Pratt holds 126th commencement ceremonies
Pratt Institute held its 126th commencement ceremonies at the Theater at Madison Square Garden on Friday, May 15. Joseph V. Melillo, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) executive producer, delivered the graduate ceremony commencement address on behalf of BAM President Karen Brooks Hopkins, who received an honorary degree in absentia.
Holland Cotter, co-chief art critic and a senior writer at The New York Times, delivered the undergraduate ceremony address. Additionally, art luminaries Shepard Fairey, Alison Knowles (Pratt alumna, B.F.A. Illustration ’56) and James Turrell received honorary degrees.
On behalf of Hopkins, Melillo told the story of artist Theaster Gates, who found an artistic way to take advantage of the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis.
Now director of arts and public life at the University of Chicago, he was at the time a down-and-out potter who scraped up whatever money he could to buy a house. He refurbished it and turned the scraps into artwork, which he sold and used the proceeds to buy another house on the same street. Over the course of seven years, he made community spaces and houses for local artists.