Visual Arts

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Term
Time & Day Offered
Level
Credits
Course Duration

The Artist as Curator: Exhibition as Medium and the Politics of Display — VA4124.02

Spring 2018
Instructor: Anne Thompson
Credits: 2
Artists throughout history have played signal roles in shifting the parameters around and definitions of exhibition making. This course considers the various ways that artists working in and outside conventional structures have shaped art history and radicalized curatorial practice. Readings and assignments will cover artist groups and collaborative networks; artists who create
Visual Arts

The Arts of Spain and the Politics of Cultural Heritage — AH4116.01

Spring 2018
Instructor: Razan Francis
Credits: 4
Not long after Muslims had conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula in 711, the Spanish Christians declared their intent to reconquer the land for Christianity. With the fall of Granada in 1492 and the subsequent repression of Jews and Muslims, the reconquest was finally complete. However, the many centuries of coexistence and mutual influence meant that the art and architecture
Visual Arts Society Culture and Thought

The Baroque Imaginary — AH4117.01

Fall 2017
Instructor: Vanessa Lyon
Credits: 4
The concept of the Baroque has long fascinated—and incensed—historians, literary critics, and philosophers. Often aligned with an artistic ‘Golden Age’ exemplified by the complex and discomfiting works of Bernini, Rubens, Velázquez, and Vermeer, the Baroque has also been associated with ruinous decadence and excess, irrationality, preciosity, and effeminacy—rhetorically charged
Visual Arts

The Baroque Imaginary — AH4117.01

Fall 2024
Instructor: Vanessa Lyon
Credits: 4
The Baroque has fascinated--and incensed--historians, cultural critics, and philosophers from Walter Benjamin and Erwin Panofsky to Gilles Deleuze and Peter Greenaway. Often aligned with an artistic ‘Golden Age’ exemplified by the complex and discomfiting works of Bernini, Rubens, Velázquez, and Vermeer, the Baroque has also been associated with ruinous decadence and excess,
Visual Arts

The Big Picture: Stewarding Artists' Legacies (FWT Course) — VA4406.01

Spring 2022
Instructor: Liz White
Credits: 1
What forces and individuals contribute to shaping an artist’s legacy? What happens to all of the objects, materials, and correspondence that artists create during their lifetime? What is a catalogue raisonné? This one-credit module will introduce students to the nascent field of artist-endowed foundations, and invite the consideration of philosophical and creative questions,
Visual Arts

The Big Picture: Stewarding Artists’ Legacies (FWT Course) — VA4406.01

Spring 2023
Instructor: Liz White
Credits: 1
What forces and individuals contribute to shaping an artist’s legacy? What happens to all of the objects, materials, and correspondence that artists create during their lifetime? What is a catalogue raisonné? This one-credit remote module will introduce students to the nascent field of artist-endowed foundations, and invite the consideration of philosophical and creative
Visual Arts

The Big Picture: Stewarding Artists’ Legacies (FWT Course) — VA4406.01

Spring 2024
Instructor: Liz White
Credits: 1
What forces and individuals contribute to shaping an artist’s legacy? What happens to all of the objects, materials, and correspondence that artists create during their lifetime? What is a catalogue raisonné? This one-credit remote module will introduce students to the nascent field of artist-endowed foundations, and invite the consideration of philosophical and creative
Visual Arts

The Big Picture: Stewarding Artists’ Legacies (FWT Course) — VA4406.01

Spring 2026
Instructor: Liz White
Days & Time: TBA
Credits: 1

What forces and individuals contribute to shaping an artist’s legacy? What happens to all of the objects, materials, and correspondence that artists create during their lifetime? What is a catalogue raisonné? This one-credit remote module will introduce students to legacy work and to the nascent field of artist-endowed foundations, inviting the consideration of philosophical

Visual Arts

The Big Picture: Stewarding Artists’ Legacies (FWT Course) — VA4406.01

Spring 2025
Instructor: Liz White
Credits: 1
What forces and individuals contribute to shaping an artist’s legacy? What happens to all of the objects, materials, and correspondence that artists create during their lifetime? What is a catalogue raisonné? This one-credit remote module will introduce students to the nascent field of artist-endowed foundations, and invite the consideration of philosophical and creative
Visual Arts

The Body Acoustic: Toward a Sense of Place — DAN2112.01

Fall 2021
Instructor: Dana Reitz
Credits: 2
How do we physically understand the spaces we are in? How is each of us affected by them? How do we develop a deeper sense of place? The Body Acoustic aims to heighten awareness of the reciprocal relationship between the built environment and our senses. Light and sound, distances, height, volume, surfaces, angles/curves and a/symmetries all affect one’s movement through
Dance Drama Visual Arts

