Courses numbered 001 through 099 are offered only to first-year Yale College students. Courses numbered 110 through 499 are studio electives offered to students from Yale College, the Graduate School, and the professional schools. Permission of the instructor is required for enrollment in all courses. Graduate students of the School of Art who wish to broaden their experience outside their area of concentration have priority in enrollment.
Courses numbered 500 and above are offered only to graduate students of the School of Art. In exceptional cases qualified Yale College students may enroll in a graduate course with the permission of both the instructor and the director of undergraduate studies. Please refer to the section on Academic Regulations for further pertinent details. Faculty members teach on both the graduate and undergraduate levels, although the degree and the nature of contact may vary.
Tutorials, which are special courses that cannot be obtained through regular class content, require a proposal written by the student and the faculty member concerned, defining both content and requirements. Proposals must be presented to the Academic Subcommittee for approval.
For the most up-to-date course information, please see https://courses.yale.edu.
Critical Studies
ART 949a, Diving into the Wreck: Rethinking Critical Practice This mandatory course for first-year M.F.A. students borrows its title from Adrienne Rich’s poem, written in 1973 at the beginning of the second wave of feminism, in the wake of the civil rights movement, amid the student protests against the Vietnam War, and in reflection of the poet’s own process of self-discovery and personal emancipation. As a work that focuses on the isolation of life as it does on a sense of shared community, Rich’s poem brings forth a perspective that there can be no understanding of the “wreck” without becoming one with the wreck. The course explores how this self-motivated, even self-legislated, impulse toward autonomy is mirrored within the very constitution of a work of art that is bound by the dialectic between autonomy and dependence, individuality and collectivity, randomness and resoluteness, expression and rationality. Taking Diving into the Wreck as a point of departure, the course aims toward a cultivation of consciousness that extends self-knowledge into a sense of community through the act of critical reflection. The course adopts a lecture/seminar approach with additional breakout sessions. Students are required to complete required readings, participate in class-wide discussions, and develop the form of their writing as a method of engaging with the themes of the course. Marta Kuzma and faculty
Graphic Design
ART 132a or b, Introduction to Graphic Design A studio introduction to visual communication with an emphasis on the visual organization of design elements as a means to transmit meaning and values. Topics include shape, color, visual hierarchy, word/image relationships, typography, symbol design, and persuasion. Development of a verbal and visual vocabulary to discuss and critique the designed world. Lab/materials fee: $150. Henk van Assen and Yeju Choi
ART 264a or b, Typography! An intermediate course in graphic design concentrating on the fundamentals of typography, and particularly on how typographic form and visual arrangement create and support content. The course work is based on designing and making books and employs handwork and computer technology. Typographic history and theory are discussed in relation to course projects. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisite: ART 132. Alice Chung and John Gambell
ART 265b, Typography: Expression, Structure, and Sequence Continued studies in typography incorporating more advanced and complex problems. Exploration of grid structures, sequentiality, and typographic translation, particularly in the design of contemporary books, and screen-based kinetic typography. Relevant issues of design history and theory are discussed in conjunction with studio assignments. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisites: ART 132 and ART 264. Henk van Assen
ART 266b, History of Graphic Design This course studies how graphic design responded to (and affected) international, social, political, and technological developments from its inception in ancient Sumeria, Egypt, and China. Emphasis is on examples of identity, persuasive messages, exhibition and environmental, information and data visualization, typography and publication, and design theories from 1450 to 2010 and the relationship of that work to other visual arts and design disciplines. In addition to lectures, the course includes two studio projects in which design is integrated with research and writing. Douglass Scott
ART 368a, Graphic Design Methodologies Various ways that design functions; how visual communication takes form and is recognized by an audience. Core issues inherent in design: word and image, structure, and sequence. Analysis and refinement of an individual design methodology. Attention to systematic procedures, techniques, and modes of inquiry that lead to a particular result. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisites: ART 132 and ART 264, or permission of the instructor. Pamela Hovland
ART 369b, Interactive Design and the Internet An introduction to programming and design thinking for Web sites. This class introduces a variety of approaches to digital design and publishing, not only through coding, but also through the use of other tools and theoretical ideas. It also provides a historical and contemporary understanding of the digital landscape. Instruction in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other related software. No prior programming experience required. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisite: ART 132 or permission of the instructor. Rosa McElheny
ART 370a, Communicating with Time, Motion, and Sound This studio class explores how the graphic designer’s conventions of print typography and the dynamics of word-image relationship change with the introduction of time, motion, and sound. Projects focus on the controlled interaction of words and images to express an idea or tell a story. The goal is to experience firsthand the extra dimensions of time-based communications, and to choreograph aural and visual images through selection, editing, and juxtaposition. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisite: ART 265 or ART 368, or permission of the instructor. Christopher Pullman
ART 468a, Advanced Graphic Design: Series and Systems This studio course asks how individual designers can be idiosyncratic in the work that they produce, at the same time that the work communicates on its own to a broad audience. Projects focus on the extra dimensions of time-based communications; the controlled interaction of words and images to express an idea or tell a story; the choreography of aural and visual images through selection, editing, and juxtaposition. No prior technical experience required. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisites: ART 264 and ART 368, or permission of the instructor. Julian Bittiner and Henk van Assen
ART 469b, Advanced Graphic Design: History, Editing, and Interpretation A probe into questions such as how artists can be present as idiosyncratic individuals in their work, and how that work can still communicate on its own to a broad audience. Concentration on making graffiti, i.e., the design of a set of outdoor marks and tours for New Haven. A technological component is included, both in the metaphor of designing outdoor interaction as a way to learn about screen-based interaction, and in the final project to design an interface for a handheld computer. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisites: ART 264 or ART 265, and ART 368, or permission of the instructor. Julian Bittiner and Douglass Scott
ART 710a, Preliminary Studio For students entering the three-year program. This preliminary-year studio offers an intensive course of study in the fundamentals of graphic design and visual communication. Emphasis is on developing a strong formal foundation and conceptual skills. Broad issues such as typography, color, composition, letterforms, interactive and motion graphics skills, and production technology are addressed through studio assignments. Barbara Glauber and Scott Stowell
ART 720, Graduate Studio For students entering the two-year program. The first-year core studio is composed of a number of intense workshops taught by resident and visiting faculty. These core workshops grow from a common foundation, each assignment asking the student to reconsider text, space, or object. We encourage the search for connections and relationships between the projects. Rather than seeing courses as being discreet, our faculty teaching other term-long classes expect to be shown work done in the core studio. Over the course of the term, the resident core studio faculty help students identify nascent interests and possible thesis areas. Sheila Levrant de Bretteville [F], Paul Elliman, Geoff Han [Sp], Karel Martens, Manuel Miranda, Michael Rock, and Julika Rudelius
ART 730, Graduate Studio For second-year graduate students. This studio focuses simultaneously on the study of established design structures and personal interpretation of those structures. The program includes an advanced core class and seminar in the fall; independent project development, presentation, and individual meetings with advisers and editors who support the ongoing independent project research throughout the year. Other master classes, workshops, tutorials, and lectures augment studio work. The focus of the second year is the development of independent projects, and a significant proportion of the work is self-motivated and self-directed. Sheila Levrant de Bretteville [F], Irma Boom, Dan Michaelson, Sigi Moeslinger, Julika Rudelius, Susan Sellers, Masamichi Udagawa, Linda van Deursen, and Ryan Waller
ART 739, Degree Presentation in Graphic Design For second-year graduate students. Resolution of the design of the independent project fitting the appropriate medium to content and audience. At the end of the second term, two library copies of a catalogue raisonné with all independent project work are submitted by each student, one of which is retained by the University and the other returned to the student. The independent project or “thesis” is expected to represent a significant body of work accomplished over the course of two years, culminating in the design of an exhibition of the work. Sheila Levrant de Bretteville [F], Dan Michaelson, and Susan Sellers
