Stephen Beal has been named president of California College of the Arts (CCA). The announcement was made today by Ann Hatch, chair of the college's Board of Trustees. Currently provost of CCA, Beal will assume his position as the school's ninth president on May 1, 2008.
Read the restPosted on Friday, April 18, 2008 by Kim Lessard
The Industrial Design Program at California College of the Arts presents ToolToy, an exhibition showcasing the thesis projects of the program's 2008 graduating class. Inspired by the designer Alexander Manu and his concept of the "ToolToy," in which play value is integrated into products, services, and systems, the exhibition seeks to engage visitors on both a functional and an emotional level. The contemporary objects in the show are designed not only to meet performance requirements, but also to respond to the human desire for personal meaning in everyday items. They range from furniture, fashion, and electronics to proposals focused on education, nutrition, the home, retail experiences, and urban mobility.
ToolToy takes place Monday, May 5, through Saturday, May 10, at Fivepoints Arthouse, 50A Bannam Place, San Francisco. There will be a public opening reception (sponsored by Sobieski Vodka) on Thursday, May 8, from 6–8 p.m. Gallery hours for the exhibition are Tues., Thurs., and Fri., 5–10 p.m.; Wed. and Sat., noon–4 p.m.
About California College of the Arts
Founded in 1907, California College of the Arts is noted for the interdisciplinarity and breadth of its programs. It offers studies in 20 undergraduate and seven graduate majors in the areas of fine arts, architecture, design, and writing. The college offers bachelor of architecture, bachelor of arts, bachelor of fine arts, master of architecture, master of arts, master of fine arts, and master of business administration degrees. With campuses in Oakland and San Francisco, CCA currently enrolls more than 1,600 full-time students. Noted alumni include the painters Nathan Oliveira and Raymond Saunders; the ceramicists Robert Arneson, Viola Frey, and Peter Voulkos; the filmmaker Wayne Wang; the conceptual artists David Ireland and Dennis Oppenheim; and the designers Lucille Tenazas and Michael Vanderbyl.
Read the restPosted on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 by Brenda Tucker
The CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts Passengers exhibition, a permanent, rotating presentation of emerging international contemporary artists, will feature Gareth Moore and Roman Ondák in May and June, respectively. As with all the artists featured in Passengers, these will be their first solo presentations in a public arts institution in the United States.
Located in the Wattis Institute's upper gallery, Passengers is divided into two components: One is a group show of 11 artists, and the other is a solo show.
Read the restPosted on Monday, April 14, 2008 by Brenda Tucker
CCA will confer an honorary doctorate degree on the renowned architect Thom Mayne at its 101st commencement exercises, to be held on Saturday, May 10, at 2 p.m. at the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco. Mayne will deliver the commencement address to the 370 graduates and their families. In addition, he will be honored at a private dinner the preceding evening and will participate in the post-commencement reception on the college's San Francisco campus.
Mayne won the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2005. The Pritzker jury's citation remarked that his "approach . . . and philosophy are not derived from European modernism, Asian influences, or even from American precedents of the last century. He has sought throughout his career to create an original architecture. . . . Like the Eameses, Neutra, Schindler, and Gehry before him, Thom Mayne is an authentic addition to the tradition of innovative, exciting architectural talent that flourishes on the West Coast." Mayne is best known to Bay Area residents for the bold design of San Francisco's new Federal Building, which opened last year. The building eliminates corner offices in favor of democratic space and city views for 90 percent of the workstations; it also features operable windows and natural lighting and ventilation. The New York Times praised Mayne for the building, calling it "his most powerful government work to date."
In conjunction with CCA's commencement, 3A Gallery in San Francisco will present an exhibition of photographs by Livia Corona of the famed 2-4-6-8 House in Venice, California, which Mayne designed in 1978. The exhibition will be on view from May 8 through June 12, with a public opening reception on May 8 from 6-9 p.m. Regular gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.–6 p.m. 3A Gallery is located at 101 South Park Street, San Francisco. For more information about the exhibition, please call 415.543.3347.
For more information about CCA's 2008 commencement exercises, please contact the college's Student Affairs Office at 510.594.3666.
About Thom Mayne
Thom Mayne was a cofounder of the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) in 1972, and he established his Santa Monica–based architecture firm, Morphosis, that same year. He has held teaching positions at many international architectural institutions. Currently he is a tenured faculty member at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture. His distinguished honors include the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award (2006); the Pritzker Architecture Prize (2005); the Chrysler Design Award (2001); the American Institute of Architects / Los Angeles Gold Medal in Architecture (2000); and the Rome Prize (1987). With Morphosis, he has been the recipient of 25 Progressive Architecture Awards, 70 American Institute of Architecture awards, and many other design recognitions.
