The Calendar section of today's Los Angeles Times had an interesting piece about the upcoming ARCOmadrid art fair and the fact that Los Angeles will be the "focus city" (rather than an entire country has been the case before). It appears L.A. is on a bit of a roll when it comes to interest from the international art community. Just last fall the city was honored by the International Book Fair in Guadalajara.
I won't be lucky enough to attend ARCOmadrid but I was in Guadalajara for the Book Fair and related exhibitions and if the buzz from Spain is the same as it was after Mexico then more recognition for the Los Angeles is likely to follow.
Otis alum Gajin Fujita '97 was one of four artists whose work was used in the article along with Raymond Pettibon, John Baldessari and Don Suggs (who had a major retrospective exhibition on campus in 2007).
You can read the entire article here. You can see a wide range of photos from alum Mark Dean Veca's exhibition in Guadalajara that was part of the Book Fair here.
18 February 2010
LA Lauded Again
26 October 2009
Fisher's Finesse
There was a great article about Architect Fred Fisher in yesterday's Los Angeles Times. He is a long time member of Otis' Board of Governors and he designed the Galef Center for Fine Arts, located on our Goldsmith campus.
Written by the paper's Architecture Critic Christopher Hawthorne, the piece focused on two of Fisher's most recent projects- The Annenberg Community Beach House in Santa Monica and the Annenberg Center for Information Science and Technology at Caltech in Pasadena. I appreciated how Hawthorne placed the work in the context of Modern architecture and his appreciation for Fisher's efforts.
This was my favorite quote- "Fisher's recent projects by contrast, employ restraint not in an effort to wipe the historical slate clean but as framing devices to set off and help us examine the past, the surrounding architectural context and, perhaps most significant, the always-slippery and typically fraught relationship between public and private space."
You can read the entire article here.
17 July 2009
Going Below the Surface of Superficiality
The Ben Maltz Gallery exhibition "Superficiality and Superexcrescence" which opened to a great crowd a couple of weeks ago, has received a good review from Los Angeles Times art critic Holly Myers.
After beginning the piece with the observation that shows dealing with "surface" have been going on in LA for a long time, and therefore more shows would be unnecessary, Meyers points out how the Superficiality show does stand out and why it is definitely worth a visit. She said (in referencing the accompanying catalog) "If the result feels at times like a graduate seminar, it is only in the best way: sound in its argument, rich in its examples, with plenty of room left for debate. She made particular note of the work from artists Elliot Hundley, Rebecca Campbell and Joel Morrison.
In addition to the review the article includes a nice installation shot by Otis faculty member Chris Warner.
Superficiality and Superexcrescence remains on view through September 12. Gallery hours and info can be found here.
