AHD-2010

The Origins of Art

3 art history credits

The Arts serve as a record of the history of ideas and society. This course will explore the development of what we call art, by examining its emergence and development in the context of specific Western and non-Western societies and civilizations. To do so, the class traces the changing nature of representation in painting, sculpture and architecture from the Paleolithic to the early 19th century. Topics include art and ritual, iconoclasm and theories of God, the separation of art and craft, the social history of art and the rise of the individual, idealism and aesthetics. Discussion, slide presentations and museum visits are a part of the course.

VSD-2010

Life Drawing

no credit

With a focus on the live model, this course will address the figure in space using a variety of techniques. From short to long poses, students will gain a comprehensive understanding of the human form while examining various concepts relevant to the history of drawing: line and gesture, positive and negative space, composition and the picture plane, tone, form and proportion, and perspective, among others. The class will discuss contemporary forms of life drawing and its relevance to the art market.

VHD-2060

Visuality in Poetry

3 humanities and sciences credits

How are words made into images? What is the science of figurative language? What are opportunities for music, image and language to complement as opposed to contrast with one another? This course, offered through the Visual and Critical Studies Department, will address these fundamental questions by engaging with poetic works drawn from diverse periods. In this effort to understand poetry’s relationship with the visual world, we will read closely and critically. We will study the mechanics of poetry and work on writing, listen to writers and attend readings to arrive at a practical understanding of writing and prepare for tackling the larger questions of ekphrasis in poetry.

VHD-2070

Visual Poetics

3 humanities and sciences credits

This course will investigate how the visual world intersects with the abstraction of language in canonical texts by poets. We will read Donne, Blake, Wordsworth, Whitman, Dickinson, Hopkins, Yeats, Stevens, Pound, Eliot, Auden and Ashbery, among others, and trace how poetry has struggled to capture through language what “seeing feels like.” We will explore artistic devices for making the invisible visible, the abstract concrete, the mute vocal and the small magnificent. Studying theories of mimesis, modes of representation and aesthetic frameworks will complement the reading and writing of poems.

VSD-2102

The Artist’s Journal

3 studio credits

The goal of this painting course is to create a visual journal through a series paintings and works on paper that record the artist’s interests and concerns. Experimentation with various materials and techniques, as well as investigating ideas of personal iconography, symbolism and narrative will be emphasized. Using painting, drawing, basic printmaking and collage, students will develop journal paintings and a collaborative publication. Keeping a sketchbook, reviewing exhibitions and taking photos for reference and documentation will be required.

VSD-2104

The VCS Studio

3 studio credits

This studio workshop will encourage students to develop their painting and drawing practice through self-initiated as well as assigned projects. Various approaches will be explored, such as using systems, working from observation, developing an archive of images, referencing art history, icon painting and printmaking. Students will keep a sketchbook and review current exhibitions.

VSD-2120

Sculpture

3 studio credits

Serving as an introduction to sculptural materials, ideas and techniques, the primary goal of this course is to broaden the ways in which students understand sculpture and interpret the three- dimensional world. With this focus in mind, the emphasis will be on the physical shaping of ideas. A range of materials will be introduced, including clay, paper, wood and plaster. By utilizing basic skills and materials, students can begin the process of creating meaning from material.

VCD-2173

Gender Trouble

3 art history credits

A radical collective inquiry into the ‘aesthetics of resistance’ that occur when the gendered non- conforming body speaks in the visual. In this course we’ll explore using the arts to engage in the queering of fixed social boundaries, a most ancient form of anti-authoritarian power and sensuous (spiritual) pleasure for use by bodies situated at the borderlands of gender, race, class, pleasure and power. Presentations of slide and video work by key contemporary and historical feminist figures will help students situate their creative practice in relationship to contemporary discourses around intersectional feminism—race, class, gender and sexuality. How do we make sense of feminist art of the past and present—its contradictions, slogans and symbols? What content is lost in translation during art’s shift from private practice to public locus? Students will complete weekly reading assignments by a range of provocative critical theorists as well as bring in work in any medium for critique. This course features guest lectures and a special focus on underground, pan-sexual, transnational networks we can define loosely as punk, queer, hip hop, radical, sex-positive feminist culture.

FID-2228

Sensational Painting and ...

3 studio credits

What do we do when we look? What happens as we build pictures? What makes an image memorable? We will consider the context for these concerns from Cézanne to psychedelic art to current exhibitions. Learn to focus your intentions while fine-tuning your intuition. Work from observation, imagination or printed sources with an emphasis on the distinctly physiological experience of painting.

