School of Art Class Notes

Spring 2013

Under the auspices of LAXART, Edgar Arceneaux (Art MFA 01) premiered two of his films at the Silent Film Theater in Los Angeles in April. One film stars CalArts Program in Art faculty member Charles Gaines performing a song that he composed on piano. In the second film, Areceneaux's mother, Merc Arceneaux Sr., sings the song, I Told Jesus Change My Name, a melody made famous by Nina Simone and Roberta Flack.

The work of several CalArtians appears in Freeway Studies #1, This Side of the 405, a survey of the neighborhoods and networks of Los Angeles artists, on view from April 13 through June 1 at Otis College of Art and Design's Ben Maltz Gallery. The artists in the show include Charles Arnoldi, who studied at Chouinard in 1968, Larry Bell (Chouinard 59), Meg Cranston (Art MFA 86), Steve Galloway (Art BFA 74), Joe Goode (Chouinard 61), Tom Knechtel (Art BFA 76), Rachel Lachowicz (Art BFA 88), Vincent Ramos (Art MFA 07), former art faculty member Alexis Smith, current art faculty member Shirley Tse, Chris Wilder (Art BFA 88), Pontus Willfors (Photography & Media 09), and Jody Zellen (Photography MFA 89). 

Kathe Burkhart (Art BFA 82, MFA 84) is exhibiting her photographs
in a solo show at Osmos, 50 E. 1st St. in New York. Burkhart's work is also included in NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star at the New Museum through May 26; in Femminile Plurale at Galleria In Arco in Turin, Italy through July 13; in Not only this, but 'New language beckons us' at NYU's Tracey/Barry Gallery with an opening on May 23 from 6-8 pm; in The Cat Show-Cats in Residence at White Columns in New York from June 14 through July 20; and in a group show at Johannes Vogt Gallery in New York from June 20 through July 27. Participant gallery also showed her work at the Frieze Fair on Randall's Island in New York in May.

Fallen Fruit, the art collective co-founded by David Allen Burns (Art BFA 93), Critical Studies faculty Matias Viegener, and Austin Young has been featured in a recent New York Times article. The group's next Public Fruit Park will open in the Bronx in 2014. Fallen Fruit was also the subject of a recent mini-documentary that appeared on KCET.

See Line Gallery in Los Angeles presented this spring the first Los Angeles solo exhibition of Coachella Valley-based artist Cristopher Cichocki (Art BFA 01), including paintings, photographs, and sculptures. The body of work spanned eight years and focused on the Salton Sea and other desert regions.

Emerald City, a solo exhibition by Meg Cranston (Art MFA 86) appeared at LAXART in Los Angeles from March 2 through April 20. The show focused on the emerald and its color and explored the increasing popularity of the gemstone in the fashion world. Cranston collaborated with artist and former faculty member John Baldessari (Chouinard 59) in another exhibition titled, Keep It Simple. Keep it Fresh, which appeared at Galerie Michael Janssen in Singapore from January 19 through March 10.

At a memorable dinner in March inside Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, Alice Davis (Chouinard 50) and many of her friends celebrated 100 years of Marc Davis (Chouinard 43), her husband and the Disney legend who would have been 100 years old this year. With Davis and 33 of her and Marc’s friends seated around a long table in the portrait corridor of the Haunted Mansion, guests feasted on a special dinner prepared by Disneyland’s private restaurant, Club 33. Marc Davis taught animation at Chouinard, and was well known as one of Disney’s “Nine Old Men”—the talented animators who created the classic Disney films, including Cinderella and Bambi. He then moved on to design Disneyland attractions, such as the Haunted Mansion and The Pirates of the Caribbean. Walt Disney once referred to Davis as his “Renaissance man” because of his artistic expertise and versatility. Alice, named a Disney Legend in 2004, also has had a remarkable career, as a fashion designer and as a legendary costume designer for Disney films, television, and theme parks.

Denise Davis (Photography MFA 99) has been awarded a National Artist Teacher Fellowship by the Center for Arts in Education at Boston Arts Academy. Davis, a photography teacher at Fairfax Magnet Center for Visual Arts in Los Angeles, is one of 20 awardees nationwide, and will receive a $5,500 fellowship, while her school will be awarded a $1,500 grant to support her teaching activities.

A solo exhibition of the work of Laddie John Dill (Chouinard BFA 68) opened on May 8 at Nyehaus gallery in New York. The show includes examples of Dill's "Light Sentences": colored sections of glass tubing filled with gases of varying intensities, illuminated by gas and ignited by electricity. They are encased in individual containers and recessed into the wall. The opening reception is from 6-9 pm. The show runs through July 26.

