Tag Archives: painter

It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it: Josh Smith at Art Center’s Graduate Seminar

Josh Smith

Josh Smith

For those unable to attend painter Josh Smith’s Graduate Art Seminar last month, we’ve got your back. Adam Stamp, who is currently pursuing an MFA through Art Center’s Graduate Art program, has provided an insightful and informed essay about Smith’s irreverent body of work and his wide-ranging talk full of valuable takeaways for emerging young artists.

In January, artist Josh Smith visited Art Center to speak at the Graduate Art Seminar lecture series. Smith is one of the 13 artists featured in The Forever Now, a controversial painting show at MoMA, described by many critics with the rhetoric du jour as the first survey of zombieism,[1] with many considering Smith to be the prime example. The artist who made a name for himself with his “name paintings”, a series of works that continue to this day where he uses his name (literally the letter J-O-S-H  S-M-I-T-H) as the subject of his paintings, was described in 2013 by New York Times critic Roberta Smith as “sacrosanct and trashy.” His newest works to make waves depict black palm tree silhouettes in front of Technicolor sky-scapes, á la Edvard Munch.

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Artworld luminaries and Art Center alums pay tribute to Mike Kelley’s legacy as an educator

Of all the ways Mike Kelley has been celebrated for his pivotal contributions to contemporary art, since his death on January 31, 2012, his impact as an educator may be the most significant aspect of his legacy to go relatively unexamined, if not unsung. Kelley was a faculty member of Art Center’s Graduate Art Department from 1992 to 2007. And during his time teaching at Art Center, Kelley mentored such monumental talents as video artist Diana Thater (who now chairs the department from which she graduated), multimedia artist Pae White, installation artist Jennifer Steinkamp and Fine Art faculty member Jean Rasenberger.

In the above video, inspired by Kelley’s MOCA retrospective, these artists examine the ways in which Kelley influenced the kind of artists they’ve become, the work they create and, perhaps most importantly, how they go about crafting and sustaining a life as an exhibiting artist. Kelley has often been credited with helping raise the clout and visibility of LA’s art scene when his career took off and he declined to follow the well-worn path previous west coast supernova artists had followed to New York. As one of the first internationally acclaimed artists to root himself in Los Angeles, Kelley was, in essence, laying the groundwork for his students and their contemporaries to do the same.

If these artists’ upwardly-tilting career paths are any indication, Kelley’s impact on his students, his city and his creative discipline only gets deeper as time goes on.

Remembering the life and work of Blue Dog artist, George Rodrigue

Blue Dog Oak by George Rodrigue

Blue Dog Oak by George Rodrigue

George Rodrigue, the celebrated painter best known for his Blue Dog series of popular canine portraits, passed away last month in Huston. The 69-year-old Art Center alum (Graphic Arts, ’67) distinguished himself as a bon vivant who showed an early flair for depicting the bon vivant culture of his native Louisiana, often set among the three pillars of food, family and fais do do.

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