ART 740a, Intermediality: Typography, Motion, and Meaning What does it mean to be contemporary and what are the conditions of contemporaneity? How do we locate our work relative to notions of intermediality, search, and buzz in a moment where one assumes 24/7 interconnectedness across all media? As we become increasingly habituated to conditions of intermediality, the differences between modalities appear to grow ever thinner in exchange and expression, at the personal and the institutional levels. Our design activities capitalize on media’s interdependence—explicit and implicit, one to the other—as relevant vehicles of representation and signaling. We focus on the corporeal intermediality of our bodies as media platforms where we understand our tools as prosthetics to our eyes, ears, and mouths. We consider the circulation and motion of the sign as it increases in velocity and replication via the logic of search in contrast to a perhaps outmoded modern notion of uniqueness and aura. For our purposes, the aural specificity of audio communication serves as the initial content source—the podcast as delivery to conscious cognition. Tasked with selecting and researching content that has invaded their being through their ears, students generate proposals exploring ideas and positions from the class discourse combined with their individuated content. Students’ interpretations, understandings, and misunderstandings find form in “motion”—film, video, gifs, glitches, animation, motion capture, puppets, etc. Narratives may be linear, or not; iterative, exploratory, and just slightly off. Allen Hori and Geoff Kaplan
ART 742b, Networks and Transactions For first-year graphic design students. How can graphic design influence and be influenced by the unpredictable encounters between one group and another? Or between quantities of unknown users on one side, and vast webs of fluctuating information on the other? In this course students develop typographies, visual languages, and motion vocabularies appropriate for these pervasive conditions of the modern world, found in experiences as varied as Facebook, YouTube “supercuts,” the game of chess, automated stock trading, and the organization and speech patterns of political movements. The course posits that designed form may sometimes be visible, and at other times be relational or latent rather than directly seen. The class is primarily a studio course but also includes a programming lab in which fundamentals of coding are taught through hands-on work each week. No previous programming experience is assumed, and completed projects are expected to be technological in nature. Weekly reading discussions from a range of sources complete a triangle of design, practice, and theory. Prerequisite: ART 749. Mindy Sen
ART 743a or b, Letterform Design Type design is distinct from “lettering” in that it necessarily calls for a systematic approach, not just a concern for individual forms. The course focuses on a clear, systematic procedure to building the design of a typeface, as well as the aesthetic issues presented by single letters. The class is taught with RoboFont, a type-design program for the Macintosh® that allows designers to digitize letterforms on screen and turn them into usable fonts. Students learn the software, together with the principles of designing and spacing type. Fully fledged type designers are not made in one term; the object is to “demystify” the subject and teach users of type an increased appreciation of it. Students work on individual projects, chosen in consultation with the instructors. Individual projects should be carefully chosen, so that the availability of the student’s new font makes a real contribution and serves a clear purpose. With the problems of type design so deeply interconnected, a clearly defined project is necessary to establish solid criteria for subsequent work. The nature of the project determines the route each student takes in researching the design. If appropriate to the project, students spend time rendering letterforms by hand, investigating historical sources, or starting immediately on screen. Tobias Frere-Jones, Matthew Carter, and Nina Stössinger
ART 744a, Moving Image Methods This class explores the signature formal properties and possibilities of video and provides critical frameworks for understanding moving image work. A series of hands-on projects introduces video production techniques, with a focus on accessible approaches over technically complex ones. Screenings from various cinema and video art traditions provide context for these explorations and help guide critique of the students’ own work. One thematic focus is on framing the everyday, the overlooked, and the incidental, providing a useful bridge to some of the key concerns of graphic design practice: how to direct attention, create emphasis, make manifest the latent and the liminal. In addition to production strategies, the course offers exercises that focus attention on the act of attention itself, to investigate how video can augment and transfigure the act of observation and uniquely represent what is observed. These exercises build toward the completion of a larger video project incorporating the approaches introduced throughout the term. Students gain the technical and critical facility to incorporate moving image work thoughtfully in their own design practices. Neil Goldberg
ART 745a, Total Typography Part methodological, part historical, part experimental, this studio course investigates contemporary Latin-based typography with an emphasis on craft and expression. Typography is not the dutiful application of a set of rules; however, both inherited and emerging conventions across various geographies and media are closely examined. Students learn to skillfully manipulate these conventions according to the conceptual, formal, and practical concerns of a given project. Supported by historical and contemporary writing and examples, assignments aim to develop observational and compositional skills across a variety of media, oscillating between micro- and macro-aesthetic concerns, from the design of individual letterforms to the setting of large texts, and everything in between. The course includes a short workshop in lettering, but the primary focus is on digitally generated typography and type design. Experimentation with nondigital processes is also encouraged. Students develop an increasingly refined and personal typographic vocabulary, customizing assignments according to their skills and interests. Julian Bittiner
ART 749a, Writing as Metalanguage “Learning to code through reading and writing.” This studio course introduces fundamental concepts of programming for the web. Students learn technical skills solely through the development of their own writing. The course asserts that programs should be written not only for computers to process but also for humans to read. While best practices are discussed, a variety of techniques that consider craft, tone, and style—challenging the notion of a singular, universal method—are discussed and explored. After being introduced to document structuring and semantic HTML, students learn PHP through intensive writing exercises. In this course, writing is considered a forward-facing web application, its constituent code, and the code’s annotation as written for a future reader. The course is intended for first-year students with little or no programming experience and is a prerequisite for ART 742. Laurel Schwulst
ART 751b, Print to Screen Workshop This course investigates some of the unique challenges graphic designers face working across print and digital interfaces and the opportunities for these two spaces to have a dialogue with each other. Students develop strategies for creating coherent visual and conceptual relationships that bridge this divide. We look at the history and influence of technology on graphic design and the diverse ways contemporary practice explores the virtual and the physical; and we consider how, in which way, and if these spaces are indeed different. Among the questions we answer: How can responsiveness translate to print? What is the digital equivalent of binding? Can a website be a time-capsule? Can a book be refreshed? Meets six times per term. Ryan Waller
ART 752a, Mobile Computing For second-year graphic design students. This course explores the unique opportunities and qualities available to technology-based design when it is placed in the hands and ears of pedestrians, drivers, aviators, tourists, and other mobile agents. From Paul Virilio’s observation that the Walkman provided pedestrians the syncretic construction of their own outdoor realities “in kit form,” to the 25 billion iPhone applications that have now been downloaded, from “glass cockpits” and GPS systems to handheld museum guides, graphic designers now commonly shift the very interface between people and the environments they explore. But how should we? With reference to avant-gardes that have contributed to and predicted today’s state of the art, including Fluxus, outdoor communication through fashion, and science fiction, the class asks students to design their own applications for the iPhone and other mobile devices. We focus in particular on interaction design for public and private contexts, and user experiences that include users, device, and environment. Applications are Web-based so that advanced programming is not required. Students need not own a smartphone. ART 742 or similar experience is strongly recommended. Dan Michaelson
ART 762b, Exhibition Design For second-year graduate students. Problems in the graphic design of a collaborative and self-initiated exhibition. Prerequisite: ART 752. Yeju Choi
Master Classes in Graphic Design These are one or two weeks in duration and generally take place at the beginning of the term when both instructor and students are free to devote full time to a single, intensive project. In recent years, master classes have been conducted by Michael Bierut, Irma Boom, Matthew Carter, Paul Elliman, Karel Martens, Sigi Moeslinger, Jonathan Puckey, Enrique Ramirez, Michael Rock, and Masamichi Udagawa. Students are admitted at the discretion of the instructor.