VCD-2236

Theories of Vision and Color

3 art history credits

In this course, students will be asked to consider theories of vision and color through a variety of lenses: critical, cultural, scientific, (art) historical, philosophical, experiential and literary, to name a few. Such consideration will be facilitated by a corresponding diversity of methods, encompassing reading, discussion, screening, observation, experimentation and site visits. We will attempt to arrive at an understanding of both vision and color as multivalent and ever-evolving phenomena. Throughout, students will be encouraged to consider the role of vision and color in both historical and contemporary art practices and in relation to their own artistic development.

VCD-2237

The History and Practices of Perspective

3 art history credits

This course challenges students to understand and to analyze the phenomenon of perspective as a cultural invention. Central topics will include infinite space and illusion, the fixed eye and the gaze, and the relationship between vision and power. The history of perspective will be encountered as it relates to scientific, religious, and philosophical movements by way of readings and visual presentations. Texts by Leon Batista Alberti, Erwin Panofsky, Jacques Lacan, Norman Brysonand Martin Jay, among others, will be discussed.

VCD-2241

The Artist as Coder

3 art history credits

In the post-studio interdisciplinary art world, technology plays a critical role in an artist’s practice. The ubiquity of the Internet, displays and computers demands a new kind of literacy today. By examining contemporary artists working on the periphery of traditional media, we’ll explore the implications for art and artists. Readings and lectures will be supplemented by in-class exercises that introduce fundamental programming principles with HTML, CSS and JavaScript. To emulate the interdisciplinary art world mentioned, this course is a hybrid art history course with studio practice.

VSD-2256

Painting as Sorcery

3 studio credits

Painting is magic. In this course, students will discover an alchemical approach to painting by actively combining traditional techniques with alternative methods of building an image (photo, digital, 3D construction) and breathing new life into their work. Through combinations of controlled experiments and critical thinking, students will examine how perceptions of images can be altered through material manipulation.

VSD-2302

Obsessive Painting

3 studio credits

Is making art just a socially acceptable way of channeling obsessive behavior? Look at Agnes Martin’s grid paintings; Morandi’s bottles; Henry Darger’s 15,145 pages of manually typed, hand- painted manuscript; Paul Noble’s fantasy worlds; Vija Celmins’s waves and rocks, and James Hampton’s thrones. It appears that each artist had no “off” switch. This course will address the artist’s never-ending pursuit of ideas, subjects, motifs or materials. Class time will be dedicated to painting and both group and individual critiques.

FID-2310

Looking into Music

3 studio credits

Many artists approach their own work by way of ideas and properties that are primarily associated with another form of expression. Music, abstract and non-material by nature, has often served as a means of exploring the visual arts. This studio course will consider the interrelationship of the visual arts and music by first examining historic examples through lectures and individual research, then applying some of those principles to student projects and presentations. Beginning with the ancient belief in universal connectedness (such as the Harmony of the Spheres), topics will include: structural comparisons of visual and aural creativity; the nature of abstraction; phenomenological similarities and paradoxes of visual and aural perception; sociological and political activism; artistic and legal implications of appropriation in art and music; the interdependency of visual and sound elements in multidisciplinary art forms such as theater, film, animation, music video and web-based art.

FID-2376

Printmaking: Etching and Woodcut

3 studio credits

This course offers a thorough introduction to different image-making possibilities available in two major areas of printmaking. Etching will be explored through the introduction of line etching, soft ground, aquatint and photoetching. The second half of the semester will focus on monoprint, linoleum and woodcut. Starting from a direct application of color in monoprint, students will then explore the use of color separations and overlays to create color linoleum and woodcut prints.

VCD-2564

Professional Practices and the Art Industry

3 art history credits

This course aims to give participants an understanding of the art world and its history, as well as how to navigate professional pitfalls. From the practical to the esoteric, we will address the complex—sometimes overlapping, other times conflicting—components and institutions of the art world. Professionals such as gilders, faux-finishers, gallerists, grant writers, photographers, art handlers and museum educators (to name a few) will be invited to lead discussions on their areas of expertise. Some sessions will be hands-on studio work, others will concentrate on strategies to support the artist and their studio practice. Students will review exhibitions throughout the semester. Finished artwork will be shared during the final class session.

