"The Kids Aren't All RIght."

People looking for the very latest in criticisms of art school as ruining artists will have to stop by Aaron Rose's column in the LA Weekly for a glance. Rose stopped into Art Center to complain about the exhibit Supersonic, which features the work of some area MFA students. Not surprisingly, he finds it lacking when compared to...something he co-curated, a show called Beautiful Losers, a hymn to skater art, graffiti-inspired painting, and street culture that is currently makings its way through the spotless galleries of America (accompanied by a catalog with essays by, among others, PAFA's Alex Baker) . To give you a little sense of Rose's argument, here's a passage:

Contemporary art is not a luxury. I believe it is a necessity. It satisfies not only a visual need, but also an educational and, most importantly, a spiritual need for us. Art should teach us about how we relate to the world. It seems ironic, then, that the curriculum taught in most MFA programs addresses almost everything but fulfilling these needs. Art institutions today work more like business schools than any kind of creative laboratory...From the creative side, art theory has begun to play such a dominant role in art school that I feel it has lobotomized many young creative minds.

In my recollection, UArts' program has not come in for a lot criticism as being too focussed on "the business", so I'm curious how Rose's criticism of the MFA as an institution plays with you guys.