Courses

This course delves into drawing as an expansive, exploratory practice that underpins all forms of visual art. Designed primarily as a hands-on workshop, the class is enriched with slide lectures, video presentations, and field trips. Throughout the semester, students will engage in individual and group critiques, fostering dialogue about their work. Beginning with still life and progressing to drawings of artworks, artifacts, and figure studies, the course investigates drawing as a dynamic practice connected to a wide array of visual cultures.

This course delves into drawing as an expansive, exploratory practice that underpins all forms of visual art. Designed primarily as a hands-on workshop, the class is enriched with slide lectures, video presentations, and field trips. Throughout the semester, students will engage in individual and group critiques, fostering dialogue about their work. Beginning with still life and progressing to drawings of artworks, artifacts, and figure studies, the course investigates drawing as a dynamic practice connected to a wide array of visual cultures.

According to the 2022 one-year American Community Survey (ACS) of the U.S. Census Bureau, New York City’s second largest population comprising about 29% of the total can be identified as Latine–that is, the people hailing from diverse areas of the region known as Latin America, from Tierra del Fuego to today’s Mexico and the Caribbean. Yet, despite the steady and increasing Latine presence in New York City at least since the nineteenth-century, Latine representation within NYC and, more broadly, the US American cultural scene has been an ongoing battle or even a series of different battles waged by individuals and groups with diverse understanding of what Latine or Latin American art means, and why and how it should be presented and shown, to whom, and to what ends. This summer class examines these battles through the study of history and present of self-identified Latin American and Latine arts organizations in New York from museums through varied non-for-profit and grassroots arts institutions to commercial art galleries, exposing students to a comprehensive cross-section of the art ecosystem in order to develop a nuanced understanding of the dynamic relationships between different constituencies that institutions crystalize: patrons, administrators, artists, and diverse publics. In other words, who do the institutions represent and to whom?

Some of the institutions studied and visited during the course will be The Hispanic Society Museum and Library, murals at the New School, The Americas Society, El Museo del Barrio, The Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Research Institute for the Study of Art from Latin America at the Museum of Modern Art, ISLAA–Institute for Studies on Latin American Art, The Clemente–Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Education Center, CCCADI–The Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, En Foco, Hutchinson Modern and Contemporary, and Ruiz-Healey Art. Through readings, site visits, and discussions with representatives of these institutions, students will gain a thorough understanding of the evolving definitions and facets of Latine culture and their continued vital role in NYC and US at large. They will also become familiar with a wide range of visual expressions in different media, spanning colonial times to the present.

According to the 2022 one-year American Community Survey (ACS) of the U.S. Census Bureau, New York City’s second largest population comprising about 29% of the total can be identified as Latine–that is, the people hailing from diverse areas of the region known as Latin America, from Tierra del Fuego to today’s Mexico and the Caribbean. Yet, despite the steady and increasing Latine presence in New York City at least since the nineteenth-century, Latine representation within NYC and, more broadly, the US American cultural scene has been an ongoing battle or even a series of different battles waged by individuals and groups with diverse understanding of what Latine or Latin American art means, and why and how it should be presented and shown, to whom, and to what ends. This summer class examines these battles through the study of history and present of self-identified Latin American and Latine arts organizations in New York from museums through varied non-for-profit and grassroots arts institutions to commercial art galleries, exposing students to a comprehensive cross-section of the art ecosystem in order to develop a nuanced understanding of the dynamic relationships between different constituencies that institutions crystalize: patrons, administrators, artists, and diverse publics. In other words, who do the institutions represent and to whom?

Some of the institutions studied and visited during the course will be The Hispanic Society Museum and Library, murals at the New School, The Americas Society, El Museo del Barrio, The Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Research Institute for the Study of Art from Latin America at the Museum of Modern Art, ISLAA–Institute for Studies on Latin American Art, The Clemente–Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Education Center, CCCADI–The Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, En Foco, Hutchinson Modern and Contemporary, and Ruiz-Healey Art. Through readings, site visits, and discussions with representatives of these institutions, students will gain a thorough understanding of the evolving definitions and facets of Latine culture and their continued vital role in NYC and US at large. They will also become familiar with a wide range of visual expressions in different media, spanning colonial times to the present.

Coming on the heels of the MoMA's blockbuster exhibit, this seminar will trace the rise and fall of Abstract Expressionism, from its pre-World War II precipitates in Europe (Surrealism) and in America (Regionalism), to the crucial moment when, as scholar Serge Guilbaut has argued, New York 'stole' the idea of modern art, and finally, through the decade when Pop Art rendered Abstract Expressionism obsolete. Although special emphasis will be given to Jackson Pollock, whose persona and work reside at the literal and figurative center of the movement, we will also look closely at works by Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Willem DeKooning, Lee Krasner, Louise Bourgeois, Helen Frankenthaler, Eva Hesse, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and Cy Twombly. Class lectures and presentations will be supplemented with trips to New York's world-renowned museums.

Through an examination of painting, sculpture, decorative arts, photography. fashion and visual culture of the United States from 1750 to 1914, the course will explore how American artists responded to and operated within the wider world, while grappling with issues of identity at home. Addressing themes shared in common across national boundaries, the class will consider how American art participated in the revolutions and reforms of the "long" nineteenth century, and how events of the period continue to impact our country today. The period witnessed the emergence of new technologies for creating, using and circulating images and objects, the expansion and transformation of exhibition and viewing practices, and the rise of new artistic institutions, as well as the metamorphosis of the United States from its colonial origins to that of a world power, including the radical changes that occurred during the Civil War.  With many sessions taking place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the class will investigate how American art engaged with international movements while constructing national identity during a period of radical transformation both at home and abroad.

Readings in translation and discussion of texts of Middle Eastern and Indian origin. Readings may include the Quran, Islamic philosophy, Sufi poetry, the Upanishads, Buddhist sutras, the Bhagavad Gita, Indian epics and drama, and Gandhis Autobiography.

A topical introduction to the architecture and arts of the Islamic cultures of North Africa, Spain, Arabia, Turkey, Iran and Central Asia, from their origins in late antiquity to 1400 CE. A wide variety of media will be explored as we look at artistic accomplishments in both the religious and secular realms. We will study architectural monuments from palaces to mosques as well as small-scale luxury items like textiles, metalwork, ceramics, and illuminated manuscripts.  There will be at least one mandatory class trip to the Metropolitan Museum.

A topical introduction to the architecture and arts of the Islamic cultures of North Africa, Spain, Arabia, Turkey, Iran and Central Asia, from their origins in late antiquity to 1400 CE. A wide variety of media will be explored as we look at artistic accomplishments in both the religious and secular realms. We will study architectural monuments from palaces to mosques as well as small-scale luxury items like textiles, metalwork, ceramics, and illuminated manuscripts.  There will be at least one mandatory class trip to the Metropolitan Museum.