Visual and critical studies courses at SVA are designed to engage and challenge students in areas beyond a single medium of expression and creation. The dynamic course offerings reflect our rapidly expanding visual culture and the increasing urgency to educate students about all aspects of visual experience. This semester, course offerings include Hip Hop in Contemporary Art, The Cinema of Werner Herzog, Visible and Invisible: The Lens as Interpretation of Reality, and Artist as Critic.

 

Gender Trouble

Course Details
  • Course Number AHC-2191-A
  • Day(s) M
  • Dates Jun 03 - Aug 05
  • Hours 06:00PM - 09:30PM
  • Ceus 3.50
  • Cost 470.00
  • Additional Fees 0.00
  • Status Open
  • Location To Be Announced

Description

Radical creative inquiry and the 'aesthetics of resistance' that occur when the gendered body speaks in the visual will be investigated in this course. Presentations of slide and video work by key contemporary and historical figures will help students situate their creative production in relationship to contemporary discourses around race, class, gender and sexuality in art. How do we make sense of feminist art of the past and present-its contradictions, slogans and symbols? What content is lost in translation during art's shift from private practice to public locus? Students will complete reading assignments by a range of critical theorists, including Hélène Cixous, Julia Kristeva, Elizabeth Grosz, Tricia Rose, bell hooks, Fred Moten, Susan Sontag and Slavoj Zizek, as well as bring in work in any media for weekly critique. This course features a special section on hip-hop culture and several guest lecturers.

Instructor

Katie A. Cercone

Visual artist, curator, writer

Education:

BA, Lewis & Clark College; MFA, School of Visual Arts

Group exhibitions include:

C24 Gallery, DODGEgallery, VOXPOPULI, Apexart, White Box Gallery, Honfleur Gallery, Craftswoman House, Local Project 

Publications include:

Bitch Magazine, N. Paradoxa, Revolt Magazine, Women’s Art Journal, Public Art Dialogue, PLAYspace Magazine, Utne Reader

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Art and the City: Exploring New York Through Its Art Scene

Course Details
  • Course Number AHC-2361-A
  • Day(s) T
  • Dates Jun 04 - Jul 02
  • Hours 05:00PM - 08:00PM
  • Ceus 1.50
  • Cost 210.00
  • Additional Fees 0.00
  • Status Open
  • Location To Be Announced

Description

This course will offer a unique glance at New York City through the candid history of its art scene from the 1900s to today. The course will unpack the moments and places that have shaped generations of experimental art in an ever-changing city. We will study and visit New York's famous artsy neighborhoods while focusing on artists, trends and cultural events that played a major role in shaping the urban dynamics. How have political, social, technological and demographic developments in America's metropolis shaped the art scene, and how were they reflected in it? To answer this question, students will travel across neighborhoods and decades-from the Armory Show of 1913 on the Upper East Side, through the late 1960s downtown home of the artistic counterculture, all the way to today's art hubs from Chelsea to Bushwick. The course will combine in-class lectures with walking tours of the neighborhoods studied.

Instructor

Ofri Cnaani

Fine artist

Education:

MFA, Hunter College

One-person exhibitions include:

MoMA PS1; BMW Guggenheim Lab; Fisher Art Museum, University of Southern California, Los Angeles; Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel; Haifa Museum of Art, Israel; Network of Lombardy Contemporary Art Museums, Italy; Kunsthalle Galapagos; Andrea Meislin Gallery; Braverman Gallery, Tel Aviv; Pack Gallery, Milan

Group exhibitions include:

Moscow Bienniale of Contemporary Art; The Kitchen; Bronx Museum of the Arts; Kunsthalle Wien; Arnolfini, Bristol, U.K.; Tel Aviv Museum of Art; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; International Triennale of Contemporary Art, Prague

Awards include:

Six Points Fellowship, America-Israel Cultural Foundation; Reserach Award, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute; Artist in the Marketplace, Bronx Museum of the Arts; Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation

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Sites Unseen: Memory, Place and Identity

Course Details
  • Course Number AHC-2367-A
  • Day(s) T
  • Dates Jul 09 - Aug 06
  • Hours 05:00PM - 08:00PM
  • Ceus 1.50
  • Cost 210.00
  • Additional Fees 0.00
  • Status Open
  • Location To Be Announced

Description

This course will look at artists, designers and architects who transform spaces and places by using dynamic rich media. We will examine visual representations of both personal and collective memories, which reintroduce forgotten histories and marginalized communities. This course will use New York City as its landscape and will explore the urban sphere, hoping to charge the physical and theoretical space between it and the classroom. Through critical discussion, lectures and site research, students will gain a fresh look at site-specific art that makes use of emerging technologies. Topics will include: contemporary trends in site-specific art and new media, urban screens and urban media surfaces, public memory in public spaces, augmented space, the city as interface, heterotopian spatiality and retelling the city's history, among others. We will engage with international artists and organizations such as Jenny Holzer, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Shimon Attie, Graffiti Research Lab, Institute for Applied Autonomy, Improv Everywhere, Urbanscreen, Klip collective, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Matthias Wermke, as well as the writings of Michel Foucault, Lev Manovich, Natalie Jeremijenko, Mirjam Struppek, Lewis Mumford, Paul Martin Lester, Simon Sheikh and Susanne Jaschko, among others.

