CalArts Reef Residency Open House set for Saturday in LA

News Release
November 19, 2025
6:45 pm

“Proxy, Chimera, Oracle,” a postgraduate group exhibition, at CalArts at The Reef. Photo courtesy of CalArts. CalArts Post Grad Exhibition at The Reef. On Oct. 11, 2025, the CalArts MFA Class of 2025 opens Proxy, Chimera, Oracle at CalArts at The Reef, the Institute’s new cultural platform and venue in Downtown Los Angeles. Curated by critic, curator, and educator Nora N. Khan, the annual postgraduate group exhibition features work by 34 artists, all recent graduates of the CalArts School of Art’s MFA programs in Art, Photography and Media, and Art and Technology. Proxy, Chimera, Oracle includes sculptures, films, paintings, and a range of hybrid, mixed media works, many of which take up afterimages as material. A bright light, prolonged exposure—an afterimage is the lingering visual that follows overstimulation of the eye. A sensation remains even after the source is gone: the memory of a structure, a presence, taking form as imprints, traces, shadows, and blur. The exhibition presents aesthetic and imaginal strategies for living in the wake, after homes, communal spaces, safe havens, and any semblance of certainty have been evacuated. “The 34 artists in Proxy, Chimera, Oracle understand that the wake is best approached obliquely—through scores, assemblage, and rituals. Art seeds at the edges, an attempt to control the fallout of the wake,” Khan explains in her curatorial statement. “Each work functions as both diagnostic tool and survival manual, revealing how we live in multiple wakes simultaneously: in the aftermath of empire, in structures that persist through perceptual shifts, in the continued catastrophe of the present. They respond to psychic debts induced by loss, theft, and enclosure with imaginal strategies towards alternative exits.” Participating artists include: Adriana DiNapoli, AJaeCea Carlie x Luisa Pinzon, Alexandra Pasquale, Anatola Araba, Catherine Wang, Chinning Liu, Dar San Agustin, Erika Keck, Hengyu Wang, Ione Wan

News release

California Institute of the Arts is scheduled Saturday to present the CalArts Reef Residency Open House, featuring work by the CalArts alumni from the School of Art, School of Film/Video, and School of Critical Studies who served as the space’s fall 2025 residents.

Held at The Reef building and creative hub in Downtown Los Angeles, the event takes place as part of the building-wide Reef Art Exhibitions and Open Studios.

The evening features open artist spaces; “Self Group,” a group exhibition of the fall 2025 artists-in-residence curated by CalArts Reef Residency program manager Cameron Masters; Swami Vivekananda’s “Only Hope: Overcoming Monet,” a solo exhibition by resident Ishani Chokshi; “Wish You Were Here,” a solo exhibition by resident Xiaofeng Guo; and performances led by artists-in-residence Ashwath Ram and Dionne M. Robinson on the Residency’s stage.

Additional participating CalArts alumni artists include Alex Sherman, Catherine Wang, Dar San Augustin, Erika Keck, Gigi Ramsland, Hu Di, Ingrid Yu-Ju Tai, A’JaeCae Carlie, Mads Kristian Frøslev and Val Costa.

The evening will also mark closing celebrations for CalArts Reef Residency’s two current exhibitions: the site-specific installation, “Guerrilla Girls’ Complaints Department” — presented in collaboration with The Judith Center — and “Proxy, Chimera, Oracle,” a 34-artist School of Art postgraduate group exhibition curated by Nora Kahn.

The CalArts Reef Residency offers a transformative opportunity for newly graduated artists to immerse themselves in creative collaboration and production, providing the space, resources, and community needed to bring ambitious projects to life in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles, said a news release from the Valencia-based CalArts.

Divided into five-month terms (spring and fall), the postgraduate residency provides recent master’s degree-holding CalArts postgraduates from each of CalArts’ Schools (Art, Critical Studies, Dance, Film/Video, Music, Theater) with a stipend and 24/7 access to art spaces to use toward developing and completing projects after graduation.

The CalArts Reef Residency Open House will be held from 5 to 8 pm on Saturday at the CalArts Reef Residency Space at 1933 S. Broadway, Los Angeles. The Residency is located on the 12th floor of the Reef, with programming in suites 1206, 1207, 1209, 1216, 1222, 1238, 1240, and 1242. Admission is free. RSVP requested at thereefresidencyopenhouse.splashthat.com. Paid parking is available on-site.

News Release

The Signal delivers press releases from reliable sources to provide up-to-the-minute information to our website readers. Information directly from news sources has not been vetted by The Signal news room. It may appear subsequently in news stories after it has been vetted.