If any youngish artist of talent had a hankering to go to grad school and more or less get himself perched on the first rung of being a “professional artist,” I'd tell him to go to the Roski School at USC. Run with great aplomb these last years by Charlie White, USC's grad art program, with its special mix of incredible professors (Frances Stark, Andrea Zittel, Judd Fine, Sharon Lockhart), and of course the fact that it's more or less fully funded to attend, has in these last years minted more commercially successful artists than the rest of the art schools combined. For all the benefits of an MFA but without the ritual spanking of a critique, one can attend the Roski School's many excellent free lectures almost every Wednesday and Thursday during the school year. USC Graduate Fine Arts Building, 3001 S. Flower St. (213) 740-2787, roski.usc.edu.

—Andrew Berardini

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