The Origins of The Big Bang: A Commitment to Creativity Art schools validate and assess themselves through the success stories of their alumni. The Cleveland Institute of Art’s 125th anniversary offers an opportunity to celebrate not only its past and present success stories, but also its future contributions to art and culture. So while part of the exhibition From Here to Infinity and The Big Bang consists of some of the Institute’s most illustrious graduates, many of whom are nationally and internationally known, The Big Bang presents the work of recent alums who are in hot pursuit of achieving similar recognition in their respective fields. Organizing an exhibition around a location, no less one meant to teach its students to give expression to their individual vision, such as an art school — is an interesting challenge for a curator, particularly when many of The Big Bang artists and designers share little stylistically or aesthetically. And by primarily focusing on those working in the fields that they were trained in, The Big Bang does not reflect the success of those students who, for instance, trained in the fine arts but have gone on to be animators or designers, or vice versa. Nor does it pay homage to those alums who have taken the skills they learned to become successful in fields thought of as being unrelated to the arts. What all of these artists who graduated from CIA between 1996 and 2006 do share are a set of core values, critical skills and a way of applying their creativity to their varied fields in a fluid and often unexpected manner. From decade to decade, administration to administration, faculty to faculty, CIA has consistently built an internal culture committed to instilling in its students the principle that it is not enough to have a good idea, one must also have the skills to realize it. The durability of these principles and a sincere pedagogical commitment to them have created an environment at CIA that nurtures creativity within the context of contemporary practices and critical reflection. Yet, despite the best of intentions and high ideals, art schools are funny places. They are a bundle of contradictions, and the experience of being a student can be a combination of prescient moments and missed opportunities, with much uncertainty and diffidence thrown into the mix. Unlike vocational schools, or the study of subjects like business or engineering, which trade in quantifiable knowledge, creativity cannot be taught according to standardized procedures — it can only be nurtured. Consequently, today’s MFA is a hot ticket, something akin to an MBA, precisely because creativity is an intuitive body of knowledge that in some manner is intrinsic to its practitioners and therefore cannot be outsourced. In a world committed to continuous innovation and novelty, the goals of an art school are a delicate balance between cultivating students’ imaginations in order to develop new and original ideas, and exposing the falsehood that with their education comes the secret of success. Add to their instruction this list of ingredients: economics, cultural politics and aesthetic ideologies — and one can only begin to imagine how daunting a task it is to train and educate future generations of artists, designers and crafts-persons, especially in a society that does not understand the economic value of such disciplines. Consequently, such schools must negotiate an environment distinguished by the anticipations, passions, anxieties, desires and pressures that arise from a commitment to not only high standards, but also to maintaining the relevance of its curricula to subjects and practices that are in a constant state of emergence. The differing orientations toward the indeterminacy created by these conditions are what give art schools their differing personalities, rhythms, cycles and memories. Some schools achieve short-lived notoriety due to the confluence of faculty and students; others rigidly hold to their traditional values; and others have values and standards that morph and change with time. In all cases, each approach eventually gives rise to a breakout moment, which marks a milestone in a school’s history: when the school comes to be regionally or nationally acknowledged. While such golden epochs take on the gleam of the mythic, and ultimately become part of a school’s cultural capital, the reputation that these supply must be consciously fostered, for they are naturally conditional. In actuality, when an institution rests on its laurels and nostalgically attaches itself to such moments, these golden ages come to inhibit growth and change. This is because such unpredictable moments, which if correctly remembered, are the product of some strange chemistry that momentarily comes to exist between the administration, patrons, donors, faculty and, of course, the students, who more often then not, are the free radical elements in this mix. Thought of as either consumers or products, students are the unpredictable elements in the long- and short-term life of any school. Students come and go, leaving bits and pieces of themselves behind, while taking with them all manner of things. Sometimes thought of as raw material awaiting molding, students bring with them a mix of experiences, vision, creativity and personalities, which are a volatile mix. They generate new, often