Caroline's readings for Mon Sept 30th and Weds Oct 3rd

Caroline's readings for Mon Sept 30th and Weds Oct 3rd

1. Rogers, Elizabeth Barlow, The Shaping of Space; The Meaning of Place, Intoduction, Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History, Abrams, 2001
2. Dean, Tacita and Miller, Jeremy, Nature, from Art Works:Place, Thames and Hudson, Documents :15, 2005
3. Dion, Mark, Neukom Vivarium, Interview Art:21: http//www.pbs.org/art21/artists/dion/clip1.html
4. Evans, Andrea Sherrill, Artist's Statement and Statement of Purpose, 2013

Greg Sept. 30: Folk art?

For Greg's discussion group on Sept. 30, we'll be discussing folk and outsider art by reading:
= "Art in the Streets: Why does the art world still disregard community pageantry?" by Greg Cook, Art New England, March/April 2013.
= "Composition in Black and White: A collector's fight to get an untrained artist into the canon" by Paige Williams, New Yorker, Aug. 12 & 19, 2013.

Questions to consider: Are museums correct to consider fine art more important than folk or outsider art? What are the differences between these types of art? How do we decide which art and artists get included in our museums and histories and which do not? How do art market concerns shape these definitions?

Related but not required: "About, With & For," an exhibition of artists addressing "various aspects of folklife," is at the Boston Center for the Arts from Oct. 4 to Dec. 1.

Research paper update:

1. Students must provide a brief written update on which artist they have chosen and when they are scheduled to interview them. The sooner you interview the artist the better.

2. Discussion classes of week of Oct. 21: Turn in one-page transcript of (part of) the interview.

3. Discussion classes of week of Oct. 28: Final research paper due.

Assignments will lose one letter grade for each week they are late. Failure to turn in a paper will result in a zero, which could result in you failing this class.

Caroline's Readings Mon Sept 23rd and Weds Sept 25th

Caroline's Readings Mon Sept 23rd and Weds Sept 25th

Bishop, Claire, Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics, October 110, Fall 2004, pp 65 – 80

Caroline's readings for Mon Sept 16th and Weds Sept 18th

Caroline's readings for Mon Sept 16th and Weds Sept 18th

Bishop, Claire, Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics, October 110, Fall 2004, pp 51 - 65

Greg: Sept. 23: Is the golden age of abstraction now?

Greg's discussion group on Sept. 23 will be reading about and discussing the question: "Is the golden age of abstraction now?" Based on reading and responding to the following readings:

= “The Golden Age of Abstraction: Right Now” ArtNews

= “Abstract Painting: The New Casualists”

= “Provisional Painting”

Consider what are some of the types of abstraction being pursued now? Why might or might this work make this the golden age of abstraction?

Greg Sept. 16: Is Bruce Myren doing New Topographics?

For Greg’s class on Sept. 16, we’ll be reading, writing and talking about Bruce Myren’s “40th Parallel” project, on view at Gallery Kayafas from Sept. 6 to Oct. 12. Read the essays below, look at photos by Myren and the New Topographics photographers and answer the following questions: Is Myren doing New Topographics style photography? What is New Topographics?

Readings:
= “From Sea To Shining Sea: Bruce Myren's Photo Cross-Section Of U.S.” by Greg Cook, WBUR.org The Artery, 2013.
= Introduction to “New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape” by William Jenkins, 1975.
= “LACMA traces photography’s New Topographics movement” by Leah Ollman, 2009

Look up photos by Myren and the New Topographics group. Consider the following quotes from the readings:
= Lewis Baltz: “The ideal photographic document would appear to be without author or art.”
= Robert Adams: “Pictures should look like they were easily taken. Otherwise beauty in the world is made to seem elusive and rare, which it is not.”
= John Schott: “This work basically said there’s a new world to be seen, and it deserves to be looked at, whether you see it as despoiling the landscape or simply as a fact.”

Pictured at top: Bruce Myren’s photo at “N 40° 00’ 00” W 104° 00’ 00” Hoyt, Colorado,” 2008.

Greg Sept. 9: Failure Support Group

For discussion on Sept. 10, Greg's group will read, write about and talk about the essays noted below.

Type up a one or two page response that briefly summarizes some of the main ideas and then responds to and analyzes them using examples from the reading as well as from the wider art world.

=This Mike Kelley quote from "Art21": “I knew by the time I was a teenager that I was going to be an artist, there’s no doubt about that. There was nothing else for me to be. I didn’t even want to be the other things that at the time were outside general culture. I didn’t want to be a rock musician; I wanted to be an artist. And I think the reason I chose it was that at that time it was the most despicable thing you could be in American culture. To be an artist at that time had absolutely no social value. It was like planned failure. You could never be a success. And the fact that I’m now a professional artist? At that time it seemed like a contradiction of terms. I came from a milieu in which artists were despised, whereas rock musicians and drug dealers were—you know—hipster culture heroes."

= Platform2's invite to their 2008 "Failure Support Group."

= Matthew Nash's report on BigRed&Shiny on the "Failure Support Group."

= "If at First You Don't Succeed ... Celebrate" by Lisa Le Feuvre, Tate, 2010.

Some questions to consider: Why do we fear failure? How do we define failure? How do we define success? What does it mean to fail in life? In art? Is art making like scientific experimenting, in which failures can be part of testing out an idea? Should art making focus primarily on end results? What are the benefits and drawbacks of these approaches. Is there, actually, a recipe for failure? Are certain methodologies more prone to failure than others? What is at stake in acknowledging failure in one’s process, one’s community, or one’s career? Can you think of other contemporary art addressing failure? Does this or doesn't this art somehow reflect our society today?

Caroline's Discussion Groups Readings, Mon Sept 9th and Weds Sept11th 11

Caroline's Discussion Groups Readings, Mon Sept 9th and Weds Sept 11th 2013

1. James Elkins, Why Art Can Not Be Taught,  Chapt 1, “Histories” Univ. of Illinois Press. 2001

2. Joseph Beuys, Not Just a Few Are Called, But Everyone, from Art in Theory 1900 – 2000. Eds Charles Harrison and Paul Wood

3. Sean T. Buffington, Art Teaching for a New Age, The Chronicle Review, The Chronicle Of Higher Education, July 8, 2013 chronicle.com/article/Art-Teaching-for-a-New-Age/140117