Week 1

Thursday:

Introductions

Syllabus

Tour of lab and equipment

Class blog – invites, demo post

Lecture: Intro to Conceptual Art

Intro to Conceptual Art and art forms we explore in Experimental Studio:

ASSIGNMENT: Make a KILOMETRE*

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Bring in a KILOMETRE next week.

Document a kilometre. Walk it. Sculpt it. Talk it. Write it. Draw it. Video record it. Perform it. Get your mom to perform it. Conjure a kilometre in any media.

It could be a walk down the street, a path down an intestine, a line going up into the air, a kilometre’s worth of rocks. It can be a kilometre made of chewing gum. Made of telephone conversations. Made of complaints. Made of a walk with a cat. Made with light. It can be a distance between two points. It can be imagined, traced, documented, listed, performed, evidenced on the bottom of your shoe, rolled up into a ball.

Make sure to measure your kilometre in some way, and be prepared to discuss your process, and justify how it is precisely a kilometre. Consider your materials, and just how your specific kilometre gives us a new way to think about or experience this abstract concept of measurement.

You have up to 5 minutes next week to present your kilometre to the class.

Bring it, or show us documentation of it.

IT MUST BE PRECISELY A KILOMETRE – EXPLAIN HOW YOU KNOW IT IS ONE.

All kilometres are due for discussion on Thursday Sept. 14 next week.

Week 11

MONDAY: Complete Conceptual Portrait Critique

Finish blog posts by next week!

WEDNESDAY: Artist Buttons Lecture and Assignment:

Artist Buttons

ASSIGNMENT: Make your own ARTIST BUTTONS*

Since the 1950’s artists have been making inexpensive, accessible works in a series/edition intended for wider distribution than singular objects in museums. These have served to critique commercial/market aspects of the art world, and the myth of an expensive “original”. Artist multiples have been made as prints, small manufactured sculptures, pins, artist books, magazines, postcards, t-shirts, zines and other commercially reproducible media. They are sometimes given away for free, traded or sold for low cost in bookstores, independent art galleries, libraries, convenience stores, activists’ gatherings, and more.

Artist multiples are sometimes playful and mischievous – exploring new and surprising manifestations of commercial media – and often convey ideas and meaning against expected commercial, social, and political goals.

Develop some ideas for unique, artist buttons and post your thoughts and drawings/designs on the blog.

Consider how artists use conceptual strategies to make buttons into art including:

a button series that features an unexpected collection
a button that acknowledges its own button-ness/materiality, is self-conscious and knows it’s a button
buttons that work together to create a final work
a button that creates social interaction
a button that gives instructions/provokes
a button that reveals things usually hidden
a button or series that completes a sculpture
a button that speaks to the body directly, that knows it’s on a body
a button that creates a performance act by wearing it

In class we will learn to use the button maker together with the appropriate materials. Create a single design, or a series of buttons.

Consider fonts, design, colours, images to make a professional quality artist multiple. You may make up to 15-20 buttons for your final project, plus a few tests.

*See schedule for work time and critique dates.