syllabus

resources

emails

This syllabus is just a guess and will totally depend upon you, what you are interested in, and what we decide to do together.

The academy is not paradise. But learning is a place where paradise can be created. The classroom with all its limitations remains a location of possibility. In that field of possibility we have the opportunity to labour for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress. This is education as the practice of freedom. --bell hooks 1994

Week One 9/13: Introductions, syllabus, discussion about the uses of language, free writes and readings, journal explanation and discussion.
Reading assigned: Brian Wallis’ “Telling Stories: A Fictional Approach to Artist’s Writings, Mark Durant, Matt Mullican, Twyla Tharpe, Sekou Sundiata

Week Two 9/20: Begin work on artist bios. Look over a sampling of “successful” artist’s bio’s and give them grades. Work on bios of ourselves. Sign up for artist presentations.
Reading assigned: artist statements of various kinds mostly from Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists Writings, edited by Kristine Stiles and Howard Peter Selz, Tom Sherman

Week Three 9/27: Wrap up artist bio work and do writing exercises towards artist statement in different forms. Discuss how to translate visual work into understandable language. Sign up for projects with text and image that will be continuous throughout the semester (these can be collaborative, ongoing, in any media, etc.). Projects can exist in any or all media

Week 10/3: Read and respond to each other’s artist statements.
Reading assigned: Johanna Drucker article
Assignment: rewrite your artist statement

10/11: critique of artist statments. discussion of daily writing. Slide presentation on visual art and text.
Resource: Writing on the Wall: Word and Image in Modern Art (Hardcover)
by Simon Morley
Reading assigned:Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones excerpts

10/18: no class--advising day

10/25: First crit of semester long projects (from now on we will have critiques every two weeks, please plan to have some part of your work to discuss each time): discuss the craft of editing and critique. Discuss Natalie Goldberg’s editing exercises from Writing Down the Bones.
Assignment: carefully edit writing by fellow students
Reading: TBA

11/1: Hand back edited piece by fellow students and discuss. Homework is to edit your pieces for whatever medium they are being created for.
Visiting artist: kanarinka

11/8: critiques of semester long projets
Reading: TBA

11/15: Performance, scripts, songs: writing for performance.
Visiting artist: Sara Seinberg
Reading assigned: Trinh T. Minh-Ha “Grandma’s Story,” essay on narrativity from FutureCinema, encyclopedia entry,

11/22: Film screening La Jetee…discuss narrativity and how to write narrative for film and video. Give journal assignment for exploration. Time for crits of student projects.
Reading assigned: Fluxus Workbook

11/29: Discuss nonfiction and art: writing criticism, journalism, biography and all forms of nonfiction.
Visiting artist: Margo Kelly
Reading assigned: articles on writing art criticism and nonfiction. Written response: experimental art review. Review a work of art the way you would like your work reviewed: then write a review of your own work.

12/6: More critiques of final projects.
Assignment: write final artist statement for your semester long project

12/13: Final critiques, discuss semester, revisit statements and bios, read artist statement for the work you have done in this class. Put practice in place for after the class ends. Discuss strategies and plans for future text work.