Art Center Student Artwork on Display at Jones Coffee

Opening Reception Tuesday, June 11, 5—8 p.m.

Marking the first in a series of events to be held at Jones Coffee Roasters in partnership with Art Center, Community is an art exhibition debuting more than 25 new works from Art Center students on June 11, 2013 in Pasadena.

"Community" by Jess Zhang
“Community” by Jess Zhang will be part of the Community art exhibition at Jones Coffee Roasters, exploring the nature of community, identity and social connection.

“We’re thrilled to be kicking off our Art Center collaboration with Community,” said Chuck Jones, owner of Jones Coffee Roasters.  “Like Art Center, we value public discussion around important issues, and it’s an honor to serve as the forum for such reflection and dialogue.”

Community explores the intersection of identity and social connection, examining individuality and group identity in everyday life. Participating artists include Dylan Bocanegra, Kristina Halcromb, Luis Angel Sanchez, Brenda Chi, Jessica Portillo, Vladimir Almonnord, Valerie Pobjoy, Leonardo Santamaria, Jessica Zhang, Tyler Bennet, Simon Estrada, Taleen Keldjian, Rachel Moore, Sarang Byrne, TK Kuk, Antoinette Adams and Ana Maria Pino.  Community will feature works produced from a variety of art mediums including illustrations, paintings, digital photography, silkscreen and mixed media.

In the Company of Others by Simon Estrada is one of 25 new works from Art Center students at Jones Coffee Roasters.
In the Company of Others by Simon Estrada is one of 25 new works from Art Center students at Jones Coffee Roasters.

“The phrase Community came to embody a unique way of approaching interpersonal dynamics and creativity,” said Simon Estrada, illustrator and curator of the show.  “We took great care to craft an exhibition that would be an impactful and surprising in-person experience.”

Tribute to Woody Guthrie by Taleen Keldjian is a participating artist in the Community art exhibit at Jones Coffee Roasters.
Tribute to Woody Guthrie by Taleen Keldjian is a participating artist in the Community art exhibit at Jones Coffee Roasters.

Community will be on exhibit at Jones Coffee Roasters located at 693 S. Raymond Ave. in Pasadena. The show, which is free and open to the public, will open Tuesday, June 11, with an opening reception from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., and run through August 1.

 

 

 

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Alumni Featured in AllSpark Platinum Winners Video

Yves Béhar displays the durability of his See Better to Learn Better glasses in the new AllSpark video.

Yves Béhar displays the durability of his See Better to Learn Better glasses in the new AllSpark video.

Earlier this year, Art Center alumni swept the first ever AllSpark Platinum Awards, which honors “the best of the best of the best” of the 2012 entrants to the Spark Awards.

Spark recently released a video in which AllSpark winners Yves Béhar PROD 91, Franz von Holzhausen TRAN 92 and Sujin Hwang PROD 11 are interviewed alongside other top designers, including Sam Lucente and alumnus Earl Gee GRPK 83.

In the video, Béhar speaks about See Better to Learn Better, a program his company fuseproject created in partnership with the Mexican government and Augen Optics. The program distributes hundreds of thousands of eyeglasses every year to schoolchildren in Mexico. Children have the opportunity to choose their glasses’ frame, size and color, giving them a chance to be involved in the design process.

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Getty “Overdrive” Exhibition Designed in Collaboration With Environmental Design Students

getty-overdrive

The exhibition “Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future, 1940–1990,” organized by the Getty Research Institute and the J. Paul Getty Museum and on view through July 21, 2013, is the first major examination of the innovation and influence of Los Angeles architectural history. As Los Angeles in the second half of the 20th century grew rapidly into an industrial and creative capital, its architecture transformed the city’s landscape.

Designing the installation of “Overdrive” was a collaborative project between Art Center and the Getty. To develop the spatial and graphic design of the exhibition, the museum’s curatorial and design teams worked closely with a Transdisciplinary Studio class of 20 Art Center students in Environmental Design and Graphic Design, led by Art Center Environmental Design faculty member and alumnus Rob Ball, with the additional participation of Environmental Design instructor Dewi Schoenbeck.

Related:

Environmental Design Students Take Top Prize in 2013 LAIAC Competition

 

 

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Film Alum Turns Low-budget “Ball of Crazy” Into Music Videos for Two #1 Hit Songs

Recent Art Center Film alumnus Jon Jon Augustavo has more than one reason to celebrate. The music video “Thrift Shop” that he directed for Macklemore & Ryan Lewis—with 324 million YouTube views and counting—has been nominated for BET Music Video of the Year.

On top of that, their second music video collaboration, “Can’t Hold Us,” has racked up nearly 44 million views on YouTube in six short weeks. Both songs made it to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and “Can’t Hold Us” is now four weeks into holding top spot.

But Augustavo sees that success in a more humbling light.

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“Graphic Design USA” Names Faculty and Alumni Among Most Influential Professionals in Advertising

Art Center's Advertising Department Chair Gary Goldsmith. Photo: Chuck Spangler

Art Center’s Advertising Department Chair Gary Goldsmith. Photo: Chuck Spangler

This year, Graphic Design USA turns 50 years old. To celebrate the occasion the magazine has asked its readers to name the most influential graphic designers, art directors, corporate design departments and more of the past 50 years.

The publication plans to unveil the results of its 50th Anniversary Survey throughout the year. Not surprisingly, several Art Center faculty and alumni have made the list so far.

For this post, we’ll focus on Art Center alumni from the world of advertising in the survey, which includes Advertising Department Chair Gary Goldsmith ADVT 81 listed among the “Most Influential Art Directors of the Last 50 Years.”

