NEW YORK.- Corcoran College of Art + Design Chair of Fine Art Ivan Witenstein has been commissioned by the Whitney Museum of American to participate in a multi-media group exhibition at the Museum’s Altria branch. The exhibition’s title, Fight or Flight: Kristin Baker, Amy Gartrell, Rico Gatson, Wangechi Mutu, Marc Swanson, and Ivan Witenstein, refers to an involuntary physical reaction to sudden threat and relates to the psychological and scientific aspects of our turbulent times. Fight or Flight is on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria through February 18, 2005.

“Exhibiting at the Whitney marks a major milestone in an artist’s career,” noted Corcoran College of Art + Design Dean Christina DePaul. “Ivan’s sculpture certainly explores the psychological confusion of our times. It is an honor for the Corcoran to have an artist on our faculty showing at the Whitney.”

Witenstein’s two sculptural installations in Fight or Flight reflect on the exhibition’s theme, which draws on pervasive discussions of fear and anxiety that have emerged in popular media in recent years. These pieces, “Bad habits die hard, I hope I die hard; Girl's song for a blessed sun” and “Light a fire so the world will be brighter, black knight, die and live free,” both fiberglass and epoxy resin, 2004, engage applications of the “fight or flight” concept and are on display alongside the other participating artists’ works, which range from ink drawings on paper to small-scale painting to video pieces.

As Administrative Chair of Fine Art at the Corcoran College of Art + Design, Witenstein teaches the BFA fourth-year core course, as well as courses in sculpture. Witenstein earned his MFA from the Yale University School of Art and his BFA from the Corcoran College of Art + Design. He is currently represented by Derek Eller Gallery, New York, and as a practicing artist has exhibited extensively including a solo exhibition at Derek Eller Gallery, a group exhibition at Oliver Kamm, The New Jersey Center for the Visual Arts and the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center. He is the 2004 recipient of The Public Art Fund's “In the Public Realm” commission, for which he will create an outdoor work.