A solo exhibition by faculty member Sam Durant (Art MFA 91) is
currently on view at Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rome (MACRO), featuring sculpture and drawings from 2001 to the present, including a few pieces made specifically for the exhibition. The show, titled La Stessa Storia or The Same History, is Durant's first solo show at an Italian public institution. Durant focuses on social, political and cultural issues in American history, with a recent interest in Italian history, including the late 19th century anarchist movement. The show is on view until September 1.

An extensive career retrospective of the work of painter and musician Llyn Foulkes (Chouinard 59) is on view at the Hammer Museum in Westwood until May 19. The exhibition includes his early cartoons and drawings, his emotionally-charged paintings of the early 1960s, and his "bloody head" series, among other work. Foulkes will perform on his unique instrument, called "The Machine," on May 19 at 3 PM.

Roberta Griffith (Chouinard BFA 60) has been selected for inclusion in Artists of Hawaii 2013, a biennial exhibition at the Honolulu Museum of Art opening in September. Of the 11 artists selected, she is the only one from Kauai. Griffith's work is featured in an online museum writeup.

On June 10, the Museum of Art and Design (MAK) in Vienna will open the exhibition Nomadic Furniture 3.0, tracing the origins of the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) furniture and furnishings phenomenon from its start to the present day. Former CalArts School of Design faculty Jim Hennessey and Victor Papenek co-wrote the books Nomadic Furniture 1 and Nomadic Furniture 2, which were important reference and starting points for depicting the DIY movement. During the run of the exhibition, which continues through October 6, Hennessey will give a presentation, and talk about the books and about Papanek, who passed away in 1998. In 2008, the books were reprinted by Schiffer Publishing in a new volume containing both books called Nomadic Furniture.

We are saddened to learn that Channa Horwitz (Art BFA 72) died on April 29. Horwitz was singled out by critics last year in the Hammer Museum's first biennial survey of Los Angeles-based artists. In a 2012 review, Los Angeles Times critic Christopher Knight described her work as "patterned Minimalist drawings that breathe, pulsate and visually warp in most un-Minimalist ways." In April, Horwitz was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. Her work has been included this year in The Encyclopedic Palace, the exhibition in the 55th Venice Biennale that accompanies the shows in the national pavilions.

Photographer Michael Jang (Photography BFA 73) is the subject of a feature article in American Photo, focused on a body of work that he shot of his family more than 30 years ago. The work is also the subject of a solo exhibition at San Francisco's Stephen Wirtz Gallery, on view until July 13. The series began in 1973, when he was a student at CalArts.

CalArtians Pamela Jordan (Art MFA 96) and Alice Konitz (Art MFA 99) are part of a three-person show at the Samuel Freeman Gallery in Los Angeles. The show runs through May 18.

Minimalist artist Gary Lang (Art BFA 72) was the focus of a recent solo exhibition at the Lancaster Museum of Art and History. A film about Lang and the exhibition can be viewed on Vimeo.

Nery Gabriel Lemus (Art MFA 09) has received a City of Los Angeles (C.O.L.A.) Individual Artist Fellowship for 2013. His C.O.L.A. project is a four-channel video installation with text, inspired by an interview with the writer James Baldwin. Opening reception at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery is May 19, from 2-5 pm. The exhibtion runs through July 7.

A new public artwork by artist Elana Mann (Art MFA 07) was presented by the Pasadena-based nonprofit organization Side Street Projects (cofounded by faculty member Karen Atkinson, Art MFA 84) from March 8 to April 29.  Titled Listening as (a) movement, the work involved interactive sculpture and community based performance art events and took place at Side Street Projects’ mobile headquarters in Pasadena, where Mann built three outdoor sculptures stemming from the designs of pre-radar sonic technologies. In addition to the show at SSP, Mann was also featured in a recent group exhibition entitled Teach-in at Cypress College in Cypress, California, and a group exhibition at Smack Mellon in New York. Mann is currently an artist-in-residence at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minn.

Visual artist David McDonald (Art MFA 92) was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship on April 11 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. McDonald is one of only 175 artists, scholars and scientists to receive the award this year. Fellow CalArtian luciana achugar (Dance BFA 95) and art faculty member Charles Gaines were also honored this year with a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Painter Rifka Milder (Art BFA 84) had a show of her work at the Art Gallery at Rockefeller State Park Preserve in Pleasantville, N.Y. The show was titled Nature's Reflections.

Artist Robin Mitchell (Art BFA 72; MFA 74) will be exhibiting her paintings in a solo show at Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica, with an opening on July 13 from 4 PM-6 PM. The show runs through August 31.