Under Mayne's direction, Morphosis has been featured in numerous group and solo exhibitions throughout the world, including Continuities of the Incomplete (2006) at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and Cut: Revealing the Section (2008) at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Morphosis's buildings and projects have been the subject of 21 monographs, including four published by Rizzoli, two by Korean Architect, two by El Croquis (Spain), one by G. A. Japan, and one by Phaidon.
Mayne received his bachelor of architecture degree from the University of Southern California in 1968 and his master of architecture degree from Harvard University in 1978.
The AIA SF features Mayne and the new San Francisco Federal Building in a podcast here: www.aiasf.org/Programs/Public_Programs/ArchCasts_Podcasts.htm
About California College of the Arts
Founded in 1907, California College of the Arts is noted for the interdisciplinarity and breadth of its programs. It offers studies in 20 undergraduate and seven graduate majors in the areas of fine arts, architecture, design, and writing. The college offers bachelor of architecture, bachelor of arts, bachelor of fine arts, master of architecture, master of arts, master of fine arts, and master of business administration degrees. With campuses in Oakland and San Francisco, CCA currently enrolls more than 1,600 full-time students. Noted alumni include the painters Nathan Oliveira and Raymond Saunders; the ceramicists Robert Arneson, Viola Frey, and Peter Voulkos; the filmmaker Wayne Wang; the conceptual artists David Ireland and Dennis Oppenheim; and the designers Lucille Tenazas and Michael Vanderbyl.
Posted on Monday, April 7, 2008 by Brenda Tucker
California College of the Arts (CCA) will present its 2008 MFA Exhibition from Thursday, May 8, through Saturday, May 17
(10 a.m.–6 p.m. daily), with an opening reception on May 8 from 6–9 p.m. The exhibition features projects by nearly 50 artists graduating this spring from the college's Graduate Program in Fine Arts. The presentation unfolds throughout CCA's San Francisco campus, giving visitors an opportunity to tour most of the college. The exhibition and opening reception are free and open to the public.
Bay Area art schools have become increasingly visible in recent years as more and more nationally and internationally renowned artists emerge from their ranks. This exhibition is a unique opportunity for the public to see the newest student work that is expanding the boundaries of photography, painting, sculpture, textiles, video, installation, animation, digital media, and performance. Organized by faculty member and critic Glen Helfand, the show features a compelling range of media, styles, and subjects. Says Helfand: "The presentation allows the rich range of work to be in conversation. In this way, the show really expresses the dynamic qualities of the program's artistic community."
The featured works take unblinking looks at complex family structure, self-portraiture, organized crime, psychological states, queer family, the effects of global immigration on identity, and a vast number of other topics and issues. One large-scale drawing project turns a family home into a stage set. Another work presents wrestling as a means of interpersonal connection. Yet another project looks at the nature of the art market via a bartering catalog that, rather than listing prices, expresses what artists are willing to exchange for their pieces.
All of the artists show a deft handling of materials, from the industrial and machine made to the obsessively hand crafted. One artist, for example, offers viewers a direct experience of the act of making cloth through an interactive loom. Another artist, in honor of the election year, presents several works on paper that reveal the secret lives, and unexpectedly muscular bodies, of past American presidents.
Images and interviews with the artists are available upon request.
Read the restPosted on Wednesday, April 2, 2008 by Kim Lessard
The California College of the Arts (CCA) Fashion Design Program will present its annual Senior Fashion Show on Wednesday, May 7, 2008. The block of Eighth Street in front of the school's main San Francisco campus building will be transformed into a tented urban runway. The featured designs will be selected by a jury comprised of industry professionals. The show has something for everyone, as the student designers unveil lines for kids, men, and more, ranging from ordinary street wear to avant-garde creations, all worn by professional models.
Doors open at 8 p.m., and the show begins at 8:30 p.m. General-admission tickets are $25 and VIP tickets are $100 (these include admission to a special wine reception at 6 p.m.). Tickets are available now at www.cca.edu/fashion/show.
Amy Williams, chair of the Fashion Design Program, says, "There is nothing quite like seeing your designs on a human body. The runway show is the capstone experience for a fashion designer. Our students pour their passions into designs that express their training and individual ideals, and the faculty are extremely excited to see their collections come to life in this juried presentation."
The fashion editors at Surface Magazine will select one student designer from the show to receive the Surface Emerging Talent Award. The winner will have his or her work profiled in the magazine's annual Avant Guardian issue and will be flown to New York to attend the photo shoot.
