Visual Arts

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Term
Time & Day Offered
Level
Credits
Course Duration

Essays of Walter Benjamin — VA4235.02

Spring 2023
Instructor: Anne Thompson
Credits: 2
The works of German philosopher and cultural theorist Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) endure as sources of fascination, inspiration and critical reflection across disciplines. With a focus on his significance for artists and curators, this seminar looks at selections from Benjamin’s famous and lesser-known writing, from his seminal essay “The Work of Art in the Age of
Visual Arts Literature Society Culture and Thought

Europe and Islam: Art and Architecture of the Mediterranean — AH2114.01

Spring 2023
Instructor: Carly Rudzinski
Credits: 4
This introductory course explores, through the lens of cross-cultural exchange, artistic and architectural production from the late medieval period to the nineteenth century. It considers the Mediterranean and its related regions as dynamic settings where global contacts, prompted by trade, diplomacy, war and conquest, travel, and pilgrimage, strongly shaped material and visual
Visual Arts

Every Day Everyday Climate Change — APA2181.02

Spring 2020
Instructor: Marina Zurkow, MFA Teaching Fellow
Credits: 2
Daily practices connect makers over a duration of time to concepts, issues, and forms we care about. These practices are constrained by a set of guiding principles or frameworks, and are iterative by design. Because of the consistency of work (every day), a daily practice can change us and open us up to new ideas, techniques, and feelings. Daily practice as a concept is used in
CAPA Visual Arts

Examining Space — SCU2214.01

Fall 2024
Instructor: John Umphlett
Credits: 4
This introductory course will investigate basic building techniques and principles behind making Sculpture through experiential learning. Within the first couple of weeks of term we will participate in an Iron Pour. The students will shape wax and prepare sand-molds for participation. The students will also be introduced and immersed within a community of artists off campus.
Visual Arts

Examining Space — SCU2214.01

Fall 2023
Instructor: Carly Rudzinski
Credits: 4
This introductory course will investigate basic building techniques and principles behind making Sculpture through experiential learning. A few weeks into term we will participate in an Iron Pour, understanding the practices of shaping wax and preparing sand-molds for participation. The students will also be introduced and immersed within a community of artists off campus. This
Visual Arts

examining space — SCU2214.01

Fall 2025
Instructor: John Umphlett
Days & Time: TH 8:30am-12:10pm
Credits: 4

Are you interested in taking a closer look at the  immediate and collective spaces that we live in? What are some of the realities that exist around us and why/ how can we build work that pushes against these basic constructs.

This

Sculpture

Exhibition Thematic Exposure — AH4101.01

Spring 2015
Instructor: Andrew Spence
Credits: 4
The primary goal in this class is for each student to create a theoretical thematic exhibition consisting of objects, artifacts, images or anything that has justifiable relevance. Originally born out of a visual art context, broader themes outside of visual art are possible. Students are expected to do independent research using source material from the library and the Internet
Visual Arts

Expanding Fields: Histories and New Practices of Curating the Rural — VA4152.01

Spring 2019
Instructor: Anne Thompson
Credits: 4
Artists and curators have long embraced the southwestern U.S. desert as the landscape equivalent of the sublime yet neutral “white cube.” This course addresses the history of land art and landscape-based institutions alongside current strategies for moving these practices into literal and metaphorical new territories. Lecture-based discussions and research assignments examine
Environment Visual Arts

Experimental Documentary — FV4314.01

Fall 2016
Instructor: Kate Purdie
Credits: 4
This intermediate moving image course will explore experimentation in form and content in non-fiction moving image.  From the earliest experiments in actualities by the Lumiere brothers to the recent homage project “Labour in a Single Shot” including autobiography, memoir, and even recreations, experimental documentaries acknowledge the fact that the very process
Visual Arts

Experimental Filmmaking — FV4307.01

Fall 2013
Instructor: Warren Cockerham
Days & Time: TBA
Credits: 4
This intermediate studio course centers on experimentation with form in moving image making. Students will complete a series of film and video projects exploring approaches and techniques including but not limited to non-narrative, lyrical, abstract, structural, and materialist forms. The course will contextualize contemporary practice within the history of avant-garde and
Visual Arts

Experimental Making in Ceramics — CER4214.01

Spring 2019
Instructor: Barry Bartlett
Credits: 4
This course will investigate the material nature of clay as a medium to create three-dimensional forms. Students will explore the material aspects of clay such as dryness, wetness, mass and scale using a variety of mechanical processes that include extrusion, slab rolling, slip casting and digital fabrication. In doing so, the pieces created will be used to convey ideas of form
Visual Arts

Experimental Making in Ceramics — CER4214.01

Fall 2018
Instructor: Barry Bartlett
Credits: 4
This course will investigate the material nature of clay as a medium to create three-dimensional forms. Students will explore the material aspects of clay such as dryness, wetness, mass, scale and incorporating mix media. We will be using a variety of mechanical processes that include extrusion, slab rolling, slip casting and traditional hand building techniques. In doing so,
Visual Arts

