California Institute of the Arts

Every program within the Institute requires that applicants send in an artist's statement, along with a portfolio or audition to be considered for admission. The institute has never required an applicant's SAT or other test scores, and does not consider an applicant's GPA as part of the admission process without the consent of the applicant .

The initial concept behind CalArts' interdisciplinary approach came from Richard Wagner's idea of Gesamtkunstwerk ("total artwork"), of which Walt Disney himself was fond and explored in a variety of forms, beginning with his own studio, then later in the incorporation of CalArts. He began with the film Fantasia (1940), where animators, dancers, composers, and artists alike collaborated. In 1952, Walt Disney Imagineering was founded, where Disney formed a team of artists including Herbert Ryman, Ken O’Brien, Collin Campbell, Marc Davis, Al Bertino, Wathel Rogers, Mary Blair, T. Hee, Blaine Gibson, Xavier Atencio, Claude Coats, and Yale Gracey. He believed that the same concept that developed WDI could also be applied to a university setting, where art students of different media would be exposed to and explore a wide range of creative directions.[24]

A113 is a classroom at CalArts where the character animation program (then called the Disney animation program) was originally founded. Many CalArts alumni have inserted references to it in their works (not just animation) as an homage to this classroom and to CalArts.

In 2003, CalArts built a theater and art gallery in downtown Los Angeles called REDCAT, the Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater as part of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in the Los Angeles Music Center.

In 2013, CalArts opened its John Baldessari Art Studios, which cost $3.1 million to build, and features approximately 7,000 square feet of space for MFA Art students and program courses. In addition to debt, funding for the studios was partially raised by the sale of artwork donated by School of Art alumni, for whom each studio was then named.[25]

Several students who attended CalArts' animation programs in the 1970s eventually found work at Walt Disney Animation Studios, and several of those went on to successful careers at Disney, Pixar, and other animation studios. In February 2014, Vanity Fair magazine highlighted the success of CalArts' 1970s animation alumni and briefly profiled several (including Jerry Rees, John Lasseter, Tim Burton, John Musker, Brad Bird, Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise, Henry Selick and Nancy Beiman) in an article illustrated with a group portrait taken by photographer Annie Leibovitz inside classroom A113.[32]

In the late 1980s, a group of CalArts animation students contacted animation director Ralph Bakshi. As he was in the process of moving to New York, they persuaded him to stay in Los Angeles to continue to produce adult animation.[33] Bakshi then got the production rights to the cartoon character Mighty Mouse. By Bakshi's request, Tom Minton and John Kricfalusi then went to the CalArts campus to recruit the best talent from what was the recent group of graduates. They hired Jeff Pidgeon, Rich Moore, Carole Holiday, Andrew Stanton and Nate Kanfer to work on the then-new Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures television series.[34]

In an interview, Craig "Spike" Decker of Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation criticized commercial aspects of the school, saying "A lot of animators come out of CalArts – they could be so prolific, but then they're owned by Disney or someone, and they're painting the fins on the Little Mermaid. You'll never see their full potential."[35]

A pejorative term, "CalArts style" gained prominence in the late 2010s to describe an animation style allegedly overused on popular American television channels such as Cartoon Network and Disney Channel. The term's origin is attributed to animator John Kricfalusi in a now-deleted blog post from 2010[36] about the film The Iron Giant, in which Kricfalusi criticizes what he sees as young animators subconsciously copying superficial aspects of well-respected animators' work without learning underlying animation skills.[37] The "CalArts style" has been attributed to successful animated shows like Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, and Over the Garden Wall, which are from CalArts graduates Pendleton Ward, Alex Hirsch, and Pat McHale respectively, but has also been attributed to the works of many non-CalArts animators, such as Rebecca Sugar's Steven Universe, Kyle Carrozza's Mighty Magiswords, John McIntyre's 2016 Ben 10 reboot, Ben Bocquelet's The Amazing World of Gumball, Justin Roiland & Dan Harmon's Rick and Morty, Justin Roiland & Mike McMahan's Solar Opposites, Domee Shi's Turning Red, etc.[37]

Detractors claim that because of CalArts' importance to American animation, it often inspires other styles of illustration.[37] American animator Rob Renzetti questioned the use of the term,[38] saying that it has been applied so broadly as to be functionally meaningless as criticism, and is instead just name calling. Adam Muto, executive producer on Adventure Time, has also said the term over-simplifies the process of animation design, and is too vague.[39] Gavia Baker-Whitelaw on The Daily Dot wrote that many animation fans that deride the "CalArts style" do so only when it is associated with shows that appear to promote, in their views, "Tumblr culture" that favors progressive views.[40]

During the formative years of the Art School many of the teaching artists led different camps of movements. The two main camps were the conceptualism students, which were led by John Baldasseri, and the fluxus camp, which was led by Allan Kaprow. Kaprow's approach to art was a continuation from his tenure at Rutgers University. Other movements included Light and Space, which was closely related to the artists associated with the Ferus Gallery in the greater Los Angeles area. In 1972, Calarts hosted an exhibition called The Last Plastics Show, which was organized by faculty artist Judy Chicago, Doug Edge, as well as Dewain Valentine.[41] This exhibition included artists such as, Carole Caroompas, Ron Cooper, Ronald Davis, Fred Eversley, Craig Kauffman, Linda Levi, Ed Moses, Barbara T. Smith, and Vasa Mihich.[42]

In the autobiography Bad Boy: My Life On and Off the Canvas by CalArts alum Eric Fischl, he describes his experience as a student as "CalArts had such a narrow idea of the New. It was innovation for its own sake, a future that didn't include the past But without foundation, without techniques or a deeper understanding of history, you'd go off these wild explorations and end up reinventing the wheel. And then you'd get slammed for it."

