Be among the first to encounter the work of seven exceptional artists as they embark on their careers in the Forty-Second Annual University of California, Berkeley Master of Fine Arts Graduate Exhibition. The artists work not only with the committed faculty of the Department of Art Practice, but also with curators, registrars, editors, visitor liaisons, security staff, education programmers, designers, and preparators at BAMPFA to realize their final student exhibition. In light of the diversity of their projects, we have decided not to formulate an overarching exhibition title. Ultimately, it is more rewarding to experience each work within its own context, allowing for unanticipated discovery. Kari Marboe measures the physical distance between language and image with site-specific narratives that upset the familiarity of textual landscapes. The precarious conditions of Frank Emilio Marquez-Leonard's structures anticipate failure, pointing towards the paradox at the root of all material and immaterial investigations. Exploring the fictive space of cinematic narrative and the conditions of filmmaking itself-flickering, camera movement, focus, sound, and the edit-Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck builds unusual environments for storytelling. Bridging historical photo processes and neighborhood histories, Kari Orvik stages a complex negotiation between medium and content. Amy Rathbone's installations are questionably organic, drawing from the simplicity of natural forms yet bending the rules of what might be considered natural. Jennie Smith reverses the tenets of illustration-her watercolor and graphite drawings don't explain, but rather compel and complicate the unfolding of stories. Rubbing the concerns of identity politics up against the publicity-seeking performances of our media-driven culture, Brett Walker plays with the structure and agency of his role as an artist.