Experimental Making in Ceramics — CER4214.01

Spring 2015
Instructor: Barry Bartlett
Credits: 4
This course will investigate the material nature of clay as a medium to create three-dimensional forms. Students will explore the material aspects of clay such as dryness, wetness, mass and scale using a variety of mechanical processes that include extrusion, slab rolling, slip casting and digital fabrication. In doing so, the pieces created will be used to convey ideas of
Visual Arts

Experimental Narrative in Moving Image — VA4323.01

Spring 2024
Instructor: Beatriz Santiago Muñoz
Credits: 4
Self-reflexive narratives, improvisation, non-linearity, slow cinema, alternative representations of time and space, experimental film grammars, poetic scripts, collective direction, Brechtian techniques.  All of these processes and more will be explored in this hands-on production based course. Working collaboratively and on your peers’ work in various roles is required
Visual Arts

Experimental Narrative in Moving Images — FV4334.01

Spring 2026
Instructor: Beatriz Santiago Muñoz
Days & Time: TH 1:40pm-5:20pm
Credits: 4

Self-reflexive narratives, improvisation, non-linearity, slow cinema, alternative representations of time and space, experimental film grammars, poetic scripts, collective direction, Brechtian techniques.  All of these processes and more will be explored in this hands-on production based course. Working collaboratively and on your peers’ work in various roles is

Film and Video

Experimental Narrative: Film/Video Production — FV4142.01

Spring 2018
Instructor: Kate Purdie
Credits: 4
This is an intermediate production course that will explore experimental narrative structures in film and video art practices. Emphasis will be on analyzing innovative storytelling in film and literary forms as we examine aspects of dramatic production: mise-en-scene, working with actors, script breakdown, storyboards and collaborative production units. Students will be
Visual Arts

Experimental Projects in Ceramics — CER4171.01

Spring 2021
Instructor: Carly Rudzinski
Credits: 4
The process of developing within ceramics a vision of how your work interfaces with contemporary art making practices will be the major focus of this class.  This class is designed to be a combination of research and making that can include ceramic and non-ceramic materials. The class is meant to support the development of continuing advance work and new experimental
Visual Arts

Exploring the White Cube: A New York Intensive — VA4125.01

Spring 2014
Instructor: Elizabeth White
Credits: 2
This class will meet weekly to explore contemporary art exhibitions in New York. We will visit commercial galleries and non-profit art spaces in Midtown, Chelsea, the Lower East Side, and Brooklyn, as well as major museums. Relevant readings will be assigned and short response papers will be required. Students will be responsible for their own expenses, including transportation
Visual Arts

Fake Revolution: Media Culture and Hollywood's Insurrection Fantasy — FV4331.01

Spring 2025
Instructor: Jen Liu
Credits: 2
In this course, we will explore Hollywood's fixation with fictional revolutions as depicted in big budget sci fi and fantasy TV and films throughout the 20th and 21st century, often unified by themes such as the triumph of the underdog, traumatic but narratively low-stakes sacrifices, and totalitarian overlords who bear superficial resemblance to real world geopolitical powers,
Visual Arts Society Culture and Thought

Fashion and Modernism — VA4129.01

Spring 2020
Instructor: J Blackwell
Credits: 4
“Let There Be Fashion, Down With Art” –Max Ernst The rise of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution led to radical shifts in politics and art in the late 19th century. Fashion acts as a powerful analogue to and forecaster of Modernism. Artists such as Henri Matisse, Leon Bakst, Sonia Delaunay and Salvador Dali took note of fashion's nascent agency and created clothing as a
Visual Arts

Fashion and Modernism — DRW4109.01

Spring 2016
Instructor: J Blackwell
Credits: 4
“Let There Be Fashion, Down With Art” –Max Ernst The rise of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution led to radical shifts in politics and art in the late 19th century. Fashion acts as a powerful analogue to and forecaster of Modernism. Artists such as Henri Matisse, Leon Bakst, Sonia Delaunay and Salvador Dali took note of fashion's nascent agency and created clothing as a
Visual Arts

Female Architect / Fictive Archive — VA4130.01

Fall 2019
Instructor: Anne Thompson
Credits: 2
A readings course centered on the Usdan Gallery survey of fictional twentieth-century Czech architect Petra Andrejova-Molnár, created by artist Katarina Burin as a feminist meditation on the absence and erasure of women designers within the modernist canon. Exhibition components such as biographical texts, staged photographs, drawings, furniture, décor, and models provide the
Visual Arts

Feminist Perspective and Practices in Contemporary Art — AH2107.01

Spring 2015
Instructor: Carol Stakenas
Credits: 4
This course will consider how feminist theory has evolved over the past four decades and how artists, curators and scholars of all genders and nationalities, advocate feminism in their practices. To examine its impact on the art world, Feminist Perspectives and Practices in Contemporary Art will explore the feminist movement in the US from the 1970s through its evolution to
Visual Arts

Field Research in Unconventional Space — SCU2128.01

Spring 2022
Instructor: John Umphlett
Credits: 2
This class will push the envelope of closed membrane structure design. A membrane is more than an impermeable skin; it can selectively filter particles, chemicals, light, sound, and smell. A balloon has an expandable latex surface easily manipulated by air and water pressure. However, a rigid fabric material that has a less forgiving response to pressure forced on its walls
Visual Arts