Painting/Printmaking
ART 114a or b, Basic Drawing An introduction to drawing, emphasizing articulation of space and pictorial syntax. Class work is based on observational study. Assigned projects address fundamental technical and conceptual problems suggested by historical and recent artistic practice. No prior drawing experience necessary. Open to all undergraduates; required of all art majors. Lab/materials fee: $25. Christian Curiel, Matthew Keegan, Troy Michie, Sophy Naess, Robert Storr, Anahita Vossoughi, Molly Zuckerman-Hartung, and faculty
ART 116b, Color Practice Students are introduced to the theory and practice of color through observation, experimentation, readings, screenings, discussion, and creative projects. We attempt to arrive at an understanding of color as an evolving scientific, philosophical, and cultural phenomenon. Students are encouraged to consider the role of color in historical and contemporary art practices and in relation to their own artistic development. Required of painting concentration art majors. Lab/materials fee: $75. Sophy Naess
ART 130a or b, Painting Basics A broad formal introduction to basic painting issues, including the study of composition, value, color, and pictorial space. Emphasis on observational study. Course work introduces students to technical and historical issues central to the language of painting. No prerequisites; recommended for non-majors and art majors. Lab/materials fee: $75. Robert Storr and Molly Zuckerman-Hartung
ART 224b, Figure Drawing The study of the human figure using a range of approaches, with emphasis on observation, anatomy, and spatial structure. Historical examples from cave painting to contemporary art are presented. Lab/materials fee: $75 per term. Prerequisite: ART 114 or equivalent. Troy Michie
ART 225a, Adventures in Self-Publishing This course introduces students to a wide range of directions and legacies within arts publishing, including the development of fanzines, artists’ books, small press comics, exhibition catalogs, “just in time” publications, and social media. Students are given instruction in the School’s Printshop on various printing and binding methods leading to the production of their own publications, both individually and in collaboration. Attention is paid to ways artists’ publishing has been used to bypass traditional cultural and institutional gatekeepers, to foster community and activism, to increase visibility and representation, and to distribute independent ideas and narratives. Students explore the codex as it relates to contemporary concepts of labor, economics, archives, media forms, information technologies, and interdisciplinary and social art practices. Supplemental readings and visits to the Haas Arts Library, the Beinecke Library, the Yale Art Gallery’s prints and drawings study room, and the Odds and Ends Art Book Fair provide case studies and key examples to consider. Prerequisite: ART 111. Lab/materials fee: $150. Alexander Valentine
[ART 324b, Painting Materials and Methods An introduction to historical materials and methods of painting. Through the study of masterworks in the Yale Art Gallery and the Center for British Art, and the application of observed techniques in student projects, this course bridges the historical with the hands-on. Techniques include varieties of slow-drying, indirect, layered oil painting, and modernist direct application of wet-in-wet paint; supports include wood, canvas, paper, and metal. Recommended for both art and history of art majors. Lab/materials fee: $75. Not offered in 2019–2020]
ART 331b, Intermediate Painting Further exploration of concepts and techniques in painting, emphasizing the individuation of students’ pictorial language. Various approaches to representational and abstract painting. Studio work is complemented by in-depth discussion of issues in historical and contemporary painting. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisite: ART 130, ART 231, or permission of the instructor. Sophy Naess
ART 356a, Printmaking I An introduction to intaglio (drypoint and etching), relief (woodcut), and screen printing (stencil), as well as the digital equivalents to each technique, including photo screen printing and laser etching and/or CNC milling. Students examine how these analog and digital techniques inform the outcome of the printed image as well as how they can be combined to create more complex narratives. The class culminates with the making of a unique object that integrates the above techniques and evades traditional definitions of printmaking. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisite: ART 114 or equivalent. Alexander Valentine
ART 432a, Painting Studio: The Narrative Figure A course for intermediate and advanced painting students exploring historical and contemporary issues in figurative painting including portraiture, narrative, and history painting. Studio work is complemented by in-depth study of the gaze, subjectivity, memory, and imagination. After guided assignments, emphasis is on self-directed projects. May be taken more than once. Lab/materials fee: $75. Prerequisite: ART 331, ART 332, ART 342, or permission of the instructor. Meleko Mokgosi
ART 433b, Painting Studio: Space and Abstraction A course for intermediate and advanced painting students exploring historical and contemporary issues in abstract painting including geometric, optical, material, and gestural abstraction. Studio work is complemented by in-depth study of flatness, depth, color, authorship, and expression. After guided assignments, emphasis is on self-directed projects. May be taken more than once. Lab/materials fee: $75. Prerequisite: ART 331, ART 332, ART 342, or permission of the instructor. Molly Zuckerman-Hartung
[ART 434a, Drawing Studio: Art of the Graphic Novel A course for intermediate and advanced drawing students exploring historical and contemporary issues in drawing through the narrative of the graphic novel. Studio work is complemented by an in-depth study of illustration, subjectivity, memory, and imagination. After guided assignments, emphasis is on self-directed projects that will be combined into a graphic novel. May be taken more than once. Materials fee: $75. Prerequisite: ART 114, ART 223, or permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2019–2020]
ART 457b, Interdisciplinary Printmaking An in-depth examination of planographic techniques including screen printing, lithography, and digital pigment printing. These techniques are examined in relation to more dimensional forms of printing such as collography, embossment, vacuum bag molding, and 3-D printing. We make editions as well as unique objects, focusing on individual techniques as well as on creating hybrid forms. Recommended to be taken concurrently with ART 324 or ART 433. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisite: at least one term of printmaking. Open to all M.F.A. students. Alexander Valentine
ART 510 a and b, Pit Crit Pit crits are the core of the program in painting/printmaking. The beginning of each weekly session is an all-community meeting with students, the DGS, graduate coordinator, and those faculty members attending the crit. Two hour-long critiques follow in the Pit; the fall term is devoted to developing the work of second-year students and the spring term to first-year students. A core group of faculty members as well as a rotation of visiting critics are present to encourage but not dominate the conversation: the most lively and productive critiques happen when students engage fully with each other. Be prepared to listen and contribute. Note: Pit crits are for current Yale students, staff, and invited faculty and guests only; no outside guests or audio/video recording are permitted. Anoka Faruqee and faculty
ART 516a, What Is Color? We start with biology—the human body, its colors, and its ability to sense color—and then move on to chemistry and physics, examining whether color is inherent in objects or in light or in the mind: is a blue object bluer when perceived outside Earth’s atmosphere? We study the ways in which colorists before us have systematized and rationalized color given their own technological or philosophical context and ponder which is the best way for each of us to think about color and utilize it in our work. We are bound to bump up against the cultural and psychological contexts of color and how language itself affects our perception of color. How comprehensively are we to take the whiteness of Melville’s whale? What does Wittgenstein have to say about the relative brightness of the blue sky versus a blank white canvas under that same open sky? What is the difference between purple and violet? This course is bound to generate more questions than it can answer; it is open to those working in all subject areas but is taught from the point of view of a painter. Meets six times for 1.5 credits. Byron Kim
[ART 540a, Drawing Precedents Why draw? Where does our impulse to draw and our particular way of making come from? With a focus on how time is a relevant factor in how we make and think about constructing a drawing, the class is invested in exploring the benefits of collaborative art making. This is a hands-on class where “making” is a premium component. Collaboration, portraiture, and moving image are three components around which the class is structured. Not offered in 2019–2020]
ART 545, Individual Criticism Limited to M.F.A. painting students. Criticism of individual projects. For second-year students, 1.5 units of Individual Criticism will take the shape of a thesis workshop in the fall term. Anoka Faruqee, Matthew Keegan, Troy Michie, Sophy Naess, Robert Storr, Molly Zuckerman-Hartung, and faculty
ART 546b, Round Trip: First-Year Crits A course required of all incoming M.F.A. students in the painting/printmaking department to unpack, denaturalize, and slow down our making and speaking practices as a community. The course hopes to bridge the intensities characteristic of our program: the intensity of the private studio with the intensity of the semi-public critique. We ask crucial questions about the relationships between form and content, between intents and effects, between authorship, authority, and authenticity, between medium specificity and interdisciplinarity, and between risk and failure. How can our ideas and language be tested against the theories of the past and present? Existential, spiritual, and market-based goals (both internal and instrumental motivations) for art making are explored. Meetings alternate between group critique and reading discussion, supplemented by a series of short writing exercises. Enrollment is limited to incoming students in the department, but readings and concepts are shared widely. Anoka Faruqee and Molly Zuckerman-Hartung
ART 550b, Projections of Print This course is intended for M.F.A. students who wish to develop individual projects in a wide range of printmaking mediums, including both traditional techniques and digital processes and outputs. Participants develop new works and present them in group critiques that meet every other week. Students should have sufficient technical background in traditional printmaking mediums (etching, lithography, silkscreen, or relief) as well as a fundamental understanding of graphic programs such as Photoshop. Demonstrations in traditional mediums are offered in the print studio. Alexander Valentine
