Prodigygate Part III: In Which Osberg Actually Files a Lawsuit
When child art prodigy Annabel Osberg told the television last week that she was going to take Yale to court for kicking her out of its MFA program, few believed her. Hopefully, this will be the last time anyone underestimates the young painting whiz, who has found a lawyer and politely informed everyone that she is quite serious about this whole suing thing.
In the recently filed lawsuit, a copy of which has been provided by her lawyer here, Osberg reveals a few details of how she got the boot, but nothing yet that offers an explanation to this mystery.
On or about July 7, 2008, the defendant locked the plaintiff out of the studio she was renting from the defendant and thereafter locked her out of the residence she was renting from the defendant … As a result, the plaintiff has suffered ascertainable economic losses and emotional distress.
Rough, but last I heard, schools don’t usually make a habit of locking students out of their rooms just to be a bitch. Osberg wants $15,000 (about 0.00006% of Yale’s endowment) and to be re-admitted into the program, but that looks doubtful. Any Yale MFAs still reading IvyGate these days? Send us the full version of this story.
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July 16th, 2008 at 1:51 am
July 8. Obviously the semester was over and was given the boot. What’s odd is that she still considered the studio and apartment “hers.”
July 16th, 2008 at 6:35 am
can’t wait for the Osberg-Chichilnisky mega-lawsuit musical extravaganza.
July 16th, 2008 at 9:45 am
[...] 16, 2008 · No Comments Prodigygate Part III: In Which Osberg Actually Files a Lawsuit Mike Bechek, July 16, 2008, Ivy [...]
July 30th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
I’m confused by this: “The plaintiff matriculated at the defendant in 2007 and rented both a residence and a studio from the defendant as a part of the requirements of the aforesaid M.F.A. program.” I’ve never heard of any graduate department at Yale, certainly not the art school, directly renting a residence to a student. Yale owns a lot of housing here, and there is a graduate dorm, but graduate students aren’t required to live in either. Many of us live in independently owned buildings. As far as I know, only undergrads are required to live anywhere in particular (their assigned Residential College.) What on earth was happening here?
I saw her work once, when I visited a painting crit. And it is obviously technically undeveloped compared to her fellow classmates. I don’t think she is operating at a level (yet) to merit the Master’s in Painting from Yale. The work stood out on the wall as “does not belong,” and not of the same caliber as her classmates’ paintings.
But, to be fair to her, I don’t think the school treated her well. This must have been obvious to the school BEFORE admitting her. I think the school was just hoping to make some headlines with their child “prodigy” and then turned their backs on her when she didn’t manage to catch up and they saw they had no chance of producing a star.
She is NOT a prodigy. Sure, smart kids move through homeschool fast when they can learn at their own pace, and then they get into college early because people are impressed by their age. This doesn’t make prodigies! There are many artists her age who are far more advanced painters, both technically and conceptually, but those seem to end up as undergrads, and at Cooper, MICA, Cranbrook, RISD, and similar. Hardworking, smart, and ambitious – yes, clearly. Talented – maybe a little, but nothing out of the ordinary. Prodigy – no.
No, she doesn’t deserve a Master’s degree from Yale. Not YET. Yes she has an undergrad in painting, but from a school that has lower standards than the ones mentioned above. Yale doesn’t admit sub-par grads from uncompetitive schools without Osberg’s compelling age narrative. Her work was naive and not ready for the cut-throat, art-market, history-theory-criticism environment of Yale. But, as a young person with ambition, she could’ve kept on as an autodidact – or if she wanted to be more formal about it, go back and do a 2nd undergrad degree at one of those aforementioned schools, and then apply to Yale when her work is up to par. I am not saying that she is untalented or unintelligent- just agreeing with the Yale painting department that she is not ready for graduate school.
That said – Yale did admit her, and while her work truly wasn’t up to par from what I saw (around midterms) and I suppose they have the right to dismiss her – it their own fault. There is just no way her admission portfolio had stronger work. Maybe they should just take the hit and let her graduate, although I don’t know why she’d want to, after being rejected. It’s a tricky situation. I think they should at least give her some kind of tuition refund and some SERIOUS apologies, because this was clearly their blunder.
PS I am not an art student, just hang around them.
July 31st, 2008 at 9:29 pm
[...] we’ve been covering the story of this art prodigy’s expulsion from Yale’s MFA program. When we last checked in with ProdigyGate, Osberg had just filed a lawsuit against the University, claiming that she was unfairly expelled [...]
August 7th, 2008 at 8:42 am
I promised myself I would never comment on this, but I feel like I should address the following comment from the nameless hanger-on above. “There is just no way her admission portfolio had stronger work.” Ok, that is simply not true. As a matter of fact, it isn’t true of very many of us at all in the Yale School of Art. One thing about the painting program is their method of taking what you come in with and systematically undercutting your faith in it until you are able to rebuild it into something stronger (ideally, anyway). I still don’t want to say anything about Annabel, but I will say that nearly everybody here is in a constant state of more or less agonized self-questioning, and the work you see on the walls here is indicative of that transitional state. If the work in our admission portfolios was in some sense stronger or more complete, which it nearly always is, then we are expected to find something beyond that. So, in response to your post, I have to say that the polish of the admissions portfolio and the relative disarray of the student work are known facts about this program’s methods, which are of course intended to lead to a mature and confident outlook on one’s own work, as hard as that is to believe.