Chris G’s Best Yelp Reviews: Otis College of Art and Design – 5/5 Stars

Otis College of Art and Design
Colleges & Universities, Art Schools, Art Classes
9045 Lincoln Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90045

Only in LA does an extrovert make it big from her days in art school.

Her name is Madison and she unremittingly posts on Facebook every picture she has ever (seriously, ever) taken at shindigs that are uniquely Otis. Ah, art school. You are so different from Art School Confidential because your students are not as competitive but your students are very quixotic in creative assignments. And they work very very hard.

“I photograph urban decay.”

“And LA.”

“And…”

Madison loves the population. The photos could be compared to Nan Goldin if they were extracted from their reference and considered artistic. But since they are referential, the photos become rather jejune and sentimental yet to give the photographer credit – what I find fascinating is how these art school student minions in photographs become their own caricatures as apartment parties evolve.

The fact that Madison’s caricatures look like fluorescent coquettes on canvas secluded at an art student apartment party made their presence rather expected, while it would’ve been amazing to see the party taken out of context in the middle of downtown LA during the morning rush hour. Fine Art giclee entitled: “Art Students on Performative Rampage One” edition 4/100.

Art students partying at an isolated apartment from the rest of the Los Angeles is kind of what makes Otis, Otis. The community here only seems quiet but there’s that underlying familiarity between the few hundred people who attend this private college full-time. Every art school has the quintessential cute boy artist, the lesbian with dreads, the 40-year-old Wendy Pepper who plays by the rules and the crazy alcoholic. These people will continue to party in private and work harder than everyone else will ever give them credit for.

It’s hard work to be a serious artist and not be reprimanded by it. The hours of labor and hard work put into that amazon gown or mixed media painting could inevitably be overshadowed by the seemingly thoughtless pictures on Madison’s Facebook because art students can’t party without succumbing to the stereotype as hedonistic and lazy.

Ignore the presumptions about laziness and hedonism; and one day go to student night at LACMA and appreciate that impractical amazon gown by a soon-to-be-famous art student on Madison’s photo album. The undergraduates are the community and I appreciate that as one of 20 graduate students here.

Useful: 11  Funny: 14  Cool: 10

3/2/2008