[ART 574a or b, Defining Our Terms This seminar combines readings selected by the instructor, readings suggested by the members of the class, short written presentations to the whole class by students, close reading of specific works of art, synoptic study of various art historical movements and tendencies, and a collective effort to find agreement on the current meaning of commonly used art terminology in order to foster focused and sustained critical discussion of issues crucial to artists coming into their own. Nothing is taken for granted; nothing is beyond consideration. Students must examine what it takes to form and hold an aesthetic or critical “position” in the world, while also weighing the costs of being committed to and perhaps trapped in such a position. The overall goal is to find our own words for the things we do while getting a better handle on how others speak about the work we make—and why they choose to speak in those ways. Not offered in 2019–2020]
ART 576a and b, Isms and Wasms: A Thumbnail History of Modern (and Anti-Modern) Art from the “Mainstream” to the Delta In a scant two terms, this course covers a lot of ground temporally, geographically, and artistically. Its purpose is to familiarize emerging artists of today with some of the principal tendencies, protagonists, and practices that set in motion the currents and counter-currents of visual art—chiefly painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, installation, performance, and conceptual work—from the late-nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. It involves extensive looking, select reading (much of it texts by artists,) some lectures combined with focused seminar-style discussion (you’ve got to say-to-play), some writing and drawing, and above all mental agility (park your intellectual assumptions, cultural prejudices, and aesthetic as well as anti-aesthetic “taste” at the door). Are you sure you know what Walter Benjamin meant by “aura”? Does an artist’s “identity” or biography affect interpretation of their work, and if so in which cases and to what extent? What do you think about “bad” people making “good art”? Who’s your favorite academic artist, Realist, Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, Cubist, Futurist, Constructivist, Expressionist, Surrealist, muralist, Abstract Expressionist, Informel artist, Neo-Dadaist, Pop artist, Minimalist, Gutai artist, member of Spiral, Queer artist, New York Conceptualist, Continental European Conceptualist, Russian Conceptualist, Contemporary “Global” Misconceptualist? And why? Fasten your seat belts: it will be a bumpy ride. Students are encouraged to take both terms successively; however, with permission of the instructor, other arrangements are possible. Robert Storr
ART 577a, When Attitude Becomes Form (Thesis Workshops) Required of all second-year students in painting/printmaking, this course meets biweekly in the fall and supports the development of discursive and collaboratively conceived thesis exhibitions in the spring. We examine historic and recent group exhibitions—including their contextualization through writing—as a platform for discussion, writing exercises, and group critique. Special guest artists and curators provide insight into their own curatorial objectives and concerns. We consider a series of topics that have arisen in exhibition making since Szeemann’s 1969 exhibition, When Attitudes Become Form, including the exhibition of process or time-based work, theatricality, “networked painting,” expanded platforms, artists’ statements and press releases, and more. Enrollment limited to second-year students in painting/printmaking. 1.5 credits. Sophy Naess
[ART 579b, One Divides: Gender Dialectics This course situates the body marked by gender as a political body by replacing gender binaries with a dialectical approach. We examine gender as a construction that, through the surplus caused by signification, exceeds biological sex. Beginning with the contributions of feminist artists in the 1960s and ’70s and moving to the present, we observe the ways in which the introduction of gender as a subject destabilizes sex, providing the groundwork for understanding gender within the symbolic and imaginary. However, our analysis of gender is not confined to the representation of gender in works of art, or even to gender in the larger field of artistic discourse, but rather is concerned with the role of gender in forming any political subject. Meets biweekly for 1.5 credits. Not offered in 2019–2020]
ART 596b, Alternative Nation 2018 marked the ten-year anniversary of the closing of Orchard, an artist-run space made up of visual artists, filmmakers, writers, art historians, and curators situated in New York’s Lower East Side for a three-year period. Members of Orchard joined forces in response to the presidency of George W. Bush and the early years of the Iraq War. An investment in institutional critique—an artistic strategy aimed at exposing and dismantling dynamics of power at play in art museums, universities, and markets—was central to Orchard’s programming. It sought to present an alternative to extant programming and the dominance of commercial galleries in NYC. Orchard serves as a point of departure for this term-long seminar that more broadly considers what might constitute an “alternative space” in our current moment. Affordability crises have made it difficult for artist-run spaces, small to mid-sized commercial spaces, and artists for that matter, to afford rents in New York and other major North American cities. Together, we consider whether and when the goal of a fixed physical space remains relevant in light of more accessible and even distributable models. Working as a group, we brainstorm exhibition/programmatic/publication-based possibilities that are accessible domestically and abroad while clearly articulating an intended audience. Class time is divided between discussions of the readings, presentations by members of the seminar, in-class guest speakers, and a collaborative final assignment. Matthew Keegan
Photography
ART 136a or b, Black-and-White Photography: Capturing Light An introductory course in black-and-white analog photography concentrating on the use of 35mm cameras. Topics include the “lens-less” techniques of photograms and pinhole photography; fundamental printing procedures; and the principles of film exposure and development. Assignments encourage the variety of picture-forms that 35mm cameras can uniquely generate. Student work is discussed in regular critiques. Readings examine the invention of photography and the “flaneur” tradition of small-camera photography as exemplified in the work of artists such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Helen Levitt, Robert Frank, and Garry Winogrand. Enrollment limited. Lab/materials fee: $150. Lisa Kereszi and Ted Partin
ART 138a or b, Seeing in Color with Digital Photography An introductory course in the exploration of the transition of photographic processes and techniques into digital formats. A range of tools is presented, including scanning, digital cameras, retouching, color correction, basic composition, and ink-jet printing. Students produce original work throughout the technical component of the class. After mastering the basics, students work toward the completion of a final project, and remaining classes focus on critiques. Throughout the term, lectures and presentations raise critical issues concerning the impact of digital applications and by-products on the medium of photography. Enrollment limited. Lab/materials fee: $150. Ted Partin
ART 237a, Intermediate Black-and-White: Visual Voice A course in black-and-white photography extending the concerns of ART 136a or b. Students are introduced to the use of medium-format cameras and instructed in specialized topics such as night photography, the use of flash, and the manipulation of roll film; later in the term they learn basic digital scanning and grayscale printing techniques and explore the use of color in their photographs. Student work is discussed in regular critiques, supplemented by lectures and readings that consider the rich tradition of handheld photography and the production of artists such as George Brassaï, Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, and Robert Adams. Enrollment limited. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisite: ART 136 or equivalent. Lisa Kereszi
ART 239a, Introduction to Visual Storytelling An introductory course that explores the various elements of photographic storytelling, artistic styles, and practices of successful visual narratives. Students focus on creating original bodies of work that demonstrate their unique artistic voice. Topics include camera-handling techniques, photo editing, sequencing, and photographic literacy. Student work is critiqued throughout the term, culminating in a final project. Through a series of lectures, readings, and films, students are introduced to influential works in the canon of photographic history as well as issues and topics in contemporary photography. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisite: ART 136 or ART 138. Danna Singer
[ART 337a, Picturing Us: Representation Photographic investigation of the politics of visibility and intersectionality, the social processes in which identities are formed and revised. Exploration of the constructions of race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, citizenship, ethnicity, religion, and class. Students study problems through photography, including concepts of identity and the construction of identities; how some identities appear invisible, visible, or super-visible; and which identities speak authentically and also universally. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisite: ART 136, or ART 138, or equivalent. Not offered in 2019–2020]
ART 338b, Contemporary Problems in Color with Digital Photography Exploration of both the technical and conceptual aspects of digital photography. A range of tools is used, including advanced film scanning, working with RAW files, masks, compositing and grayscale, and color ink-jet printing. Students produce original work, with special attention to ways in which their technical decisions can clarify their artistic intentions. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisite: ART 138. Danna Singer
[ART 339b, Narrative Forms and Documentary Style in Photography after 1967 Focusing on the wildly diverse and enduring influence of artists engaging with photography from “New Documents” to the “Pictures Generation,” converging on the current “digital” moment. This class presents a series of lectures, readings, and assignments designed to develop and challenge critical, historical, and visual thought while generating individual projects throughout the term. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisite: ART 136, or ART 138, or equivalent. Not offered in 2019–2020]