Art critic Dave Hickey critiqued the art program of CalArts by suggesting that the variety of reference that students are exposed to is limited to a certain pantheon. He stated "I can go over to Cal Arts and ask them if they know who John Wesly is, and they would go, 'Huh? What discourse does he participate in?' I am in the art world only insofar as there are interesting things for me to write about. When that stops, or when I stop getting offers to write things, I’ll be out."[43] Additionally, Hickey mentioned the use of appropriation by students at programs like CalArts. In this, he referenced the show Pop-Up Video, by which he stated "Creators Tad Low and Woody Thompson should receive honorary MFAs for [Pop Up Video], because grad students worldwide are getting diplomas for just this sort of thing -- stealing (or as they say in art school, "appropriating") hackneyed pop images and scribbling on top of them à la granddaddy Marcel. The show, which would not be out of place on a monitor in a darkened gallery at CalArts [...]".[44]

In the LA Weekly op-ed piece "The Kids Aren't All Right: Is over-education killing young artists?", published in 2005, curator Aaron Rose wrote about an observed trend he recognized in Los Angeles's most esteemed art schools and their MFA programs, including CalArts. He uses the example of Supersonic, "a large exhibition ... that features the work of MFA students from esteemed area programs like CalArts, Art Center, UCLA, etc." In his observation of the showcase, he examined, "... the work left me mostly empty and with a few exceptions seemed like nothing more than a rehash of conceptual ideas that were mined years ago." He went on to state that "these institutions are staffed with amazing talents (Mike Kelley and John Baldessari among them). Legions of creative young people flock to our city [Los Angeles] every year to work alongside their heroes and develop their talents with hopes of making it as an artist." He goes on to further state "What happens too often in these situations, though, is that we find young artists simply emulating their instructors, rather than finding and honing their own aesthetics and points of view about the world, society, themselves. In the beginnings of an artist's career, the power in his or her work should lie not in their technique or knowledge of art history or theory or business acumen, but in what one has to say."[45]

CalArts alumnus Ariel Pink notes in an interview "Unlike other art schools, they didn't focus on skills of any kind, specific color theory or anything like that. They were the only art school that was totally focused on teaching artists about the art market. They were trying to make the next Damien Hirst. They're trying to make the next Jeff Koons. Those guys don't need to know how to paint or draw."[46]

CalArts graduates have joined or started successful pop bands, including: Maryama, Tranquility Bass, The Belle Brigade, The Weirdos, The Swords of Fatima / Buko Pan Guerra, Bedroom Walls, Beelzabubba, Dawn of Midi, Dirtwire, The Rippingtons, Fitz and the Tantrums, Fol Chen, London After Midnight, No Doubt, Mission of Burma, Radio Vago, Oingo Boingo, Acetone, Liars, Suburban Lawns, The Mae Shi,The Suburbs, Touché Amoré, and Ozomatli.

Individually, Danny Elfman and Grant-Lee Phillips never officially enrolled at CalArts, but participated in the world music courses at CalArts. Elfman would later gain recognition for his composition work with CalArts alum Tim Burton, and Phillips would go onto a career in music.

Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon, members of the band Sonic Youth, remarked in an interview with VH1 about the band Liars, of which Angus Andrew and Julian Gross are CalArts luminaries. Moore's initial remarks were: "There's this whole world of young people who [think] everything's allowed. What Liars are doing right now is completely crazy. I saw them the other night and it was really great. It's really out-there". Gordon then stated "I'm not so crazy about the way [the Liars' They Were Wrong, So We Drowned] sounds. It's like 'how lo-fi can we make it?' But I think the content is really good". In reference to CalArts and Gordon's statement, Moore lastly remarked "They're art kids. They came out of CalArts and that's the kind of sensibility you have when you come out of these sort of places."[47] Interestingly, Moore's partner Gordon went to the Otis College of Art and Design, herself a product of an art school.In a 2005 interview, Moore discussed the book Jack Goldstein and the CalArts Mafia and his conversation with Gordon after reading the book. During their conversation, Moore asked Gordon why she had chosen to attend Otis College of Art and Design instead of CalArts, a school she had always wanted to attend since she grew up in Los Angeles. Gordon explained that she was unable to afford CalArts' high tuition. Moore went on to emphasize that the book did not mention the economic feasibility of attending CalArts and that this financial barrier can create a division between those who can afford highly regarded academic art education and those who pursue DIY art.[48]

In his book, Survival of the Richest, media theorist and MFA directing program graduate Douglas Rushkoff described his time while a theater student at CalArts. He saw CalArts as an institution that offered numerous opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration; however, despite the creative atmosphere, the theater school was rooted in tradition, adhering to the classical approach to drama with a focus on crisis, climax, and resolution.

Rushkoff, influenced by the experimental theater of the 1970s and 1980s (i.e. Happenings, Fluxus), had a different perspective on theater. Rushkoff believed in blurring the line between performer and audience, and questioned the traditional theater model, which he viewed as imposing a sense of inevitability and confirming established order. He saw this as cultural propaganda, creating problems in the first act and solving them in the last.

In addition to his dissatisfaction with the traditional theater model, Rushkoff was troubled by the high cost of theater productions. After attending a performance of Brecht's Threepenny Opera at the Ahmanson Theatre in 1989, and noticing the high cost of the least expensive ticket, he decide to leave the theater behind in favor of the Internet. He believed that interactivity and digital platforms, such as the Web and hypertext stories, would provide users with multiple pathways and the freedom to choose their own adventures. Even in video games with clear-cut goals (i.e. Super Mario, World of Warcraft), players could derive satisfaction from exploring the game world rather than focusing solely on achieving the official story objectives.