Instructor

Ofri Cnaani

Fine artist

Education:

MFA, Hunter College

One-person exhibitions include:

MoMA PS1; BMW Guggenheim Lab; Fisher Art Museum, University of Southern California, Los Angeles; Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel; Haifa Museum of Art, Israel; Network of Lombardy Contemporary Art Museums, Italy; Kunsthalle Galapagos; Andrea Meislin Gallery; Braverman Gallery, Tel Aviv; Pack Gallery, Milan

Group exhibitions include:

Moscow Bienniale of Contemporary Art; The Kitchen; Bronx Museum of the Arts; Kunsthalle Wien; Arnolfini, Bristol, U.K.; Tel Aviv Museum of Art; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; International Triennale of Contemporary Art, Prague

Awards include:

Six Points Fellowship, America-Israel Cultural Foundation; Reserach Award, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute; Artist in the Marketplace, Bronx Museum of the Arts; Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation

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Hip Hop in Contemporary Art

Course Details
  • Course Number AHC-2463-CE
  • Day(s) T
  • Dates Jun 04 - Aug 13
  • Hours 06:00PM - 10:10PM
  • Ceus 4.50
  • Cost 470.00
  • Additional Fees 0.00
  • Status Open
  • Location To Be Announced

Description

Hip hop shapes today's visual culture-from magazines, clothing and design to the art world itself. But what is it? Many of the elements of the culture can be traced back the early 1970s with graffiti on trains, and new forms of street dance, poetry and DJing coming out of the Bronx. An Afrocentric street culture became a new language that spoke to the world. Beginning with the explosion in the '80s with artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Fab 5 Freddy and Keith Haring to the present with Kehinde Wiley, Renee Cox, Hank Willis Thomas, Sanford Biggers and Luis Gispert, hip hop broke race and class barriers in the visual arts on a global scale by fusing the pop sensibilities of Warhol with radical African- American aesthetics of abstract style, repetition and representation. The course will combine lectures and discussions, slides shows, exhibitions and readings, as well as writing assignments on topics covered in class.
NOTE: This course may be taken for undergraduate credit. Please refer to AHD-2463-CE in the credit courses section of this website for details.

Instructor

Charlie Ahearn

Filmmaker

Education:

BA, Colgate University

Author, photographer:

Wild Style: The Sampler. Co-author, photographer, Yes, Yes, Y'all: An Oral History of Hip-Hop's First Decade

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Video Trash and Treasures: Camp, B and Cult Movies and Television

Course Details
  • Course Number VCC-2359-CE
  • Day(s) M
  • Dates Jun 03 - Aug 05
  • Hours 06:00PM - 10:10PM
  • Ceus 4.50
  • Cost 470.00
  • Additional Fees 0.00
  • Status Open
  • Location To Be Announced

Description

Low-budget films have been part of the cinematic landscape since the early decades of the film industry, initially serving as opening acts for theatrical features, and eventually developing their own identity. Though often disregarded by mainstream audiences, many B Westerns, horror movies and sci-fi thrillers have come to be appreciated for their campy melodramatic qualities, and have inspired filmmakers to take a cue from their ingeniously off-beat, low-budget tactics. This course will examine the appeal of lowbudget, camp and cult films and discuss their value as cultural artifacts worthy of our respect and admiration. We will also consider the meaning and implication of low-budget productions in our current cultural climate, with the affordability of digital video and the proliferation of modern trash including reality TV. In addition to composing responses to screened films and discussion topics such as authenticity, exploitation, irony and novelty, we will also purposefully concoct B material through group and individual assignments. Screenings will include works by Russ Meyer, Roger Corman, John Waters, George Kuchar and Troma.
NOTE: This course may be taken for undergraduate credit. Please refer to VCD-2359-CE in the credit courses section of this website for details.

Instructor

Erica Magrey

Visual artist, performer

Education:

BFA, summa cum laude, University of Hartford; MFA, School of Visual Arts

Performances, Screenings and exhibitions include:

The Kitchen; Spectacle Theater; Freight + Volume; Socrates Sculpture Park; Kaskadenkondensator, Basel, Switzerland; Horton Gallery; Dixon Place; E.S.P. TV; STADIUM; Field Projects; Starlight Cinema, Madison; Magic Pictures, Philadelphia; Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts, Miami

Publications include:

Kunst Bulletin, The New York Times, Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail, The Art of Making Dances, Beautiful/Decay

Awards and honors include:

New York Foundation for the Arts. Artist residency: International Exchange and Studio Program, Basel

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The Art of Perfume: A Fragrance Development Workshop

Course Details
  • Course Number VSC-2144-A
  • Day(s) T
  • Dates Jul 02 - Aug 06
  • Hours 06:30PM - 09:30PM
  • Ceus 1.50
  • Cost 210.00
  • Additional Fees 50.00
  • Status Open
  • Location To Be Announced

Description

This course will investigate the artistic language of olfactory exploration by creating fragrance from perfume oils and natural oils, as inspired by works of contemporary artists. We will explore the evocative nature of both art and perfume and, in so doing, see the power and allure of scent as an artistic medium. The connection between fragrance to contemporary art, and the influence of this relationship to art and culture will be addressed. Inspired by contemporary music, fine arts, performance and film works, students will be encouraged to express the works viewed via the medium of fragrance, through the formulation of scents. Additionally, each student will create a bottle design, packaging, advertising copy and social media forum for his or her final project, and will present a finished fragrance.

