Category Archives: News

Art Center arrives in force at New York Design Week 2014


With New York Design Week in full swing, the city is teeming with design lovers and luminaries seeking a competitive edge on leading talent and trends. Art Center is featured at two major events: the high-profile International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) and WantedDesign. Attracting nearly 30,000 tastemakers in the worlds of interior design, architecture, retail, manufacturing, distribution and developers, ICFF is considered North America’s premiere showcase for contemporary design.

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ICFF 2014 spotlights alum Hines Fischer’s people-centric furniture design

Hines Fisher drafts his people-centric designs

Hines Fischer drafts his “people-centric” designs

One of the first students to enroll in the Furniture and Fixtures track of Art Center’s Graduate Environmental Design program when it launched, Hines Fischer specializes in “people-centric” furniture design for office spaces. He is among a select group of students to represent the College at both the 2013 and 2014 International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) during New York Design Week.

Last year, he says, “it was really nice to get the chance to go to a show like this before I had jobs on the line, so that I could kind of take in the landscape. I took a lot of notes and met a lot of famous designers, which was an incredible experience.” Fischer also reconnected there with people he had met while interning at a furniture company prior to coming to Art Center. “I reminded them that I would be graduating soon.”

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New librarian Mario Ascencio disrupts the bookish stereotype

 

Mario Ascencio named new librarian. Photo by Jason Hornick

New college librarian Mario Ascencio. Photo by Jason Hornick

As a first-generation library user (and son of immigrant parents from El Salvador) Mario Ascencio possesses an evangelical zeal for his work. A native Angeleno who grew up in South L.A.’s Huntington Park, Ascencio has become a fierce advocate for the equity of information for all. And as of Monday, May 12, 2014, the dedicated, nationally recognized leader will apply his passion for information science to Art Center’s James Lemont Fogg Memorial Library, where he was recently named librarian and managing director.

“I’m excited to return to my native city of Los Angeles,” he said, adding that he always insisted that he would only return to his hometown if the ideal position was offered by the ideal organization. “After almost 15 years living in D.C., I’m thrilled to join Art Center because of its mission, ‘Learn to Create, Influence Change.’ It’s at the core of my personal beliefs that the library and the staff have the power to help students explore and discover themselves as artists and designers, and to ultimately create a positive impact on their learning.”

Ascencio is keenly aware of the important big-picture issues faced by institutions and the role of the library in supporting overall goals and objectives. Looking ahead as the College continues its South Campus expansion close to downtown Pasadena, Ascencio envisions engaging with his colleagues to discover new opportunities to better serve the Art Center community.

Ascencio’s defining library moment occurred at age 17, when he helped an illiterate woman get her first library card. This empowering experience helped him realize how libraries can impact people’s everyday lives, particularly when it comes to the disadvantaged. A leader in promoting library services to Latinos and Spanish-speakers, he was named a Mover & Shaker by Library Journal in recognition of his commitment to improving and promoting library services at the national and international level.

Wearing your heart rate on your sleeve: Inside the wearable tech revolution

wearables_main

By now you’ve heard of Google Glass. But what about bracelets that measure sun exposure? Headphones that double as heartbeat monitors? Or jewelry that unlocks your front door? Are you ready for the dawn of smart watches, smart earrings, smart contact lenses and smart wigs? And no, that last one isn’t a joke.

The “wearables” field is in an early yet promising stage of its evolution. But Art Center, always striving to stay ahead of industry and cultural trends, has had wearables squarely in its sights for years. Today, our students, instructors and alumni are busy imagining where this technology might head next, creating the devices that are paving the way for the future, and questioning how a wearables-saturated world will change our behavior as human beings.

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New to Art Center? This orientation week survival guide may come in handy.

This week Art Center welcomes new students for a week of orientation and acclimation to life in the arroyo. Before getting down to the nitty gritty, here’s a few fun facts you may not know about the College:

  • The Sculpture Garden once held world-class sculptures on loan from LACMA.
  • Mary Lambert’s recent Body Love video was filmed on the sound stage at Art Center by alum Jon Jon Augustavo.
  • Some say the best bathrooms (and showering facilities) on campus are in the basement of 950 South Raymond.
  • Keep your eyes peeled for the deer wandering around and through Hillside campus. They are often photographed, frequently filmed and much loved.
  • Bears also make an occasional appearance. These appearances are less Facebook-friendly.

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“Hiroshi Sugimoto: Past Tense,” four decades of alum’s work at the Getty Museum through June 8

Polar Bear, 1976, Hiroshi Sugimoto, gelatin silver print. The J. Paul Getty Museum, purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council. © Hiroshi Sugimoto

Polar Bear, 1976, Hiroshi Sugimoto, gelatin silver print. The J. Paul Getty Museum, purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council.
© Hiroshi Sugimoto

Long interested in the “re” part of representation, Hiroshi Sugimoto has, since the 1970s, used photography to investigate how history pervades the present. His first photographs, made while still in high school, captured film footage of Audrey Hepburn as it played in a movie theater.

