This course will show how the ideas of the historical French avant-garde movement founded in Paris in 1924 have spread across borders and influenced artists of central Europe. It will also focus on the relationship between surrealist European artists of the 20th century and Mexican art. Our goal will be to see how certain ways of thinking and seeing the world can be shared by artists living in different places and under different political regimes.

Elective

While definitions of “performance art” remain vague and contested, this introductory class examines the practice as it emerges in the early 20th century as a tool to explore shifting understandings and experiences of embodiment. We will return to the open questions of how artists engaged the locus of 'the body' to evaluate and reevaluate the rapid changes of the 20th and 21st centuries, in all of their ethical unclarity. We will consider recurrent themes of ephemerality, time, technology, documentation, and the shifting roles of artists, cultural institutions, and audiences. Students will develop the skills to describe languages of the body, both in stillness and in movement, interrogate theoretical texts and frameworks of performativity, and develop a sense of historical narrative to contextualize the thematic questions broached by “performance art.” We will keep a journal to ground interpretations of key works and readings in close analysis, attend a performance artwork and write a critical response, and craft a final project with the option for a research paper or performance work.

Elective

In recent years, the idea of decolonizing museums, academic institutions of art, and the narrative and curricular spaces of art history has gained increased urgency. But the concept and practice of decolonization have a much longer history than their recent (re)emergence in the art world. As a response to colonial and imperial orders of the world, decolonization set new boundaries for thought, knowledge, and for “being” itself. This seminar asks whether these boundaries have been effectively translated into the recent challenges that are posed against institutional practices of art and art history. It also asks about the ways in which postcolonialism, with a genealogy different from decolonization, is situated vis-à-vis the historical origins of decolonization in the writings of Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon and its resurgence in art history and museology. We will read texts by Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, C. L. R. James, Aníbal Quijano, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Audre Lorde, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Edward W. Said, Geeta Kapur, and Walter Mignolo among others.

Elective

This course grounds contemporary eco-art in histories of performance, exploring how global contemporary artists, from Asuncion Molinos Gordo and Otobang Nkanga to Hiwa K, use restorative interventions in the environment, and extended experiments with farming as urgent modes of artistic practice. In so doing, they blur the performative with the lived, aesthetic protest with agricultural interventions. They also build on the legacy of earlier artists (like Ana Mendieta and Anna Halprin, Richard Long and Hamish Fulton) whose work grew out of the environmental movement of the 1960s. Whereas earlier performances in the landscape and its fragile ecologies were fleeting gestures, contemporary artists have embraced prolonged, often permanent, projects in agriculture and subsistence which provocatively erase the line between art and life. In refusing this age-old metaphor – which lies at the heart of Western representation – numerous contemporary artists draw on the transgressive potential of performance to elucidate the urgency of making art amidst rapid global warming.

The transdisciplinary course will be a confluence of artistic output and ecological investigation, an experiment in learning from the land in order to develop and foster a performative art practice deeply rooted in reciprocity, sustainability, and ecological repair. With a conceptual focus on stewardship, observational skill, and practiced craft, coupled with critical thinking around sustainable farming and social and ecological justice, students will draw from the lineage of performative eco-art to explore the possibilities of performance as a restorative practice. We will also consider kinship, regenerative agriculture, the histories and philosophies of gardens, and models of collective and cooperative living. Students will investigate restorative interventions as artistic practice, make site-responsive, on-farm work, and create hybrid artistic/agricultural projects in order to foster a deeper consciousness about our interconnectedness with the earth, contemplate artistic methods of ecological repair, and envision art as a means for sustainable living. We will reflect on our engagement with the physical and social environment; what we value and why; and learn to document and record our physical interventions within the landscape. The class is based at RISD, though some sessions will take place on the instructor’s farm; in other sessions, the class will visit permacultural farms, gardens, parks and arboretums.

Elective

This course discusses developments in architecture, painting, and sculpture in Southern Europe, Northern Africa, and the Western Asia, in the Hellenic sphere of influence between 900 BCE and CE 400. Topics include Greek and Hellenistic Art, Etruscan and Roman Art, and the archaeological methods used to investigate these civilizations. Emphases will include the importance of cultural exchange in the development of what would become Greek culture and the immense plurality seen in those regions during that period.

