seminar

HONORS EXPLORATION FRESHMAN seminar: Who Speaks for the Oceans?

This class will explore what the act of listening entails using art as a tool of inquiry. Questions about how listening differs from hearing, how listening differs from looking, and how listening impacts our capacity to empathize with others will be prompted by considerations of the ocean and other bodies of water as well as the non-human animals that inhabit those environments. Students will propose a final project that can take the form of an art project, research paper, environmental campaign, or other proposed format. 

Readings:

• Beat Piece by Yoko Ono 

• What’s the Buzz by Stephanie Rosenblum 

• Listening by Jean-Luc Nancy 

• Sound Art and the Sonic Unconscious by Christoph Cox 

• Minor Listening, Major Influence by Alaina Claire Feldman 

• I Feel You by Chris Beam 

• Undrowned by Alexis Pauline Gumbs 

• Amniotechnics by Sophie Lewis 

Graduate Seminar

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

The graduate seminar emphasizes professional preparation for contemporary artists focusing on writing skills, oral presentations, critiques of individual creative research/artwork, critical thinking about and visual analysis of current art forms and contemporary approaches to the teaching of studio art. 

INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE:

Graduate Seminar is the core academic and critical course for looking at your work, talking about ideas, and expanding your notions of practice during the first two years of the graduate program. It is divided into two sections. Mondays, the academic section will focus on intense and thoughtful reading discussion and possible visits offsite. Wednesdays are devoted to critique and discussion of your individual work and practices and will include faculty from the entire department. Through both these components we will build a rigorous community that demands the best out of all of us as artists and thinkers.

This course is reliant on your willingness to push yourselves to the boundaries of your limitations and your commitment to studio and discussion. You will be expected to be present and active as artists/makers on the cusp of a professional career. If you are doing the readings and engaging with your colleagues and faculty you will get an enormous amount from this course.

Our class environment will be an inclusive one, and your unique perspective is important and wanted. While we will be with one another, this rigor of thought and analysis comes from a desire to see each member of the community succeed in their artistic goals. Thus, we will create an environment together that is founded on mutual respect, where  discrimination towards anyone will not be tolerated.

Readings:

• Amahd, Asam, "A Note on Call-Out Culture". Briar Patch Magazine, Mar 2, 2015.

• Molesworth, Helen, Ruth Asawa: Life’s Work. Yale University Press, 2019.

• Richards, M. C., “Centering,” The Craft Reader. Ed. Adamson, Glenn, Berg, 2010, pp 206-213.

• Smith, Zadie, Why Write? Creativity and Refusal, Hall Center for the Humanities Lecture Series at the University of Kansas, December 1, 2016.

• Solnit, Rebecca, Men Explain Things To Me. Haymarket Press, 2015.

• Disman, Adriana, “Towards Anti-Disciplinarity: the (messy) hermeneutics of self-violent performance art,” Theater Research in Canada 36:1, 2015, pp 145-155.

• Hemmings, Jessica, “Knitting after making: what we do with what we make,” Knitting After Making: Textiles, Community, and Controversy, Bloomsbury, 77-94.

• Maraud, Tavi, “Iridescence, Intimacies,” e-flux. Journal #61 - January 2015.

• Gainza, Maria, Optic Nerve. tr. Bunstead, Thomas, St. Catapult, 2019, pp. 104-116

• Nelson, Maggie, Bluets. Wave Books, 2009.

• Steyerl, Hito, In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective. e-flux. Journal #24 - April 2011.

• Fleetwood, Nicole R., Troubling Vision: Performance, Visuality,and Blackness. The University of Chicago Press, 2010.

• Roth, Lorna, Looking at Shirley, the Ultimate Norm: Colour Balance, Image Technologies, and Cognitive Equity. Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 34 (2009) 111-136

• Koepnick, Lutz, On Slowness: Toward an Aesthetic of the Contemporary. Columbia University Press, 2014, pp 153-187

• Calvino, Italo, Six Memos for the Next Millennium (The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, 1985-86), Vintage, 1993.

• Calder Lightness Richard Tuttle Wire Pieces Fred Sandback 64 Three–Part Pieces

• Flieschman, T, Time is the Thing the Body Moves Through. Coffee House Press, 2019.

• Kosuth, Joseph, Art After Philosophy. Ubu web (re-published online), 1969.

