CalArts Magazine Winter 2011 by California Institute of the Arts

The Magazine of California Institute of the Arts Winter 2011

CalArts

Over the past four decades, CalArts has thrived by holding fast to its founding principles while evolving and adapting to meet and to shape changing external conditions. Virtually every article in this issue of CalArts magazine underlines this point. For example, Susan Morgan points out that the many faculty and alumni featured in the exhibition The Artist’s Museum, now on view at The Museum of Contemporary Art (moca), demonstrate the Institute’s leading role in the shaping of Los Angeles art. At CalArts, Morgan writes, “an atmosphere charged with vital and challenging dialogue has continually expanded the possibilities of artmaking.” Not coincidentally that tradition of dialogue appears, in another guise, in CalArts’ new online publishing venture East of Borneo, as Thomas Lawson, its editor and dean of the School of Art, seeks a form that “can be generative and productive, not merely descriptive and fancifully speculative.” As important as CalArts’ tradition of dialogue and critical questioning is its ongoing exploration of interdisciplinarity. What was once a strategy for opening up creative possibility has become, in the words of recently appointed Theater Dean Travis Preston, a way to prepare students “for a future in which they do not know where their opportunities will emerge from.” And, as Dean Preston speaks of the need “to invest more profoundly in the creation of relationships external to the Institute—locally in Los Angeles, nationally, and internationally”— recently appointed Vice President for International Relations Carol Kim takes on the task of helping to “prepare Institute students to work in the globalized arts world and economy.” In 2010 we celebrated CalArts’ 40th anniversary. Through all these years, our trustees have played an indispensable role in helping the Institute to maintain continuity and to adjust in a timely way to emerging circumstances. No one has been more central in this process than the late Harrison “Buzz” Price, to whom this issue is dedicated. Buzz emboldened us with his own dedication to the founding dream of CalArts, steadied us with his worldly wisdom, and helped us through the rough patches with his unfailing good humor. Without him, we will all have to ask a little more of ourselves as CalArts navigates this era of jolting change and astonishing possibility. Wishing you and yours a happy, healthy new year, steven d. lavine President, CalArts

Headliners 4 The Artist’s Museum

at moca 10 Interview with Travis Preston 15 Alumni Reunion: CalArts at 40 21 Of Texts and Textiles 27 Dispatches

CalArts is published twice each year by the CalArts Office of Advancement. California Institute of the Arts Steven D. Lavine, President Bianca Roberts, Vice President, Advancement Wendy Shattuck, Executive Director of Public Affairs Editorial: Stuart I. Frolick and Freddie Sharmini Design: Scott Taylor and Tasheka Arceneaux-Sutton (Art mfa 07) Type in this issue includes Spektro Gothic and Spektro Roman by Andrea Tinnes (Art mfa 98). Photography: Scott Groller and Steven A. Gunther Telephone: 661 255-1050 E-mail: publicaffairs@calarts.edu

Letter from the President / Contents

Dance faculty Francesca Penzani (front) performs with alums Zari Wigfall (left) and Erika Marosi in a green-screen dance video sequence choreographed for Scott Snibbe’s 58-monitor video Transit, now installed permanently at the Los Angeles International Airport’s Tom Bradley Terminal. The work, rendered in blackand-white silhouette, involves processions of travelers who break into exuberant dance routines in styles reflecting the diversity of Los Angeles.

Transit was developed with Penzani and videographer Noah Cunningham following Snibbe’s term as resident artist at CalArts’ Center for Integrated Media, which facilitated the production.

courtesy of scott snibbe

CalArts

Headliners East of Borneo, a New L.A.-based Online Art Journal

East of Borneo’s home page

“The practical challenges facing publishing require an ever more radical response,” says Thomas Lawson, dean of CalArts’ School of Art and editor of the new online magazine East of Borneo. “This venture marks the convergence of two very distinct lines of thought,” he says. “What is the nature, and the future, of art magazines? And how might we give form to the sprawling history of art in Los Angeles, a form that can be generative and productive, not merely descriptive or fancifully speculative?” Launched in October 2010, East of Borneo attempts to address both questions with a journal that Lawson characterizes as “significantly more complex than most art world websites.” This new paradigm is an extensive website—part art journal, part multimedia archive—that presents and frames ongoing investigations of contemporary art and its modern history, as seen specifically from Los Angeles. Through robust web architecture and a non-hierarchical editorial approach, its purview reflects

the sprawling, rhizomatic nature of Los Angeles as well as the broader international art world. East of Borneo incorporates the benefits of online media for the sharing and distribution of research and archival material, some of which has not previously been available online. For example, its articles offer readers immediate access to the video, images, links and texts that the writers use in their research. Users can upload additional items, creating a growing archive of relevant content that activates and enriches the editorial material. Subjects will continue to develop over time as material accrues, becoming substantial repositories of information and interpretation from a multitude of perspectives. “As a writer,” notes Lawson, “I have become accustomed to working in a way that allows skipping back and forth as a text builds, checking references and finding new evidence as a result of lateral moves across the internet. A few online publications allow readers a similarly multifaceted experience, although most quarantine reader participation in the shadow zone reserved for comments. Until now, no art publication has offered the kind of varied experiences provided by East of Borneo.” Published by CalArts, East of Borneo is supported in part by grants from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and The Getty Foundation.

Investing in the Next Generation of Animation Artists Just as animation helped establish CalArts as one of the premier film colleges in the world, so too is animation central to maintaining the Institute’s position at the forefront of creative practice in the years to come, asserts CalArts President Steven D. Lavine. “Our alumni first led the way in reviving animated film and since then they have pioneered the state-of-the-art as we know it today,” he says. “Animation now faces a boundless future in the age of internet-supplied media, and this is why CalArts is looking to invest, over the next four years, close to $6 million in infrastructure, faculty and programs for training the next generation of artistic innovators in this field.” In the early years of CalArts, animation as an art form seemed marginalized in the wider culture. It was School of Film/Video alumni like Glen Keane and John Musker who became instrumental in ushering in the “Disney Renaissance.” Their colleagues, meanwhile, were developing yet other directions, from John Lasseter, who would go on to co-found Pixar and combine groundbreaking cg animation with sophisticated storytelling to revolutionize the form, to Tim Burton and

Henry Selick, whose work renewed interest in stopmotion animation. The honor roll of distinguished animation alumni has since grown steadily, with the likes of Disney/Pixar hands like Brad Bird, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter and Brenda Chapman, television series creators Stephen Hillenburg and Craig McCracken, and now a younger generation that includes Shane Prigmore, Jorge Gutierrez and Pendleton Ward, to name only a few. As the use of computer animation has grown ubiquitous in virtually every aspect of visual culture, CalArts has bolstered its unique programs for the training of animation artists—well-rounded practitioners who are able to call on a wide array of technical, creative and conceptual skills to realize personally expressive work. The Campaign for CalArts that concluded last year allowed the School of Film/Video to open a second 3-d Computer Animation Lab; it also established new scholarship funds to support animation students. The next stage of this ongoing investment in the future of animation sets out to fulfill three main goals, says Lavine. The first involves major additions to the

Headliners

A Strengthened Commitment to Global Arts President Steven D. Lavine has announced the creation of a new office overseeing international initiatives at CalArts, and the appointment of Carol Kim to the role of vice president for international relations. In her new role, Kim will direct and manage global initiatives across the six schools of the Institute. In addition to sustaining CalArts’ existing international collaborations, the Office of International Relations will liaise with faculty to identify and prioritize new opportunities around the world. Kim and her team will work to attract more international students to campus, prepare students to work in the globalized arts world and economy, and generate opportunities for a greater international presence for CalArts through collaborations with arts programs in a growing number of countries. CalArts currently has initiatives underway, or in the planning stages, in China, Korea, Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay, France, Germany, England, the Czech Republic, Russia, and Rwanda, among other countries. “The assignment for the vice president for international relations is to work with faculty, the Office of Admissions, and across the Institute to mold our current decentralized efforts into a robust, mutually reinforcing whole,” says Lavine. “We can now maximize opportunities to deepen existing relationships and create new partnerships around the

world—meeting with local alumni and current parents, recruiting students, and connecting with institutions to explore creative partnerships.” Kim joined CalArts in 2001, serving first as director of admissions and then as dean of enrollment management. In addition to expanding CalArts recruitment to raise international enrollments, she will be responsible for creating and maintaining international exchanges designed to prepare CalArts students for an increasingly internationalized art world, enhancing CalArts’ already strong global reputation, and building a worldwide fundraising program to help sustain both international partnerships and CalArts as a whole. Upon return from her October 2010 trip to Seoul and Shanghai, Kim said, “I’m thrilled that CalArts is moving forward in its commitment to international partnerships and collaborations. It’s crucial for colleges to participate in the global dialogue and to help students be part of that community of thinkers and artists, and it’s especially important for the continuing success of CalArts to have a strong, active and growing international presence. I look forward to initiating and supporting projects across our six schools that enhance international awareness of and collaboration with CalArts students, faculty and alumni.”