Professor at Hamburg's Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste and the 2012-13 UCLA Art Council Chair, Matt Mullican (Art BFA 74) presented a lecture on his work at the Hammer Museum in Westwood on May 9. Mullican's work deals with systems of knowledge, meaning, and language through drawing, collage, video, sculpture, performance, and installation. Mullican is included in the Venice Biennale's 55th International Art Exhibition, called The Encyclopedic Palace, opening June 1 and continuing through Nov. 24. He is joined in the show by Jim Shaw (Art MFA 78) and Christopher Williams (Art MFA 81, Music BFA 79). Shaw is also one of three artists chosen by Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam to transform a cavernous space in the port into a gigantic art studio. Submarine Wharf--XXXL Painting will be on view from June 8 through September 29.

Besides winning the 2013 REDCAT award in March, photographer Catherine Opie (MFA 88) also received the 4th annual Julius Shulman Institute Excellence in Photography Award at the opening of her solo exhibition: Catherine Opie: In & Around L.A., held at the Woodbury University Hollywood gallery early this year. And she’s had two other solo shows this year. She exhibited new portraits and landscapes in a solo exhibition at Regen Projects in Los Angeles, and Twelve Miles to the Horizon at the Long Beach Museum of Art included photographs taken on a 10-day voyage aboard a container ship that traveled from Busan, Korea to Long Beach during the summer of 2009. 

As He Remembered It, a new installation by Stephen Prina (Art MFA 80) at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art from April 7 through August 4, had its beginnings in a walk down La Brea Avenue that he took in the 1980s with fellow CalArtian Christopher Williams (Art MFA 81, Music BFA 79). They spotted a piece of furniture originally designed as a built-in unit by architect R.M. Schindler, but which was now displayed as a freestanding object. On top of this, it was pink. For his current show, Prina had copies made of Schindler furniture from two houses that had been demolished. The 28 objects were then painted pink and are displayed in a grid pattern.

The work of Aviva Rahmani (Art MFA 74) was included in three group shows: In the Green, a show about environmental degradation and solutions, was at Woman Made Gallery in Chicago through April 22; Climate Change: Conveying Realities was at eco*art*lab in Athens, Georgia through April 27; and One of a Kind: Unique Artist's Books is at AC Institute in New York through May 18. 

An exhibit of photographic work by Ed Ruscha (Chouinard 60) that he turned into books is on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum through September 29. Works on view include Twentysix Gasoline Stations (1963), Some Los Angeles Apartments (1965), and perhaps his most well known photographic series, Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966).

Lucy Soutter (Photography MFA 93) has published a book this year called Why Art Photography? (Routledge). The book is an introduction to the ideas behind contemporary photography, exploring issues such as ambiguity, objectivity, and staging. Soutter currently teaches critical and historical studies at the Royal College of Art in London.

Jesse Lee Stout (Art MFA 11; Film/Video BFA 02) has been busy
overseeing creative direction and directing video environments for
numerous musicians. Creative direction projects have included work for indie pop band, The XX, for Beck, and for The Weeknd's 2012 tour. Stout directed video environments for Rihanna's Diamonds world tour and for all of her televised performances in 2012; he directed video environments for Drake's Club Paradise tour in 2012; he directed video environments for Jay Z's numerous festival shows and for the Barclays Center opening in 2012; and he directed video environments for the televised appearances of Florence + the Machine in 2011 and 2012.

Benjamin Tong (Art MFA 12) and Alice Wang (Art BFA 10) are currently Villa Aurora fellows in Berlin, and are working there until June 2. Dual solo exhibitions of their work open on May 22 at 6 pm. at Galerie Torstrasse. Tong's show, titled In a thousand years, we will have corrected the earth's rotational axis shifting it 45 degrees aligning to that of Venus, and the polar icecaps will have melted giving the seas a flavoring of lemonade, involves an installation constructed from local objects, a four-part animation opera and a performative text. Wang's show, called The Secret Blackness of Milk, relates to a birch tree that has taken root on the roof of a 19th century building behind the gallery's courtyard. The work will be on view through May 29.

Winter 2012/13

We are saddened to learn that Gary E. Bachman (Art MFA 82) passed away suddenly on December 1, 2012. Gary, who graduated from Westfield High School, the University of Hartford and CalArts, was an artist and a theatrical teamster working for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 817. He is survived by his beloved companion, Deborah Kammer; his daughter, Jett Bachman and her mother, Susan Silas; his parents, Kenneth and Dorothy Bachman; his brother Kenneth Bachman, and his sister Karen Bachman. 

Visitation will be at Memorial Funeral Home, 155 South Ave., Fanwood, NJ on Friday, December 7, 2012 from 2-4 and 7-9. The funeral will be at the First Baptist Church, 170 Elm St., Westfield on December 8 at 3 pm. Cremation will be private. In lieu of flowers, the family has requested that friends make contributions to their favorite charities in Gary's name.