ART 379b, Form for Content with the View Camera A course for experienced photography students to become more deeply involved with the important technical aspects of the medium, including a concentrated study of operations required in the use of view cameras, added lighting, and advanced printing techniques. Scanning and printing of negatives are included. Student work is discussed in regular critiques. Review of significant historic photographic traditions is covered. Students are encouraged to employ any previous digital training although class is primarly analog. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisite: ART 237 or permission of the instructor. Benjamin Donaldson
ART 401a, Advanced Projects in Photography A course intended for those wishing to explore intensely the practice of photography, whether analog or digital. The class is structured around individual projects, editing, and output size. Through the history of photography and film, discussions center on the potentials of black-and-white photography, color photography, video, and the assimilation of the three. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisites: ART 379 or equivalent, and, for those working digitally, ART 338. Required of art majors concentrating in photography. Lisa Kereszi
ART 802b, Between Frames A broad survey of narrative, documentary, and experimental film (and television) exploring influence and overlap within traditional visual art genres: sculpture, painting, performance, installation, etc. Screenings and discussions examining a variety of moving image histories, practices, and critical issues. The class also reserves time for screening student works in progress, with special consideration given to the presentation of installations and/or site-specific work. Weekly screenings may also be open to nonregistered students with permission of the instructor. John Pilson
ART 822a, Practice and Production For first-year photography students. Structured to give students a comprehensive working knowledge of the digital workflow, this class addresses everything from capture to process to print. Students explore procedures in film scanning and raw image processing, discuss the importance of color management, and address the versatility of ink-jet printing. Working extensively with Photoshop, students use advanced methods in color correction and image processing, utilizing the medium as a means of refining and clarifying one’s artistic language. Students are expected to incorporate these techniques when working on their evolving photography projects and are asked to bring work to class on a regular basis for discussion and review. Benjamin Donaldson
ART 823a, Critical Perspectives in Photography For second-year photography students. This class is team-taught by curators and critics, who approach photography from a wide variety of vantage points, to examine critical issues in contemporary photography. The class is taught both in New Haven and New York at various museums and art institutions. The course is designed to help students formulate their thesis projects and exhibitions. Jennifer Blessing, Roxana Marcoci, and Nancy Spector
[ART 824b, Experimental Documents: Video Art and the Photographic Subject For first-year photography students. As the digital model of photography increasingly blurs distinctions between downloads, frame grabs, high-res captures, and sequential images, and artists look to address the multimedia landscape that is everyday life, a new perspective is opened up on the entwined relationship between still and moving image as visual art. This class examines how photographic genres such as psychological portraiture, street photography, the social landscape, appropriation, and cinematic tableaux have been addressed, scrutinized, and extended in both early experimental film and contemporary video art. In a series of production workshops, students explore various approaches and techniques for reinterpreting their photographic subjects into video and other screen-based mediums, while regular screenings and critical reading are the focus of in-class discussions. Not offered in 2019–2020]
ART 825b, What Makes a Book Work? Open to second-year students only. This class surveys the landscape of the contemporary photobook with a focus on producing a class book. Lesley Martin
ART 828, Issues in Contemporary Photography A full-year course for first-year photography students. This course explores approaches to contemporary photography, from 1975 to the present, beginning with the first generation of postmodernism. Students examine the relationship that art photography has to popular culture and the blurred relationship among photography, film, fashion, advertising, and pornography. Trends and approaches to art photography, including tableaux, appropriation, abstraction, and simulation, are studied. Students also explore how contemporary photographers have worked to challenge, expand, and reinvent such traditional genres as portraiture, the nude, landscape, and still-life photography. Visiting artists, photographers, and filmmakers talk about their work in the context of the discussions at hand. Gregory Crewdson
ART 830a, Art Is Fiction Words make images, and images excite words. In this writing workshop/seminar, students think about the craft of writing, the choices a writer must make, and how a writer makes decisions. How do these decisions help a visual artist approach the making of art? Those decisions sometimes align with those a visual artist faces, but differently. The space on a page, the way a paragraph works, the length of a sentence (or line), the placement of one thing next to another, and how meaning is constructed through those abutments. In writing it is only words, but again words make images. In this course we discuss narrative and various approaches to it, read published stories and discuss how they are made, and also write our own. This is a doing and thinking and analyzing course. Meets six times for 1.5 credits. Lynn Tillman
ART 845, Individual Criticism Limited to graduate photography students. Ongoing work is reviewed at weekly seminar meetings and privately. Gregory Crewdson and faculty
Sculpture
ART 110a, Sculpture Basics The concepts of space, form, weight, mass, and design in sculpture are explored and applied through basic techniques of construction and material. Various techniques of gluing and fastening, mass/weight distribution, hanging/mounting, surface/finishing, and types of materials are addressed. In addition to the hands-on application of sculptural techniques, class time is spent looking at various concepts and approaches to the understanding and development of sculptural ideas, from sculpture as a unified object to sculpture as fragmentary process. Selected readings complement the studio work. An introduction and orientation to the wood shop and metal facilities is covered. The shops and the classroom studio are available during days and evenings throughout the week. This course is recommended before advancement into ART 120, ART 121, ART 122, or ART 125. Enrollment limited to twelve. Lab/materials fee: $150. Sandra Burns
ART 120b, Introduction to Sculpture: Wood An introduction to wood and woodworking technology through the use of hand tools and woodworking machines. Students are guided in the construction of singular objects and learn strategies for installing those objects in order to heighten the aesthetic properties of each work. Students discover both how an object works in space and how space works upon an object. Lab/materials fee: $75. Elizabeth Tubergen
ART 121a, Introduction to Sculpture: Metal An introduction to working with metal by examining the framework of cultural and architectural forms. A focus is the comprehensive application of construction in relation to concept. The class offers instruction in welding and general metal fabrication in order to create forms in response to current issues in contemporary sculpture. It also gives a solid foundation in learning how the meaning of work derives from materials and the form those materials take. Lab/materials fee: $75. Brent Howard
[ART 122b, Introduction to Sculpture: Video An intensive investigation of time-based works through such mediums as performance, video, installation, and sound. Emphasis placed on the integration and manipulation of mediums and materials to broaden the historical context. Critiques, readings, video screenings, and artist lectures consider how the history of time-based works informs a contemporary practice. Frequent workshops complement the studio work. The shops and studios are available during class time and during days and evenings throughout the week. Enrollment limited. Lab/materials fee: $150. Not offered in 2019–2020]
[ART 125a, Introduction to Sculpture: Mold Making This course offers instruction in the practical aspects of mold making and casting in a variety of materials and techniques. The objective is to provide students with the principles of this traditional technology and infuse these techniques into their practice and creation of sculpture. A foundation in how objects around us are reproduced is essential for the modern sculptor in a culture of mass production. Contemporary issues of art and culture are also discussed. Students are introduced to four major types of molding techniques: waste molds, piece molds, life casts, and flexible molds. Lab/materials fee: $75. Not offered in 2019–2020]
ART 346a, Dematerial/Material Exploration of questions and topics pertinent to contemporary sculpture through making, writing, reading, looking, critique, discussions, and field trips. Projects become increasingly self-directed as students develop relationships to materials, techniques, and ideas both familiar and new. Enrollment limited to twelve. Lab/materials fee: $75. Prerequisite: ART 120, ART 121, ART 122, or equivalent, or permission of the instructor. Elizabeth Tubergen and faculty
ART 348a, Body, Space, and Time Exploration of time-based art mediums such as moving-image work, performance, sound, and installation, with emphasis on the integration and manipulation of different mediums and materials. Ways in which the history of time-based works informs contemporary practice. Individual studio projects as well as workshops in the use of various processes, practices, and techniques. Enrollment limited to twelve. Materials fee: $75. Prerequisite: ART 122 or permission of the instructor. Aki Sasamoto
ART 371b, Sound Art This cross-disciplinary course, a collaboration between the Department of Music and the School of Art, is aimed at students interested in both the theoretical underpinnings and practical production of sound art. Participants are asked to read texts, discuss issues in and around the subject of sound art, understand the basic history of sound art in relation to the history of music and art, create experimental sound works, and participate in critiques of sound work created during the course. Weekly readings and discussion as well as additional projects are required. Enrollment limited. Lab/materials fee: $75. Martin Kersels
