CalArts invites the public to attend Open Studios 2008

March 2008, Valencia, California--Current MFA students in the School of Art's Art, Photography and the Integrated Media programs at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) are pleased to announce the annual Graduate Open Studios Day. For one afternoon, Sunday, April 13 from 2:00 to 7:00 p.m., approximately 60 graduate students will open their workspaces to the public. Visitors are invited to take an inside look at the diverse projects undertaken at CalArts--where students test the limits of their mediums and explore definitions of contemporary art making.

The open studios event provides a rare opportunity for visitors to CalArts to preview works in progress and converse with artists in a comfortable and informal setting. Each artist will be present in her or his studio and available to answer questions and discuss their work.

The MFA program in Art, Photography, and Integrated Media at CalArts has produced an impressive range of influential contemporary artists. Notable CalArts alumni range from graduates from the 1970s such as David Salle, Matt Mullican, Jack Goldstein, Lari Pittman, Eric Fischl and Mike Kelley to Liz Larner, Cathie Opie, and Stephen Prina in the 1980s, and more recent alumni Mark Bradford, Ruben Ortiz-Torres, Sam Durant, Andrea Bowers, and Rodney McMillian.

Directions: the CalArts campus is thirty minutes north of Los Angeles's Downtown or Westside by freeway. It is adjacent to Interstate 5 at the McBean Parkway exit in Valencia. A campus map showing the open studios will be available online and also in the main lobby upon arrival.

The nation's first art institute to offer BFA and MFA degrees in both the visual and performing arts, CalArts is dedicated to training and nurturing the next generation of professional artists, fostering innovation within the broadest context possible. Emphasis is placed on new and experimental work and students are admitted solely on the basis of artistic ability. To encourage experimentation, CalArts' six schools--Art, Critical Studies, Dance, Film/Video, Music and Theater--are all housed under one roof in a five-story building with the equivalent of 11 acres of square footage in Valencia, California, 30 minutes north of downtown Los Angeles.