The Studio Museum's exhibit,  Fore, will run from  November 11, 2012 - Mar 10, 2013 and feature the work of Sadie Barnette (Art BFA 06), Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle (Interschool MFA 12), Nicole Miller (Art BFA 05), Akosua Adoma Owusu (Interschool MFA 08), Nikki Pressley (Art MFA 08) and Nate Young (Art MFA 09).  The exhibit was also featured in a New York Times article.

Nyehaus Gallery has announced their upcoming exhibition, Rebels in Paradise, in Bungalow 5 at Miami's Delano Hotel, December 5-8, 2012. Artists include Larry Bell (Chouinard 59), Ron Cooper (Chouinard), Mary Corse (Chouinard BFA 68) and Laddie John Dill (Chouinard BFA 68).

Richard Bruland's (Art BFA 73) show at  the Lora Schlesinger Gallery in Santa Monica was featured in the Los Angeles Times.

David Burns (Photography BFA 93), Matias Viegener and Austin Young's nonprofit, Fallen Fruit, was featured in the Los Angeles Times.  The group designed California's first public orchard, opened in Del Aire Park on January 5.

Kraig Cavanaugh (Art MFA 88; BFA 86) was recently accepted into
the International Association of Art Critics-USA Chapter (AICA-USA),
originally founded as a non-governmental body of UNESCO. Last year he was awarded first place at the Excellence in Journalism Awards for "Daily Newspapers and Websites Arts & Entertainment Reporting" by the San Diego Press Club for his article “Gustav Stickley Exhibition at the San Diego Museum of Art."

Lori (Waldron) Collier (Art/Design BFA 85) recently received full time Art/Design faculty status at Lassen College and is the director for the Digital Graphic Design program. She developed the 64 unit DGD program and received California State Chancellor's Office approval in 2012. Lori can be contacted at lcollier@lassencollege.edu.

Nye+Brown will present an exhibition of works by Mary Corse (Chouinard BFA 68) and James Turrell.  The opening reception will be held January 12, 2013.

On January 13, 2013, LACMA will host an Artist Conversation with Liz Glynn (Art MFA 08), Mark Hagen (Art MFA 02) and Ruben Ochoa, whose work is included in the exhibit, Lost Line: Contemporary Art from the Collection.

Sayre Gomez (Art MFA 08) is included in the group show, Always Yours, Des Objects Manques, Des Monuments, curated by Neil Beloufa at Balice Hertling Gallery in Paris from January 11 - March 16, 2013.

A painting installation by Raúl Guerrero (Chouinard 70) titled “Farewell to the Whaling Bar” opens on March 11 at Manhattan of La Jolla. Guerrero’s photographs, paintings and drawings are on view at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla along with work by Ed Ruscha (Chouinard 60) from February 16 to March 23. Guerrero's work also appeared in a two-person show with Larry Bell (Chouinard 59) at La Jolla’s Aldis Browne Fine Arts in February.

Hadley Hollliday's (Art MFA 04) work will be exhibited in Forms of Abstraction, a group show featuring 23 southern California artists, at Irvine Fine Arts Center from January 12 - February 23, 2013 and One With the Sun, a solo show of new paintings, at Carl Solway Gallery from January 18 - March 23, 2013.

Garit Imhoff (Design BFA 72) received an Artist Outreach Grant from the Kenneth A. Picerne Foundation to work with children ages five to 16 in an after school program at the Encinitas Boys and Girls Club where he teaching storytelling, shadow puppetry, mask making and world music. In addition, Garit completed a seven foot banner for the Coast Highway 101 in Encinitas as part of the Arts Alive program, featuring a portrait of Ravi Shankar, with whom he studied with at Cal Arts. 

The Carnegie Art Museum in Oxnard, CA will host Edging Reason- Words an investigation of hand-painted words and phrases by Gary Lang (Art BFA 72) from March 10 - May 19, 2013, with an opening reception on March 9.

Laura London's (Art MFA 85) work is included in the exhibit, Mind/Map/Los Angeles:  The Laurence Rickels Collection, at the Museum of Art, Design & Architecture at UC Santa Barbara from February 16-March 10, 2013.

Interdisciplinary artist turned filmmaker Rika Ohara (Art MFA 85) is working on her new film Carmilla, which locates the origin of modern vampire myths in the cultural fears engendered by the historical East-West conflict. Her effort to finance the film is hosted by USA Projects, which only accepts projects by artists who have won a nationally-recognized award. Her film, The Heart of No Place, won the Best Film award at London Independent Film Festival in 2010.

Howard Oransky (Art MFA 84), director of the Katherine E. Nash Gallery at the Regis Center for Art/University of Minnesota, is curating The House We Built: Feminist Art Then and Now, "group exhibitions and related public programs that explore the national network of feminist art activity that emerged in the 1970s and changed the course of contemporary art," from January 22 – February 23, 2013.