[ART 446a, Advanced Sculpture This course provides the opportunity for a program of self-directed work in sculpture. Group discussion of student projects, and readings, slides, and video that address current art practice, are core to this class. Regular individual and group critiques monitor the progress of each independent project. Enrollment limited to twelve. Open to M.F.A. students. Lab/materials fee: $75. Prerequisite: ART 345 or ART 346 or equivalent, or permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2019–2020]
ART 630, Studio Seminar Limited to M.F.A. sculpture students. Critique of sculpture, time-based media, and ungainly projects. Students present their work in two venues. Throughout the year a full ensemble of the sculpture faculty and students meet weekly for critiques in which each student’s work is reviewed at least once per term. In addition, during the fall term only, a more intimate in-depth weekly critique takes place in two sections, each limited to eleven students and led by either Martin Kersels or Sandra Burns. There is no singular focus in this smaller critique, as the balance of pragmatic and conceptual considerations surrounding the work is examined and discussed in a fluid way depending on the work at hand and the intent of the artist. Martin Kersels, Sandra Burns, and faculty
ART 645, Individual Criticism Limited to M.F.A. sculpture students. Criticism of individual projects. Martin Kersels, Sandra Burns, Brent Howard, Elizabeth Tubergen, and faculty
[ART 657b, The Robot in the Mirror: On Lacan and the Digital Whirlpool This intensive course focuses on Jacques Lacan’s essay on the mirror stage and the ways his ideas may illuminate our relationship with virtual space. We read and discuss, in order to think through the implications of recontextualizing psychoanalytic ideas within our shared technological spectacle. Enthusiastically cognizant of our position as absolute beginners, we avoid the pitfalls of high theory, choosing instead to ground ideas in lived experiences. With this intention, we consider girl robots in recent popular culture, regarding them as propositions for an understanding of subjectivity and the body in space. Be prepared to read intensely and talk passionately. A final project that reflects some of these ideas is required. The project can take any form: sculpture, video, written text, etc. Not offered in 2019–2020]
[ART 659a, What It’s Like to Be a Thing: How the Experience of Things Influences Their Making This class explores ideas about objecthood and process through readings on environmental philosophy and artists whose work has been defined with posthuman studies. The term is divided between activity-based field trips and readings, discussion, writing, and critiques. These different course experiences serve as a lens for investigating how to make artistic practices interrogate what it means to be human and speculate on the reality of things that interact with and perceive one another, invisibly and every day. Not offered in 2019–2020]
ART 666a, X-Critique A critique course focusing on time-based and other ungainly works. Students present their work during class time and have the opportunity for an in-depth critique and discussion about their pieces. There is no singular focus in this critique, as the balance of pragmatic and conceptual considerations surrounding the work is examined and discussed in a fluid way depending on the work at hand and the intent of the artist. Enrollment limited. Priority given to those who are able to present their work early in the term; please come to the first class ready to discuss the work you propose to show. Permission of the instructor required. Martin Kersels
ART 670a, Speculative Ecologies: Performing Sculpture This course imagines sculpture, performance, and writing as entangled choreographic practices. These encounters—conceptual, material, somatic—unfold through individual and collaborative projects, conversations, writing, and deep research that trespass from sculpture to science fiction, cinema to landscape, punk rock to theory, dance to poetics, history to utopia. Ecological thinking demands relation, proposing an intimate connection between theoretical trajectories and individual praxis. Expanding our repertoire of performance and writing techniques, we experiment with improvisation, Action Theater, Authentic Movement, somatic and movement-based practices diffracted through texts by Fred Moten, Karen Barad, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Paul Preciado, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Hortense Spillers, Claudia Rankine, Maggie Nelson, Danh Vo, and La Ribot, among others, to engage possibilities for critical making and thinking. Permission of the instructor required. Jenn Joy
ART 671b, Materials and Facture This class focuses on the hands-on specifics of sculptural practice as well as the critical discourse surrounding issues of facture and materiality in three dimensions. The class explores the multiple media and techniques in the lexicon of contemporary sculpture while being informed by various readings and writings by artists, critics, and theorists, so as to map out and delve into the conceptual and physical aesthetics of “why” and “how” works are conceived and actualized. In addition to field trips to working art foundries, material mills, and museums and galleries, the class partakes in an iron pour. Brent Howard
ART 674a, Practicing Process: Remapping Destinations and Outcomes This course is centered on the nature of what could be termed “process” in art-making practice and problem solving. It involves examination and discussion of said process as it relates to time, speed, access, and subverting the role of expectation and “execution” in making and thinking. The nature of speed with regards to technology is a known and traveled path. The tools surrounding this phenomenon include prostheses ranging from improved tools, machinery, and casting methods, to digital scanning and production technologies, and even remote imaging and satellite navigation. The promise of this speed as it relates to efficiency in the name of progress could be said to be increasing at an alarming rate. With these enhanced tools for art making and art thinking, however, might it be possible to imagine an increase in opportunities to consider alternative outcomes and follow innovative and unexamined combinations and pathways toward problem solving? What does this mean to us and where do we situate our own practices (art and otherwise) with regard to expectation and initially charted routes? Using a backdrop of geologic deep-time to both locate us and serve as a foil to this illusion of speed and access, we meet in and (primarily) outside of the studio/classroom to see a variety and range of unconventional makers and problem solvers. Involving field trips and two presentations, the course is discursive with attention paid to research and observation. Emphasis is placed on developing strategies for observing and improving nonlinearity in art making and problem solving through active engagement with one’s own processes. Michael Joo
ART 687b, Actions: Let’s Start with the Body In this performance workshop/seminar we look to the body (our bodies) as a way of understanding the material world, as a means of production, and as a potential subject. Through readings, screenings, and experiments, we examine perception, the senses, time and consciousness, our relationship to both natural and constructed space, interaction with other bodies, and the metaphoric body—political and biological. This class aims to encourage development of individual performative methodologies to inform (and perhaps alter) the nature of each student’s current artistic practice. With an expansive definition of performance—actions in any medium—students conceptualize and realize several short projects. Writers and artists whose work we consider include Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Beatriz Colomina, Paul McCarthy, Jeremy Deller, William Pope.L, Derek Jarman, Yayoi Kusama, Christian Rizzo, and Louise Bourgeois. Meets biweekly for 1.5 credits. Melinda Ring
Interdisciplinary/Film/Video
ART 111a or b, Visual Thinking An introduction to the language of visual expression, using studio projects to explore the fundamental principles of visual art. Students acquire a working knowledge of visual syntax applicable to the study of art history and popular culture, as well as art. Projects address all four major concentrations (graphic design, painting/printmaking, photography, sculpture). No prior drawing experience necessary. Open to all undergraduates; required of all art majors. Lab/materials fee: $25. Alexander Valentine and Anahita Vossoughi
ART 142a or b, Introductory Documentary Filmmaking Through a series of video exercises, students explore the craft of capturing and building motion images into a visual language. Camera, composition, lighting, sound, color, editing, and directing are explored. The course begins with the approach of finding stories and images in the world. Lab/materials fee: $150. Sandra Luckow
ART 145a, Introduction to Digital Video Introduction to the formal principles and basic tools of digital video production. Experimental techniques are taught alongside traditional HD camera operation and sound capture, using the Adobe production suite for editing and manipulation. Emphasis on individual and collaborative assignments that explore the visual language and the spatial and visual aspects of the medium rather than the narrative. Screenings from video art, experimental film, and traditional cinema. Enrollment limited. Lab/materials fee: $150. Neil Goldberg
ART 184b, 3-D Modeling for Creative Practice 3-D modeling has become an important tool for all kinds of uses, from visualizing architecture, 3-D printing models and parts, testing spatial configurations, and seamlessly integrating virtual objects with photographic images. This class is devoted to learning the tools and techniques of 3-D modeling in the context of a creative and critical art-centered discourse. Our principal software is Maya, but we incorporate Photoshop as well. Lab/materials fee: $150. Justin Berry
ART 185b, Principles of Animation This course examines the physics of movement in animated moving-image production, emphasizing historical and theoretical developments in twentieth- and twenty-first-century animation as frameworks for the production of animated film and visual art. Production focuses primarily on classical animation and digital stop-motion. Students utilize a variety of traditional and digital technologies to produce works that explore the fundamental principles of animation. In the first half of the course, students undertake weekly projects in dialogue with class lectures. The second half of the course is focused on individual project development, employing the core principles of animation in a work of the student’s design. Lab/materials fee: $150.