CalArts animation artist Jacky Jiang.

school’s infrastructure—reconfiguring the studio space for the Program in Character Animation to accommodate an entirely new floor, and upgrading equipment in the 2-d Computer Animation Labs. The second calls for creating three new faculty positions to ensure that the school’s two animation programs, Character and Experimental, can maintain the best possible corps of instructors. Rounding out the set of initiatives is the implementation of an expanded curriculum in the Program in Character Animation that will boost the production of computer graphic films. “Our animation programs,” says Film/Video Dean Steve Anker, “are unlike any others in the country in that they support the broadest range of animation techniques based on strong cinematic storytelling and creative experimentation. The plans we have outlined will continue the CalArts animation legacy and see to it that our future alumni will influence the art form as much as their predecessors.”

Carol Kim, the Institute’s newly appointed vice president for international relations.

CalArts

The Artist’s Museum: Los Angeles Artists 1980–2010 by susan morgan

The Artist’s Museum: Los Angeles Artists 1980–2010, on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (moca) until January 31, 2011, presents a panorama of Los Angeles art. This expansive and invigorating exhibition — featuring more than 250 works by 144 artists installed throughout the Geffen Contemporary and the Grand Avenue galleries — delivers a well-informed guide to the city’s artmaking and provides a compelling visual record of the important role that CalArts has played in the history of Los Angeles art: nearly a third of the selected artists share a CalArts connection that ranges from Chouinard graduates Robert Irwin and Ed Ruscha to Martin Kersels and Allan Sekula, current members of the School of Art faculty. Although the number of CalArts-affiliated artists in the exhibition hovers around 45, an exact accounting of all the mfa and bfa graduates, faculty, and visiting faculty — remains elusive. As John Baldessari has joked, he’d always enjoyed playing Cupid between CalArts and the wider art world, match-making various far-flung artists with the school’s outstanding visiting artists program. Over the years, the School of Art’s visiting faculty has included Vija Celmins, Barbara Kruger, Nancy Rubins, Walead Beshty, Morgan Fisher, Simone Forti and Jeffrey Vallance. The Artist’s Museum offers a wonderful look at the enticing complexity of Los Angeles, its unique nexus of influences, attitudes, and inspirations.

The idea of an “artist’s museum,” first person singular, has been circulating around moca as a nickname for more than 30 years, dating back to the museum’s pre-planning stages when a team of 15 artists including Peter Alexander, Vija Celmins, Robert Irwin (Chouinard 54), and Alexis Smith served as an advisory council and contributed recommendations on how to develop a new cultural institution dedicated to contemporary art. For any working artist, the moniker “artist’s museum” indicates a lively and encouraging place engaged with all aspects of art from concept to production to public presentation. As moca was preparing this encyclopedic showcase of Los Angeles talent, curator Bennett Simpson proposed the show’s title, deftly encapsulating the museum’s origins and its continuing outlook.

Rodney McMillian (mfa 02), Untitled (...on love), 2007, latex on couch. courtesy of susanne vielmetter los angeles projects. photo: robert wedemeyer

Sam Durant (mfa 91), Abandoned House #6, 1995, foam core, cardboard, Plexiglas, tape, spray enamel, wood, and metal, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, gift of Michael A. Mehring. photo courtesy of the artist and blum & poe

The Artist’s Museum “Only 60 percent of the work in the show is actually from moca’s collection. The rest has been borrowed from other museums, individual collectors and the artists themselves,” explains Rebecca Morse, who acted as the exhibition’s lead curator, working in collaboration with Simpson, moca Director Jeffrey Deitch, and Director of Publications Lisa Gabrielle Mark. For a curator, the question of how to organize such an incredibly diverse selection of works — ranging from Robert Irwin’s 1980 black and white photo documentation of One Wall Removed, a record of his landmark reductive installation at Malinda Wyatt’s Venice Beach gallery to Henry Taylor’s (bfa 96) A Different Background (2010), a larger-than-life portrait painting with a brusque and incisive authority — presents a daunting task. Morse avoided the obvious arrangement methods; rather than a chronologically-ordered lineup or the obvious pairing of look-alike objects, she directly considered individual works and recognized where common themes were shared and how concepts might overlap while implementation diverged wildly. In one gallery, she brought together works that all generally address the beauty and chaos of the contemporary urban environment and Los Angeles in particular: Catherine Opie’s (mfa 88) 1994 Freeway series, intimately scaled platinum print photographs depicting the soaring lines of concrete overpasses and the vast western sky; Mark Bradford’s (mfa 97, bfa 95) recent mural-sized canvases, elegant abstractions configured in paint and collaged paper; and Sam Durant’s (mfa 91) Abandoned Houses (1995), intentionally crude architectural models, a group of modernist houses awkwardly constructed out of cardboard and sticks, a vision of mid-century optimism collapsing into ruins.

In one of the Grand Avenue galleries, works by Jack Goldstein (mfa 72, bfa 69), James Welling (mfa 74, bfa 72), and Jim Shaw (mfa 78) are shown together. As Morse points out, all three are CalArts graduates and artists whose work utilizes a conceptual approach. Although fueled by sharp observation and critical questioning, their work is entirely dissimilar but equally daring: Shaw’s drawings reveal a feverish imagination and an extraordinarily facile hand; Goldstein’s 1984 acrylic painting captures an affectless splendor, a cool, nearly chilling rendition of artificial light splintering the night sky; and in Welling’s photographs from the 1980s, such ordinary objects as blocks of Jello or velvet draperies are photographed close-up, radically defamilarized, and emerge as formal abstractions. “On the wall labels, we’ve included information about where each artist went to school and where they teach,” says Morse. “By providing those layers of information, it’s possible for the well-versed viewer to make the connections.”

James Welling (mfa 74, bfa 72), Crescendo, 1980, gelatin silver print. courtesy of regen projects, los angeles

Catherine Opie (mfa 88), Untitled #1, #14, and #9 from Freeway series, 1994, platinum prints. courtesy of regen projects, los angeles

CalArts When Welling, now professor of photography at ucla, entered CalArts as a transfer student in 1971, John Baldessari (Chouinard 59) was his assigned mentor. Baldessari had mastered a questioning style that was simultaneously easy-going and pointedly demanding: “why this and not that?” he would query, pressing the conversation forward, and provoking new answers. While an undergraduate, Welling had often borrowed a camera to document his impermanent sculptures and performances. Toward the completion of his mfa, as he began to ask himself how modernist photography could be fused with conceptual practice, Welling ignited a significant question, an idea essential to his practice, and started to produce the work for which he is known.

Charles Gaines, night/crimes: Canis Major, 1995, photo and silkscreened text. courtesy of susanne vielmetter los angeles projects. photo: robert wedemeyer

“Michael Asher and John Baldessari are famous examples of a West Coast conceptualism: the idea of the classroom being an extension of the studio, where ideas are part of practice,” observes Charles Gaines in a recent interview. “For them, ideas were part of artistic production; ideas were produced by artists who were workers. So, the classroom was like a factory space for the production of ideas.” In The Artist’s Museum there is a 1995 work by Gaines: Night Crimes: Canis Major, a large-scale photograph with a silk-screened text that pairs the hardness of an evidential photo with the poetic time stamp of the night sky’s celestial co-ordinates, a pattern of stars occurring light years above one dire earthly event. A longtime member of the School of Art faculty, Gaines regards the classroom as an experimental space, a place where rigorous dialogue invites scrutiny and refines artistic vision.

Martin Kersels, Piano Drag, 1995, baby grand piano, posts, electric winch, cable, microphone, amplifier and speaker, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, gift of Jeffrey Kerns. photo courtesy of acme

The Artist’s Museum For generations of artists educated at Chouinard and CalArts, an atmosphere charged with vital and challenging dialogue has continually expanded the possibilities of artmaking. During the 1970s, the work of artists like Allen Ruppersberg (Chouinard 67), Jack Goldstein, and William Leavitt made it overwhelmingly clear that art was not a choice between the fiefdoms of painting and sculpture; for these artists—working with film, video, photography, installation, performance, music, audio recordings, multiples, publications, printmaking, photography, painting, drawing, and sculpture — it was clear that art must be made by any means necessary. For younger artists, the possibilities have continued to expand: Machine Project, a non-profit storefront space in Echo Park founded by Mark Allen (mfa 99), investigates art, technology, natural history, science, music, literature and food. “We produce events, workshops, and site-specific installations,” explains Allen. “We use hands-on engagement to make rarefied knowledge accessible.” In Andrea Bowers’ (mfa 92) ongoing project, the taut intersection of aesthetics and political dissent is finely articulated, with a deft hand and a sharp mind, and presented through meticulously rendered drawings and deeply affecting videos. William Leavitt, Interior with Cactus Painting and Spiral, 1984, pastel on paper.

Lari Pittman (mfa 76, bfa 76), Untitled, 2002, flat alkyd, spray paint on gessoed panel.

courtesy of margo leavin gallery

courtesy of regen projects, los angeles

Dave Muller (mfa 93), Quick Picks (twenty-six), 2004, acrylic on paper. courtesy of the artist and blum & poe

“Art is really a place where you can have a wider dialogue,” says Jeffrey Deitch. “The role of the museum is much more than a place where you buy an admission ticket and see an exhibition in silence. It’s a place where people can encounter unexpected things, participate in events that have an impact, and enter into stimulating conversations.” In July, when Deitch—a New York-based independent curator and a high-profile gallerist—moved west to assume the directorship of moca, he described the transition as “seamless.” His first foray as a curator had been the 1975 show Lives, a look at 50 artists—including Vito Acconci, Laurie Anderson and Douglas Huebler—who used their own lives as material and blurred the distinctions between art and the everyday. “I still think that’s what great artists and the most interesting museum directors are able to do,” observes Deitch. “Connect art with life.”

