Israel Aten

This drawing studio serves as a broad introduction to historical and contemporary drawing practices. This course presents drawing as an organizer of thought, experience, and image. Students will investigate a full range of drawing materials and supports. Lectures and exercises introduce various concepts of drawing, possibly including illusionistic form and space, gesture and expressive mark-making, or collage and found imagery, depending on the instructor?s emphasis. Designed to accommodate many skill levels, students can explore various creative strategies through technical drawing exercises, material explorations, and individual projects. Structured classroom critiques will bring drawing concepts into personal student work.

How big is big? Does the size of a drawing alter our ideas of what we?re about while we?re producing it? How do relationships of internal scale alter our sense of the surrounding space, and how do the sizes of the materials and the support alter our own awareness of scale? In this course we will explore the potential for large format drawing in the perceptual, material, narrative and conceptual senses. We will work towards expanding notions of Large, Format, Studio and Drawing. We will work towards specificity and developing each student's individual concerns. Bring your ambition, you'll need it. Most time in class will be spent working on studio projects, which will be supplemented by museum visits, slide lectures, student led reading discussions and presentations, and in depth critique. Readings and artists looked at will vary, but will typically include texts which attempt a broad overview of the state of drawing within the field of contemporary art like Vitamin D2 and Drawing Now: Eight Propositions, and include contemporary artists working with drawing at ambitious scale such as Toba Khedoori, Amy Sillman, and William Kentridge, and more historical examples like Willem de Kooning, Cy Twombly, Lee Krasner, and Jasper Johns. There will be a long form mid-term critique and a shorter final critique. Students will be expected to complete multiple large scale works for each.

This drawing studio serves as a broad introduction to historical and contemporary drawing practices. This course presents drawing as an organizer of thought, experience, and image. Students will investigate a full range of drawing materials and supports. Lectures and exercises introduce various concepts of drawing, possibly including illusionistic form and space, gesture and expressive mark-making, or collage and found imagery, depending on the instructor?s emphasis. Designed to accommodate many skill levels, students can explore various creative strategies through technical drawing exercises, material explorations, and individual projects. Structured classroom critiques will bring drawing concepts into personal student work.

This course examines forms of critique and post critique. It will interpret artwork within contemporary and historical political and philosophical arguments. It will also address and evaluate specific modes of interpretation and critique, including forms shaped by institutional, intellectual, and in some cases vernacular histories. Active participation in discussions and in weekly critiques is expected. Class presentations on selected reading will also be required.

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.