VSD-3010

Junior Seminar

no credit

This seminar will focus on developing studio work in preparation for thesis projects. Emphasis will be placed on coherently conceptualizing each student’s independent project, as well as how to contextualize the work through documentation and building a portfolio.

VCD-3020

Theories of Imitation

3 art history credits

A historical and philosophical examination of various ways in which theories of imitation have considered visual and textual imitations is the focus of this course. Readings will include: Plato, The Republic (excerpts); Denis Diderot, The Paradox of Acting; J. J. Winckelmann, Reflections on the Imitation of Greek Works; Erich Auerbach, “Figura”; David Summers, The Judgment of Sense (excerpt); Oscar Wilde, “Decay of Lying”; Harold Bloom, “Necessity of Misreading”; Rene Girard, To Double Business Bound (excerpt); Paul Ricoeur, “Mimesis and Representation”; Jacques Derrida, “Economimesis.”

VCD-3040

Aesthetic Theory

3 art history credits

Lacking in the long history of aesthetics and the philosophy of art is the case study approach of applying a theory directly to an artwork to see how effective it is. Does it define what art is or is not? Does it help us decide the sensory value of an artwork? Are there judgments of taste and sensory discriminations? Is there an aesthetic pleasure, a feeling of the ‘sublime,’ or is it all in the eye of the beholder? Is beauty a property of things or something we attribute to them? Ultimately, can theories of art provide a framework for critically responding to our art, our culture and nature? We intend to answer these questions by lining up some of the greatest theoreticians of the Western canon: Kant, Hegel, Croce, Adorno, Danto, Derrida, Goodman, Greenberg and Arnheim, with some of the most provocative art of our times.

VCD-3051

Art in Theory: 1648-1900

3 art history credits

This course will focus on what became the central ideas that informed the European tradition of art theory and criticism. The goal is to acquaint students with the writings and ideas of these times, which were considered to be the foundation of what constitutes art and the art experience.

VCD-3052

Art in Theory: 1900-1990

3 art history credits

Important articles, manifestoes, and artists’ statements of the 20th century will be examined in this course. Lectures will connect the artwork produced during that time to these texts and offer a comprehensive understanding of both images and ideas.

VSD-3066

Make Your Own Art World: Independent Exhibitions, Projects and Spaces

3 studio credits

How do you envision your role as an artist in the world of contemporary art? The commercial gallery system presents one possibility, but what are the other options for participating in the current conversation around art? Independent and artist-run spaces offer an alternative to the traditional, market-driven, private gallery system. In this course, we will trace the history of alternative spaces in New York and also look at contemporary artist-run and independent galleries. In addition to readings, screenings and discussion, we will visit and meet the directors of exhibition spaces such as Artist’s Space, Art in General, Canada, Momenta, Participant, Rex Regina, and Soloway. Students will collaborate to curate and produce an exhibition at Soloway Gallery.

VCD-3081

Critical Media Studies

3 art history credits

Mediation has become an acknowledged and celebrated condition during a time when the visualized nature of a globalized world reconfigures our spheres of communication, values and evaluations in ways that require us to reconsider our relations to art-making. This course looks at the history of modern media as a change in tools and technology and at the media cultures they generate, with a decided stress on contemporary and emerging situations. The goal is to characterize and critically examine accepted and developing theories used to understand the real and hypothetical changes in local and global functions of media cultures. Students will participate in assigned exercises and develop and produce independent projects that combine research with textual and visual resources. A global perspective and some experience in Internet practices, web design and social media is a plus, but not required. Note: This course is cross-listed with AHD-3081.

VSD-3083

Watercolor Workshop

3 studio credits

Never used watercolor before? Or know the fundamentals and want to become better? Learn the nuts and bolts of making a watercolor drawing from beginning to end. This course will take you step-by- step through the process and show you how to draw what’s in your head to make it a reality. Understanding how watercolors work can be a great way to improve your painting and drawing skills in a variety of media, including acrylics and oils. This course will give you the techniques you need to go and make the paintings and drawings you want to create.

VCD-3087

The Diasporas Emerge: Filling in the Gaps

3 art history credits

In this course we will comb through the Western European canon of art and history to trace the roots of important black, Latino and indigenous thinkers, artists, poets and musicians who have shaped the politics, culture and representations of modern and contemporary art. We will delve into an array of historical, decolonial and philosophical texts and source materials to expand our knowledge and understanding of the canon by unearthing the contradictions inherent in the legacy of Western European Enlightenment and imperialism. Students will be presented with two case studies. The first will be surrealism, its relationship to the Négritude movement and the influence of the Blues. We will read and unpack thinkers such as Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, Sylvia Wynter and Franklin Rosemont. For the second, we will look at New York City in the late 1970s and ‘80s to unpack the cross- pollination of the arts in the city, through the lens of Martha Rosler, Jeff Chang and the poetry of Pedro Pietri to expand our knowledge of the canon to include those influential poets, musicians and artists from Chinatown, Loisaida and the South Bronx that were left behind.