• Kosuth, Joseph, “Exemplar: Felix Gonzalez-Torres,” Failure. The MIT Press, 2010, pp 90-94

• Baker, Jennifer, “Felix Gonzalez-Torres,” Ellipsis. Pulitzer Arts Foundation, 2015.

• Black, Hannah, “This is Crap.” Frieze, March 10.. 2016.

• Baitailles, Georges, Visions of Success: Selected Writings 1927-1939, University of Minnesota Press, 1985, pp 

• Bois, Yves-Alain, “The Use Value of ‘Formless’,” Formless: A User’s Guide. Zone Books, 1997, pp 13-40.

• “Liquid,” The New Inquiry. Volume 58, 2017.

• Long Chu, Andrea, “Pink,” n+1 Issue 34: Head Case, 2019

• Barthes, Roland, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, tr. Richard Howard, Hill and Wang, pp 23-60.

• Mulvey, Laura, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” pp 57-68.

• Sontag, Susan, Regarding the Pain of Others, Picador, 2003.

• Scappettone, Jennifer, “Smelting Pot,” Dimensions of Citizenship: Architecture and Belonging from the Body to the Cosmos, Inventory Press, 2018

• Duncan, Carol, “Art Museums and the Ritual of Citizenship,” pp 88-102

• Jacobson, Stine Marie, Direct Approach: How to Create a Platform for conversation on violence in film and reality

• Vuong, Ocean, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Penguin Press, 2019.

• Puleo, Risa, Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly, Name, 2018.

• Wieringa, Tommy, Berlinde De Bruyckere: In the Woods there were Chainsaws. Steidl Hauser & Wirth, 2009.

• Herzog, Werner, Of Walking in Ice: Munich - Paris 23 November - 14 December 1974, tr. Martje Herzog and Alan Greenberg, Free Association, 2007.

MUSEUM PRACTICE

studio art

Senior Studio

Course Description

For the majority of studio time, you will explore methodologies that are consistent with your chosen artistic direction. It is your responsibility to research relevant artists and ideas, to seek out faculty expertise and to work out technical and conceptual issues. Students are required to participate in organized class activities including artist studio visits and exhibitions. By the end of the semester, you will have formed the basis for the development of a coherent body of work, which will be exhibited as part of the requirements in Senior Thesis Seminar.

Course Expectations and Requirements

• Engage in a rigorous investigation of individualized studio practice.

• Complete all required course work as stated in the syllabus.

• Attendance and participation in all exercises, discussions, studio visits, and field trips.

• Demonstrate cleanliness of individual and communal space and show care in the proper use and maintenance

of equipment.

You are expected to make good use of class time to do your work. Come prepared by bringing your sketchbook, supplies, necessary equipment, and/or books. You should also expect to work up to double time outside of class on your projects. All assignments, notes, criticisms, research, etc. must be kept in a sketchbook, which you are responsible for bringing to class each day.

Expected Learning Outcomes

The objective of this class is to expand, strengthen, and deepen our visual vocabulary, conceptual investigations, and professional practice. The course is designed to foster a balance of critical thinking and practical skills that will enable you to develop, execute, and present a rigorous body of work in preparation for your senior thesis. Through assignments, readings, discussions, research, field trips, and individual meetings, you will advance your ideas and build skills specific to your chosen context. By the end of this course, you will have:

• Demonstrated an advanced level of technical information and concept development through material studies and execution of resolved work.

• Demonstrated the ability to verbally communicate ideas and express opinions.

• Developed research methodologies of the contemporary art and/or the design fields.

• Gained exposure to developments in the field through discussions, visiting artist presentations, and attending exhibitions.

PAPER IN SPACE: DIMENSIONAL, MARGINAL, AND DURATIONAL EXPLORATIONS

This class introduces paper as a sculptural and architectural building medium to shape space. Traditional and non-traditional hand papermaking techniques such as sheet formation, inclusions, laminate and pulp casting, armature building, and pulp spraying will be taught. Instructional demonstrations provide the technical knowledge for each student to explore their conceptual interests. Students are encouraged to consider paper beyond its role as a substrate, producing three dimensional forms that interact and respond to bodies moving through space.

beginner hand papermaking: embedded content

Make your own handmade paper portfolio from recycled cloth, junk mail, and/or kitchen or garden scraps, and learn create your own watermarks using methods that range from beginner to advanced. These humble materials can be transformed into sheets of paper that can be customized to suit any number of projects. Class participants may bring collage papers, music sheets, dried botanicals and other decorative items to customize the paper, but all other materials will be provided.

art history/ Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies