School of Art Class Notes

Spring 2012

Laddie John Dill (Chouinard '68) is showing his work at Nye+Brown titled Contained Radiance L.A. on April 21st

Bucky Fukumoto (BFA Graphic Design '98) has been hired as a director by Locksmith Content, a production company.

Raul Guerrero (Chouinard '70) will be participating in an exhibition at the Warehouse Gallery in Los Angeles, Large: Paintings of Wicked Adults.

Molly Hayden (BFA Graphic Design '91) has a weekly webcomic The Lay of the Lacrymer and will be participating in the Stumptown Comic fest.

Jeanette May (MFA Photo '87) will be participating an an exhibition "Creature Features" with Jocelyn Chase at A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn, NY from April 26th-May20th.

Mira Schor (MFA Art '73) has an exhibition of paintings titled "Voice and Speech" featured at Marvelli Gallery from March 29-May 5, 2012.

Rea Tajiri (BFA Art '80,  MFA Art '82) screened her recent documentary work-in-progress at Smith College's Women and Social Justice Documentary Symposium in March 2012. In the fall, she will direct the Temple University Film Media Arts,  Los Angeles Study Away program and internship program for students from Temple University where she is an Assistant Professor.

Tajiri's  film and video work has been featured in three Whitney Biennials ('89, '91, '93) and she has received numerous awards and fellowships including two Rockefeller Intercultural Media Fellowships, two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships and an ITVS production contract for her feature film Strawberry Fields, which had its international premiere at the Venice Film Festival in 1997. It won the Grand Prix at the Fukuoka Film Festival in 1998.

Her 1991 film History and Memory won the International Documentary Association Distinguished Achievement Award and an Honorable Mention New Genres from the San Fransisco International Film Festival.

Deborah Wasserman (BFA Art '92) recently had an interview with Leah Oates of NY Arts.

Winter 2012

Mark Bradford (BFA Art '95) will be having a concurrent retrospectives at SFMOMA and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts from February 18th through June 17th.

Philip Chang (MFA Art '05) will have a solo exhibition at LAXART titled "Cache, Active" opening on March 10th. He will also be curating a group show at Pepin Moore Gallery titled "Affective Turns?" opening on March 3rd.

Charong Chow (BFA Art '99) published her first young adult novel, Random, about sixteen-year-old Tierney, who, after falling for the new guy at school, uncovers the truth surrounding the drug-fueled death of her best friend, Jeremy. Random, a contemporary expose of teenage life in Los Angeles, begins with a not-so-innocent truancy and builds - through complex, interwoven relationships - to a shock ending that sets Tierney up as a young female noir protagonist.

The Laguna Museum of Art has announced its upcoming exhibition of Tim Clark's (BFA Chouinard '72) work.  The show will run from November 4, 2012-January 27, 2013.

Akina Cox (BFA Art '07) had an essay written about her work for "Notes on Looking" by Ariane Vielmetter.

An art therapist at Art Colony in Chicago, Larry Crost (Art '74) reports that he has been exhibiting his work at New Century Arts in New York City.

Creative Captial grants were given to eight Calartians including Akosua Adoma Owusu (MFA Interschool '08), Norbert Shieh (MFA Film/Video '11), Deborah Stratman (MFA Film/Video '95), Malik Gaines (MFA Film/Video '99), Scott Barry (ACT Art '11), and Niel Doshi (Art '10).

Michael Darmody (MFA Art '89) is axhibiting House of Cards at the New Mexico Arts Centennial Project in Santa Fe from January 13th-February 17th.

Leslie Saks Contemporary in Santa Monica, CA exhibited the works of Guy Dill (BFA Chouinard '70) in Guy Dill A 1970’s Dialogue with Materials in association with Pacific Standard Time.

Karl Erickson (MFA Art '02), the Executive Director of D.U.M.B.O. Arts Center (DAC) in Brooklyn, shared that fellow alumnus Robby
Herbst (MFA Art '99) is presenting his exhibition "New Pyramids for the Capitalist System" at the Center in February.

