Category Archives: Graduate Art

4 Hours Solid: Intimidating Title, Illuminating Event

Dubbed “the event with the intimidating title” by its organizers, the first annual 4 Hours Solid took place on April 21 at Art Center’s South Campus and marked the first time the College  specifically showcased work and ideas from its four graduate programs—Graduate Art, Broadcast Cinema, Industrial Design (GradID) and Media Design (MDP).

Over 300 people attended the evening event, which included a panel discussion, exhibitions of recent student theses and work, student film screenings and a reception.

For the students showing their work, the evening provided a welcome opportunity to get feedback on their projects.

MDP student Haemi Yoon, who presented her thesis project that explores the down-time of everyday electronic objects, said she was surprised by the questions visitors asked her. “I thought people wouldn’t understand the project, but they totally got it,” said Yoon. “People asked me, ‘What do you think a future object will look like?’ and ‘Do you think these objects should have personalities?’ It was a great dialogue.” Continue reading →

A Visit With Pae White

The L.A. Times recently visited Graduate Art alum Pae White in her studio. Best known for large-scale commissions, such as a piece in the 2009 Venice Biennale, White says she’d now like to work on a much smaller scale.

“Though she makes self-deprecating jokes about the anxiety that often accompanies her creative endeavors – ‘I always say to myself, why do I get into this situation where I have no idea how to do this?’ — it is also clear that she thrives on the risk associated with testing unproven fabrication techniques on the large-scale, high-visibility, site-specific projects that have dominated her agenda of the last few years.”

Read more: Pae White, an artist ‘in the world’

Alum Sterling Ruby in Flash Art

Artist Sterling Ruby, who graduated from Art Center’s MFA program in 2005, is on one of the covers of the latest issue of Flash Art.

In an interview with João Ribas, the artist talks about how his work becomes a place where formalism and representation coexist, and how the hostile element of his work can at times overshadow its sincerity. Check out a PDF of the article courtesy of Foxy Production.

(Pictured: The Masturbators, Sterling Ruby, 9 channel video with sound)

Countdown to 4 Hours Solid

Join us Wednesday evening for 4 Hours Solid, an evening of work and ideas from Art Center’s graduate programs. Art Center’s Art, Broadcast Cinema, Industrial Design and Media Design departments will offer four jam-packed hours of exhibitions, screenings, discussions and presentations.

The event will feature “Screen/Culture,” a panel discussion of the ubiquity of screens in our everyday lives and their impact on makers of design, art and film. Panelists include Scott Watson, chief technology officer of Walt Disney Imagineering R&D; Kevin Mack, artist and Academy Award-winning visual effects supervisor of What Dreams May Come; Mackenzie Wark, chair of culture and media at Eugene Lang College and author of Gamer Theory and Hacker Manifesto; and Anne Bray, founding director of Freewaves, a global arts organization dedicated to collecting and connecting innovative and culturally relevant independent new media.

The free event will offer an array of programming throughout the evening along with food from the Flying Pig Truck, Grilled Cheese Truck and Coolhaus. Yum! Find out more at the 4 Hours Solid Facebook page. See you there!

4 Hours Solid
Wednesday, April 21, 6-10 pm
South Campus

Site-Specific Installation by Grad Art Faculty Member Opens in Westwood

Later Layer, a site-specific installation designed by artist and Graduate Fine Art associate professor Walead Beshty and architects Johnston Marklee, opens today at the Italian Cultural Institute (IIC) in Los Angeles. The installation features Beshty’s photograms in the Depart Foundation collection and architectural models of Johnston Marklee’s work in Italy. Presented as two connected projects, the models and photograms are displayed in a field of modular nesting boxes designed collaboratively by the artist and the architects.

The IIC is located at 1023 Hilgard Avenue in Westwood. The exhibit runs through Feb. 28.

Alumni Featured in PDC Show

More Diana Thater news: She has curated a very cool show with several Art Center alumni at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood as part of their Design Loves Art program. The program features a series of rotating contemporary art exhibitions and talks with artists, galleries, curators and architects in ongoing project rooms as well as exhibitions, multimedia events and film/video screenings.

Comprised of three exhibits, Thater’s show opens this Friday, Nov. 6. Be sure to stop by!

Muñoz Participates in Art Exchange

The exhibit LA Artcore Artists, including work by alumnus and faculty member Ramone Muñoz, opens this week in Bakersfield. Part of an “art exchange,” the first show, featuring L.A. artists, will hold an opening reception Oct. 15 at Bakersfield College’s Wylie and May Louise Jones Gallery. Next year, Bakersfield artists will exhibit at the Artcore Brewery Annex in downtown Los Angeles.

Bakersfield Express has a nice write-up previewing the show as well as an interview with Muñoz.

 (Pictured: “Towers of Vik” series of paintings by Ramone Muñoz)

Alums and Faculty Celebrate Armory’s 20th

The Armory is celebrating its 20th anniversary, kicking it off with a new exhibition.

Paying tribute to its 20 years of exhibition history, the Armory commissioned 20 contemporary artists, all having previously created art for the organization, to make new site-specific works and installations both inside the Armory and at sites throughout Pasadena. Artists included in the show include Art Center alums Edgar Arceneaux and Pae White, and faculty member Seth Kaufman.

The show, Installations Inside/Out: 20th Anniversary Exhibition, runs through Dec. 31. Details about the installations can be found here.

Alums Present Play in London

As part of the Serpentine Gallery in London’s Park Nights series, two Art Center grads will participate in a Sept. 25 performance of The Party, a play by alumna Alexis Marguerite Teplin MFA ART ’01 with texts by fellow alum Michael Ned Holte MA CRIT ’04. The Party is a collaborative project in the tradition of the Theatre of the Absurd including characters of an artist, designer, philosopher/critic and ingénue.

Read more about it on the Serpentine Gallery site.