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SuperSonic 2006 was the third annual MFA show representing graduating MFAs from the nine SoCCAS schools—Art Center College of Art and Design, California Institute for the Arts, Claremont Graduate School, Otis School of Art and Design, University of Southern California, University of California-Irvine, University of California-Los Angeles, University of California-San Diego, and University of California-Santa Barbara. The consortium’s faculty representatives organize the venue and then the rest of the show is up to student volunteers. Each student is allowed to submit work of their choosing, as long as it fits within the size allotment. |
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SuperSonic 2006 was the third annual MFA show representing graduating MFAs from the nine SoCCAS schools—Art Center College of Art and Design, California Institute for the Arts, Claremont Graduate School, Otis School of Art and Design, University of Southern California, University of California-Irvine, University of California-Los Angeles, University of California-San Diego, and University of California-Santa Barbara. The consortium’s faculty representatives organize the venue and then the rest of the show is up to student volunteers. Each student is allowed to submit work of their choosing, as long as it fits within the size allotment. Some members of the SuperSonic 2006 Steering Committee sat down to talk about the SuperSonic model, its legacy and the prospects for change in its future incarnations.
Lindsay Ljungkull (USC): What if the students in the exhibition felt that they were going to be curated in some way and put with other types of work that they were interested in?
Caroline Maxwell (Claremont): Do you mean curating as in selecting and then excluding others?
Cathy Akers (CalArts): That would have totally changed it for me.
Carrie Yury (UC Irvine): There are valid arguments for curation. It’s definitely possible to think that we’re doing our work a disservice because it’s shown in this haphazard way, where there’s so much work and it begins to feel like there’s no unifying theme. I think that’s something to contend with. However, that’s the art market! Think about it…art fairs, biennales—that’s where the art world is happening right now. In a way, Supersonic’s like a microcosm of what the market is about.
Natalie Henderson Alton (Otis): But art fairs are so curated themselves, just by inviting the galleries, who do their own curation…
CM: It would be no different, even if it were curated—you’d end up with something like a biennale, where you’re still going to have to slug through tons of stuff that you don’t care about to find that one jewel that really does something for you.
CA: I guess it’s also a viewpoint question. Do you want it curated, and to have it sort of cold…or do you want it to be democratic, like a cross-section?
CY: It might be interesting if we were to just like, turn the recorder off, and have a discussion, like, “You hated that piece? But I thought is was great!” Because maybe again it’s just an art fair! It’s an index of what’s going on, and it’s not grouped to a particular media or interest.
NHA: I guess Supersonic has a universal appeal, in the sense that everybody’s going to be showing—so there’ll be something for everyone. But instead, what we hear from the audience is there’s nothing for anyone. If a show advertises itself as a particular type or if it is from a curator, you know—then certain types of people come, and they respond to it in a particular way. I would think that you would get a lot more interesting critique and press about it, because the audience would have a vested interest in what was being shown.
CY: That’s probably true, but we have a historically huge attendance for the Supersonic shows, so the lack of curation doesn’t seem to be stopping anyone from attending. And, as far as people saying there’s “nothing for anyone,” how often do you hear people raving about art, ever? It’s mostly critique anyway!
NHA: True.
CY: Supersonic, is incredibly democratic; each person gets to put in whatever they want, within the space limits. I think it’s one of the few places in the art world where that can happen…it is a utopian moment. It’s possible that “something for everyone” means nothing for anyone. But I think that there has been something that has been exciting to me at every Supersonic that I’ve gone to.
NHA: Can’t we just make that our motto? “Something for everyone?”
CY: “Not everything for everyone.”
LL: “Most likely, you’ll like one of the works.”
NHA: As utopian as it might seem, the problem with Supersonic is it just feels like such a mishmash of work.
CY: Well you could organize it, and you could say like, “the conceptual art room, the sculpture room, the painting room.”
CM: Everyone would be like, “I don’t fit with this!”
LL: That’s the thing—we don’t want to be grouped in any way.
CM: We have the rest of our lives to struggle with that.
CY: So it’s like the zoo where you don’t get a map.
CM: And where the earthworms get the same sized cage as the polar bears.