ART 241b, Introductory Film Writing and Directing A workshop in which the problems and aesthetics of the medium are studied in practice as well as theory. In addition to exploring movement, image, montage, point of view, and narrative structure, students photograph and edit their own short videotapes. The writing and production of short dramatic scenes are emphasized in the fall term. Lab/materials fee: $150. Priority to art and film studies majors. Prerequisite: ART 142. Sandra Luckow
[ART 285b/925b, Digital Animation An introduction to the principles, history, and practice of animation in visual art and film. With a primary focus on making, this course utilizes historical and theoretical developments in twentieth- and twenty-first-century animation as a framework for making digital animation. Production focuses primarily on digital stop-motion and compositing, as well as two-dimensional and three-dimensional computer-generated animation. Students gain an understanding of the principles of animation and develop skill sets in Final Cut Pro, After Effects, and Maya 2012. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisite: ART 111, ART 114, or ART 145. Not offered in 2019–2020]
ART 288b, The Itinerant Image across Media Today we live in a world dominated and defined by the mechanisms through which we view it, whether that is social media, airport face-scanning software, fingerprint detection, motion capture, or smartphones. What are all of the ways that we are seen by the world and through which we see the world? When we change the way we see the world, the world we see changes. In this course we explore what it means to make imagery and create pictures or objects that capture the world using means other than the camera. Screen captures, hi-resolution scans, 3-D scans, microscopes, telescopes, and sensors of all types are tools for “seeing” the world in different ways. Lab/materials fee: $100. Justin Berry
ART 294a, Technology and the Promise of Transformation Inherent transformative qualities are embedded within technology; it transforms our lives and the way we perceive or make art, and conversely, art can reflect on these transformations. Students explore the implementation of technologies in their art making from pneumatic kinetics, to bioengineering, and works assisted by artificial intelligence—modes of production that carry movement, degradation, and displacement of authorship. The student practice is supported by readings, independent research, and essays on diverse artists and designers who make use of technology in their work or, on the contrary, totally avoid it. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisite: ART 110, ART 111, ART 120, or ART 121. Antoine Catala
ART 301b, Critical Theory In and Out of the Studio This course introduces students to key concepts in modern critical theory and examines how these ideas can aid in the analysis of creative work in the studio. Psychoanalysis, Marxism, feminism, structuralism, and poststructuralism are examined in relation to modern and contemporary movements in the visual arts, including cubism, surrealism, Arte Povera, pop, minimalism, conceptual art, performance art, the pictures group, and the current relational aesthetics movement. Lab/materials fee: $25. Jonathan Weinberg
ART 341b, Intermediate Film Writing and Directing In the first half of the term, students learn the tools and techniques of staging, lighting, and capturing and editing the dramatic scene, and write three-scene short films. In the second half of the term, students, working collaboratively, produce their films. Focus on using the tools of cinema to tell meaningful dramatic stories. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisite: ART 142. Jonathan Andrews
ART 342a, Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking Students explore the storytelling potential of the film medium by making documentary art. The class concentrates on finding and capturing intriguing, complex scenarios in the world and then adapting them to the film form. Questions of truth, objectivity, style, and the filmmaker’s ethics are scrutinized using examples of the students’ work. The term begins with exercises in storytelling principles and progresses to students’ short projects. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisite: ART 142. Sandra Luckow
ART 388a, Edging Temporality: Screen, Picture, Image Screen-based works—film, video, television, projection, and computer technologies—embody heuristic techniques that formulate, propagate, and disseminate experience, information, and knowledge to viewers. The screen, picture, and image are interdependent components of moving-image production—at once, intra-active, interactive, interdependent, and interwoven. This course analyzes and implements the practical application of screen content production, while exploring the tangible, fungible, and palpable intermix of affect and effect of these two-dimensional surfactants. Working within the terms of Susan Sontag’s proposal of an “ecology of images,” as outlined in her 1977 seminal work, On Photography, we experiment within an environment in which producers are repatriated as actants-in-presentia. Analysis and diagnosis of our moving image-laden condition strive toward an understanding of where we are and, perhaps, where we are to go. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisites: ART 138, and ART 142 or ART 145, or permission of the instructor. A.L. Steiner
ART 395a, Junior Seminar Ongoing studio projects discussed and evaluated with an emphasis on their relationship to contemporary issues in art, criticism, and theory. Readings, slide presentations, critiques by School of Art faculty, and gallery and museum visits. Critiques address all four areas of study in the art major (graphic design, painting/printmaking, photography, sculpture). Prerequisite: at least four courses in art. Required of all art majors. Jonathan Weinberg
ART 442a and 443b, Advanced Film Writing and Directing A yearlong workshop designed primarily for art and film studies majors making senior projects. Each student writes and directs a short fiction film. The first term focuses on the screenplay, production schedule, story boards, casting, budget, and locations. In the second term students rehearse, shoot, edit, and screen the film. Enrollment limited to eight. Priority to art and film studies majors. Lab/materials fee: $150. Prerequisite: ART 341. Jonathan Andrews
[ART 449a, Landscape as Cinema This seminar explores different configurations of landscape structure and anticipates a cinematic experience of power and delusion through hysteria. We look at four centuries of domain, range, park, folly, and garden design as cinematic subtext. We consider film as the fluent medium of fecund (mostly mystical) nature, and landscape as a persistent and recurring seam between formalism and naturalism itself. Landscape as a perverse instrument of cinematic pleasure through control makes way for political and industrial spectacles to come. This seminar is designed as a cross-disciplinary hybrid. Students should be somewhat fluent in visual and narrative history, but, more importantly, be able to digress topically without anxiety. Film expertise is not required. Some understanding of the art of the past five hundred years would be helpful. Contemporary artists are a constant point of reference throughout the class. Lab/materials fee: $150. Not offered in 2019–2020]
[ART 450a, Interiors as Cinema This class, an extension of ART 449, reconsiders both the “studio” in the history of the moving image and our understanding of “interiors” as described by film. The Black Maria, the first motion picture studio in the United States, was invented by Thomas Edison in 1893. This tar-papered “studio” looked like a small house and was rotated by horse to catch the best light of the day for filming. This unfixed interior at the origin of the moving image is our chimerical inspiration throughout the term, and our final collective project involves reconstructing this studio and shooting something therein. Film expertise is not required. Some understanding of the art of the past five hundred years is helpful. Contemporary artists are a constant point of reference throughout the class. Lab/materials fee: $150. Not offered in 2019–2020]
ART 495a and 496b, Senior Project A yearlong project of creative work formulated and executed by the student under the supervision of faculty and an adviser designated in accordance with the direction of the student’s interest. Proposals for senior projects are submitted to the School of Art Undergraduate Studies Committee (USC) for review and approval at the beginning of the academic year. The fall term is spent working on preparation and physical making of preliminary pieces, while the spring term is spent honing the pieces. Weekly seminar meetings are held throughout the year. Projects are reviewed and graded by an interdisciplinary committee of members of the School of Art faculty and a guest critic. A public exhibition of selected work created in the project is expected of each student. Enrollment limited to senior art majors. Lisa Kereszi and Corey McCorkle
[ART 871b, Workerism This course traces the trajectories within and around contemporary notions of art and labor. Beginning with the advent of the Federal Art Project and the Artists’ Union during the New Deal, moving through the developments and permutations of national and international activist labor organizations through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the course explores the multifaceted ideologies and theories of wage-based labor, cognitive and affective labor, post-workerism, and de-growth. We utilize analysis and research regarding the terms of precarity, labor practices, economic exchange, cultural capital, and class consciousness within the stream of production, speculation, competition, spectacle, and demand. Incorporating weekly readings, lectures, and discussion, the course requires a final ten-page paper and a visual presentation that expands upon the course materials and student research. Not offered in 2019–2020]
[ART 910b, Screen Space A weekly studio and seminar at the intersection of art and engineering. The course explores how the dynamic architecture of screen and projector can be understood as a site of creative work. Readings and lectures address the evolution of screen and projection technology in the twentieth century. Topics include white light, screens and masks, subtractive and additive color, and digital projection. For the final project, students design and build a projection machine that explores the potential aesthetic language of light, form, color, and motion. Not offered in 2019–2020]
ART 951b, Video Seminar This seminar focuses on facilitating the work of M.F.A. students who are actively engaged in producing videos. It encourages the development of student work by creating informational and creative relays between student production and the work of other video artists. Class time is spent discussing student work, reading artists’ writings on video and theoretical texts, and viewing a wide array of art video. Limited enrollment; open to all M.F.A students. Michel Auder
[ART 973b, What Is/Isn’t Art? What are/aren’t we talking about when we talk about art? For most modernists the story of modern art is that of the distillation and differentiation of mediums; for postmodernists the main events concern the diversification and miscegenation of means and formats. In six sessions that combine lectures by the seminar leader, outside reading, and group discussion, this class both mixes it up and sorts it out with a view to clarifying basic questions about what painting is and isn’t, or rather about what it once was and what it has become. The seminar is primarily open to M.F.A. students, but others who are interested may apply and will be admitted as space permits. Not offered in 2019–2020]
Yale College First-Year Seminars
Enrollment limited to first-year Yale College students. Preregistration required through the First-Year Seminar Program.
