This studio course mines the idea of research in contemporary art. It offers the students the space and support needed to cultivate their own methodology of research—one that is dedicated to their unique art practice. There is a porous and slippery space where visual arts and critical theory commingle. It is a space full of playful potential. Here, we move beyond the exhausted texts commonly thrown at art students. Instead, we imagine and find inspiration from intimate friendships among visual artists and thinkers—and all that they make possible for each other. In between the lines, in the corner of archives, in the silence of kind gossip; we honor and take inspiration from dinner parties, cafes, bars, and abandoned public libraries, where our elders found each other. Fred Moten sits with Julie Mehretu; Saidiya Hartman with Okwui Okpokwasili; Trinh T Minh-ha with Theresa Hakyung Cha; José Esteban Muñoz with Ana Mendieta: we keep imagining, smudging the lines between art and theory, reality and fiction, history and desire, now and the past. It all becomes blurry. Call it research, call it art: we have work to do.
Flirting is a studio class, a space dedicated to visual art, studio practice, visits, group crits, discussions, and time spent among artist students. Each student will work on their own body of work and be offered close guidance to explore research. We will brainstorm and find artists, texts, archives, histories, oral stories, and rituals in support of each student’s research and practice. Instead of papers, presentations, and reports, we will return to each student’s work. Exploring formats such as studio visits and group crit, we gather as a class to talk, dig deeper, and explore the artist’s terms, context, political urgency, archives, and history narrative. There will be periodic texts and artists introduced to help guide our path and ground our gathering: Saidiya Hartman, José Esteban Muñoz, Mariam Ghani, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Butler, William Kentridge, Hans Haacke, Julie Mehretu, Wael Shawky, Cecilia Vicuña, to name a few.
Elective