unexpected needs, demands and perspectives as they come to employ what they have learned and unlearned. (Oh yes — unlearning is an important part of an art student’s education.) Often, students enter art school with a set of received notions about art and design, along with a body of rudimentary skills, and think, “What can I do with these?” However, when they leave school they are thinking about which skills are necessary to realize their ideas. The reason this transformation occurs is that when they arrive, they have a limited experience and often a somewhat naive vision of the purpose and forces at play in their chosen field and, ultimately, of what actually constitutes creative and commercial success. As this transformation begins to take place, students encouraged by a supportive and often competitive community of their peers tend to identify and exploit the previously unexplored, un-acknowledged nooks and crannies of a school’s programs and resources. In turn, the hybrid practices and visions that they develop have the potential of challenging a school’s received wisdom, values and conventions, which then necessitates that the faculty and administration respond to such developments innovatively. In addition, as students become alums, they are the tendrils that broaden and expand the scope, reputation and influence of a school in the world, as is demonstrated in this two-part exhibition. Finally, perhaps the most important resource is the faculty – who are the embodiment of the skills, knowledge and experiences that are to be imparted to the students. They and their visions and works exist as role models, defining the professional standards and attitudes which students are to aspire. More than this, they bring with themselves networks of resources, contacts and expertise, which form an extended community that both the institution and its students draw upon. The faculty is the public face of an institution and when the faculty changes, so does the institution, its profile and programs. The last 10 years are momentous times in higher education as across America, at most institutions, newer, younger faculty have been hired to replace those who had been hired in the 1960s and ’70s. In the case of the changing of the guard at CIA, the diverse experiences of those who come from widely different backgrounds and training effectively provide an environment in which our students feel free to experiment, knowing that each generation must establish its own criteria. In this way, CIA and its alums contribute to building a better future — regionally, nationally and internationally. Though not explicit, the complex nature of this system of educating artists, crafts-persons and designers is imprinted on the work as it is in the respective success and perseverance of not only those presented in The Big Bang, but in all of CIA’s alumni. The Big Bang, therefore, is a sampler of those artists, designers and crafts-persons who have emerged in the last 10 years — the diversity of their approaches and skills represents their sensitivity to the significant challenges taking place within their respective fields. The range of creative energies, intelligences and the career paths represented in The Big Bang, curated by Julie Langsam, are parenthesized by Libby Black’s (Class of ’99) reproductions of upscale boutique and designer products (such as Kate Spade handbags, and Vuitton luggage) made of paint, canvas and paper that wryly comment on our tastes, aspirations and desires, to Jeff Bechtel’s (’99) large-scale, figurative wall-drawings that reflect a stream-of-consciousness meditation on life and death and all that stands between. Similar extremes of sensibilities and conception can be seen in Ben Grasso’s (’03) paintings of stylized explosions or decomposing levitating houses, which appear to be deceptively humorous when compared to Michael Cirelli’s (’02) abstract, experimental photograms made by exposing photographic paper to electrical charges. Likewise, Mark Reigelman’s (’06) mix of industrial design, sculpture and humor sits in stark contrast to the somewhat funky aesthetic of Tom Vance (’97), who trained as a painter and now makes wall reliefs, sculptures and installations that explore the relationship between architecture and natural growth. As such, the works presented in The Big Bang are a significant sampling of the vitality and vision that CIA alums are bringing to their respective fields, and are just the tip of the iceberg. — Saul Ostrow Chair of Visual Arts and Technologies, The Cleveland Institute of Art   Saul Ostrow is Chair of Visual Arts and Technologies at The Cleveland Institute of Art. He is the Editor of the book series Critical Voices in Art, Theory and Culture published by Routledge (London), Art Editor for BOMB Magazine and was Co-Editor of Lusitania Press from 1996 to 2004. Since 1987, he has curated over 70 exhibitions in the US and abroad – most recently, Modeling the Photographic: The Ends of Photography at the McDonough Museum (Youngstown, Ohio). His writings have appeared in numerous art magazines, journals, catalogues and books in the US and Europe, and he reviews regularly for Art in America. His essay; “Criticism as an Exemplary Supplement of Politics’ Phantom Limb (for JD)” will appear in States of Criticism, edited by James Elkins, and published by Routledge.