PAINTING / PRINTMAKING, Art 524b, Pictorial Needs: Materials and Techniques
C220 GREEN Thursday 2:00-5:00PM

This course will provide an integrated materially based look at Painting that seeks to overcome the false dichotomy of subject matter/ technique or even form and content. Too often paintings are looked at as disembodied images, while materials and techniques are addressed without taking pictorial needs into account. We will approach both historical and contemporary works of art as handmade objects where particular materials and processes are utilized toward specific goals. Traditionally discovery of new materials opened up unimagined before possibilities for artistic practices, which led to establishment of new pictorial facts. Simultaneously ideological demands and pictorial needs of the age prompted experimentation with materials both familiar and unfamiliar creating new techniques and ultimately forms. This course will give students a greater understanding of a construction of a painting and help them see if the needs of their own work are answered by their materials and resulting practices. There will be group and individual critiques, slide lectures as well as visits to museums and galleries including access to the Ralph Mayer Resource archive. Meets bi-weekly for 1.5 credits. Matvey Levenstein.