Guillermo Gómez-Peña (BFA Art '81) released his new book, Conversations Across Borders, a collection of conversations with cultural thought leaders on"issues of timely concern to artists,
including border culture, new technologies, urban hipsterism, and
globalization gone wrong."

Roberta Griffith (BFA Chouinard '60) is exhibiting her work at Galarie 103 on Kaua'i from December 10th through February 11th.

Robby Herbst - see Karl Erickson.

Michael Jang (BFA Design '73) will be featured at the San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art in their Best of the Seventies show for work he did during his time at CalArts.

Stephen Johns (BFA Chouinard '72) will be featured in Denise Bibro Fine Art's Winter Salon in New York January 5 - January 28, 2012.

On February 1, the CalArts community was saddened to learn of Mike Kelley's (MFA Art '78) passing.

We learned that Jack Kling (BFA Chouinard '65), a former instructor at the Chouinard Art Institute and educator in Mill Valley Public Schools, died at his home in Santa Rosa last December. Jack was 82.

Hirokazu Kosaka's (BFA Chouinard '70) Kalpa, a site-specific commission will kick off the Getty Center's January performance festival as part of Pacific Standard Time. 

Inspired by 1960s movies and magazine spreads highlighting the phenomenon of the bachelor pad, Jeanette May's (MFA Photography '87) exhibition Bachelor Pads will run at A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn, NY from Feb 1 - 25, 2012.

Michael Metcalf (BFA Chouinard '68) reports that following graduation from Chouinard, he earned an M.Arch from UCLA.  He has been working as a consultant at Melcalf Associates.  Currently, he is working in association with Madrid Consulting Group and Dannenbrink Design & Planning on a series of four TOD (Transit Oriented Development) LRT station area master plans for land use and development for a proposed 5.5. mile extension of the Metro Eastside Gold Line LRT system within the SR 60 Pomona Freeway corridor, east of downtown Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Valley.

Kelly Nipper (MFA Photography '95) will give a visiting artist lecture at California State University Long Beach on May 2.

Jessica Rath's (MFA Art '96)exhibit, Take me to the apple breeder is making its debuts this month in Food for Thought at the Wignall Museum at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamunga, CA and in New Naturalists at the Herron Galleries-Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN.

Rita Reynolds (BFA Art '85) has been recognized by the Wagner College Diversity Action Council for her adacemic work in American Diversity, civil rights reasearch, and student mentorship.

Hedda Smulewicz (BFA Art '71) will have her sculptures featured in the February issue of the online journal Logos.

After a career in the LA garment industry as fashion designer and in the textile import /export business, Fern Ellis Thacker (BFA Chouinard '70) reports that she moved back to Detroit in 1988 and is now employed in real estate with StarVision, LLC.

Deborah Wasserman (BFA Art '92) is exhibiting an installation at the Red Show at the Cheryl Hazan Gallery in New York City from December 15th through January 15th.

James Welling (BFA Art '72) will be having an ehibitiona t Regen Projects II in Los Angeles titled "Geometric Abstraction" from February 29th through March 31st.

The 2012 Whitney Biennial will honor Thom Anderson (faculty), Richard Hawkins (MFA Art '88), Mike Kelley (MFA Art '78), and Laida Lertxundi (MFA Film/Video '07).

Fall 2011

Kelly Barrie (MFA Art '97) is showing her piece Mirror House at the Santa Monica Museum of Art through December 10th. The work was recently reviewed by the L.A. Times.

James Casebere (MFA Art '79) recently had a book signing with advance copies of his book James Casebere: Works 1975-2010 which will be released in November.

Dorit Cypis (MFA Art '77) is participating in the Colonialism: the Collective Unconscious exhibition at the William Grant Still Arts Center from October 8th through November 18th

Gavin Flint (MFA Art '97) will be exhibiting his work at GK Gallery in Tokyo from November 21st-26th.