Elective

Many histories of 20th century Modernism privilege discourses of individuality, the avant-garde, and (ersatz) breaks with the tradition, but threads of contemplative and spiritual practices can be traced through artwork both familiar and lesser known, whether in the divine feminine imagery of Ana Mendieta, John Cage's Zen Buddhist-influence writings, or the traces of Adrian Piper's dedicated yoga practice. This class explores case studies from the 19th century to contemporary art at the intersection between contemplative practices and image-making. Students will develop definitions of "contemplative practice" and engage different methods in class to explore the "purpose" of contemplation in pursuit of the numinous in art. They will also cultivate a personal contemplative practice outside of class. We will read primary sources and critical texts and keep a journal to ground interpretation of key visual and performance works in close observation. Students will write an analysis of work that asks contemplative attention of its audience and craft a final project with the option for a research paper or experiential work. This class will involve playing close attention to breath and body in addition to external stimulus (including sound and image), and will include periods of silence that some may find challenging.

Elective

What does it mean to be Post-Soviet? And what does it mean to be a Post-Soviet and (Post-)colonial? What does it mean to be a Post-Soviet and (Post-)Colonial woman? The course would attempt to talk about the variety of female voices from the Post-Soviet spaces of the Eurasian borders and will engage in theorizing the Post-Socialist (Post-)Colonialism through fiction, art and theory. We will look at the texts of Madina Tlostanova and explore how artists such as Taus Makhacheva, Aidan Salakhova, Almagul Menlibayeva, Umida Akhmetova and others resist and rethink their Soviet past. The course will include readings, a field trip and Zoom visits from artists/curators.

Elective

With the publication of Society of the Spectacle in 1967, Situationist theorist and filmmaker Guy Debord famously declared that images had entirely replaced lived existence. In the decades since, spectacle's domination of everyday life seems only to have intensified. Yet how exactly might we understand spectacle today? How has its role been affected or redefined by radical changes in media, technology, labor, and politics? In this class, we will consider these questions in broad critical perspective. Foregrounding contemporary art but looking as well at film, architecture, design, and new media, we will trace the development of spectacle from the postwar period to our present moment, emphasizing in turn the ways that politics, violence, sexuality, racial difference, and everyday cultural life have all been increasingly mediated and spectacularized. Against this background, we will examine the diverse aesthetic and political counter-practices that have arisen to confront, challenge, or otherwise disrupt spectacle in its varied forms. In so doing, we will attempt not only to rethink the effects and function of spectacle today but also to understand how --in response to the growing spectacularization of culture --visual artists, filmmakers, theorists, and others have attempted to reimagine and remake contemporary life itself.

Elective

The artists who travelled in the wake of Christopher Columbus were by no means objective in their depictions of the "New World." European artists came already equipped with well-defined ideas about savages and wilderness that they could conveniently fit to the Americas. These colonial tropes had been worked out for centuries by Europeans in conquest and expansion at the borders of Europe and across the Mediterranean—from Ancient Greek and Roman colonies to the settler expansion of medieval Christian kingdoms in Iberia, the Baltic, and the Middle East. In this seminar, we turn to a range of pre-modern colonial settings in order to understand how art and architecture operate within hegemonic colonial rhetoric. We will also consider comparative examples outside Europe-from Tang China to Tawantinsuyu (The Inca Empire)-and place these in dialogue with modern scholars of colonialism like Edward Said, Patrick Wolfe, and Ann Stoler to better understand the historical relationship of art to colonization.

This project-oriented course will challenge you to think and create in ways that entwine visual culture with the natural sciences and Indigenous values. As a movement or practice, sci-art has two common objectives: 1) to increase the communicative capacity of science through artistic media, and 2) to explore new dimensions of the human capacity for learning and teaching about our shared world. However, this course's version of sci-art takes a Land-based approach to learning, which is guided by an awareness of the obligations we have to all things, and in turn, the acknowledgement that these obligations are guided by respect, reciprocity, and responsibility. We will begin by putting "two-eyed seeing" into practice at the NatureLab, and by examining and evaluating existing sci-art projects and exhibitions. Then we will start creating our own original Land- and science-based art, each project with a unique theme drawn from the local world around us, and each in a different medium.

Elective

This course takes a deep dive into the ordinary objects (high heels, stickers, mushrooms, whale songs, waste, water bottles, ...) that we share our lives with but often take for granted. We will analyze these objects and the stories told about them to gain new insights into a reality populated with weird and fascinating things. Through our analyses, we may begin to see our world (and probably, ourselves) in entirely new ways that challenge presupposed distinctions between nature and culture, and animate and inanimate. First, we will consider Indigenous and object-oriented theories of existence as antidotes to the idealistic philosophies that dominate contemporary American thought and practice. Next, we will dive into a series of articles and short books and analyze them within the framework of what an “object lesson” should or could be, before composing your own object lesson on a magical, inspiring, mundane, or (seemingly) insignificant object of your choice.