CalArts For 30 years, Deitch had been a frequent visitor to Los Angeles, working with California artists and sensing the city’s strong creative pulse. When he was awarded a 1981 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in criticism, Sherrie Levine, then visiting School of Art faculty, invited him to CalArts as a guest critic. “Doug Huebler was the dean,” recalls Deitch. “I also met Barbara Kruger there and that’s when we started a dialogue.” Now Kruger serves on moca’s board of trustees along with Catherine Opie, John Baldessari and Ed Ruscha (Chouinard 60). “It’s really the dynamism of the artists and the city’s institutions — the art schools and museums — that has developed such a stimulating and creative dialogue here,” says Deitch, whose conversation frequently returns to the notion of dialogue, its pure necessity and endless capacity for surprises.

Walead Beshty, Three Color Curl (cmy: Six Magnets, Irvine, California, September 6th 2009, Fuji Crystal Archive Type C), 2009, color photographic paper. courtesy of regen projects, los angeles

Jeremy Blake (mfa 95), still from Sodium Fox, 2005, digital animation with sound on dvd. courtesy of jeremy blake estate

“Constellation” is a word that Rebecca Morse likes to use when describing the vibrant interconnectedness of the artists featured in The Artist’s Museum, a collection of very distinct individuals, dramatically far-flung but innately connected. The writer W.E.B. Du Bois famously observed: “The history of the world is the history not of individuals but of groups.” As The Artist’s Museum embraces and acknowledges the intertwining histories of Los Angeles art from 1980 to the present, we are reminded again how absolutely indispensable CalArts has been to this conversation. Susan Morgan has written extensively about art, design and popular culture. The author of Joan Jonas: I Want to Live in the Country (and Other Romances), she is currently editing a Los Angeles-themed collection of work by the writer/architectural historian Esther McCoy.

Liz Larner (mfa 85), Corridor Red/ Green, 1991, metal, wood, car paint, fabric, leather, rock, lead. courtesy of regen projects, los angeles

The Artist’s Museum Artists in the Exhibition Chouinard alumni CalArts alumni Current or former CalArts faculty Chouinard alumni/former CalArts faculty CalArts alumni/current or former CalArts faculty

Amy Adler Doug Aitken Lita Albuquerque Peter Alexander Mark Allen Carlos Almaraz Edgar Arceneaux Ron Athey Judy Baca John Baldessari Devendra Banhart Uta Barth Vanessa Beecroft Larry Bell Billy Al Bengston Cindy Bernard Walead Beshty Jeremy Blake Jonathan Borofsky Andrea Bowers Mark Bradford Chris Burden Karen Carson Vija Celmins Guy de Cointet Robbie Conal Meg Cranston Vaginal Davis Devo Guy Dill John Divola Roy Dowell Sam Durant Fred Eversley Morgan Fisher Judy Fiskin Simone Forti Llyn Foulkes Sam Francis Charles Gaines Harry Gamboa Jr. Charles Garabedian Frank O. Gehry Jack Goldstein Piero Golia Joe Goode Robert Graham Alexandra Grant Katie Grinnan Gronk Mark Grotjahn Richard Hawkins Tim Hawkinson Wayne Healy Robert Heinecken George Herms David Hockney

Patrick Hogan Evan Holloway Thomas Houseago Douglas Huebler Elliott Hundley Robert Irwin Jim Isermann Richard Jackson Cameron Jamie Larry Johnson William E. Jones Miranda July Glenn Kaino Craig Kauffman Mike Kelley Mary Kelly Martin Kersels Toba Khedoori Edward Kienholz and Nancy Reddin Kienholz John Knight Barbara Kruger Lisa Lapinski Liz Larner William Leavitt Gary Lloyd Sharon Lockhart Peter Lodato Liza Lou Florian Maier-Aichen Kerry James Marshall Daniel Joseph Martinez Paul McCarthy John McCracken Rodney McMillian Matthew Monahan Ivan Morley Ed Moses Dave Muller Kori Newkirk Ruben Ochoa Catherine Opie Rubén Ortiz-Torres Kaz Oshiro John Outterbridge Laura Owens Jorge Pardo Helen Pashgian Jennifer Pastor Raymond Pettibon Lari Pittman Monique Prieto Stephen Prina Charles Ray Joe Ray

Roland Reiss Jason Rhoades Amanda Ross-Ho Nancy Rubins Sterling Ruby Allen Ruppersberg Edward Ruscha Mark Ryden Betye Saar Kenny Scharf Lara Schnitger Allan Sekula Jim Shaw Peter Shelton Paul Sietsema Alexis Smith Frances Stark Jennifer Steinkamp Henry Taylor Diana Thater Robert Therrien DeWain Valentine Jeffrey Vallance Bill Viola Marnie Weber James Welling Eric Wesley Charlie White Pae White Christopher Williams Robert Williams Tom Wudl Bruce Yonemoto Andrea Zittel

CalArts

Interview with Travis Preston

Theater in a Shifting Landscape: An Interview with School of Theater Dean Travis Preston by stuart i. frolick

Travis Preston is a man on a mission. The longtime CalArts faculty member and artistic director of the Center for New Performance (cnp) was named dean of the School of Theater over the summer, taking the reins from the able hands of interim co-deans Ellen McCartney and Leslie Tamaribuchi. On the heels of the cnp production of Gertrude Stein’s Brewsie and Willie, directed by Preston and performed by Poor Dog Group—the Los Angeles-based collective of CalArts alumni—CalArts magazine caught up with the new dean in September. Catching his breath between trips to London, where he has gone on to direct Stephen Dillane and Gemma Arterton in a much-acclaimed Almeida Theatre production of Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder, Preston paused to discuss the future of the CalArts School of Theater.

CalArts: As you assumed the role of dean, how did you begin to set your priorities for the School of Theater? Travis Preston: I had to acknowledge that even though I had been at CalArts for 10 years, I was a novice in some way; I had to embrace that role and experience the landscape in a different way by thinking about the needs and goals of the School of Theater in relationship to the larger Institute. Absolutely central was the sense that we were in a time of enormous opportunity that had almost been incited by the challenges confronting CalArts in the face of the recent economic upheaval. And, that we had an opportunity to re-imagine ourselves within the context of the transformed landscape. Because of the upheaval, CalArts was open to re-examining its collective priorities. CA: How does that translate to or affect the student experience? TP: It means precisely that we have to commit even more to the values of interdisciplinarity— that we must create and support professional relationships and opportunities that connect our students to people that can facilitate their entry into the larger professional environment. We need to invest more profoundly in the creation of relationships that are external to the Institute—locally in Los Angeles, nationally, and internationally. For me, that has a physical component; there is an obvious and important role that our main campus plays in terms of training artists. But I also see the need for a presence in downtown Los Angeles that gives them geographic access to professional experiences. The boundaries between what it means to be in school and out of school can be blurred in some ways, and we have to give students their first taste of it.

What emerged for me—most certainly as it relates to the experience of the graduate community—is the embrace of a professional school model such as the one existing between a teaching hospital and a medical school. We must produce professional work that functions in exactly the same way. I think we have an obligation to our students to facilitate their entry into professions that we all acknowledge are exceedingly difficult. CA: Why is this strategy linked specifically to economic conditions? TP: Because I believe the economic challenge has produced a greater awareness of both institutional and individual vulnerability. It created openness within the administration of the Institute to look at new ideas and new paradigms—and it was partly the feeling that even conventional modes of fundraising were as vulnerable as the day-to-day progress or health of the stock market. It made people look at the amount of debt that students were carrying so that they could come to or remain in school. And so, we realize that our desire and need to provide them with professional access and career development opportunities is critically important. I can train people to be good artists, but I have not completely fulfilled my mission unless I also train them to have greater agency in the world. I have to acknowledge that, though students may see themselves within the confines of a métier, actually, the interdisciplinary mission of CalArts prepares them for a future in which they do not know where their opportunities will emerge from. CA: Why is the development of this sense of agency so crucial while they’re still students? TP: If I insist that students have access to the multiplicity of arenas that derive from writing, art, film, music and dance, I will be enhancing their abilities to evolve as artists. I don’t want our graduates to wait for opportunities; I want them to be moving into an environment where they are confident that they can create those opportunities. Actors will, no doubt,

CalArts

“I can train people to be good artists, but I have not completely fulfilled my mission unless I also train them to have greater agency in the world.”