Jeanette May (MFA Art '87) will be teaching a class at the International Center of Photography on the female gaze in comtemporary photography. The course is called Vision and Difference: Transcending the Gaze and will begin October 6th.

Brett Cody Rogers (MFA Art '04) is presenting an exhibition on September 17th at Pepin Moore entitled Painter's Forms. It will show until October 22nd.

Summer 2011

Ismael de Anda (MFA art '00) Will be showing his work at the Annex Gallery in a show titled Fortress of Solitude: Flux Ultralux August 13th through September 4th

Georgi Coquereau (MFA Photography '86) recently designed and produced Wearable Animation consisting of images that are designed to give the illusion of movement as the wearere moves

Detours: Tahoe City is a site specific exhibition featuring 14 California students, five of which are Calartians. Jane Jenny (BFA Art '94) is the curator, Karen Atkinson (Faculty and MFA Art '84), Donna Brown (MFA Art '11), Connie Hatch (faculty), and John Hogan (Staff and MFA Art '06) are all participants.

Guillermo Gomez-Pena (BFA Art '81) is working with actor Richard Montoya on a performance called Los Dopplegangers that will premiere in Denver on Spetember 3rd at Su Tetro and continue at the Fowler Museum in Los Angeles on September 14th

Juri Koll (BFA Art '84) is working on a series of short documentaries about CalArts artists called Art/World

Laura London (MFA Art '85) will be showing a piece in the Chain Letter Group Exhibition inside Bergamont Station at the Shoshana Wayne Gallery on July 23rd.

Richard Mann (BFA Art '81) will now be displaying public art, and acting as a teacher and athletic performer for Flying Rings on Venice Beach during the weekends

Joseph Park (MFA Art '90) will be showing his snew works This is Prizmism at the Rena Bransten Gallery in San Fransisco through August 2011

Laura Parker (MFA Art '86) has a show Rotations and Rubbings with Elliot Wilcox at the DNJ Gallery in Santa Monica June 4 through July 16

Margaret Pezalla (MFA Art '95) has been awarded a Travel and Study Grant from the Jerome Foundation to visit the archives of Earl Slipher at the Lowell Observatory, the Velaslavasay Panorama, and the Museum of Jurassic Technology. She was also awarded the Next Step Grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council to support an exhibition at the Burnet Art Gallery in May 2012

Jeff Phillips (BFA Film Video '74) has curated a show Contemporary Bronze as part of Sculpture at the Plaza Gardens. Artists include Kristan Marvelland Jim McAninch. Opening reception is on July 30th 5-8pm and the show runs July 15th through September 15th

Michael Polish (BFA Art '92) and his twin brother Mark Polish are working on a film For Lovers Only, which they did with no budget. Kubilay Uner (MFA Music '91) and Dan Rosenboom (MFA Music '10) also worked on the film.

Heather Rasmussen (MFA Photography '07) willl be featured in a three person exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago Museum September 3rd 2011- March 4th 2012

Mira Schor (MFA Art '73) has published a new book, A Deacade of Negative Thinking: Essays on Art, Politics, and Daily Life which includes excerpts from letters she wrote at CalArts

Deborah Wasserman (BFA Art '92) will have her series of paintings and drawings titled Homeward Found will be shown at Art Hampton with Cheryl Hazan Booth#166

Spring 2011

Mark Allen (see Music)

Kathe Burkhart (BFA Art ’84) has been selected to participate in USA Projects to support two upcoming solo shows in Europe this summer. In addition, she was part of the group show Cabaret, curated by Matthew Weinstein, in March at Ramis Barquet Gallery in New York. 

The Carré d'Art-Musée d'Art Contemporain in Niems, France is hosting a 50-year retrospective of Larry Bell's (Chouinard '59) work from February 25 through May 22, 2011.

