there is a return to painting it seems at CalArts although the majority of students to installation art and sculpture it seems like more and more are coming with panting backgrounds. i feel they organize the class based on common interests witn in work more then common mediums seeing as the school is non-medium specific the only divide is between fine art and photography/media.
I am a grad student in the aesthetics and politics program so it is not quite studio art, but i have a lot of friends who are in that program.
painting is not insane although you will get challenged if you only paint. there are three teachers dealing with painting specifically at CalArts but every faculty member works and meets with grad students.
there is a bit of a disconnect between la and valencia, valencia being 30 minutes outside of la. although the majority of the graduate students live in los angeles. the open studios do not get a lot of traffic as one might expect. but still a fair amount.
the graduate students organize a final exhibition that is somewhere in la. this last year they took over all the galleries of chinatown for a week and then also produce a publication in conjunction with the exhibition. the exhibition is usually curated by fairly well known curators so it all works out in a way.
as far as i know dealers do not just pop into the studios.
the funding and ta positions are in my opinion are not very good though. there are very few students who are being fully funded, but i think it is decided on a case by case basis. as well as ta positions are not given out until your second year.
but the faculty as well as the visiting artist are amazing as well as the kind of community calarts provides.
they do not do a Michael Asher type critique anymore because he is very sick and i believe they don't feel comfortable doing that class with out him, because it is very much his class. although the mfas are always pushing for another class like it. there is an mfa 1 cirt class that is 3 or 4 hours long i believe.