Tony Oursler (Art BFA 79) directed David Bowie's recent video for Where Are We Now? which was featured on the CalArts blog 24700.

Designer Nathan Martin (Graphic Design BFA 08) recently passed away.  Nathan owned his own design studio, Life & Work.

Director, writer and producer, Michael Polish (Graphic Design BFA 93) is in post-production on Big Sur, based on Jack Kerouac's autobiographical novel.  The film is scored by fellow alumnus Kubilay Uner.  Polish is in preproduction on 18 Wheel Butterfly, starring Evan Rachel Wood.

Aviva Rahmani (Art MFA 74) will co-host Trigger Points After the Storm, an evening event/discussionwith Wendy Osserman in the Philosoprops & Onotological Apparatus Dialectic Revival Series Exhibition by Alyce Santoro at Gasser Grunert Gallery (New York) on January 21, 2013.  Also, she will give an artist talk at the opening of Oil & Water Diptych It's the End of the World as We Know it (and I Feel Fine) at Ramapo College Art Galleries (Mahwah, NJ) on January 30, 2013.

Gail Rebhan (Photography MFA 81) essay and photographs are included in the new book, Reconciling Art and Motherhood, edited by Rachel Epp Buller and published by Ashgate.

The work of artist and alumna Nicola Voss (Art MFA 90; BFA 88) is included in the exhibit Bite Me at the McGroarty Arts Center in Tujunga, CA. On view until March 23, the show explores food on many levels, from its production and consumption to its value as a social, cultural, economic and political commodity. Nicki is an admissions coordinator at CalArts.

The de Young Museum will present former CalArts faculty Natalie Zimmerman (Art 01) and Michael Wilson's Social Dreaming in the 21st century, February 6 through March 3, 2013, as part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s Artist-in-Residence Program.

Fall 2012

Nyehaus Gallery presented Terry Allen (Chouinard BFA 66) Ghosts: Works from the Dugout/Ghost Ship Rodez/And Others from October 9 - November 24, 2012.

80WSE Galleries presents New York University Art Theory and Criticism faculty Kathe Burkhart (Art MFA 84), Jamie Dearing, Michael DeLucia, Susanna Howe, Nadja Marcin, George Wilson and Adam Winner from November 27 to December 22, 2012, with an opening reception on November 27.

The Laguna Art Museum will open an exhibition of watercolors by Timothy J. Clark (Chouinard BFA 72). Curated by the museum’s Curator of Early California Art, Janet Blake, the exhibit will run from November 4, 2012 - January 20, 2013.

The Hammer Museum will mount an exhibit of Meg Cranston's (Art MFA 86) work June 2, 2012 - February 7, 2013. She will present a lecture at the Museum on December 13th, 2012.   

Another Self by Akina Cox (Art MFA 07) and Ariane Vielmetter (Art MFA12) will be shown at Marine Contemporary in Venice, CA through November 24, 2012. In addition, Akina and Ariane worked with designer and artist Stefani Greenwood (Photography BFA 07) on an artist book that will be available at the opening reception on October 20.

Todd Childers (Graphic Design MFA 93) is Associate Professor of Graphic Design at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. In August, 2012 he presented on Anton Stankowski's Berlin City logo design and graphic identity system called the Berlin Layout at the 2012 Design Inquiry's Design Cities: Berlin Workshop in Germany. In addition, one of his graphic design projects was recognized at the Adobe Achievement Awards and the Type Directors Club TDC 57 Exhibition, Ironically Digital Typography. In March, 2012 he worked with Bowling Green graphic design students' to project their work onto buildings at the 2012 Havana Biennale in Cuba.

Michael Darmody's (Art MFA 89) House of Cards, Version 2.0 will be on display at San Juan College, sponsored by the Native American Center as part of its activities related to November’s Native American Month at SJC.  

Sean Flahery's (Art MFA 12) first solo show, An Overture in Parts, will be held at the Grand Central Art Center's Project Room Gallery at California State University, Fullerton from November 3 - December 31, 2012, with an opening reception on November 3. In addition, he and Brendan Threadgill (Photo & Media MFA 07) are included in Wharton + Espinosa's Disoriented Orientation / Oriented Disorientation November 15, 2012 - January 4, 2013.

Helen Rebekah Garber (Art BFA 07) had her first solo show, Spells, Spires And Other Delicate Business at the Charlie James Gallery in Los Angeles.

Roberta Griffith (BFA Chouinard '60) is one of 11 artists from the state of Hawaii invited to exhibit in Hawaiian Artists at the Honolulu Museum of Art on Oahu, September 19 - November 24, 2013.