The Chip Instrument — MCO2124.02

Spring 2017
Instructor: Nicholas Brooke
Credits: 1
Arduino interfaces have increased exponentially the ability to create stand-alone instruments and installations that have a visual immediacy while avoiding the use of outboard computers. We’ll learn Arduino code and the possibilities of small scale physical computing, from running solenoids and relays on mechanical instruments to turning the Arduino and other small circuits
Music Visual Arts

The Culinary Triangle and Ceramic Pot — APA2276.02

Fall 2020
Instructor: Yoko Inoue
Credits: 2
What is the transformative power of food and how did the invention of pottery contribute to innovations in cooking? We will look at how anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss’s culinary triangle analyzes three interrelated aspects of the food: raw, cooked and rotted and mechanisms of natural and cultural transformations of food. We will also examine how the evolution of ceramic pot
CAPA Visual Arts

The Curatorial: Multiple Variations — VA4208.01

Spring 2021
Instructor: Anne Thompson
Credits: 4
This class will curate an experimental exhibition of prints, photographs, artist books and other editions from Bennington College collections. In taking the multiple—or reproducible object—as a starting point, we open up a field that connects Crossett Library with campus art holdings and allows for strategizing about expanded exhibition structures. After an initial survey of
Visual Arts

The Curatorial: Your Top Ten — VA2230.01

Spring 2024
Instructor: Anne Thompson
Credits: 2
This class explores curatorial thinking through the process of compiling a Top Ten, a media staple that invites cultural producers to discuss ten things they like or recommend. Creating a Top Ten, like curating, involves making selections within parameters including (but not limited to) history, context, aesthetics, politics, style and preference. A good Top Ten is a cohesive
Visual Arts

The Curatorial: Your Top Ten — VA2230.02

Fall 2021
Instructor: Anne Thompson
Credits: 2
This class explores curatorial thinking through the process of compiling a Top Ten, a media staple that invites cultural producers to discuss ten things they like or recommend. Creating a Top Ten, like curating, involves making selections within parameters including (but not limited to) history, context, aesthetics, politics, style and preference. A good Top Ten is a cohesive
Visual Arts

The Curatorial: Your Top Ten — CUR2230.01

Spring 2025
Instructor: Carly Rudzinski
Credits: 2
This class explores curatorial thinking through the process of compiling a Top Ten, a media staple that invites cultural producers to discuss ten things they like or recommend. Creating a Top Ten, like curating, involves making selections within parameters including (but not limited to) history, context, aesthetics, politics, style and preference. A good Top Ten is a cohesive
Visual Arts

The Design Process: Concept - Analysis - Diagram - Presentation — ARC4212.01

Spring 2015
Instructor: Karolina Kawiaka
Credits: 4
In this class students will develop and refine their design process through a series of sketch problems and design exercises. They will become familiar with the work of important architects and architectural writing and its role in creating culture, which will give inspiration and a sense of context for their own work. Analysis, CAD, and presentation skills will be advanced
Visual Arts

The Digital Photo Book — PHO4130.01

Fall 2013
Instructor: Jonathan Kline
Days & Time: TBA
Credits: 4
From photography's inception, photo books have been critical to the medium and have provided a way to understand our culture's use of images. In 1844 William Henry Fox Talbot utilized the book form with the first lens-based book, 'The Pencil of Nature'. In this course, students will explore the photo-based artist book as a vehicle for self-expression. A a variety of approaches
Visual Arts

The Digital Photo Book — PHO4130.01

Fall 2015
Instructor: Jonathan Kline
Days & Time: TBA
Credits: 4
From photography’s inception, photo books have been critical to the medium and have provided a way to understand our culture’s use of images. In 1844 William Henry Fox Talbot utilized the book form with the first lens-based book, ‘The Pencil of Nature’. In this course, students will explore the photo-based artist book as a vehicle for self-expression.  A variety of
Visual Arts

The Essay Film — FV4319.01

Spring 2017
Instructor: Erika Mijlin
Credits: 2
An intermediate 7-week production course. Students will enter with a concept for a project ready to begin producing, and to complete by the end of the course.  The essay film has a long tradition as a film form - often departing stylistically from the social issue concerns often associated with documentary film, the essay film is a focused meditation around a theme. It may
Visual Arts

The Experimental Narrative — FV4229.01

Fall 2014
Instructor: warren cockerham
Days & Time: TBA
Credits: 4
This intermediate visual arts studio course will explore the hybrid approach of experimental film practice and moving-image story telling. The course's focus will be on cinematic language, visual storytelling, and audio-visual correspondence rather than performance and dialogue centered narrative. Students will utilize classical and non-traditional methods of pre-production
Visual Arts

The Fine Art of Physical Computing — DA4261.01

Spring 2016
Instructor: Robert Ransick
Credits: 4
This course aims to extend our notions of the creative fine art potential of computers by exploring uses beyond standard mouse/keyboard/screen interaction. Moving away from these restrictions the course introduces students to basic electronics and programming an Arduino (microcontroller) to read sensors placed in physical objects or the environment. Projects are designed to
Visual Arts