Now the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles brings together three separate bodies of work by the 1972 Art Center Photography alumnus — four decades’ worth of meticulously crafted prints that inventively reframe objects from the collections of a variety of museums. The exhibition Hiroshi Sugimoto: Past Tense, continuing through June 8, features “Dioramas” (1975–1994), “Portraits” (1999) and his newest series, “Photogenic Drawings” (2008–present).

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Agents of boom: Advertising alumni Melissa Thomas and Jack-Anthony Collier

Creative duo Jack-Anthony Collier and Melissa Thomas star in their zine "Birdscouts"

Creative duo Jack-Anthony Collier and Melissa Thomas as featured in their zine Birdscouts.

She’s a copywriter at Deutsch. He’s a copywriter for Mullen. Together, they’ve worked on campaigns for companies like Taco Bell, AT&T, Carls Jr., Kia and JetBlue.

But Art Center Advertising alumni Melissa Thomas (BFA 12) and Jack-Anthony Collier recently put their professional interests aside to tackle one of today’s most pressing issues: the dreaded boom mic mistake. Their solution? CATBOOM.

Okay, on a more serious note, today these creative partners are preparing to channel their creative energy in a different direction. This summer, they’ll be teaching at Art Center’s continuing education program, Art Center at Night, helping students get their advertising portfolios in shape in Advertising Portfolio Workshop.

“We’ll be going through the students’ books, and offering suggestions on how to improve and tighten them up,” says Collier. “We’ll be reviewing their work from an agency’s perspective before they head out into the big wide world.”

And of course, there will be fun.

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Spring 2014 Grad Show: Making the world a better place, by design

Like a field of tulips bursting with color, spring has sprung at Art Center in the form of last weekend’s Grad Show. With an eye-popping array of stunning creations and innovation, works from this term’s wildly talented cohort of graduating students exploded through the hallways and galleries of Hillside and South Campus. Potential employers, curious visitors, beaming family members and excited (yet relieved) friends fawned over the fruits of many years of work and sacrifice grads invested in joining the coveted club of Art Center alumni.

Dazzled as I was by the work, I was able to meet up with a few students. And the following survey offers but a small sample of the artists and designers who stood out for various reasons.

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Spring fever: Grad Art alum Alexis Marguerite Teplin melds performance, painting and a passion for ballet in Stravinsky-themed Zürich exhibition

Alexis Marguerite Teplin

Elas, 2012, oil on linen by Alexis Marguerite Teplin (courtesy Mary Mary Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland)

Graduate Art alumna Alexis Marguerite Teplin’s practice is noted for a theatricality based in seduction, artificiality and cultural signification–themes that harken back to Igor Stravinsky’s scandalous 1913 ballet, Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), culminating in the “sacrificial dance” of a young girl.

Fitting, then, that California-born, London-based Teplin is among the artists invited by the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, housed in a former brewery in Zürich, to create new work that addresses the ballet, its context and its history for Sacre 101—An Exhibition Based on The Rite of Spring.

In Teplin’s live performance piece P and C, taking place at the museum next Thursday, April 24, features the sound and movement of two actors (and of Teplin herself) performing in a burlesque manner in front of one of her large-scale paintings, wearing brightly colored costumes she designed. The artist was inspired by Natalia Goncharova, an avant-garde costume and set designer for Ballets Russes, the company that originally performed The Rite of Spring a century ago. P and C is Teplin’s second performance work; her first, The Party, was commissioned by London’s Serpentine Gallery.

On view through May 11, the Sacre 101 exhibition presents contemporary works alongside a selection of Sacre documentation, much of which is being shown in a museum context for the first time.

Watch our new video: Ray Eames, the Original Design Influencer

Last month Art Center’s Williamson Gallery grew to resemble a young girl’s dreamscape, as a set of hearts in the bold fanciful hues of love itself burst to life on its walls. In fact, we challenge anyone to not emerge full of child-like wonderment (and more than a little Eames chair-envy) after an amble through “Ray Eames: In the Spotlight,” a comprehensive tribute to the female half of the legendary Eames Office. The show, curated by the Eames’ granddaughter, Carla Hartman, explores Ray’s unique creative gifts and specific contributions to the vast body of iconic design work she created in conjunction with her husband and chief collaborator, Charles.

We were so moved by what we learned of Ray’s spirited, intuitive and deeply empathic approach to design and collaboration, we were inspired to produce the above video about the ways in which the Eames Office in general (and Ray specifically) inspired members of the Art Center community to push boundaries and imbue work and life with a sense of play.