VCD-3111

Art and Politics

3 art history credits

In this course we examine perennial and contemporary issues in art and politics by a close reading of the remarkable oeuvre of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and an inquiry into the manifold influence of his thought. We read together his important works on aesthetics (Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, Letter to D’Alembert on the Theatre), politics (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, On the Social Contract), and education (Emile). We also examine his Confessions, and how it helped shape our ideas of the value of the individual, of self-examination and of authenticity. We will make use of occasional secondary sources to illuminate these works, but will mostly rely on careful attention to the texts themselves. Finally, we examine some of the manifold legacy of this extraordinary thinker in the art of Romanticism, as well as in history, ethics and politics. Throughout, we will examine the values of equality, individuality and self-examination that underlay the work of this remarkable figure and continue to influence and challenge us today.

VHD-3113

Power, Politics and Society

3 humanities and sciences credits

The history and prospects of American democracy will be examined in this course. To shed light on our own social and political context, we’ll read works by social theorists as well as contemporary social scientists. We’ll ask key questions: Where did democracy come from? What are the fundamental principles of democracy? What role does money play in influencing social policy? What has happened to public infrastructure? What are political parties? Why do so few Americans vote? Why is information about public affairs so poor? How does American foreign policy take shape? Why does inequality persist in the face of majority rule? How does major social change occur? Is democracy at risk today? The aim of the course is to empower students as citizens, by developing a critical understanding of the nature of political power in the society and formulating paths to action.

AHD-3137

Irony and Beauty

3 art history credits

Irony is a puzzling concept, far deeper than the dictionary definition: “Irony is the act of using words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning.” If this were the case, all sarcasm would be irony and the truly ironic act would be nothing more than a cheap theatric. Thankfully, real irony is hard to come by. It is rooted in something more than cleverness, just as beauty is more than simply being pretty. The idea of beauty is, at its core, a moment of transcendence, an experience of something greater than the tangible world has to offer. When done well, irony is a concentrated disaffection with what has been presented as truth; it is a mode of rebellion. Can beauty and irony co- exist or are they mutually exclusive? Is there any irony in the paintings of Barnett Newman or is it all deadly serious? Has irony become too easy? And has beauty ceased to answer any real questions? These are the issues we will address as we try to reconcile these seeming opposites.

VSD-3402

Advanced Projects in Mixed Media

3 studio credits

Advanced Projects in Mixed Media is a studio course with an emphasis on materiality and experimentation. Materials are suggested for assignments but ultimately can take any form—photography, painting, drawing, sculpture, etc. The course embraces the wide-reaching methods of contemporary art, which also includes the potential use of performance and video as well as considerations of context and technology. Students are expected to achieve a greater understanding of themselves as artists and begin to construct their own artistic voice. The course is divided into three sections: The Four Elements, The Five Senses and The Four Temperaments—with focuses on physical matter, experience/interpretation and emotion. Weekly projects will be discussed in a group critique; reading assignments, screenings and field trips are included.

VSD-3807

Fiber Arts

3 studio credits

This course will introduce students to the basics of working within several classic American fiber arts traditions, including spinning, weaving, dyeing, appliqué, quilt-making, embroidery, and basic fabric design. While traditional ways of working and basic techniques will be demonstrated and stressed in the first half of the semester, students will use their skills to create individualized artistic projects during the second half of the course. In the end, this course is a hybrid of new and old techniques, combining craft and fine art.

VSD-3827

Art Writing

3 studio credits

The written word has always had a close relationship to the visual arts, starting with Plato and The Puranas of ancient India and continuing right up to the era of Artforum and online magazines like Hyperallergic. In this course, we will examine and work with many different kinds of art writing. Readings will range from artists’ writings, art criticism, interviews and manifestoes to essays about art and society and writings generated by galleries and museums. A series of short writing assignments will explore various subgenres of art writing and allow students to sharpen their writing skills and refine their authorial voice. The final project will allow students to write in depth about an art-related topic of their choice. Texts include pieces by a wide range of artists, writers and critics, including Max Beckmann, George Orwell, Oscar Wilde, Dave Hickey, Mira Schor, Ken Johnson, Nancy Princenthal, Salvador Dali and Mina Loy.

