Mark Lecky, UniAddDumThs, 2016, Various materials, dimensions variable, Installation view at MoMA PS1.

Course Books:

Brian O’Doherty – Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space.

Brian O’Doherty – Studio and Cube – On the relationship between where art is made and where it is displayed. (this book is online via the library).

Sketchbook/Journal:

Students will use a sketchbook/journal through this course to record their responses to artworks and museums when off campus. The book should be used quite informally, and can include both writing and drawing. The book may also contain clippings or other related materials that the student deems important to their interest. Students are expected to make notes and documentary drawings (such as plan drawings of galleries, elements of an artwork, etc) that will help when writing responses and reflections. The book should also be used to contain any notes made in class lectures. Students should be prepared to share their work daily.

Written projects:

You will be asked to interact with the exhibits that you see in person through four written formats. Grade breakdown listed here is repeated on the grading rubric page:

1. Announcement (5%)
2. Review (10%)
3. Creative response (10%)
4. Visitor experience project (20%)

Examples of each format will be presented and discussed during the first day of the week in which you will be producing that project.  Your efforts will be workshopped on the last day of that week and will be due the first day of the next week.

The Announcement:

When an exhibition is about to open, galleries and museums distribute an exhibition announcement. This written form is a rigidly structured, containing very specific elements. Writing in this manner is not intuitive, but students will be taught how to read and recreate announcements.

The Review:

An exhibition review is written by an art critic and published in art magazines or art journals. Reviews have their own hierarchy, as students will discover. Reviews are very important to artists, curators, gallerists, and museums because they connect directly to the market. The positive or negative effect of exhibition reviews from different authors or publications will be read, explained and recreated.: students will write reviews of the exhibitions they visit. Reviews will be submitted digitally to instructors.

The Creative Response:

You will choose a short creative format to respond to a work of art or an exhibit (poem, creative non-fiction, personal essay).  Your piece should start with the artwork or exhibit, using it as a platform to offer your own creative response.

The Visitor Experience Project:

The visitor experience project builds on the skills that you have used for the other previous writing projects.  It should include the formal and descriptive elements of the announcement genre for the artwork and its surrounding exhibit you address; it will include a critical evaluation typical of a review, incorporating the artistic vocabulary you have learned so far; and it will offer a thesis that demonstrates your own personal interaction with the artworks and the site-specific experience (similar to the creative piece but acting as a thesis/sense of purpose for your essay).  The final goal will be for you to offer your input on how the object you have chosen should be displayed for visitors and why you think this would enhance the visitors’ experiences of the artwork. This will be a multi-step project that starts with your own visitor experience at the Asian Art Museum. It does require some research, your own creativity, and will allow you to build on what you have learned this term. The project will be due on the Monday after classes are finished.

Engagement and Participation:

An important feature of this class is the ability to talk about artwork cogently and confidently. There will be class time for this element every time we meet. You will be encouraged to use any discipline specific vocabulary you gain through reading and discussion to help you talk about one another’s opinions about artwork. You should also learn to articulate, to the very best of your ability, what ultimately will remain inexpressible in full: that often ephemeral, elemental, ineffable thing that art often has and which can move, inspire, and even stun us. While clarity in class discussion and in written responses will be our aim above all, you should not forget that trying to talk about art sometimes inspires us to make more art in our own descriptions of it.