This course explores friendship as a critical framework for creative practice. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of “friendship as a way of life,” the course expands the notion of friendship to encompass personal, intellectual, and artistic collaboration. Through case studies of friendships between artists, such as Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, Andy Warhol and Jean Michel Basquiat, Agnes Martin and Ellsworth Kelly, Betye Saar and Allison Saar, Peter Hujar and David Wojnarowicz, Nancy Grossman and Romare Bearden, Darrel Ellis and Miguel Ferrando, and Roni Horn and Felix Gonzalez-Torres, students will learn how these relationships blurred the lines between personal and artistic lives, producing some of the most influential works of the 20th century. Students will engage in group exercises and collaborative projects in response to the RISD Museum collection and program. They will select works from the museum’s collection that resonate with the course theme to create dialogues with their own projects, culminating in an exhibition proposal that manifests friendship as a way of art. This exhibition proposal will be considered to be part of exhibition taught and hosted in the Memorial hall painting dept gallery that will occur during the last two weeks of wintersession. The  gallery will be transformed into a queer social space for use by the whole  RISD community. Students will have the opportunity to collectively present their proposal to the artist, engage in discussion, and receive feedback. In an art world where we are often made to feel like we have to be in competition with each other, this seminar will highlight the importance of friendship in artistic production, revealing the cross-pollination of ideas and the emotional and intellectual support systems that allows artists to flourish.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $75.00

Elective