Remembering Pat Steir, one of the 20th century’s late-blooming great artists

Pat Steir, the acclaimed American painter known for her Waterfall series, died in Manhattan on 25 March at age 87. The article traces her career from early struggles as a freelance illustrator and art director, through her transformative encounter with Sol LeWitt in the early 1970s, to her eventual emergence as a major figure in contemporary painting. It highlights her teaching at CalArts and Parsons, her involvement with feminist and artist-run institutions like Heresies and Printed Matter, and the pivotal moment in the early 1980s when she cut up a reproduction of a Jan Brueghel the Elder flower painting into 64 panels, repainting each in a different historical style.

chanel fund high tech arts center calarts 2635878

California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) will establish the Chanel Center for Artists and Technology, funded by the Chanel Culture Fund. The initiative focuses on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and digital imaging, creating dozens of new roles, fellowships for artists and technologists-in-residence, and graduate student support, along with cutting-edge equipment. CalArts president Ravi S. Rajan described it as among the largest corporate partnerships the school has had, potentially the largest for any art school.

art mfa students risd saic calarts yale

Cultured magazine invited seven MFA students from CalArts, Columbia, RISD, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Yale to share recent works and discuss their artistic concerns. The students—Sascha Huth, Martha Estrella, Wenqing Zhai, Yehwan Song, Ricky Vasan, Virginia Hanusik, and Khidr Joseph—work in painting, photography, and sculpture, addressing themes such as commodity culture, Mexican American identity, China's one-child policy, digital inequality, personal yearning, ecological collapse, and grief.

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The Trump administration threatened to block Harvard University from enrolling international students and revoked its SEVIS certification, a move frozen within 24 hours by a judge. The administration also announced plans to aggressively revoke visas of Chinese students, raising concerns for US art schools, which are heavily dependent on international enrollees—many with higher percentages of international students than Harvard, such as the School of Visual Arts (50%), Parsons School of Design (35%), and CalArts (30%).

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Faculty at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York have voted to unionize, with 1,200 instructors casting ballots 77% in favor of joining the United Auto Workers (UAW). The new bargaining unit, SVA Faculty United–UAW, was certified by the Labor Relations Board on May 23 and will seek its first contract this summer. Adjunct faculty, who make up most of SVA’s teaching corps, cited stagnant wages, heavier course loads, and the loss of retirement contributions and paid sabbaticals as key reasons for organizing. SVA’s administration said it encouraged participation and pledged to bargain in good faith.

Echigo-Tsumari MonET Continuous Exhibition Vol. 10: Ryosaku Miyasaka "Ryosaku Miyasaka ART 75 Years Old" @ Echigo-Tsumari Satoyama Museum of Contemporary Art MonET

越後妻有MonET 連続企画展Vol.10 宮坂了作「宮坂了作　ＡＲＴ　７５歳」@ 越後妻有里山現代美術館 MonET

The Echigo-Tsumari Satoyama Museum of Contemporary Art (MonET) has announced a major solo exhibition for artist Ryosaku Miyasaka, titled "Ryosaku Miyasaka: ART 75 Years Old." Curated by renowned art critic Noi Sawaragi, the show features early map paintings, recent "plant character" works where the artist grows and eats edible calligraphy, and new pieces created in the Echigo-Tsumari region. Miyasaka, a former student of Allan Kaprow at CalArts, has spent decades balancing his creative output with life as a rice farmer in Nagano Prefecture.