Israel Aten

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.

In this course, you will be provided with practical and analytic tools with which to engage in an art world that extends globally and is deeply enmeshed in digital platforms. Each artist's relationship to this field is produced through our personal desires, hopes, assumptions, and ideas of success: articulating this highly individual profile will serve as our starting place. From there, we will consider the ways paintings and other art objects become data that is circulated, analyzed, and commodified. Through an examination of the networks- cultural, social, and economic- that characterize the present-day fields of art, we will develop strategies for building professional relationships, self-promotion, and presenting your work in public settings. Approaches to websites, artwork documentation, writing (bios, CVs, artist statements, modes of art criticism), business cards, budgeting, packing and shipping artwork, and studio upkeep will be covered in the form of class lectures and discussions, supplemented with homework assignments. The outcomes of this course are manifold: artists will make informed, researched decisions about the ways they want to participate in the world, while also learning basic skillsets as best practices for a sustainable, long-term career.

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.