[ART 003a, Blue The cultural and iconic history of the color blue and its role as both a method and a motive for making work in the studio. The word “blue” and its etymological core, evocative connotations, colloquial nuance, and semantic role in different languages and cultures; scientific and sociological issues; blue in film and the fine arts. Projects experiment with writing, collecting, collage, and digital video. Use of materials from the Beinecke Library. Not offered in 2019–2020]
ART 004b, Words and Pictures Introduction to visual narration, the combination of words and pictures to tell a story. Narrative point of view, counternarrative and counterculture, visual satire, personal history, depictions of space and time, and strategies and politics of representation. Sources include illuminated manuscripts, biblical paintings, picture-stories, comic strips, and graphic novels. Halsey Rodman
ART 006b, Art of the Printed Word Introduction to the art and historical development of letterpress printing. Examination of typographic design, the evolution of private presses, and contemporary printing practices. A historical survey of fine printing, complemented by a practical study of press operations using antique plate presses and the modern cylinder proof press. Topics include typesetting with both hand-set metal and digital type, paper stock and ink selection, basic hand-binding, computer-based design applications, and new technologies such as photopolymer plates. Richard Rose
ART 007b, Art of the Game An introduction to interactive narrative through video game programming, computer animation, and virtual filmmaking. Topics include interactive storytelling, video game development and modification, animation, and virtual film production. Students produce a variety of works including web-based interactive narratives; collaboratively built video games; and short, game-animated films (machinima). Course work surveys a variety of tools including 3-D modeling, animation, and nonlinear narrative scripting tools, as well as Adobe Flash, Processing, and Unity 3-D game development platforms. Sarah Stevens-Morling
ART 012b, On Activism: The Visual Representation of Protest and Disruption An introduction to the visual representations of protest, struggle, and revolution in this country from the Vietnam War to the present moment. The course explores a range of historically significant social and political movements, visual (communication) and dissemination strategies, and working methods. The primary goal is to investigate and expand the designer/artist’s ability to express a point of view and transform contemporary understanding of local and national issues through a series of exercises, iterative making, and experiments in distribution methods via solo and collaborative work. The students’ practice is supported by close readings, independent research, case studies, field trips, and presentations from a diverse collection of people directly involved in activism. Pamela Hovland
ART 013a, Temperamental Spaces Spaces can sometimes appear as idiosyncratic as the people within them, taking on characteristics we usually ascribe to ourselves. They can appear erratic, comforting, uncanny, even threatening. Working like a therapy session for architecture, the body, and the objects around us, this seminar analyzes a diverse collection of readings and works, ranging from Renaissance mysticism to conceptual art and film, to explore how the visual arts have utilized a productive, but skeptical, relationship with space. Markus Schinwald
ART 014a, Research in the Making Artistic research expands the research form to focus on haptic and tactile study of physical and historical objects. Through field trips to various special collections and libraries, including the Beinecke Library and the Yale Art Gallery, students respond to specific objects in the vast resources of Yale University. Group discussions, lectures, and critiques throughout help foster individual projects. Each student conducts research through the artistic mediums of drawing, photography, video, and audio, slowly building an interconnected collection of research that is also an artwork. Karin Schneider
Yale College Art Major
Director of Undergraduate Studies: Lisa Kereszi
Yale College, the undergraduate division of Yale University, offers a Bachelor of Arts degree program with a major in art. Students may concentrate on a medium such as painting/printmaking, sculpture, graphic design, photography, or filmmaking. Suggested program guidelines and specific requirements for the various areas of concentration are available from the director of undergraduate studies and departmental faculty. Undergraduate applicants wishing to major in art at Yale must apply to Yale College directly. Please contact the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, PO Box 208234, 38 Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven CT 06520-8234, 203.432.9300 (https://admissions.yale.edu).
Students in this major will develop an understanding of the visual arts through a studio-based curriculum, apply fundamentals of art across a variety of media and disciplines, relate the practice of making art to the fields of art history and theory, and gain a high level of mastery of at least one artistic discipline. Courses at the 100 level stress the fundamental aspects of visual formulation and articulation. Courses numbered 200 through 499 offer increasingly intensive study leading to greater specialization in one or more of the visual disciplines such as graphic design, painting/printmaking, photography, filmmaking, and sculpture/4-D.
The prerequisites for acceptance into the major are a Sophomore Review, which is an evaluation of work from studio courses taken at Yale School of Art, and five terms of introductory (100-level) courses. Students must be enrolled in their fifth studio course by the time of the Sophomore Review. Visual Thinking (ART 111) and Basic Drawing (ART 114) are mandatory. In exceptional cases, arrangements for a special review during the junior year may be made with the director of undergraduate studies in art.
For graduation as an art major, a total of fourteen course credits in the major field is required. These fourteen course credits must include the following: (1) five prerequisite courses at the 100 level (including Visual Thinking and Basic Drawing); (2) four 200-level and above courses; (3) the Junior Major Seminar (ART 395) and/or Critical Theory in the Studio (ART 301); (4) the two-credit Senior Project (ART 495 and ART 496); and (5) two courses in the History of Art, Film Studies, or other electives related to visual culture. Suggested program guidelines and specific requirements for the various areas of concentration are available from the director of undergraduate studies. A suggested program guideline is as follows:
| First year | Studio courses, two terms |
| Sophomore year |
|
| Junior year |
|
| Senior year | Studio courses, four terms including the yearlong Senior Project |
Undergraduate studio courses open to students in Yale College
- ART 004, Words and Pictures
- ART 006, Art of the Printed Word
- ART 007, Art of the Game
- ART 012, On Activism: The Visual Representation of Protest and Disruption
- ART 013, Temperamental Spaces
- ART 014, Research in the Making
- ART 110, Sculpture Basics
- ART 111, Visual Thinking
- ART 114, Basic Drawing
- ART 116, Color Practice
- ART 120, Introduction to Sculpture: Wood
- ART 121, Introduction to Sculpture: Metal
- ART 130, Painting Basics
- ART 132, Introduction to Graphic Design
- ART 136, Black-and-White Photography: Capturing Light
- ART 138, Seeing in Color with Digital Photography
- ART 142, Introductory Documentary Filmmaking
- ART 145, Introduction to Digital Video
- ART 184, 3-D Modeling for Creative Practice
- ART 185, Principles of Animation
- ART 224, Figure Drawing
- ART 225, Adventures in Self-Publishing
- ART 237, Intermediate Black-and-White: Visual Voice
- ART 239, Introduction to Visual Storytelling
- ART 241, Introductory Film Writing and Directing
- ART 264, Typography!
- ART 265, Typography: Expression, Structure, and Sequence
- ART 266, History of Graphic Design
- ART 288, The Itinerant Image across Media
- ART 294, Technology and the Promise of Transformation
- ART 301, Critical Theory In and Out of the Studio
- ART 331, Intermediate Painting
- ART 338, Contemporary Problems in Color with Digital Photography
- ART 341, Intermediate Film Writing and Directing
- ART 342, Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking
- ART 346, Dematerial/Material
- ART 356, Printmaking I
- ART 368, Graphic Design Methodologies
- ART 369, Interactive Design and the Internet
- ART 370, Communicating with Time, Motion, and Sound
- ART 371, Sound Art
- ART 379, Form for Content with the View Camera
- ART 388, Edging Temporality: Screen, Picture, Image
- ART 395, Junior Seminar
- ART 401, Advanced Projects in Photography
- ART 432, Painting Studio: The Narrative Figure
- ART 433, Painting Studio: Space and Abstraction
- ART 442 and 443, Advanced Film Writing and Directing
- ART 457, Interdisciplinary Printmaking
- ART 468, Advanced Graphic Design: Series and Systems
- ART 469, Advanced Graphic Design: History, Editing, and Interpretation
- ART 471 and 472, Individual Projects
- ART 495 and 496, Senior Project
Permission of the instructor required in all art courses. A student may repeat an art course with the permission of the director of undergraduate studies. Course materials fees cannot be refunded after the second week of classes.
Graduate courses may be elected by advanced undergraduate art majors who have completed all undergraduate courses in a particular area of study and who have permission of the director of undergraduate studies as well as the course instructor.
Undergraduates are normally limited to credit for four terms of graduate- or professional-level courses (courses numbered 500 and above). Please refer to the section on Academic Regulations in Yale College Programs of Study for further pertinent details.
History of Art
The Department of the History of Art at the Jeffrey Loria Center for the History of Art, 190 York Street, is a department of the Division of Humanities of Yale College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. It offers introductory, intermediate, and advanced courses to students who are interested in (a) entering a major field of study in Yale College, (b) preparing for professional, academic, or museum careers, or (c) supplementing studies in other fields. The department offers a major in Yale College and a program leading to the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School. For a detailed description of courses and requirements see Yale College Programs of Study and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Programs and Policies, online at http://bulletin.yale.edu.
The history of art is concerned with a union of visual and verbal experience. It tries to explore the character and meaning of human action through a perception of works of art visually analyzed and verbally expressed. It does not ignore textual and literary evidence or any of the other materials of history, but its special relevance to human knowledge and competence lies in its own construction of the written, the seen, and the spoken. It deals with the entire human-made environment and its relation to the natural world, and therefore has offered courses in the history of all the arts from architecture and urbanism to graphics and the movies.
Students of the history of art at Yale make extensive use of University collections, such as those of the Art Gallery, the Peabody Museum, the Center for British Art, and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The department profits from its relationship with the School of Art and the other professional schools and welcomes students from them.