One student designer from the show will be offered an internship by Marciano. The selected student will be given an opportunity to spend the summer working alongside the lead designer at the company's world headquarters in Los Angeles.
About CCA's Fashion Design Program
Established in 1996, CCA's Fashion Design Program is an idea-driven, craft-based course of study that emphasizes design concepts and skill development. The goal is to produce designers of daring originality who are willing to explore across disciplines and contribute to fashion as an aspect of modern art and culture. Students gain technical expertise in pattern making, sewing, draping, and fashion illustration. They develop creative solutions to the challenges of sustainability by designing fashions that respect the environment and preserve native cultures. Alumni of the program work in all aspects of the industry for companies such as BCBG, Gap Inc., Gymboree, Levi Strauss & Co., Ralph Lauren, Narciso Rodriguez, Athleta, and Elie Tahari. Many have developed their own firms in the United States and abroad.
CCA Fashion Show Sponsors
California College of the Arts gratefully acknowledges the Senior Fashion Show's major sponsor, Osterweis Capital Management.
"We at Osterweis Capital Management are proud to sponsor CCA's Fashion Show," commented John S. Osterweis, chief investment officer and portfolio manager. "We continue to be enthusiastic supporters of the college's educational program. California College of the Arts is shaping the cultural leaders of tomorrow, and we are very pleased to serve as a partner in this effort. Contributing to the education of talented young people impacts the entire community."
Osterweis Capital Management was founded in 1983 by John S. Osterweis to serve the portfolio management needs of high net worth individuals, foundations and endowments. Since then, the firm has grown to over $3.5 billion in assets under management, providing investment management services through various products including individually managed portfolios and two mutual funds, The Osterweis Fund and The Osterweis Strategic Income Fund.
CCA would also like to thank the fashion show's media sponsor, Surface Magazine.
"Surface is proud to be sponsoring this prestigious CCA program for the sixth year," says the magazine's publisher, Richard Klein.
For 15 years, readers have turned to Surface for creative inspiration, coverage of the burgeoning design world, and profiles of the emerging talents and provocative projects that are reshaping the creative landscape. This ability to identify and collaborate with undiscovered design stars—from furniture makers to photographers—has made the magazine a cultural barometer of global style in all its forms.
About California College of the Arts
Founded in 1907, California College of the Arts is noted for the interdisciplinary nature and breadth of its programs. It offers studies in 20 undergraduate and seven graduate majors in the areas of fine arts, architecture, design, and writing. The college offers bachelor of architecture, bachelor of arts, bachelor of fine arts, master of architecture, master of arts, master of fine arts, and master of business administration degrees. With campuses in Oakland and San Francisco, CCA currently enrolls more than 1,600 full-time students. Noted alumni include the painters Nathan Oliveira and Raymond Saunders; the ceramicists Robert Arneson, Viola Frey, and Peter Voulkos; the filmmaker Wayne Wang; the conceptual artists David Ireland and Dennis Oppenheim; and the designers Lucille Tenazas and Michael Vanderbyl.
Read the restPosted on Saturday, March 22, 2008 by Kim Lessard
The Office of Special Programs at California College of the Arts (CCA) has announced the launch of the Summer Institute in Sustainable Design. This two-week immersion program enables practicing professionals in design and other disciplines to come together to learn about and discuss cutting-edge green strategies and their applications in the realm of design. The first program in what will be an annual series takes place June 15–27, 2008, in Point Reyes and San Francisco.
Read the restPosted on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 by Brenda Tucker
The Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice at California College of the Arts will present the exhibition Self-Storage from April 18 through May 18, 2008, at Metro Self Storage, 300 Treat Ave., San Francisco. There will be an opening reception on Friday, April 18, 2008, from 7–10 pm at Hardware Store Gallery, 3824 Mission St., San Francisco.
Self-Storage investigates the cardboard box and its intrinsic relationship to the archive. It is inspired by Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion Chronofile, Fuller's attempt to chronicle his own life in systematic 15-minute intervals.
Read the restPosted on Friday, March 7, 2008 by Brenda Tucker
Four CCA alumni and faculty—Robert Bechtle, Mitzi Pederson, Jason Rhoades, and Mario Ybarra Jr.—will have their artworks included in the 2008 Whitney Biennial, opening at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York on March 6, 2008. The 2008 Biennial includes 81 artists and will remain on view through June 1, 2008. Since its founding in 1932, the Biennial has become one of the most important surveys of the state of contemporary art in the United States today.