Instructor

Alexis Karl

Owner, Scent by Alexis; co-owner, Cherry Bomb Killer Perfume; multimedia artist

One-person exhibitions include:

Envoy Gallery, Aqualis Gallery

Performances at:

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art

Clients include:

Urban Outfitters, Henri Bendel, Fred Segal, Indie Scent

Publications include:

Elle, Seventeen, Time Out New York, Lucky, Women’s Wear Daily, Allure

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Contemporary Painting Lab: Artists and Techniques of the 21st Century

Course Details
  • Course Number VSC-2237-CE
  • Day(s) M
  • Dates Jun 03 - Aug 05
  • Hours 06:00PM - 10:10PM
  • Ceus 4.50
  • Cost 470.00
  • Additional Fees 0.00
  • Status Open
  • Location To Be Announced

Description

How does Ed Ruscha achieve his trademark sunset-like fade? Or Gerhard Richter his dreamy, cinematic blur? What might a painter like Dana Schutz do to make an irresistibly juicy brushstroke.or Alex Katz an unfussy line? How do hard edges, transparency, luminosity and distinctive mark-making affect the tone of a painting, and how are these effects best achieved? In this course, we will look to contemporary painters as guides for answering questions about how to create striking compositions by the most relevant methods possible. From taping and scraping to glazing, layering and trompe l'oeil tricks, we'll pinpoint technical solutions that align with each student's conceptual goals. Open to both experienced painters and those relatively new to the medium, thematic projects will be assigned each session. Included will be presentations on contemporary artists to foster a dialogue about possibilities for painting.
NOTE: This course may be taken for undergraduate credit. Please refer to VSD-2237-CE in the credit courses section of this website for details.

Instructor

Emily Weiner

Visual artist; art writer

Education:

BA, cum laude, Barnard College; MFA, School of Visual Arts

Professional experience includes:

Staff writer, Time Out New York; culture page reporter, Santiago Times

Group exhibitions include:

Grizzly Grizzly, Philadelphia; The Banff Centre, Canada; Camac Centre d'Art, Marnay-sur-Seine, France; Visual Arts Gallery; Louise McCagg Gallery, Barnard College; Concrete Utopia; X Initiative; Emerald Green Library; Artists Space; The Phatory LLC;  Clifton's Brookdale, Los Angeles; Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia; Nancy Margolis Gallery

Publications include:

Artforum, Domus, RES Art World/World Art, Artslant, ducts.org, ARTnews, Visual Arts Journal, Museo

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Capturing Life with the Camera Obscura

Course Details
  • Course Number VSC-2434-A
  • Day(s) W
  • Dates Jun 05 - Aug 07
  • Hours 06:00PM - 09:00PM
  • Ceus 2.50
  • Cost 335.00
  • Additional Fees 0.00
  • Status Open
  • Location To Be Announced

Description

The Latin words "camera" and "obscura" used together describe a darkened vaulted chamber or room. A camera obscura is a darkened space where a small beam of reflected light from the outside world projects that light as an image in the space. The principle of the camera obscura dates to about 450 BCE when Mozi, a Chinese philosopher, referred to the device as a "locked treasure room." This course is designed to unlock those treasures. Students will learn to build their own camera obscura using a variety of materials and objects to view and capture these images through drawing and various photographic means. Through experimentation and the referencing of the historical works of Caravaggio, Vermeer, and others, students will develop an understanding of the camera obscura and its possibilities. Using their own device and a combination of photographic papers and films, digital capture and hand drawing, students will develop a portfolio of images unique to the camera obscura.

Instructor

Paul D'Innocenzo

Photographer, painter

Clients include:

Random House, Bantam, Doubleday, Grove Atlantic, BMG, Arista, BlueNote Records, RCA, Atlantic Records

Publications include:

Cosmopolitan, Vogue, GQ, Time, Newsweek, Jazziz

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  • Wednesday, May 8, 2013

    Northern Lights

    Northern Lights

    Keith Mayerson just opened his sixth solo show at Derek Eller Gallery.  Titled My American Dream, the show is a narrative series that consolidates Keith’s autobiographical experience with his...

  • Tuesday, May 7, 2013

    Weld Done

    Weld Done

    Check out How Things Are Made, curated by Sam Gordon, at Spot Welders.  Spot Welders is a busy post-production studio in a new space designed by 1100 Architects with custom furniture by Roy...

  • Thursday, April 25, 2013

    See Into You

    See Into You

    Tonight! CCNY Conversation Series Keren Moscovitch in a conversation with Allen Frame about Me Into You and book signing! Keren Moscovitch, "Last Night," 2010 Thursday, April 25, 2013,...

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