want to make their own films. We don’t know today what the delivery systems for performance or other forms of our art will be in five years! I used to say that we didn’t know what it would be in 10 years—I couldn’t have imagined what has happened in the last five years—and I can only expect that things will accelerate. So, rather than saying, “Okay, we’re training for repertory theater; we’re training for Hollywood; we’re training for any number of constructs,” we have to acknowledge that we don’t know how those environments will evolve. But what we can see is that old structures are collapsing, and this is what I meant about its ties to the economic upheaval. Publishing is collapsing; the music industry is collapsing; and Hollywood is trying to deal with the democratization of the means of not only making films but also of distributing those films. We have no access to all the mechanisms of distribution within the context of YouTube and the web. And so, this landscape is changing at the same time as economic conditions have created a lot of fear in people. Out of that fear came a greater degree of openness — an acknowledgment that if we moved according to the practices of the status quo of the last 25 years, we’d be behind the times; that we wouldn’t be a sufficiently nimble institution; and, concomitantly, that we would not be training artists nimble enough to thrive in a world where there is no lifetime promise of employment. CA: How has this thinking influenced changes in curriculum? You’ve hired some new faculty including Peter Flaherty, Rafael Lopez-Barrantes, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Anne Militello, Paul DiPietro and Charlayne Woodard. TP: We should also mention that Mirjana Jokovic has accepted the roles of director of performance and head of mfa acting. My wife Marissa Chibas, who has catapulted the Acting Program to national stature during her tenure as program head, has, for a while now, wanted to reduce her role in administration and focus more on her creative work as an

actor and writer. We both felt that this was the right moment to make this transition. I think one of our major challenges will be to the conventional definition or concept of a classroom. Through professional projects, we’ll be expanding our sense of space into arenas like The Museum of Contemporary Art, for example; or into a project that involves new media in Los Angeles, in which students are working together with professional counterparts. Here on campus, we’ve brought the camera and media into our acting classes; we’ll do that more and more—we want the actors to feel comfortable behind the camera too. Michael Darling, the head of technical direction, is working with the music technology program to develop the KarmetiK Machine Orchestra—this collaboration explodes the traditional concept of technical direction. I don’t differentiate between creative and technical programs. Our technical people are all creative. CA: The large majority of our readers are alumni. What are your thoughts about the relationship between the School of Theater and its alumni? TP: That too is transforming us. To use the recent example of Brewsie and Willie: Here was a Center for New Performance project initiated by a thrilling group of young artists, who took on the mission of creating experimental work in Los Angeles, forged and fueled by their time at CalArts—their sense of mission derived from their experience here. We knew that they needed support and decided to bring ourselves into association with them. I had thought about Brewsie and Willie for many years, and this text by Gertrude Stein seemed an appropriate vehicle for engagement because both the artists and characters in the play were so young. Sarah Sullivan in the CalArts Office of Advancement brought to our attention the fact that there were stimulus monies available for this kind of production. It’s one of the few projects that received stimulus money

Interview with Travis Preston

This past summer, Travis Preston directed an original stage adaptation of Gertrude Steinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s post-World War ii novella Brewsie and Willie. This work was produced by the CalArts Center for New Performance in association with Poor Dog Group, a Los Angeles-based experimental theater company founded by recent School of Theater alumni.

CalArts

“We are inclining toward an environment in which performances are created with a kind of interdisciplinarity that opens us to audiences that we haven’t had easy access to in the past.”

that did not provide for funding for an institution’s infrastructure. It actually came from a grant that went to jobs for artists. We made a compelling argument, I believe, that the artists most in need of support were those at the beginning of their careers; and that the money should go to a constituency that was exceedingly vulnerable in a depressed economy. The alumni community is going to be more of a focus of mine — a continuing relationship with our students beyond graduation that helps provide infrastructure and support for their artistic and professional aspirations. Day in and day out I encounter gifted artists, some of whom have emerged from the CalArts community, and some outside of our community, who are in need of support. And I’d like to help them all! I recognize that resources being what they are, that I can’t help them all. CA: Is the audience for experimental theater growing or does it remain fairly constant? TP: Here’s the interesting thing about experimental practice. It’s almost like a term from another time — but many people within our community, and I too say “experimental theater”— but it meant something very different in 1975 or 1980 or even 1990. I think that we are inclining toward an environment in which performances are created with a kind of interdisciplinarity that opens us to audiences that we haven’t had easy access to in the past. When people go to see Cloud Eye Control, for example, I don’t know if they think of it as experimental theater. They may think of it as a performance of a certain character, and they engage. If I call it “experimental theater,” perhaps that would create a certain context — but I’m not sure that it wouldn’t prejudice an audience. Brewsie and Willie was created with some of the components of experimental practice. I don’t know that the event is actually experimental in its results. I hope it’s effective in its own way, but I just tried to create the best piece I could. Yes, it has new media involved; it has video; it has technology engaged with it. But I think those are just a means toward bringing the piece to life.

CA: Switching gears, tell us a bit about your life before CalArts. TP: I was born in an industrial town just adjacent to Chicago called East Chicago, Indiana, which was dominated by steel mills. My mother was German; she met my father while he was a soldier during World War ii, and after the war she came to the United States and worked as a translator for the American army. But we went to Germany every year and spent a considerable amount of time in East Germany. CA: Can you recall an early experience of being moved by live theater? TP: When I was in high school, I attended what I thought was a production of Faust at the University of Chicago. When I arrived, I discovered that it wasn’t that at all; it was a politically charged happening with a Biafran drummer in which the audience was a part of the experience of the piece being created. It ended up in a chorus of audience members moving and singing together with the “performers”; and I thought it was the best time ever [laughter] and a most extraordinary experience. I subsequently learned that it was a radical theatrical experience, where the emphasis of the late ’60s was to break down the barriers that separated audience from performer. It was tied to radical political thought and opposition to the Vietnam War. I began returning to the University of Chicago repeatedly, and there I encountered other seminal influences, which included the music collective Art Ensemble of Chicago, for example. I first experienced Anthony Braxton in the context of a concert at the university when I was a junior in high school—and later re-encountered him as a colleague of David Rosenboom. That tied my thrill at the avantgarde together with my time at CalArts.

Interview with Travis Preston

CA: How did you become a director? TP: My first professional work was in Poland. This was crucial to my evolution. I went to Poland to work with Jerzy Grotowski and Tadeusz Kantor in the middle of my time as a student at Yale. My first job outside of Yale was back in Poland, directing Prometheus Bound at a state theater. When I returned to the United States a year later, Robert Brustein was creating a professional theater at Harvard and asked me to come and be a part of that process. He strongly believed in the interaction between a professional theater training program and a practicing professional theater. These ideas have remained important to me as I thought about becoming the dean at CalArts—and of course they led to the creation of the Center for New Performance with Susan Solt and Carol Bixler. CA: You first came to CalArts 10 years ago? TP: I was originally invited to CalArts as a guest artist by Susan Solt to create a piece with students. All of the other contexts in which I had taught in the United States were universities. CalArts—a liberated environment, an institute dedicated exclusively to the training of artists, all under one roof — that was a revelation to me. It’s truly a singular and important environment in which one can create and develop adventurous projects.

CalArts on october 9, 2010, more than 700 CalArts alumni, faculty, staff and current students gathered on campus to celebrate the Institute’s 40th anniversary. Tomorrow Started Here included performances, exhibitions, screenings and installations of student work. Alumni attendees came from across the country and around the world — from as far away as Brazil. A rousing processional of African music and dance led by Alfred Ladzekpo—who will retire in spring 2011 — opened and closed the daylong festivities.

From left, Joe Shannon, Todd Pimentel, and current faculty Amy Knoles.

The Reunion’s big finale in the Main Gallery closes out with exuberant African music and dance directed by faculty Alfred Ladzekpo.

Alumni Reunion: CalArts at 40

Catching up, CalArtians pose for photos.

Colin Barton with faculty Janie Geiser. Tomas Tamayo.

A Community Arts Partnership (cap) percussion demo for children.

CalAr CalArts

Dave Bossert, former president of the Alumni Association, with current Vice-President Ginger Holguin.

Alice Davis, left, with Michele Reckon Golden.

Dave Bossert with CalArts President Steven Lavine.

Luncheon in the shade, in the S. Mark Taper Foundation Courtyard.

Alumni Reunion: CalArts at 40

Alumni Association President Terence McFarland gets proceedings underway.

An exhibition of photography by Associate Dean John Bache.

The Instituteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Main Gallery was decked out with a fantastical installation by faculty Michael Darling of the School of Theater.

From left, Music faculty Allan Vogel, Janet Davis, and Marilynn and Jim Hildebrandt.

Former faculty and design legend Lou Danziger.

David Leikam performing with zBug.

Lynda Harvey at the center of attention.

More cap fun for kids.

CalArts

A multimedia performance and installation by Carole Kim and Spectra Multimedia in the Black and White Studio.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Eternal Telethon,â&#x20AC;? a performance organized by Niko Solorio.

Alumni Reunion: CalArts at 40

Live projection performance by Miwa Matreyek.

Interactive installation by Chris Adams.

A citrus-themed installation by faculty Astra Price in the Lime Gallery.

A performance and installation by Kerstin Hovland in the Mint Gallery.

CalArts

Of Texts and Textiles by dean brierly

“Epistolary garment” by Asta Hostetter.

ven as CalArts has long been known for its ethos of interdisciplinary, outside-the-box work across conventional categories, it seemed, at first, a curiosity when the course catalogue this fall announced a class called “Wordrobe,” offered jointly through the School of Art’s Graphic Design Program and the School of Theater’s Costume Design Program.