Raul Guerrero (Chouinard 70) exhibited Portraits with the Beyond the Border Gallery at the Art San Diego 2012 Contemporary Art Fair September 6-9, 2012.

Eleanor LaVove (Chouinard), co-founder of the Angels Attic dollhouse museum in Santa Monica, CA passed away on August 24, 2012 at age 94.

Rika Ohara (Art MFA 85) and adjunct faculty Mark Steven Greenfield are included in the 2012 C.O.L.A. Exhibition from September 30 - October 28, 2012.

Brendan Threadgill - See Sean Flaherty.

Nancy Jean Tucker (Photography BFA 96) directed and animated a new music video for Simone White that will premiere in Spin.

Noah Webb (Photography MFA 00) photographed designer Tim Clarke's Coastal Modern, highlighted in the December issue of House Beautiful.

Summer 2012

John Calvelli (Graphic Design MFA 87) started his Ph.D. at the
European Graduate School in August, 2012. He is on permanent faculty in
Liberal Studies at Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary, Canada.

Calvin Lee (Photography & Media MFA 09) is organizing an exhibition at the Charlie James Gallery in Los Angeles' Chinatown featuring fellow alumni Erich Bollman (Art MFA 10), Ian James (Photography & Media MFA 09), Augusta Wood (Photography & Media MFA 05), and Aaron Wrinkle (Art MFA 08).

James Chinlund (Art BFA 94) was the production designer for The Avengers, and was featured in an LA Times article.

The first Los Angeles biennial, Made in L.A. 2012, will be presented at the Hammer, LAXART, and the Department of Cultural Affairs’ Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Park. The exhibition will feature works by 60 artists from the L.A. region, and will debut new installations, videos, films, sculptures, performances, and paintings produced for the biennial. The exhibit features work by CalArts Alums: Scott Benzell (Art MFA 01), Meg Cranston (Art MFA 86), Fiona Connor (Art MFA 11), Roy Dowell (Art BFA 73, Art MFA 75), Zachary Drucker (Photo & Media MFA 07), Patricia Fernandez (Art MFA 11), Dan Finsel (Art MFA 11) of the Francois Hhebaly Gallery, Liz Glynn (Art MFA 08), Mark Hagen (Art MFA 02), Kenyatta Hinkle (Art MFA 12 & MFA Writing 12), Channa Horwitz (Art BFA 72), Nery Gabriel Lemus (Art MFA 09), Dashiell Manley (Art BFA 07) of the Lora Reynolds Gallery in Austin TX, Alex Olson (Art MFA 08), Vincent Ramos (Art MFA 07), Ry Rocklen (Art BFA 98), Henry Taylor (Art BFA 95), Cody Trepte (Art MFA 10), Erika Vogt (Film/Video MFA 03) of The Propeller Group which also includes Matt Lucero (Art MFA 03)  and Tuan Andrew Nguyen (Art MFA 04). The installations will run from June 22 - September 2, 2012.

Edward Flynn (Chouinard BFA 67) will exhibit his work at Curve Line Space in Los Angeles from August 11 to September 5, 2012.

Richard Hertz authored, Jack Goldstein and the CalArts Mafia, featured in 40 Books Every Artist Should Read. Jack Goldstein, (Art MFA 72) and his classmates led a vital shift in Pictures Art in the 1970s, and the book examines that time, as Chounaird became CalArts and the compelling story of Goldstein himself. The featured list is here.

Sayre Gomez (Art MFA08) and Joe Goode (Chouinard 61) will be featured in an exhibition titled L'idee Fixe from July 7 - August 4, 2012.

Hadley Holliday (Art MFA 04) has curated a group exhibit, Summer Sun at Taylor De Cordoba in Los Angeles from July 14 - August 18, 2012.

Robert Glenn Ketchum's (Design MFA 73) show, In Black and White, will be at the G2 Gallery in Venice, CA until August 5, 2012.

Linda Ravenswood (Art BFA 00) has recently published Hymnal with Mouthfeel Press.

Eddo Stern's (Integrated Media MFA 00) The World is Down: 10 Works by Eddo Stern is at the Young Projects Gallery in Los Angeles.

Following a long illness, Webster Terhune (Art BFA 77) passed away on August 26, 2012. Following CalArts, he earned an MA in Media Studies at Rhode Island College. Webster was employed by the San Francisco Exploratorium and Ilux Imaging in Norwich, CT, and taught at New England Institute of Technology. In 2008, he held a solo art exhibit of his work in Westerly, RI. Last year, he and his wife, Jaclyn Udaloff (Dance 75) published This World is Personal, and Webster also published Photometaphoria, an eBook of his artwork. Memorial gifts may be made in Webster's name to Home and Hospice Care of Rhode Island (HHCRI).