Elective

This course examines the historical phenomenon of the Grand Tour, a cultural pilgrimage through Europe in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries that often culminated in a visit to Italy. By the 1700s, Italy had become a magnet for wealthy Northern Europeans who hoped to be “improved” and entertained by the peninsula’s warm climate, artistic riches, and countless other attractions. Many of these tourists were accompanied by painters, sculptors, and architects, who were drawn to Italy by the educational and economic opportunities on offer there. Some of these artists attended Italy’s well-respected art academies, while others developed lucrative careers as art dealers and guides. All of these developments had important consequences for the history of taste and the emergence of an international art market, while exposure to foreign peoples, places, and objects shaped the cultural perceptions of both travellers and their hosts in numerous ways. By considering a variety of artworks and texts, in class and at local museums and libraries, this course shows how the Grand Tour helped shape the world that we live in today.

Elective

Public programs in art museums are designed to spark conversation, curiosity, and connection. What was once the limited realm of educational lectures from experts in the field has evolved into a dynamic, diverse practice spanning a range of modes of engagement. Programs amplify the perspectives of artists, writers, thinkers, community leaders and changemakers, and explore art, our lives, and the critical issues of our time. From quiet, intimate gatherings looking closely at a single work of art to listening parties, performances, readings, conversations, hands-on workshops and more, public programs can be designed to incite wonder, spark curiosity, deepen understanding, pose critique, share new perspectives or relax, unwind, and have fun. What makes a great program and why? How do you engage different audiences and develop an inclusive and equitable approach? How do you create meaningful experiences and lasting impressions?

In this course, students will be introduced to the art of engagement. Drawing on case studies, readings, and lectures by guest speakers in the field, students will be immersed in the methods, objectives, history, and theory of public engagement. Throughout the semester, students will develop their skills through workshops, exercises, and interactive discussions, examining questions of care, relevance, responsiveness, equity, access, innovation, imagination, and fun in public engagement—from the Brooklyn Museum’s community-centered First Saturdays, the Whitney Museum’s artist programs, the Met’s contemplative Observant Eye, MoMA’s Create Ability and Art inSight Access Programs, to the RISD Museum’s own signature Ways of Looking. Students will also be introduced to collaborative methods of co-creating programs with artists and communities, and strategies for designing mutually beneficial programs. This course is designed for students to think deeply about activating and sharing different aspects of their work with different audiences, exploring creative process, concepts, context, and inspiration. 

Students will also have the option of researching and working with contemporary and historic objects from the RISD Museum collection. This course will also introduce students to the history and theory of public programs in the art museum and areas of growth, innovation and new directions in the field. Students will learn about different audiences, and strategies and modes of engagement with opportunities to learn firsthand through field trips and workshops.

Elective

This course is a combination of theoretical inquiry into care and self-care as creative and intellectual methodology and a practical laboratory in which students can reflect on and cultivate the practices that support their work and integrity of well-being.  Audre Lorde's famous words - caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare - carry fraught meaning in a moment wherein callousness and a lack of empathy seem to dictate political and social discourse. The theoretical aim of this class is to unpack the notion of caring, often constructed as an individual concern and practice which makes it vulnerable to neoliberal co-option, and its expression on a spectrum from Lorde's radical self-preservation to the empathetic relationship building necessary to maintain (often marginalized) communities. The practical aspects of this course encourage students to consider the different infrastructures that work to encourage self-care and mutual care, and to locate tools that support their artistic and scholarly practices. We will examine the notions of surviving, coping, and thriving, pointing not only to case studies in the literature, but examining how these themes appear in our personal experience. This class has an Academic Enrichment budget to enable an experiential module and as such, no more than 20 students can be accommodated. The waitlist will be strictly followed.

Elective

The Trojan War is one of the most influential stories in the history of Western culture. After a brief examination of the archaeological evidence for such an event, this course will focus on the art and literature inspired by the Trojan War from Ancient Greece through modern times. Readings will include selections from Homer, Virgil, Chaucer, and Shakespeare, and take into account return stories such as the Odyssey. Art with Trojan iconography will be explored from ancient vase-paintings and sculptures through Renaissance and Baroque depictions, up to a contemporary graphic novelization and a brief discussion of films on the subject. Major themes include the interaction of art and literature, and the mutability of an established narrative at the hands of subsequent creators.

