June 2, 2004

SUPERSONIC: 1 Wind Tunnel, 8 Schools, 120 Artists: An Exhibition Of
Graduating MFA Students From Eight Southern California Art Schools

By Patricia Quill

Graduating Master of Fine Art (MFA) students from the University of California, San Diego Department of Visual Arts will participate in a major group exhibition featuring the work of 120 artists from eight Southern California art schools. SUPERSONIC: 1 Wind Tunnel, 8 Schools, 120 Artists will open with a reception for the artists from 6 until 11 p.m. June 12 at the Art Center College of Art and Design’s Wind Tunnel Exhibition and Event Hall, 950 South Raymond Ave., Pasadena.

“This exhibition is a unique opportunity for art enthusiasts and the public to see the incredible range of art work that is being produced at UCSD and our fellow art schools in Southern California,” says Steve Fagin, chair of the Department of Visual Arts. “We are fortunate to have so many of the country’s leading art schools situated in the large megalopolis stretching from Los Angeles across the border to Tijuana. Our proximity and interests allow for a good deal of cross-fertilization and exchange.”

The artist-organized exhibition features a range of work by this year’s graduates from the MFA programs at Art Center College of Design, California Institute of the Arts, Claremont Graduate University, Otis College of Art and Design, UC Irvine, UCLA, UCSD, and USC. The exhibition will remain on view until Aug. 21 and is open daily from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the newly formed Southern California Consortium of Art Schools (chaired by UCSD professor John Welchman) will present its inaugural symposium Recent Pasts: Art Schools in Southern California From the 90s to Now from 10:30 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. on June 13. The symposium, co-sponsored by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), will take place at the Silver Screen Theater, Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles.

UCSD students have published a special issue of Scale, a monthly student organized magazine of aesthetics and computation. For more information about Scale, go to http://scale.ucsd.edu/?page=about.

A SUPERSONIC Catalog Release Party will be held at Art Center’s Wind Tunnel Exhibition and Event Hall from 7 to 10 p.m. July 24.

For a complete list of participating artists, directions, calendar of events, and additional information about the exhibition, go to www.artcenter.edu/supersonic or call (626) 396-2380.

For details about the symposium, call (213) 621-1767.

SUPERSONIC: 1 Wind Tunnel, 8 Schools, 120 Artists is made possible in part by the support of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Creative Artists Agency, the Maurer Family Foundation, and the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts.

For more information about the UCSD Department of Visual Arts, go to http://visarts.ucsd.edu.

Media Contact: Patricia Quill, (858) 822-0661