Sculpture: Blurring the Boundaries
Tuesdays and Fridays 12:30pm to 3:20pm
Tory Fair 736-2676
Office Hours: Tuesdays and Fridays 11am to 12noon and by appointment
This course explores how we make images and objects with a variety of processes and materials. Planned is a rigorous semester that will give you the opportunity to work in mediums such as collage, relief, mold making, shaped canvases,assemblage, photography and mixed media installations.
I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum.
I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all, an art given the chance of having a starting point of zero.
I am for an art that embroils itself with the everyday crap and still comes out on top.
I am for an art that imitates the human, that is comic, if necessary, or violent, or whatever is necessary.
I am for all art that takes its form from the lines of life itself, that twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself.
I am for an artist who vanishes, turning up in a white cap painting signs or hallways.
I am for art that comes out of a chimney like black hair and scatters in the sky.
I am for art that spills out of an old man’s purse when he is bounced off a passing fender.
I am for the art out of a doggie’s mouth, falling five stories from the roof.
I am for the art that a kid licks, after peeling away the wrapper.
I am for an art that joggles like everyone’s knees, when the bus traverses an excavation.
I am for art that is smoked like a cigarette, smells like a pair of shoes.
I am for art that flaps like a flag, or helps blow noses like a handkerchief.
…….
I am for the art of abandoned boxes, tied like pharaohs. I am for an art of water tanks and speeding clouds and flapping shades.
I am for US Government Inspected Art, Grade A art, Regular Price art, Yellow Ripe art, Extra Fancy art, Ready-to-Eat art, Best-for-Less art, Ready-to-Cook art, Fully Cleaned art, Spend Less art, Eat Better art, Ham art, pork art, chicken art, tomato art, banana art, apple art, turkey art, cake art, cookie art…
excerpt from Claes Oldenburg
Several artists will be introduced to explore the dialogue between two and three dimensions including Giacometti, Smith, Hesse, Kelly, Edwards, Xu Bing, Kapoor, Murray, Puryear, Turrell, Stella, Saar, Cragg, Stockholder, Irwin, Walker, Gonzalaz-Torres, Shonibare, Friedman, Zhang Huan, Guo-Qiang, Harrison, Murakami and Gatson.
This is a studio course that requires hands on exploration. It is preferrable that students take Sculpture Foundations: 3D Design before taking this course. However, there are no pre requisites and if you have experience in other studio courses such as painting, printmaking, or photography, you are encouraged to join.
Students are expected to be ready to work in a studio atmosphere and take on visual and conceptual challenges. This is a hands on laboratory where we continually experiment and welcome new approaches to making and thinking about art. A significant part of the course is participating in critique and trying to articulate what we see. Your skills will advance as a maker, and also as a more informed viewer.
Learning Goals
Literacy: be able to create, critique and analyze works of art based on their formal elements such as form, space, color, surface, gesture, composition, and site.
Visual Rhetoric: understand how works of art are conceived and designed as an experience to convey meaning and personal voice.
Equip students with foundational skills to fabricate in sculpture shop, including paper, wood, wire, plaster, and mixed materials.
Enable students with the skills to document, edit, and create a personal portfolio of original artworks.
Advocate the attendance of art events on and off campus to encourage a diversity and breadth of experience in contemporary practices.
In the Studio and Shops:
Rebecca Strauss is the Shop Technician. She is available on Thursday afternoons for shop demonstrations and questions. Please contact her directly at to make an appointment.
You may work in the studio at any time there is not another class being held. **For welding, table saw, and advanced tools, you must receive clearance from myself or Rebecca directly, on an individual basis** Please use the buddy system when working. You are responsible for keeping the studio and shops clean. Put your work on the shelves allocated to this class when you are finished for the day. Clean any mess you have made. Always follow shop safety rules. Do not use tools you have not received instruction on. Be aware of the people around you. Do not use toxic materials in the shop.
Requirements:
-Attendance- be on time! After three unexcused absences your grade will drop.
-Coming prepared to studio and keeping an active journal.
-Seeking out new materials- being resourceful in finding them.
-Participation in class discussions and during work studios.
-Completion of outside studio assignments. (4-6 hours weekly).
-Read and follow all general safety rules on attached sheet.
-Willingness to take risks and participate in class discussions and field trips if required.
Grades:
Grades are based on the above requirements. Each project will be graded individually. Also considered are the ongoing qualities you bring to the
studio such as: effort, ambition, willingness to experiment with materials and learn techniques, completion of projects on time, participation in group discussions. You are expected to work outside of class time during monitored shop hours.
Relief:20%
Wall to Floor:20%
Surface:20%
Homage: 30%
Effort and Attendence10%
** You are required to attend one artist lecture on campus at the Rose Art Museum or one that is sponsored by the Fine Arts Department. Several will be posted and announced in class. After you attend, e-mail me a short response paragraph via e-mail. Include what you liked or didn’t like about the talk, and how it might relate to your own experience in the studio.
If you are a student with a documented disability on record at Brandeis University and wish to have a reasonable accommodation made for you in this class, please see me immediately.
Academic Integrity:
You are expected to be familiar with and to follow the University’s policies on academic integrity (see Faculty may refer any suspected instances of alleged dishonesty to the Office of Student Development and Conduct. Instances of academic dishonesty may result in sanctions including but not limited to, failing grades being issues, educational programs, and other consequences.
Schedule:
Below is an outline of the semester subject to change. More specific descriptions of projects will be given in addition to a visual introduction to the assignment with many artists that help inspire the concepts that are explored.
January 12: Introduction to shops and syllabus.
PROJECT ONE:PaperClayRelief (Jan 16, 19, 23, 26, DUE Jan 30)
Working from a series of images, develop a hybrid image that includes elements from a photograph, painting, and/or sculpture. From this mash up, sculpt the image in paper clay relief. The paper clay takes some time to dry, but eventually we will use acrylic washes and collage to finish the surface of the reliefs.
PROJECT TWO: Surface Cast (Feb 2, 6, 9, 13, 16 due Feb 27)
We will be considering the role surface plays in paintings and sculptures. How does a surface read? Is it important to the identity of the object? Is it a move towards fact or illusion? We will be using plaster wrap to cast objects, alter them, and then paint or collage the surface. Artists introduced are: Johns, Friedman, Gallagher, Cragg, Harrison, Kapoor, Shonibare, Walker, Xu BIng.
PROJECT THREE:Wall to Floor in Multiples (March 2, 6, 9, 13, 16 due March 20)
In this project you are required to make a plane or line that addresses the floor or wall, or both, out of multiples. The multiple you cast must be from a partly found object, and partly sculpted object. We will be making rubber molds and at least 20 multiples. An in depth look at Eva Hesse’s work will demonstrate possibilities of how you may take this on. Also introduced are: Sandback, Kiki Smith, Puryear, Kusama.
PROJECT FOUR: Homage (March 23, 27, April 10, 13, 17, 20 due the 24 and 25th)
This will be the final project and will allow you to choose the way you want to work with a special consideration towards a proposed concept. You will be required to choose your own materials and format for the project, and identify a specific work of art by an artist that inspires you (a list of artists to research will be provided). Final critique will include a discussion of your sculpture, and a short presentation of 10 jpegs that share your source materials.