Robert Bechtle
The preeminent painter and longtime San Francisco resident Robert Bechtle (born 1932) was among the initiators of Photorealism in the 1960s. His paintings reside in many museum collections and have been exhibited at numerous American and European institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; and Documenta, Kassel, Germany. A major retrospective organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2005 traveled to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Bechtle received his bachelor's degree (1954), an MFA (1958), and an honorary PhD (2007) from CCA. He taught in the painting department at San Francisco State University for 30 years.
Mitzi Pederson
Mitzi Pederson (born 1976) makes sculpture out of recycled or hardware-store-type materials such as cinder blocks, plywood, cellophane, and papier-mache. Her work explores properties that are fundamental to the medium of sculpture, such as tension and balance, and her finished pieces often seem precarious or unstable. Pederson is based in San Francisco. She received a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University in 1999 and an MFA in painting and drawing from CCA in 2004. She has had solo exhibitions at White Columns, New York, and Ratio 3, San Francisco, and she has participated in group exhibitions at New Langton Arts and Jack Hanley Gallery in San Francisco. In 2006 she received the SECA Art Award from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Jason Rhodes
Jason Rhoades was born in the town of Newcastle in Northern California in 1965 and died in Los Angeles in 2006. He was a sculptor and performance artist whose artworks contain myriad references. They are often spread out on the floor in many parts, sometimes taking up entire rooms, and examine the interconnections among reality, experience, and the media. Rhoades attended CCA in 1985–86. He went on to take a bachelor's degree at the San Francisco Art Institute, attended the summer 1988 session of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and received an MFA at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Mario Ybarra Jr.
Mario Ybarra Jr. was born in Los Angeles in 1973 and continues to live and work in that city; currently he is a visiting artist and faculty member in CCA's Sculpture Program. His sculptures and installations frequently incorporate murals or graffiti, commingling street culture and fine art, and all of his work relates in some way to his Mexican American heritage. In 1999 Ybarra earned a bachelor's degree from Otis College of Art and Design, and in 2001 he received an MFA from the University of California, Irvine. His work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions at Tate Modern, London; the Prague Biennial; the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Serpentine Gallery, London; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago; and the Astrup Fearnley Museet for Moderne Kunst, Oslo.
For more information please see the Whitney Museum press release at
www.whitney.org/www/exhibition/upcoming.jsp
Posted on Friday, March 7, 2008 by Kim Lessard
The Industrial Design Program at California College of the Arts (CCA) will host a free panel discussion on April 9, 2008, as part of the West Coast tour of Design Green Now. Design Green Now is a series of free panel discussions exploring the integration of innovative tools into the "greening" of consumer products.
According to EcoSystems, the Brooklyn-based design consultancy that organizes Design Green Now, the purpose of the series is to inspire and empower emerging designers to begin building a sustainable future. CCA was invited to participate along with the other hosting institutions because of its long-standing commitment to sustainable design education.
The panelists will include Yves Béhar (principal, fuseproject, and chair, CCA Industrial Design Program), Valerie Casey (founder, the Designers Accord), Peter Kallen (men's products design director, Nau), Sarah Louise Todd (senior design analyst, frog design), Sophia Wang Traweek (cofounder, o2-Cascadia), and Richard Whitehall (director of industrial design, Smart Design). They will share their current green projects, the challenges they face, and the tools they use to create successful, sustainable designs.
Core77.com, one of the world's most respected and popular design communities, is on board as a media partner. Allan Chochinov, editor in chief, comments: "Core77 is thrilled to sponsor Design Green Now, which occupies a sweet spot at the intersection of education, sustainability, and innovation. The initiative will bring together professionals, students, fans, and enthusiasts, all engaged in sessions that will inspire creativity and promote positive social change."
About EcoSystems
EcoSystems' mission is to create products, systems, and services for a healthy planet. It uses innovative frameworks that engage and educate communities in collaborative developments. www.ecosystemsbrand.com
About California College of the Arts
Founded in 1907, California College of the Arts is the largest regionally accredited, independent, nonprofit school of art and design in the western United States. Noted for the interdisciplinary nature and breadth of its programs, CCA offers studies in 20 undergraduate and eight graduate majors in the areas of fine arts, architecture, design, and writing. The college offers bachelor of architecture, bachelor of arts, bachelor of fine arts, master of architecture, master of arts, master of fine arts, and master of business administration degrees. With campuses in Oakland and San Francisco, CCA currently enrolls more than 1,600 full-time students.
Design Green Now 2008 West Coast Tour Schedule
April 1 Western Washington University, Bellingham
April 4 The Art Institute, Portland, Oregon
April 9 California College of the Arts, San Francisco
April 10 TBA
April 11 California State University, Long Beach