“I’m honored to be included in that group,” said Goldsmith of making the list, a space he shares with fellow alumni David Peterson GRPK 88 and Tracy Wong ADVT 84. “I know most of them, and have worked with many of them during my career.”

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Art and Science Intersect at “Intimate Science” Exhibition Opening at Williamson Gallery

Intimate Science, an exhibition showcasing contemporary artists conducting projects in scientific and technological domains, opens at Art Center College of Design’s Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery on Friday, May 31. An opening reception, free to the public, will take place Thursday, May 30, from 7 to 9 p.m.

The Williamson Gallery, says Stephen Nowlin, founding director of the Gallery, has helped define this “briskly emerging international cultural movement.” He explains, “Science enjoys a popular patina of certainty, while behind art there is in fact cerebral order, structure and intent. The true kinship of art and science is to be found…when each discipline is allowed to encourage and ignite each other.”

Curated by Andrea Grover and organized by the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Intimate Science explores the shift from artists aiding science to artists “doing” science, and how this impacts the way scientific knowledge is acquired, used and shared. The exhibition continues through Aug. 18 at Art Center’s Hillside Campus in Pasadena.

Philip Ross's Mycotecture Series at the Williamson Gallery exhibit Intimate Science is an experiment in growing architectural structures and furniture from the fungus Ganoderma Lucidum, also known as Reishi or Ling Chi.

Philip Ross’s Mycotecture series in the Williamson Gallery exhibition Intimate Science is an experiment in growing architectural structures and furniture from the fungus Ganoderma Lucidum, also known as Reishi or Ling Chi.

 

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Film Alumnus Directs Most Watched Commercial

Dove Real Beauty Sketches, directed by John X. Carey, sets new record

Viewed more than 114 million times and counting, it became the most watched Internet commercial of all time in less than a month online, the New York Daily News reports. This week it surpassed the previous record holder, the Evian Roller Babies, notes Mashable.

What makes the three-minute video, directed by Art Center College of Design film alumnus John X. Carey for Dove’s Real Beauty campaign, so compelling?

A woman walks behind a curtain, where a forensic artist draws her based on her description of herself. What she doesn’t know is that another person will come in later and describe her as well. When the two sketches are placed side by side, there’s an obvious difference between how these women perceive themselves and how others perceive them. And when the forensic artist asks, “Are you more beautiful than you think?” the video captures their emotional responses.

In the end, they’re all beautiful.

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Robert and Faye Davidson Named Arts and Culture Ambassadors by Pasadena Community Foundation

Robert and Faye Davidson share a passion for the arts and have long appreciated and supported the unique cultural mix that makes Pasadena special. Now they are doing it officially.

The Pasadena Community Foundation (PCF) has appointed the Davidsons as Arts and Culture Ambassadors to lead the organization’s 60th anniversary celebration.

Robert and Faye Davidson have been appointed Arts and Culture Ambassadors by the Pasadena Community Foundation (PCF). Photo credit Evan Robinson.

Robert and Faye Davidson have been appointed Arts and Culture Ambassadors by the Pasadena Community Foundation. Photo credit Evan Robinson.

“The artistic and cultural resources in this community are vast,” says Robert Davidson.

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Illustration Students Awarded Scholarships from Society of Illustrators, Works on View in New York

Three works by Art Center Illustration students Hannah Chi, Michael Kuo and Ellen Surrey were recently selected from more than 5,000 entries as being among the “best of the best” in the Society of Illustrators annual Student Scholarship Competition. The artists were awarded monetary scholarships at an opening reception for the 2013 Student Scholarship Exhibition.

Chi’s Burdens depicts a humanoid zebra pedaling a bicycle cart overflowing with cast-off items. In Kuo’s Ramen Time, an Alice in Wonderland-like figure peers into a giant bowl of soup. And Surrey’s Normal Abnormal reveals the colorful inner workings of the brain inside the heads of two otherwise dark silhouettes.

Student Michael Kuo is one of the Society of Illustrators 2013 Student Scholarship Awards winners with his printmaking piece "Ramen Time."

Student Michael Kuo won a Society of Illustrators 2013 Student Scholarship Award for Ramen Time.

The students’ winning illustrations are now on view at the Society’s Museum of Illustration in New York, through June 5, joining those by 10 other Art Center students whose work was also recognized by the jury of professionals assembled by the Society of Illustrators that selected winning entries based on the quality of technique, concept and skill with medium used.

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Art Center, Caltech and NASA JPL to Host Industry Leaders for One-Day Data Visualization Symposium

Detail of student Jerod Rivera's "Reductive Resonance."

The data is out there. The challenge? Making sense of it all.

This Thursday, Art Center, Caltech and NASA JPL are joining forces to host leaders in the fields of data science and visualization from across the nation for From Data to Discovery, a one-day symposium on the emerging science of big data visualization.

The event will be held at Caltech’s Beckman Auditorium from 9 a.m to 5 p.m. and is open to members of the Art Center, Caltech and NASA JPL communities. The event is free but seating is limited, so reservations are required.

Participating guests include:

  • Fernanda Viégas & Martin Wattenberg, co-leaders of Google’s “Big Picture” visualization research group in Cambridge, Mass., who describe their work as exploring “the joy of revelation;”
  • Jer Thorp, co-founder of The Office for Creative Research, a New York-based multidisciplinary research group, and an artist whose practice uncovers the “many-folded boundaries between science and art;” Continue reading →
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