This class defines its objective as exploring “the intersection of clothing, words and typographic expression,” Far from a novelty, though, it is rigorous in its reconsideration of historical and contemporary design tropes, and how different artistic métiers can meaningfully work together hand in hand. Wordrobe expressly sets out to use a series of collaborative projects to blur the boundaries separating art, design, writing and theater— and in the process find new creative models that “merge type/word with clothing/body/ movement as media,” according to the faculty Ellen McCartney, head of the Costume Design Program, and Louise Sandhaus (Art mfa 94), former head of the Graphic Design Program, who together conceived of this course. Wordrobe derives its Joycean name from a groundbreaking 1997 exhibition and book of same title by Richard Martin, the late curator of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who took an historical look at clothing adorned with words, from poems to political slogans. He described it as “the reconciliation of textile and text.” But the exhibition and book serve only as a departure point, as McCartney and Sandhaus were interested in far more than words as just part of textiles. “We started by looking at examples of where words and the body and the clothing could potentially come together and what it might mean,” says McCartney, who holds the Institute’s Robert Corrigan Chair in Theater. “Costume designers use clothing as meaning and expression. Graphic designers use words and typography to express meaning. And, in some cases, the terms, techniques and methods are quite similar—like overlays, transparency, layering, texture and alignment. We found an awful lot of potential possibilities for cross-pollination.” The faculty pair also found inspiration in clothing designer and artist Hussein Chalyan’s experiments with garments that transform and evolve from one state to another and Graphic Thought Facility’s use of typographic ribbons for the Carnegie International exhibition and catalogue. “And clothing and pages both flutter,” McCartney notes. Sandhaus, for her part, says she has been greatly influenced by theater. “I remember first seeing stage works by Robert Wilson, and it made me realize that every aspect of Dean Brierly lives in Los Angeles, writes about photography and other creative mediums, contributes to Cinema Retro magazine, publishes photographyinterviews.blogspot.com and fiftiescrimefilms.blogspot.com.

Of Texts and Textiles the production was performing —not just the actors, but costumes, lights, objects! This has influenced my professional work as a museum exhibition designer—seeing it as the orchestration of meaningful elements to relate an experience in both time and space. But instead of the museum as the site of the experience, in this case, it’s the body.” “And it seemed to me,” McCartney adds, “what are the opportunities for using the body, which is already such a significant site of so much complex cultural meaning and signals? Putting that together with the complexities of words and typography, seemed like a place of potent alchemy.” One of the students in Wordrobe, Nick Rodrigues, a first-year student in the new mfa Art and Technology Program, is especially keen on the approach proposed by McCartney and Sandhaus. “As a multimedia sculptor, I like to make work that uses the body as a communication tool. This class helps empower the use of personal real estate and forces us to consider both the garment—the object— and the message—text—on equal terms.” The course, moreover, offers Rodrigues the chance to work with graphic designers and costume designers, as well students in the class from other CalArts programs. In addition to historical studies such as Richard Martin’s, the curriculum covers an extensive range of integrations of type with costume—from the “message T-shirts” that mushroomed in the 1970s, to over-visible logotype branding, to motion-graphics ads by Brand New School for Levi’s, to work by filmmakers like Peter Greenaway who, on more than one occasion, has literally “inscribed” his dramatic characters. Also included are workshops on garment modification, text on textile techniques, and writing to help narrow any gaps in technical skills for students from different artistic backgrounds. The main creative assignments of Wordrobe consist of three projects, mostly carried out collaboratively. In all three, however, the resulting design work must all be “performed” in public. The first is “Form and Meaning, or T-Shirts with Something to Say,” in which students manipulate existing t-shirts in order to convey a message about “the CalArts of tomorrow.” The second assignment is called “Epistolary Garment, or Wearing Your Heart on Your Sleeve, or Reading between the Lines.” Here, students are called on to utilize an actual historical letter as part of a garment —using the construction of a garment aligned with typographic expression to give meaning to the existing text. The letters in question: a letter from Kafka to a lover; a Depression Era letter to Eleanor Roosevelt asking for used clothing; a letter from Mahatma Gandhi to Hitler; and finally a letter from John Lennon to his assistant.

above: Amanda Lee, left, arranges her garment on Wordrobe classmate Jenny Foldenauer. below: Design by Lynne Martens

CalArts In the class’s final project, “About the Body,” students must alter an existing garment with self-generated language and type to explain the functioning of a part of the human anatomy, either literally or emotionally, and then elaborate on the design with work in another medium, say, a series of photographs or a film. Both McCartney and Sandhaus point out that young designers, even if they are working collaboratively with others, can sometimes struggle to make the connection between the demands of what they may be doing individually, as designers on any given project, and the larger contexts in which their respective media can function. For this reason, one of the key concepts behind Wordrobe is to bring students “out of their usual comfort zones so they can focus more on expressing the structuring of thought, which is what typography is about,” says Sandhaus. “So, by challenging their expectations about conventional applications in each discipline, this deliberate disorientation will hopefully encourage our students to reorient their thinking toward new potentials for the media in which they’re accustomed to working.” “Part of our process is learning how to speak the language of the other,” McCartney adds. “When you give young artists agency to find their own voices, then they can push at the envelopes. They’re not going out and just regurgitating what’s already there, but creating a new form. But the only way to do that is to get them out of their own skin and think about their medium in a different way.” Students have enthusiastically responded to these curricular demands. Lynne Martens, a second-year mfa candidate in the Costume Design Program, says she enjoys learning new ways of treating fabric. “Some of the various techniques we have used might be classified as ‘printmaking,’ which I would say is outside of my métier. The class gives me an opportunity to design toward art installation, rather than necessarily for a costume that must fit a character within a narrative context. This is completely outside of what I’m used to, but is very fun! I’m exploring and thinking creatively in ways that I never had to before.”

Design by Amanda Lee.

The two CalArts faculty members hope Wordrobe will help spark further conversations about how different practices and methods can be enlisted to construct meaning, how art forms can come together to open up new channels of creative communication, and — not least—how work generated in the class might connect with other projects at CalArts. “Right now, it’s fairly self-contained, but I think the students will make connections,” says McCartney. “It’s certainly connected to what any of the graphic designers and costume designers are doing, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see an idea from the class appear somewhere else soon.”

Design by Eun Bee Park worn as by Stephen James.

Of Texts and Textiles

Design by Alice Holland.

Stephen James works on his epistolary garment.

Design by Giao-Chau Ly.

CalArts

CalArts staged the West Coast premiere of Iannis Xenakisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; opera OresteĂŻa at The Wild Beast as part of a citywide tribute to the late Greek composer and architect. A co-production of The Herb Alpert School of Music and the School of Theater, the performance was the second event in the new Wild Beast Concert Series presented by Levitt Pavilions.

Dispatches

School of Art Dispatches: News from faculty, alumni, students and other members of the CalArts community

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (lacma) last summer mounted a long-overdue retrospective of work by John Baldessari (Chouinard 59), one of the most influential American artists of the past 45 years. Baldessari was also an integral member of the School of Art faculty in the 1970s and early ’80s, mentoring successive generations of Calartians who, in turn, have made their own lasting marks on contemporary artmaking. During this “extremely fruitful” tenure, according to lacma curator Leslie Jones, he helped redefine the direction of the “L.A. aesthetic.” The survey, Pure Beauty, included works on canvas, photography, videos and artist’s books from the mid-’60s to the present. Graphic Design faculty Ed Fella was the subject of three one-person exhibitions this fall. The most recent of these, I’m History, was held at the Pasadena City College Art Gallery. Curated by Brian Tucker (mfa 89, bfa 87), the pcc gallery’s director, the exhibition featured original drawings, photos, sketchbooks and printed posters by Fella. Earlier shows of his work took place at Northern Illinois University and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Fella, a selfdescribed “exit-level” designer, was a recipient in 2007 of the aiga Medal, the highest honor in the field of graphic design. mfa candidate Patricia Fernandez was named among 15 young artists nationwide to each receive a $15,000 cash award through the Joan Mitchell Foundation’s mfa Grant Program. The foundation’s prestigious annual grants are decided via anonymous nominations and jury review.

Faculty member Harry Gamboa Jr. and alumnus Daniel J. Martinez (bfa 79) were among the artists cited in a Sept. art news feature on the belated institutional recognition of Chicano Art. Martin Kersels, co-director of the Program in Art, had a solo show entitled Five Songs at Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois in Paris. The exhibition was based on Kersel’s contribution to the Whitney Biennial last spring. Another one-person show is forthcoming this February at Mitchell-Innes & Nash in New York. Suzanne Lacy’s (mfa 73) new book, Leaving Art: Writing on Performance, Politics, and Publics, 1974–2007, is out from Duke University Press. The collection brings together 30 texts written by the performance and conceptual artist whose pioneering community-based practice has explored the lives and experiences of women. The book also traces the development of feminist, conceptual and performance art since the formative years of those movements. Elad Lassry (Art–Film/Video bfa 03) was among the four artists showcased in New Photography 2010, The Museum of Modern Art’s annual survey of emerging directions in photography. High-school football was the subject of Catherine Opie’s (mfa 88) exhibition at lacma this past summer and fall. Catherine Opie: Figure and Landscape delved into issues of masculinity, community and national identity with photographs of football games and players shot in seven states across America.

courtesy of the designer

Nikelle Orellana (mfa 08) received a daytime Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Main Title and Graphic Design. She earned the award for work on Avec Eric, the pbs cooking show with celebrity chef Eric Ripert. Louise Sandhaus (mfa 94) and Derrick Schultz served as design curators of the California Design Biennial 2010 at the Pasadena Museum of California Art (pmca), an exhibition titled Action/Reaction. In conjunction with the biennial, Sandhaus organized a panel discussion called “Green is not the only color: The sustainable design rainbow.” Sandhaus is a current aiga national board member and part of the aiga Design Educators Community Steering Committee.