Elective

The course will examine how female painters, photographers, performance artists and film directors use their bodies and elements of their biographies to build their art upon. We will read interviews with them and analyses of their work, watch documentary films, study self-portraits in painting and photography. We will try to define the special attraction and therapeutic role autobiographic art has for women. Among the artists discussed will be: Claude Cahun, Cindy Sherman, Ana Mendieta, Faith Ringgold, Marina Abramovic, Shirin Neshat, Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Maya Deren, Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, Agnes Varda, and Francesca Woodman. Students will do weekly readings; write weekly papers, as well as a final paper about a chosen artist. Active participation in class discussions is required.

Elective

Chocolate started as a spicy, red-colored, Mesoamerican beverage and morphed into the sweet version created by Europeans in the 17th and 18th centuries until mechanization and industrialization launched it in the form of edible bars in the 19th century. This course examines this history through the lens of the visual and material culture of chocolate from the 16th to the 21st centuries. We will discuss the elite's taste for exotic goods in pre-industrial times, the impact of colonialism and global trading networks, Europeans' craving for sugar, drinking rituals, and issues of race. We will work on critically assessing images and objects, deconstructing, for example, the image of chocolate in past or current commercials or reflecting on the erasure of labor in artistic representations. We will trace associations of pleasure, eroticism, the female gender, and racialization while looking at the space and the equipment designed for the performance of chocolate consumption in different cultures. This course also has a strong sensory and ethical dimension. Students will make, from scratch and by hand, the kind of chocolate found in pre-industrial times, processing beans into a cacao paste to be whisked into hot water or milk. To this embodied experience of harsh labor, a tasting session will teach students how to distinguish low- from high-quality chocolate bars. Finally, students will communicate with professional companies to learn about responsible development in the chocolate world today.

Elective

Few practices are more central to art school education than critique. Yet in recent years, critique
itself has become the target of a growing critique. Critique, its detractors argue, seeks only to
discredit, to reveal what others fail to see, to prove its adversaries wrong. Yet is this really what
defines critique? Has critique, in Bruno Latour’s famous phrase, indeed run out of steam? Is our
present moment “post-critical”? Foregrounding these questions, this course will examine both the
changing landscape of twentieth-century critique (Frankfurt School critical theory, anticolonial
critique, poststructuralism, feminist and queer theoretical critique) and twenty-first-century
challenges to and reinventions of critique (post-critique, critical race theory, post-Autonomist
Marxism). As we proceed, we will consider the debates that unfold in this context in relation to
different aesthetic practices—visual art, film, new media, architecture—with the aim both of
reconceptualizing critique and of understanding its role in contemporary culture. In turn, we will
attempt to develop a theoretical and historical framework through which members of the class,
whatever their distinct concerns or projects, can think through and reassess their own activities in
relation to the question of critique and of what constitutes critical cultural production today.

Elective

This course has two primary goals: cultivating an in-depth, hands-on knowledge of a topic in indigenous art history and developing a diverse set of writing tools for documenting lived experience. First, this course will explore the history, anthropology, and overall context of the development of traditional indigenous American textile production methods. Our examination of these textiles will involve critical readings of key texts, lectures and discussions. However, above all, we will be employing a hands-on approach to reproduce the process involved in making these textiles. Focusing on the specific example of Navajo blanket and rug weaving, together we will create our own woven tapestries, replicating traditional methods from cleaning wool straight off the sheep, to dyeing with natural dyes, to building and weaving on our own traditional-style Navajo tapestry looms. The second goal of this course is to explore a variety of approaches toward documenting through writing students' own experiences in the field - ranging from more creative and artistic approaches to more formal or technical descriptions. The intention is to expose students to a variety of writing methods that may come in handy in their professional careers, be they artists' statements or grant applications. To this end, students will be keeping a semester-long field journal detailing their hands-on experiences in this course, culminating in the production of a final presentation of their work.

Elective

As a field of study, material culture explores how we make things and how things, in turn, make us. This class examines the material culture of late consumer capitalism, focusing on how objects organize experience in everyday life. We will investigate the practices through which things-from food and clothing to smart phones-become meaningful, as we tackle political and ethical questions related to the design, manufacture, use and disposal of material goods. The class will introduce students to a range of scholarship on material culture from several disciplinary perspectives including anthropology, history, sociology, art and architectural history, and cultural studies.

Elective