VHD-4010

Essay Workshop

3 humanities and sciences credits

The essay is a literary form perfect for grappling with complex ideas in a direct and personal manner. Less rigid than the scholarly treatise, its openness allows a writer tremendous flexibility in considering a chosen topic from numerous angles. In this course, we will examine the uses and particular strengths of the essay by reading and discussing a wide range of examples, as well as writing short essays in a variety of styles. Our reading will range from the invention of the modern essay in the 16th century by Montaigne to opinion pieces in current magazines. Writing assignments will explore uses of the essay for diverse purposes, including satire, humor, advocacy, art criticism and the investigation of contemporary issues. The goal throughout will be to help students identify different means of writing available to them as they begin to conceive of and develop the written component of their thesis projects.

VSD-4010 / VSD-4015

Thesis Studio I and II

3 studio credits per semester

Consisting of weekly critiques by faculty and visiting artists, these courses will provide the anchor by which the final thesis project is undertaken.

HSD-4026

Art, Science and the Spiritual

3 humanities and sciences credits What is our place in the universe? How do we perceive the world? Students will learn how modern science has profoundly transformed modern art. The theories of Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein forever changed how artists understand reality. The rise of science also entailed the decline of organized religion, causing traditional spiritual questions to be reformulated in secular terms. At the same time, the theories proposed by psychologists—the new doctors of the soul—revolutionized modern society’s understanding of the human psyche. Artists responded to the challenges posed by science and psychology by creating new metaphors for the human condition during the first secular, scientific age in human history. We will explore the interplay between art, science and the spiritual by evaluating major scientific and religious trends of the 20th century in relation to the representative artistic movements and works of the time.

VSD-4050

Thesis Workshop

3 studio credits

Intended to hone the skills necessary for the undertaking of the thesis project, this course will examine the material and intellectual contexts in which the thesis is pursued.

AHD-4140

Senior Seminar

3 art history credits

Unlike the historical avant-garde that situated itself outside of mass culture, today’s emerging avant- garde art seems to anticipate ways of working from within and in relation to mass culture. Art is steadily moving out from the “white cube” to participate in a global continuum that’s hosted by satellite TV and cable, the Internet, all forms of wireless communication and international biennials. The fractious history of art and mass culture has grown exponentially within the past two decades in direct proportion to the invention of new imaging technologies and the development of global economies. This course proposes to examine the scant, but rich, history of relations between art and mass culture, and to chart the rise of media-related art. We will immerse ourselves in screenings of contemporary video/multimedia work of the past two decades and seek out as many pertinent exhibitions as we can throughout the semester. We will also read interviews with artists and curators, as well as texts on media theory, globalism and the like.

AHD-4140

Senior Seminar: Printmaking

3 art history credits

This seminar will look at how new technologies affected what artists made and how artists adopted those new ways of printing to create prints, multiples and books throughout history. Various methods of printmaking have developed over hundreds of years and are constantly being updated, incorporating photography and digital methods of production. We will see how print editions are financed, produced and distributed and how artists and publishers deal with questions of materials, scale and cost of production in developing print editions. We will also explore ideas concerning “the original” and “the copy” and how the advent of digital reproduction and photography blur those lines. There will be weekly readings by artists, critics and curators concerning art in multiple as well as several visual projects and written assignments.

Independent Study

3 studio credits

Junior and senior students who wish to pursue a special project not covered by the parameters of their department’s curriculum are eligible to apply for an independent study course. Students must have earned a grade point average above 3.00 at SVA and must submit their study goals as a detailed proposal for approval by the department chair. Proposals for an independent study must be made prior to the course adjustment period for that semester. Please contact the department advisor for specifics.

Internship

3 studio credits

Students can gain valuable experience and broaden their professional network through an internship with an employer. Internships-for-credit are available to juniors and seniors who have earned a cumulative grade point average of 3.25 or better. To receive credit, students must apply online during the designated application period, be approved by the Career Development Office, and registered for the internship by their academic advisor. Students need to work 150 hours during the semester (usually 10 to 15 hours per week), participate in a weekly online course with other SVA interns, and complete midterm and final self-evaluations. Elective studio credit is awarded for the successful completion of an internship. For more information go to sva.edu/career.

Curriculum