Faculty member Gail Swanlund (mfa 92) designed the poster for Ed Fella’s one-person exhibition at the Pasadena City College Gallery.

Faculty member Allan Sekula joined forces with veteran critic and educator Nöel Burch for The Forgotten Space, a film essay about the global transport of goods that won the Special Jury Prize in the Orrizonti (“Horizons”) section of the Venice International Film Festival. (This film marked the second award received by a filmmaker from CalArts at the

CalArts

School of Critical Studies Venice festival; see page 30.). The work, the filmmakers write, “follows container cargo aboard ships, barges, trains and trucks, listening to workers, engineers, planners, politicians, and those marginalized by the global transport system...” It is not, however, until Sekula and Burch arrive in Bilbao, Spain, that they “discover the most sophisticated expression of the belief that the maritime economy, and the sea itself, is somehow obsolete.” Art faculty Shirley Tse and Writing Program alum Brad Spence (mfa 96) were featured this fall in a group show called Material/Immaterial at Shoshana Wayne Gallery in Santa Monica.

Adjunct faculty David P. Earle (mfa 07) conceived and edited The Open Daybook, a compilation of 365 original artworks and a functional “perpetual” calendar. Each of the contributing artists — including many CalArtians — created their respective pieces during the 24 hours of an assigned day of the year. The volume is published by Mark Batty and distributed by Random House. Launch events were held at lacma in November and at Printed Matter in New York in early December. Earle is also curating a gallery exhibition of art from the book at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (lace); that show opens on Jan. 6.

courtesy of the filmmakers

above: Still from the film essay The Forgotten Space by Allan Sekula and Nöel Burch. below: National Book Foundation honoree Grace Krilanovich. scott tarasco

Grace Krilanovich (mfa 05) has been selected by the National Book Foundation as one of its “5 under 35” honorees in 2010. The annual selections, chosen by previous National Book Award winners and finalists, recognize five outstanding young writers. Earlier, Krilanovich’s debut novel, The Orange Eats Creeps, was published by Ohio-based press Two Dollar Radio; it includes a foreword by faculty member Steve Erickson. The Orange Eats Creeps is the only novel to have been excerpted twice in Black Clock, the mfa Writing Program’s literary journal. Krilanovich had formerly been a MacDowell Colony Fellow and a finalist for the Starcherone Prize. She currently works as the arts and books listings producer for the Calendar section of the Los Angeles Times.

Lauren Strasnick (mfa 05) has followed up 2009’s Nothing Like You with a new youngadult novel: Her and Me and You. Published by Simon Pulse, the book looks at first love, lost friendships and heartache when a young girl’s world is turned upside down following the breakup of her parents. “Characterization, scenes, dialogue and setting are seamlessly distilled into so few sharp, image-rich phrases that the novel reads almost as if it were written in verse,” says Kirkus Reviews. Fallen Fruit—the trio of Writing Program faculty Matias Viegener, alumnus David Burns (Art bfa 93) and Austin Young—concluded its yearlong project at lacma, an effort called eatlacma, with “Let Them Eat lacma,” a one-day event on Nov. 7 that served as the “final course” of the collective’s multifaceted investigation of food, art, culture and politics. Fallen Fruit first started out by creating neighborhood maps of fruit overhanging public spaces, and has since expanded to a wider consideration of the social role food plays in the shaping of communities. “Let Them Eat lacma” featured the participation of more than 50 artists and artist groups—including scores from CalArts—who intervened in and re-imagined the entire museum’s campus and galleries. The overall project, eatlacma, unfolded seasonally, with gardens planted and harvested on museum grounds, hands-on public events, and the four-month exhibition Fallen Fruit Presents the Fruit of lacma.

courtesy of scott snibbe

Jeremy Hight (mfa 98) has been named editor and new media curator of Leonardo Online, the web component of the famed art and technology publishing conglomerate of mit Press and the International Society for Advanced Science and Technology (isast). In this capacity, he is providing new media content for mit and for Leonardo’s iPad application, curating both online and physically sited exhibitions, and writing curatorial and theoretical texts.

Writing Program faculty Maggie Nelson, already a 2010 Guggenheim Fellow, has received a 2011 Poetry Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Dispatches

The Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance luciana achugar (bfa 95) debuted her latest work, Puro Deseo, at The Kitchen earlier this year. A duet performed by the Bessie Awardwinning choreographer and dancer and longtime collaborator Michael Mahalchick, Puro derived from notions of the paranormal, the occult, and representations of the monstrous in Gothic film and literature. The New York Times deemed the piece achugar’s “most sophisticated to date.” Choreography faculty Colin Connor’s Always, at the Edge of Never was premiered by Richmond Ballet in November. The Richmond Times-Dispatch called it “an extraordinary work that… is destined to become an audience favorite.” His next piece, Against the Dark, choreographed for the Canadian Children’s Dance Theatre, debuted in December in Toronto as part of the NextSteps festival. Earlier this fall, Connor was in residence at arcpasadena, where he collaborated with Katie Diamond (bfa 03), Robin Wilson (bfa 04, see below), and current undergraduates Cameron Evans and Andrew Wojtal (see page 32), as well as composer Matthew Setzer (Music mfa 08), to present Draftwork. (Setzer also wrote the music for Against the Dark.) Jonathan Frederickson (bfa 06) has formally joined the distinguished company Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. Frederickson, who has choreographed two pieces for hsdc’s current season, had performed with New York’s Límon Dance Company since graduating from CalArts. In other personnel news, Ashley Handel (bfa 10) is now apprenticing with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, recognized as one of the most innovative and powerful forces in modern dance today.

School of Film/Video Laura Gorenstein Miller’s (bfa 92) Helios Dance Theater staged the world premiere of Beautiful Monsters at ucla’s Royce Hall in October. The 65-minute multimedia dance mines different aspects of the vampire myth (with which Gorenstein Miller had been fascinated long before the current vampire craze) and reflects on seduction, romance, death, and dream states. The Los Angeles Times found the piece “jam-packed with highenergy, sensual movements.” The sevenmember cast included Robin Wilson (bfa 04). Dance for camera faculty Francesca Penzani (mfa 99) has been collaborating with media artist Scott Snibbe, creating dance videos for installations that have appeared at venues from the Los Angeles International Airport (see page 1) to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. Penzani has also been selected to take part in the Videodansa Barcelona competition in January, and her latest work, Stories to Tell, will screen next spring at the Hollywood Shorts Women’s Film Festival at Cinespace. Faculty member Mitchell Rose’s Advance, a two-minute dance film shot at 50 different locations, has earned top prizes at WorldFest Houston and IndieMemphis. The work also won Dance Camera West’s Audience Award when it screened at redcat last summer.

above: The cover of the catalogue Radical Light, co-edited by Steve Anker. left: Silhouetted dancers in a dance video choreographed by Francesca Penzani for Scott Snibbe’s Transit, a permanent large-scale video installation at Los Angeles International Airport.

Films by CalArts faculty Thom Andersen and James Benning and alums Madison Brookshire (mfa 07) and Theron Patterson (mfa 99) were screened at the Toronto International Film Festival (tiff). Andersen’s Get Out of the Car (2010), a 34-minute follow-up to his acclaimed 2003 work Los Angeles Plays Itself, combines shots of disused signs and billboards, halfpreserved landmarks, and Latino mural painting with the sounds of Los Angeles rock and soul. Benning’s Ruhr (2009), the filmmaker’s first-ever digital work, is a rapt two-hour, seven-shot meditation on Germany’s industrial Ruhr Valley. Brookshire, who photographed Andersen’s film, provided Color Films 1 and 2 (2010), both consisting of slow dissolves and wavelength compositions of light. One of the more interesting stories to emerge from tiff, however, was Patterson’s Bahti Kara (“Dark Cloud,” 2009), a Turkish-language dramedy written and directed by the Istanbul-based expat. Bahti Kara had earlier won three awards at the Bursa International Silk Road Film Festival in Turkey. Following 12 years of research, Film/Video Dean Steve Anker and fellow curators Kathy Geritz and Steve Seid have completed a sweeping multifaceted retrospective called Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–2000, which makes the case for the Bay Area as an important epicenter of American avant-garde imagemaking following World War ii. The centerpiece of the survey is a 352-page catalogue co-published by the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive (bam/pfa) and the University of California Press. The massive tome offers a collection of essays, interviews, photographs, and artistdesigned pages that unpack the rich history of alternative film in that region and examine the work of filmmakers from Harry Smith and George Kuchar to Bruce Conner and Jordan Belson, among many others. The catalogue is accompanied by screenings at the pfa, a gallery exhibition at the bam, and a series of Radical l@te Friday night events. This fall’s edition of the Viennale, the Vienna International Film Festival, came with a trove of work by filmmakers from CalArts. Current mfa candidates Kelman Duran and Adam R. Levine, both of the Program in Film and Video, screened Manahan and Koh, respectively, in the shorts program. Natasha Mendonca (mfa 10) had two films in the same program, Ici (2010) and Jan Villa (2010), as did Fabian Vasquez Euresti, with Everybody’s Nuts (2010) and Dos, Por Favor (2010). Faculty who presented shorts were Thom Andersen (see above), with Get Out of the Car (2010) and Lewis Klahr, with the animated Wednesday Morning Two a.m. The features program included the much-acclaimed l ittlerock by

CalArts

The Herb Alpert School of Music breakout hit Reservoir Dogs (1992). Hellman arrived in Venice to premiere a new film—his first feature in 20 years— entitled Road to Nowhere. An official selection of the festival, the new work, which was shot on a dslr camera, is an elliptical, noirish romance with Shannyn Sossamon. Separately, the October issue of Artforum included an extended consideration of Hellman’s oeuvre. (For other news from the Venice festival, see page 27).

tullio m. puglia

Eliza Hittman’s (mfa 10) CalArts thesis film, Forever’s Gonna Start Tonight, is having its world premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. The short explores domestic challenges in a Russian enclave in Brooklyn, ny, to surprising effect.

