Current MFA exhibition is collaborative, inflatable

Wünderflater

Wünderflater, an exhibition by five graduating MFA students, is on view through June 14 at the Thomas Welton Stanford Art Gallery. The gallery will hold an opening reception on Friday, May 15, from 6 to 8 p.m.

For their final thesis presentation, the artists collaborated on a monolithic inflatable structure, meant to be experienced rather than merely viewed. The title of the exhibition, Wünderflater, has no precise translation, though "Wunder" is "wonder" in German and "flater" is "accident" in Afrikaans.

Following are the names of the collaborating artists:

Reed Anderson has shown his work internationally since 1998. His work is included in public collections at the Museum of Modern Art, N.Y.; the Olbricht Collection in Essen, Germany; and the Burchfield-Penney Art Museum in Buffalo, N.Y.

Michael Arcega is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in sculpture and installations. He uses comedic strategies and tactics to express darker global issues. He received his BFA at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Kazumi Shiho uses a broad range of media—including paper, steel, sheetrock and computer coding—in a process that transforms and reconfigures the material. She earned her BFA from the Tokyo National University of Fine Art in 2007.

Cobi van Tonder is a South African composer and sound artist who creates in a multifaceted range of media, traditions and subcultures. Her recent work focuses on multi-channel sound, video and networked audio.

Jina Valentine earned her BFA from Carnegie Melon University in 2001. Her work has been included in exhibitions in New York City's Drawing Center, the Studio Museum in Harlem and at the Elizabeth Foundation. Her work, influenced by American folk art and the work of Dubuffet, uses the discarded artifacts of contemporary life.

The Thomas Welton Stanford Art Gallery is open Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 1 to 5 p.m. Admission is free. The gallery is at 419 Lasuen Mall on campus. For more information, call (650) 723-2842 or visit http://art.stanford.edu.