James Welling (Art BFA 72, Art MFA 74) will exhibit at the Donald Young Gallery in Chicago, IL. In Fall 2012, Welling's  will exhibit at Milton Keynes Gallery, UK and in 2013,The Cinncinati Art Museum and the Fotomuseum Winteur Switzerland will present a survey of the artists' work from 1947-2012.

Spring 2012

On April 21, 2012, Laddie John Dill's (Chouinard 68) Contained Radiance L.A will be shown at Nye+Brown. 

Bucky Fukumoto (Graphic Design BFA 98) has been named as the new director of Locksmith Content production company.

Raul Guerrero (Chouinard 70) will take part in the Warehouse Gallery in Los Angeles exhibit, Large: Paintings of Wicked Adults.

Molly Hayden (Graphic Design BFA 91) publishes a weekly webcomic The Lay of the Lacrymer and will participate in the Stumptown Comic fest.

Photographer Jeanette May's work (Photo MFA 87) is included in Creature Features with Jocelyn Chase at A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn April 26 - May20, 2012.

Gallery Vassie in Amsterdam will present "ARCHITORSPACE,"  an exhibition of photographs by Daniel Mirer (Art MFA 92) May 26 - June 23, 2012.

Mira Schor's (Art MFA 73) exhibition of paintings titled Voice and Speech will be featured at Marvelli Gallery March 29 - May 5, 2012.

Rea Tajiri (Art BFA 80,  Art MFA 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 Temple University's Film Media Arts' Los Angeles Study Away and Internship programs, where she is an Assistant Professor.

Tajiri's  film and video work has been featured in three Whitney Biennials (1989, 1991 and 1993) 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 (Art BFA 92) recently was interviewed by Leah Oates in NY Arts Magazine.

Winter 2011/12

Mark Bradford (Art BFA 95) has concurrent retrospectives at SFMOMA and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, February 18 - June 17, 2012.

Philip Chang's (Art MFA 05) solo exhibition at LAXART titled Cache, Active opens March 10, 2012. Also, he will curate Affective Turns? group show at Pepin Moore Gallery opening on March 3, 2012.

Charong Chow (Art BFA 99) published her first young adult novel, Random.

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

Akina Cox (Art BFA 07) was profiled in Contemporary Art from Los Angeles.

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

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

Michael Darmody (Art MFA 89) is exhibiting House of Cards at the New Mexico Arts Centennial Project in Santa Fe from January 13 - February 17, 2012.

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

Karl Erickson (Art MFA 02), Executive Director of D.U.M.B.O. Arts Center (DAC) in Brooklyn, shared that DAC will exhibit Robby
Herbst' (Art MFA 99)  exhibition New Pyramids for the Capitalist System in February, 2012.

Guillermo Gómez-Peña (Art BFA 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 (Chouinard BFA 60) is exhibiting her work at Galarie 103 on Kaua'i from December 10, 2001 - February 11, 2012.

The San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art will include Michael Jang's (Design BFA 73) work in their Best of the Seventies show.

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

On February 1, 2012, the CalArts community was saddened to learn of Mike Kelley's (Art MFA 78) passing.

We learned that Jack Kling (Chouinard BFA 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 (Chouinard BFA 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 (Photography MFA 87) exhibition Bachelor Pads will run at A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn, NY from Feb 1 - 25, 2012.

Michael Metcalf (Chouinard BFA 68) reports that following graduation from Chouinard, he earned an M.Arch from UCLA, and 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 (Photography MFA 95) will give a visiting artist lecture at California State University Long Beach on May 2, 2012.

Jessica Rath's (Art MFA 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 (Art BFA 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 (Art BFA 71) will have her sculptures featured in the February, 2012 issue of the online journal, Logos.

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

Deborah Wasserman (Art BFA 92) is exhibiting at the Red Show at the Cheryl Hazan Gallery in New York from December 15, 2011 - January 15, 2012.

James Welling (Art BFA 72) will exhibit Geometric Abstraction at Regen Projects II in Los Angeles from February 29 - March 31, 2012.

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

Fall 2011

Kelly Barrie (Art MFA 97) is showing Mirror House at the Santa Monica Museum of Art through December 10, 2011. The work was recently reviewed by the L.A. Times.

James Casebere (Art MFA 79) recently held a book signing of James Casebere: Works 1975-2010, which will be released in November, 2011.

Dorit Cypis (Art MFA 77) is participating in the Colonialism: the Collective Unconscious exhibition at the William Grant Still Arts Center from October 8 - November 18, 2011.

Gavin Flint (Art MFA 97) will exhibit at GK Gallery in Tokyo from November 21 -26, 1011.

Jeanette May (Art MFA 87) will teach Vision and Difference: Transcending the Gaze at the International Center of Photography on the female gaze in comtemporary photography. The course will begin October 6, 2011.