Monte Hellman, right, at the 67th Venice International Film Festival.

Film Directing faculty Monte Hellman was honored with the Special Lion for Overall Work at the 67th Venice International Film Festival. Revered by film fans for the 1971 road movie Two-Lane Blacktop, with James Taylor (“The Driver”), Dennis Wilson (“The Mechanic”), Warren Oates (“gto”), Laurie Bird (“The Girl”) and a 1955 Chevy One-Fifty, Hellman is part of the generation of independent American directors mentored by Roger Corman. Other credits include directing a pair of 1965 acid Westerns, Ride in the Whirlwind and The Shooting, which both star Jack Nicholson; helming the 1974 Warren Oates vehicle Cockfighter; and executive-producing Quentin Tarantino’s

Doug Sweetland (bfa 94), the Academy Awardnominated director of the 2008 Disney/Pixar short Presto, is set to direct the animated feature The Familiars for Sony Pictures Animation. Based on the new book of the same name, the film is slated for release in 2012. Sweetland joined Sony after 16 years at Pixar, a run that had begun with Toy Story. Pendleton Ward’s (bfa 05) series Adventure Time has begun its second season on Cartoon Network. The show, which follows the righteous adventures of a human boy and his magical dog companion in the Land of Ooo, received an Emmy nomination in 2010 for Outstanding Short-Format Animated Program. Still from Thom Andersen’s Get Out of the Car.

The Herb Alpert School of Music, in a coproduction with the School of Theater, staged the West Coast debut of Iannis Xenakis’ modern opera Oresteïa. The second concert of the new Wild Beast Concert Series presented by Levitt Pavilions, Oresteïa was part of an ongoing citywide celebration of the pioneering Greek composer and architect who died nine years ago. The CalArts production of the 1965–66 opera, Xenakis’ only one, used the open-air amphitheater setting of the Wild Beast music pavilion to evoke the spirit of ancient Greek drama—in this case Aeschylus’ epic tale of the cursed House of Atreus. A 13-piece ensemble of winds, brass and amplified cello was joined by faculty baritone soloist Paul Berkolds and conducted by fellow faculty Mark Menzies. Playing the daunting, nearly savage music of Xenakis, this ensemble was further complemented by roving men’s, women’s and children’s choruses, while mfa director Marina McClure of the School of Theater helmed the theatrical staging of the opera. This production of Oresteïa coincided with the opening of Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect, Visionary at moca Pacific Design Center, a traveling exhibition co-curated by Carey Lovelace (Music–Critical Studies bfa 75).

courtesy of the filmmaker

Mike Ott (mfa 05), in which a pair of Japanese siblings are stranded in California’s Antelope Valley, and faculty member’s Nina Menkes’ Hitparkut (“Dissolution”), a story inspired by Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and set in a predominantly Arab area of Tel Aviv. Faculty Monte Hellman (see below) followed the world premiere of his Road to Nowhere in Venice earlier with more screenings at the Viennale. Hitparkut, which had its North American premiere at redcat in September, had previously won the Anat Pirchi Award for Best Drama at the 2010 Jerusalem Film Festival. Ott’s l ittlerock, meanwhile, has collected numerous accolades: the Audience Award at the Reykjavik International Film Festival, the Jury Special Mention Award at the Festival du Nouveau Cinema de Montreal, and the Best Feature Film Award at the San Diego Asian Film Festival, among others. l ittlerock received its full Los Angeles premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theater as part of this year’s afi Fest and won the festival’s Audience Award. Most recently, Ott has been nominated for the Someone to Watch Award at the upcoming Film Independent Spirit Awards.

mfa Experimental Animation student Kirsten Lepore collected the Best Student Film Award at the Anim’est International Animation Film Festival held in Bucharest, Romania. Lepore’s winning entry was a bittersweet stop-motion short entitled Bottle.

Associate Dean Susan Allen was in Austria, where she and longtime collaborator Roman Stolyar played music for harp and piano at the Chilli Jazz Festival and the Neu New York/Vienna Institute of Improvised Music. Allen then traveled to Corfu, Greece, for the education conference of the International Association of Schools of Jazz. There, she conducted a workshop, took part in panel discussions, and presented a paper entitled “Participatory Pedagogy and Large Ensemble Improvisation.”

Dispatches

School of Theater Arthur Jarvinen, 1956–2010 The long-serving member of the faculty of The Herb Alpert School of Music was “one of the wildest and most imaginative composers of [his] generation,” according to composer and musicologist Kyle Gann. A co-founder of the California E.A.R. Unit, Jarvinen produced an eclectic body of work that was at once accessible and highly complex. He was known in the CalArts community for what mfa candidate Alex Sramek describes as “a combination of insight, bluntness, and deep respect for all aspects of musicmaking.” Jarvinen came to Institute in 1978 and, after graduating with an mfa in 1981, stayed on as faculty. In addition to the E.A.R Unit, he played in numerous other bands— experimental, jazz, rock, blues, live electronic, even surf—and collaborated with artists such as Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa. Jarvinen’s composition catalogue includes some 80 chamber works as well as songs, rock instrumentals and film scores; his music has been performed at venues worldwide. calarts library archive

Art Jarvinen performs on an Alexander Calder mobile at CalArts, c. 1980.

Bob Clendenen’s The Observed, for tuba in four parts was recorded by Phil VanOuse, principal tuba player of the Pittsburgh Opera and the Pittsburgh Ballet. VanOuse also premiered the piece at The Wild Beast this summer. Electric basssist and Chapman Stick player Alphonso Johnson received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Bass Player magazine in a ceremony held at the Key Club on the Sunset Strip. Brazilian bandleader Sergio Mendes and current Rolling Stones bassist Darryl Jones were on hand to present the Jazz Program faculty member with his award. Johnson then followed with a set of jazz and fusion standards by his quartet, with drummer Ndugu, keyboardist David Garfield, and guitarist Michael O’Neill. (The evening’s other honoree was Bootsy Collins of ParliamentFunkadelic fame.) The group Text of Light — which includes faculty member Ulrich Krieger, Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo, and sound artist Christian Marclay — performed this past September at All Tomorrow’s Parties New York 2010. This edition of the atp festival was curated by filmmaker Jim Jarmusch. Krieger also has several new cds: The Creation of the Universe by Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Trio, a two-disc live recording of performances by Reed, Krieger and Sarth Calhoun at redcat (issued on the new label Best Seat in the House);

A Cage of Saxophones (Mode Records), a two-cd survey of the saxophone music of John Cage; Up and Down 23 (b-boim records), featuring four soprano saxophones in just intonation; and the forthcoming Fathom (Sub Rosa), with new work for contrabasssaxophone, just intonation guitars, and amplified drums. Jazz drum set faculty Joe LaBarbera crisscrossed Europe over the summer, playing at Umbria Jazz in Italy, Jazz Parade in Fribourg, Switzerland, the Dinant Jazz Nights Festival in Belgium, and the Capbreton Jazz Festival in France. In Capbreton, he also took part International Contrabasse Festival. Composition faculty Anne LeBaron has a new double-cd out on the Innova label called 1, 2, 4, 3. The recording showcases LeBaron’s experimental harp techniques in a series of compositions from the past decade. Performers include mfa violist Kristín Þóra Haraldsdóttir and violinist Ronit Kirchman (mfa 01). Earlier, Southwest Chamber Music has presented LeBaron’s Solar Music, for flute and harp, at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in Pasadena. Solar Music was also performed at the Time of Music Festival in Suovanlahti, Finland. Next door in Sweden, LeBaron’s work was the subject of an edition of the Monitor program on Sveriges Radio.

