hartung is a painter, writer and teacher. She attended the Evergreen State College in the 1990s and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for her graduate degree.

    She was a full time senior critic at Yale School of Art until 2021. She has shown at The Blaffer Museum in Houston, TX, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, The 2014 Whitney Biennial, The Program at ReMap in Athens, Greece, Kadel Willborn in Karlsruhe, Germany and many others. In 2013 she received a Louis Comfort Tiffany Award. She is a frequent guest lecturer at many schools across the country, including, in the past few years, Princeton University, The University of Texas at Austin, Cranbrook, University of Alabama, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago Low Residency Program, and Columbia University. She is represented by Corbett vs Dempsey in Chicago and Rachel Uffner Gallery in NYC. In 2021 she opened a mid-career survey show at the Blaffer in Houston, Texas, called Comic Relief and accompanied by a monograph.

FAQ’s:

What do I need to do to apply? Click on the ‘Apply’ button under the program description and fill out your contact information as well as website, IG account and a PDF of 15 slides of your work. We also ask that write a statement as to why you are interested in this program and the specific faculty advisor you are requesting. Please rank your interest in working with the advisors from 1-3 (Deborah Dancy, Judy Pfaff, Jennifer Samet, Kyle Staver and Molly Zuckerman-Hartung)

What if I miss a session? We understand that sometimes situations arise where you will have to miss a meeting. Zoom sessions will be recorded for you to listen to at a later date.

If an artwork is sold during a Symposia! exhibition, what percentage goes to the artist? The artist will receive 85% commission, M.David & Co. will retain 15%.

If I live out of state, how will I get my artwork to my Symposia! show? The artists will be responsible for all shipping and shipping costs to and from the gallery.