Brett Cody Rogers (Art MFA 04) is presenting Painter's Forms at Pepin Moore from September 17 - October 22, 2011.

Hollywood constume designer Theadora Van Runkle (Chouinard) passed away on November 4, 2011 at 83 from lung cancer.  Her work included the costumes for Bonnie and Clyde, The Godfather trilogy, The Jerk and Peggy Sue Got Married.

Summer 2011

Ismael de Anda (Art MFA 00) will show his work at the Annex Gallery in a show titled Fortress of Solitude: Flux Ultralux from August 13 - September 4, 2011.

Georgi Coquereau (Photography MFA 86) recently designed and produced Wearable Animation, where images are designed to give the illusion of movement.

Detours: Tahoe City, a site specific exhibition featuring five Calartians, including Karen Atkinson (Art MFA 84, faculty), Donna Brown (Art MFA 11), Connie Hatch (faculty), John Hogan (Art MFA 06, staff) and Jane Jenny (Art BFA 94).

Guillermo Gomez-Pena (Art BFA 81) is working with actor Richard Montoya on Los Dopplegangersl premiering in Denver on Spetember 3, 2011 at Su Tetro and at the Fowler Museum in Los Angeles on September 14, 2011.

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

Laura London (Art MFA 85) will show Chain Letter Group Exhibition at the Shoshana Wayne Gallery at Bergamont Station (Los Angeles) onJuly 23rd, 2011.

Richard Mann (Art BFA 81) will take part in Flying Rings at Venice Beach.

Joseph Park's (Art MFA 90) new work, This is Prizmism, will be at the Rena Bransten Gallery in San Fransisco through August, 2011.

Laura Parker (Art MFA 86) has a show Rotations and Rubbings with Elliot Wilcox at the DNJ Gallery in Santa Monica June 4 - July 16, 2011.

Margaret Pezalla (Art MFA 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 a Next Step Grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council to support an exhibition at the Burnet Art Gallery in May, 2012.

Jeff Phillips (Film Video BFA 74) curated Contemporary Bronze at the Plaza Gardens. Artists include Kristan Marvelland and Jim McAninch. The show runs from July 30 - September 15, 2011.

Michael Polish (Art BFA 92) has completed a new film, For Lovers Only, with original music by Kubilay Uner (Music MFA 91) and musical performances by Dan Rosenboom (Music MFA 10).

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

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

Deborah Wasserman's (Art BFA 92) Homeward Found will be shown at Art Hampton with Cheryl Hazan (Booth#166).

Spring 2011

Mark Allen (see Robin Sukhadia - Music)

Kathe Burkhart (BFA Art BFA 84) has received USA Projects support for two upcoming solo shows in Europe this summer. In addition, she was part of the group show Cabaret, curated by Matthew Weinstein, in March, 2011 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 (Art BFA 95) was the feature of Australia Dateline's, LA Laid Bare.

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

Gina Dabrowski (Photography MFA 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 7:00 pm (PST).

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

The Hammer Museum presented Strange Democracy: An Evening with Guillermo Gomez-Pena (Art BFA 81) in April, 2011.

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

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

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

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

Chere Krakovsky- See Suzan Shutan.

Elanna Mann's (Art MFA 07) Die Gedanken Sind Frei (Our Thoughts Are Free) is at the Jancar Gallery in Los Angeles through April 30, 2011.

Jeanette May (Photography BFA 87) was 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 runs from April 27 to May 21, 2011.

Rodney McMillian (Art MFA 02) was one of the first visiting artists in Art Workshop Collaborative (AWC), a new collaboration between CalArts and the California African American Museum. 

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

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

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

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

Ceramic artist Elsa Rady (Chouinard 65), who studied with Ralph Bacerra and Otto and Vivika Heino, passed away on January 29, 2011. Her work, which is included in LACMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian's collections, is also included in the 200-year history Craft in America: Expanding Traditions. She was 67.

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

In March, 2011l, Otis College of Art’s Clay in LA featured the work of Adrian Saxe (Chouinard 73) and Peter Shire (Chouinard 70).

Sydney Schuster (Art BFA 75) published Dead Spot, a finalist for the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

Suzan Shutan (Art BFA 78) is curating a six-week performance series at the Soapbox Gallery, Brooklyn, from April to June, 2011. Artists include Paul Anceau (Music BFA 76), Howard Better (Experimental Animation BFA 79) and Chere Krakovsky (Art BFA 77).

Peter Shire (Chouinard 70)- See Adrian Saxe.

Ruth Szold Stern (Art BFA 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, 2011.

Deborah Wasserman's (Art BFA 92) solo show of 500 miniature paintings, Far Away, So Close is at The Roger Smith Hotel in New York through April 30, 2011.

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