For the seventh consecutive summer, the School of Theater sent a contingent of students, alumni and faculty to Scotland for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, one of the world’s most prominent arts festivals. Working under the banner of CalArts Festival Theater, the interdisciplinary team—drawn from not only the School of Theater but also other CalArts schools—staged four productions. At Sundown, conceived by Ian Garrett (mfa 10), written by mfa writer Henry Hoke and directed by mfa candidate Zoe Moore, was “a collectively imagined autobiography” about the unraveling of memory and onset of dementia; this production was carried out by students in the School of Theater, the School of Critical Studies, and The Herb Alpert School of Music. Leila Ghaznavi’s (mfa 10) puppet theater work Silken Veils dealt with the complexities of Iranian–American identity. Floozy, by Amy Tofte of the Writing for Performance Program, set a young woman’s pursuit of love “between farcical comedy and spine-tingling horror.” Finally, Allain Rochel (mfa 01) staged his own all-male adaptation of The Bacchae. Ghaznavi’s Silken Veils earned a nomination for a Fringe First Award, an award given by the Scottish national paper The Scotsman. Nataki Garrett (mfa 02), the newly appointed associate dean of the School of Theater, directed the West Coast premiere of Brenden Jacobs-Jenkins’ provocative Neighbors at Joseph Stern’s Matrix Theatre Company in Hollywood. The wildly theatrical drama focuses on race relations in post-racial America. Yale Repertory Theatre presented a reading of the play blu by Virginia Grise (mfa 09, see next page) at the Frederick Iseman Theater in New Haven. Grise’s drama had been selected by playwright David Hare as the winner of the 2010 Yale Drama Series Award Winner. Emily Mendelsohn (mfa 09) and Qadriyyah Shamsid-Deen (Theater mfa 09, Film/Video mfa 10) have been awarded Fulbright Fellowships to study in Africa. Mendelsohn left for Kampala, Uganda, in August to study how artists make use of traditional modes of performance to address contemporary political and social realities. Shamsid-Deen, a documentary filmmaker, is headed to Namibia this January to examine women’s groups there as models of functioning collectives. Both Fulbright Fellows have also collaborated this past fall with Ugandan playwright Deborah Asiimwe (mfa 09) on the play entitled Cooking Oil, which looks at issues of foreign aid, women’s rights, and the role of art in sparking development.

CalArts

Institute Actress Condola Rashad (bfa 09) returned to Los Angeles to reprise her heartbreaking turn as the character Sophie in Lynn Nottage’s Ruined, the winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and multiple other accolades. Staged at the Geffen Playhouse this past fall, the drama tells the hair-raising story of mothers and daughters who bear the brunt of the suffering in the civil war-torn Democratic courtesy of the geffen playhouse

left: The residency by artists from the Jakarta Institute of the Arts concluded with Life at Sea, a collaborative performance in the Institute’s Main Gallery.

Republic of Congo. “[Rashad’s] utterly transfixing” work in the play’s New York production at the Manhattan Theatre Club — which was extended eight times — led Time Out New York to declare: “A star is born.” Ben Brantley, writing in The New York Times, noted that “Nottage has endowed the frail-looking Sophie . . . with a strength that transforms this tale of ruin into a clear-eyed celebration of endurance.” Rashad’s performances earned her several top acting nominations last year. The [Inside] the Ford’s New Play Series opened with the premiere of hyperbole: origins, created by the designer-based Rogue Artist’s Ensemble. The “hypertheatrical” production, which examines “origin stories” both ancient and modern, featured the work by several School of Theater alumni: Diona Reasonover (mfa 09) was a member of the cast; scenic design was provided by Logan Wince (mfa 07); lighting design by Ian Garrett (mfa 08); puppet design by Caitlin Lainoff (mfa 08) and DanRae Wilson (mfa 10); video design by Dave Mickey (mfa 08) and Lianne Arnold (mfa 09); and props design by Sarah Krainin (mfa 08).

below left: Condola Rashad, left, in Ruined at the Geffen Playhouse.

The Herb Alpert Foundation and CalArts have announced the 2010 recipients of the Alpert Award in the Arts. The winners are sculptor Rachel Harrison in the visual arts category; composer and improviser Lukas Ligeti in music; choreographer Susan Rethorst in dance; performer and activist Bill Talen aka “Reverend Billy” in theater; and experimental filmmaker Jim Trainor in film/video. The annual awards provide unrestricted $75,000 grants to five independent artists working in the respective five categories. Initiated and funded by The Herb Alpert Foundation, the awards are administered by CalArts. Each grant also includes a short residency at the Institute. Three more CalArts alumni received Princess Grace Awards (pgas) in 2010, continuing the Institute’s impressive track record in the grants program administered by the Princess Grace Foundation–usa. The recipients included Virginia Grise (mfa 09, see previous page), mfa filmmaker Laura Kraning, and undergraduate dancer Andrew Wojtal (see page 29).

CalArts welcomed a contingent of students, faculty and other representatives from the Jakarta Institute of the Arts (Institut Kesenian Jakarta, or ikj) in Indonesia for a weeklong residency in November. During this time, ikj students worked with CalArts music, dance and film/video students on a series of collaborative projects. The residency was part of ongoing exchanges between CalArts and ikj. Bianca M. Roberts has been named vice president and chief advancement officer of CalArts. In this post, Roberts is overseeing development, advancement services, alumni relations, public affairs, and trustee relations; she also serves as secretary to the board. Before joining CalArts, Roberts was senior vice president for development at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and, earlier, executive director of development at the ucla School of Theater, Film and Television. She has also held senior development positions at the Rand Corporation, Arts Toronto, and imax.

EDUCATE A NEW GENERATION OF ARTISTS Help educate the next generation of groundbreaking artists by including CalArts in your will, living trust or other type of estate plan. Large or small, every gift has an impact.

For more information please contact: Courtney McIntyre, Director of Planned Giving 661 222-2743 cmcintyre@calarts.edu calarts.edu/support

Remembering Harrison “Buzz” Price, 1921–2010 There is a conference room at CalArts that faculty, staff, and students affectionately call “The Buzz.” It is used nearly every day as a classroom or meeting space, often as a place to welcome honored guests, equally often as a comfortable setting in which to debate difficult issues affecting the future of CalArts. It is right that this room is dedicated to — and named after — Harrison “Buzz” Price, who for more than 40 years as a trustee, board chair, and chairman at one time or another of virtually every committee of the board, helped to foster CalArts’ development. Buzz passed away this past August after a long illness. Here at CalArts we are still taking the measure of the loss. To professionals in the attractions business, Buzz is legendary. As an advisor to Walt Disney, Buzz analyzed, researched and recommended in 1953 that Disneyland be built in the middle of an orange grove in Anaheim, California. The rest, as they say, is history. Buzz went on to conduct feasibility studies for attractions around the world, creating in the process the planning models on which this industry (which today includes everything from theme parks to presidential libraries) is built. For those of us who care deeply about CalArts, Buzz is likewise a legend... indeed, even to those of us who had the good fortune to know him personally. A few years after conducting the Disneyland study, Buzz was asked by Walt Disney to write the feasibility study for a college for all of the visual and performing arts. This dream, nurtured for many years by Walt Disney, often in conversation with Lulu May von Hagen, had not yet become a reality when Walt died in 1966. It was left to his brother, Roy, and to Buzz to shepherd CalArts into existence. “Before he entered the hospital,” Walt Disney’s daughter Diane recalled, “dad had placed a stack of notebooks in Buzz’s hands, saying ‘Here, take care of my school for me.’ Dad knew the hands to place his dream in, that Buzz would see it through . . . and he did.” For close to half a century, Buzz helped guide the fortunes of CalArts. He sited the campus in the Santa Clarita Valley, brought a calm hand to board leadership during the rowdy early years, helped a succession of presidents, including myself, to find their way, and remained active right up through the building of redcat (the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater) in the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex. Building there, Buzz told me, would be “a sort of homecoming since Mrs. [Dorothy] Chandler had wanted CalArts to be built at the Music Center at the outset.” When it was no longer safe for him to drive, his beloved wife Anne—who Buzz once described to me as his muse and the person who brought him into the arts— would ferry Buzz to board meetings. During his last years, when poor hearing made it difficult for him to participate in those meetings, Buzz several times raised the possibility of retiring from active service . . . but it was clear that he didn’t want to. CalArts was too much part of his heart and being for Buzz ever to walk away. Buzz had a great zest for life, passionate about his family, full of curiosity and humanity (which in his final years led him to a deep engagement in poetry), always ready to see the humor in a situation; a person who gave fresh meaning to the idea of loyalty. And to see Buzz and his Annie together was to see what a couple could and should be. So, the next time you are on campus and walk by “The Buzz,” remember Harrison Price and think about the man who helped build the school that he, and I, and so many others, have loved. Rest in peace my friend, Steven D. Lavine

the CalArts groundbreaking, 1969; Buzz and Anne Price with CalArts President Steven D. Lavine, c. 1989; Roy E. Disney honoring Buzz with the CalArts Trustees Award, 1996; and Buzz and Anne at the dedication of the Buzz and Anne Price Dining Room, 2007.

calarts library archive

from top: Buzz Price, c. 1966; Buzz, center, with, from left, Willy Schaeffer, Donn Tatum, Card Walker, John Kelsey, Thornton Ladd, and Walt Disney, 1966; Buzz with Roy E. Disney, Lulu May von Hagen, CalArts President Robert Corrigan, and other dignitaries at

California Institute of the Arts Office of Public Affairs 24700 McBean Parkway Valencia, California 91355-2340 calarts.edu

front and back cover: Marilyn Lowey (Art mfa 10), Save It for a Rainy Day, installation with 19 processed fluorescent bulbs. This work was featured in Box Scheme, the School of Artâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 2010 mfa graduate art exhibition held at several Chinatown galleries in downtown Los Angeles.

non-profit org. u.s. postage paid santa clarita, ca permit #18