Columbia Artists Featured in Bronx Calling: The Fifth AIM Biennial

By
Catherine Fisher
March 01, 2022
black and white image of small building
colorful image of woman on tapestry

The Bronx Museum presents Bronx Calling: The FIfth AIM Biennial, showcasing the work of 68 early career artists from the 2018 and 2019 cycles of the Bronx Museum’s AIM Fellowship program. This year, the show features six alumni: José Delgado Zuñiga ‘17Adam Liam Rose ‘17Gina Malek ‘15Cary Hulbert ‘16Emily Henretta ‘11, and  Victoria Udondian ‘16. This exhibition will be available for viewing until March 20, 2022. 

The Bronx Museum’s AIM Fellowship began in 1980. It engages two generations of artists by offering career management resources and opportunities. The artists acquire knowledge of the art world through a comprehensive curriculum that speaks to the practical side of maintaining a creative career. From legal support to communication strategies, this important program has launched the careers of over 1,200 of New York’s up and coming artists. 

This year’s show was curated by Ian Cofre of PS122 Gallery and Eva Mayhabal Davis of Transmitter. Due to its unavoidable context of taking place during the COVID-19 pandemic, the show's key themes investigate grief, crises of health, and identity. 

Emily Henretta has exhibited her work at The International Print Center New York, The Westside Gallery at The School of Visual Arts, The BRIC Rotunda Gallery, Room East Gallery, Blue Star Contemporary in San Antonio, Elizabeth Dee Gallery, and The Inside Out Museum in Beijing. She is the recipient of a Bronx Council of the Arts Grant and the Bronx Museum AIM fellowship. She lives and works in the Bronx, New York.

Cary Hulbert is a multidisciplinary New York-based artist, educator, and curator. Hulbert received her MFA from Columbia University in 2016 and her BFA from Montserrat College of Art in 2007. Currently, she is an adjunct in the Visual Arts department at Columbia University and working as the Assistant Shop Manager for the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies. Select exhibition highlights include: Bronx Museum (NYC), Fisher Landau Center (NYC), The Jewish Museum (NYC), Ortega y Gasset Projects (NYC), IPCNY (NYC), Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina (Novi Sad), and Taimiao Art Gallery (Beijing) and the Liu Haisu Art Museum (Shanghai).

Adam Liam Rose (b. 1990) is an interdisciplinary artist working across sculpture, installation, video, and drawing.  Born in Jerusalem and raised mostly in the United States, his works investigate the aesthetic systems of power embedded within architecture. Exploring the politics of "safety" in Israel / Palestine and the United States, Rose's practice looks to structures of separation and control whose intentions either manifest outright or slither beneath the surface. Rose was a fellow at the Bronx Museum of the Arts' AIM Program, The Drawing Center’s Viewing Program, and the Art & Law Program. He was awarded artist residencies at Triangle Arts Association (Brooklyn, NY), Bemis Center for Contemporary Art (Omaha, NE), Ox-Bow School of Art (Saugatuck, MI), A-Z West: Institute of Investigative Living (Joshua Tree, CA), the Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT) and the Chicago Artists Coalition's HATCH Residency (Chicago, IL).  Rose's publication, Between the Bars (Genderfail Press, 2021) is in the artists' book collection of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, PRATT Institute, and The Frick Fine Arts Library in Pittsburgh. He received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago ('12) and an MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts (‘17). Rose joined as co-director at artist-run gallery Ortega y Gasset Projects in 2019.

José Delgado Zuñiga received his MFA in Painting from Columbia University in 2017 and his BFA from Otis College of Art and Design in 2015. In 2018, Zuniga was a recipient of the Rema Hort Mann Emerging Artist Grant and the Rema Hort Mann ACE Grant (Artist Community Engagement) as part of a collective, LatinX-Files. He is a participant of the Bronx Museum (AIM) Artist In the Market (2018-2019) program. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Victoria Udondian’s work is driven by her interest in textiles and the potential for clothing to shape identity, informed by the histories and tacit meanings embedded in everyday materials. She creates interdisciplinary projects that question notions of cultural identity and post-colonial positions in relation to her experiences growing up in Nigeria. In 2020, Udondian was named a Guggenheim Fellow. Her works have been exhibited internationally, including The Inaugural Nigerian Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennial-An Excerpt; Fisher Landau Center for the Arts, New York; The Bronx Museum, New York; The Children's Museum of Manhattan, New York; The National Museum, Lagos and Lokoja, Nigeria; Whitworth Gallery in Manchester, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Lagos, Nigeria etc. Some of her Artist Residencies include Instituto Sacatar, Bahia, Brazil; Mass Moca, Massachusetts, USA; Fine Arts Work Center (FAWC), Provincetown; USA; Villa Straulli, Winterthur, Switzerland; Fondazione di Venezia, Venice, Italy; and Bag Factory Studios, Johannesburg, South Africa. Udondian received an MFA in Sculpture and New Genres from Columbia University, New York, attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and earned a BA in painting from the University of Uyo, Nigeria.

Gina Malek was born in Rochester, Minnesota, and received her BFA from Indiana University’s Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts, Bloomington. She received her MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts in 2015. Malek has held two exhibitions at Magic Beans Gallery, Berlin (2016) and was included in two exhibitions at E.Tay Gallery, New York in addition to an exhibition at the Judith Charles Gallery, New York (2015). She has exhibited at the Fisher Landau Center, Queens (2015), the Zhou B Art Center, Chicago (2014), as well as the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery and the LeRoy Neiman Gallery at Columbia University and the Fine Arts Gallery of Bloomington. Malek has taught drawing and painting at Columbia.