Mark Bradford (BFA Art '95) was the feature of Australia Dateline's, LA Laid Bare.

Los Angeles’ Las Cienegas Projects will present Dorit Cypis' (MFA Art '77) solo exhibit, A Symmetry, from March 5 - April 2, 2011.

Gina Dabrowski (MFA Photography '91) received a 2010 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Photographers for her project Sanitary Landfills a.k.a. Dumps, which "examines the big business of trash and its evolution from the open pit dumps of the 1970s.

Jack Enyart (Chouinard '69) is now webcasting Art with Enyart every second and fourth Monday at 7:00PM (PST).

In April, the Hammer Museum mounted the first solo exhibit of Mark Flores' (MFA Art '02).

The Hammer Museum presented Strange Democracy: An Evening with Guillermo Gomez-Pena (BFA Art '81)
in April.

Richard Hawkins (MFA Art '88) Third Mind was at the Hammer Museum through May 22, 2011.

Roman Jaster (BFA Graphic Design '07) designed Making It, by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen.

Karolina Karlic (MFA Photography and Media '10) was named as a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow.

In March, the Tanya Bondakar Gallery in New York held an exhibition of Liz Larner's (BFA Art '85) work.

Elanna Mann's (MFA Art '07) show, Die Gedanken Sind Frei (Our Thoughts Are Free) was held at the Jancar Gallery in Los Angeles through April 30.

Jeanette May (BFA Photo '87) featured in the exhibition “But that’s a different story...” at A.I.R. Gallery, coinciding with
the New York Photo Festival in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. The
A.I.R. exhibit opens Wednesday, April 27 and runs through Saturday, May 21.

Rodney McMillian (MFA Art '02) and Ruben Ochoa were the first visiting artists in Art Workshop Collaborative (AWC), a new collaboration between CalArts and the California African American Museum.  Programs are designed to give students a realistic sense of the power art might have in their community and lives, and to give local students access to established artists. 

Assistant Professor of Foundations/ Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Young Min Moon's (MFA Art '96) essay,The Politics of Curating 'Contemporary Korean Art' for Audience Abroad was included in Contemporary Asian Art: A Critical Reader, edited byMelissa Chiu and Benjamin Genocchio, MIT Press (2011).

Margaret Nielsen's (BFA Design '75) States of Mind is on exhibit at the Samuel Freeman Gallery in Santa Monica, CA April 28 - June 4th, 2011.

The University of Minnesota appointed Howard Oransky (MFA Art '84) as the director of the Katherine E. Nash Gallery in the Department of Art.

Laura Parker's (MFA Photography '86) work is included in Influential Element: Exploring the Impact of Water at Long Beach Museum of Art through April 3, 2011.

Ed Ruscha's (Chouinard '60) On the Road will run at the Hammer Museum from June 11 - October 2, 2011.

In March, Otis College of Art’s Clay in LA featured the work of Adrian Saxe (Chouinard ’73) and Peter Shire (Chouinard ’70).

Sydney Schuster (BFA ’75 Art) Wrote a novel called "Dead Spot."
Visit "Dead Spot" on Facebook and learn more about it. "Dead
Spot" was a finalist for the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

Suzan Shutan (BFA Art '78) is curating a six-week performance series at the Soapbox Gallery, Brooklyn, from late April through mid June. Artists include Paul Anceau (BFA Music '76), Howard Better (BFA Experimental Animation '79) and Chere Krakovsky (BFA Art '77).

Ruth Szold Stern (BFA Art '94) will take part in the Allied Artists of the Santa Monica Mountains and Seashore and Mountains Restoration Trust's 8th Annual Art Exhibit in Calabasas on April 3.

Deborah Wasserman (BFA Art ’92) has a solo show of 500 miniature paintings at The Roger Smith Hotel in New York through April 30.

Jerry Wellman (MFA Art '84) recently launched Axel Contemporary, mobile gallery in Santa Fe, NM, which was the subject of a New York Times Magazine article.