1. Jan 11

Class 1: The Functions and Disfunctions of “Theory”

FOCUS: Introduction to Class Work and Assignments

Review terms used last semester: Dialectic, Negation, Affirmation

The Significance of Theory: Terry Eagleton—In Class Handout

Summarize Eagleton’s a) definition of ‘Theory’ and b) his claim for what theory does
Handout: Definition of Dialectic, 1000 Words by Thomas Hirschhorn

Reserve Reading (On Line)
Marx to Sharks: The Art-Historical ’80s Author: Thomas Crow (available through Artforum website http://www.artforum.com/)

http://www.tate.org.uk/onlineevents/archive/

For Reference: Artist's Writing "1000 Words" in Artforum:

1000 WORDS: CATHERINE SULLIVAN

1000 Words: Liam Gillick and Philippe Parreno

1000 WORDS: STAN DOUGLAS

1000 WORDS: JOAN JONAS

A Thousand Words: Thomas Hirschhorn

2. Jan. 18

Class 2: POP AFTER POP : A Roundtable

Jack Bankowsky, Thomas Crow, Diedrich Diederichsen, Alison M. Gingeras, Tim Griffin, Rhonda Lieberman, Stephen Prina, and Jeff Wall
Artforum October 2004 (available through Artforum website http://www.artforum.com/) 

Summarize the notions of Pop described in the interview using a concept map

Artists discussed: Martin Kippenberger: SFMOMA , db magazine

Pierre Huyghe

Kelley Walker

Quotes from Greenberg's "Avant Garde and Kitsch" , 1939

It has been in search of the absolute that the avant-garde has arrived at "abstract" or "nonobjective" art -- and poetry, too. The avant-garde poet or artist tries in effect to imitate God by creating something valid solely on its own terms, in the way nature itself is valid, in the way a landscape -- not its picture -- is aesthetically valid; something given, increate, independent of meanings, similars or originals. Content is to be dissolved so completely into form that the work of art or literature cannot be reduced in whole or in part to anything not itself.

But the absolute is absolute, and the poet or artist, being what he is, cherishes certain relative values more than others. The very values in the name of which he invokes the absolute are relative values, the values of aesthetics. And so he turns out to be imitating, not God -- and here I use "imitate" in its Aristotelian sense -- but the disciplines and processes of art and literature themselves. This is the genesis of the "abstract."(1) In turning his attention away from subject matter of common experience, the poet or artist turns it in upon the medium of his own craft.

................

Ultimately, it can be said that the cultivated spectator derives the same values from Picasso that the peasant gets from Repin, since what the latter enjoys in Repin is somehow art too, on however low a scale, and he is sent to look at pictures by the same instincts that send the cultivated spectator. But the ultimate values which the cultivated spectator derives from Picasso are derived at a second remove, as the result of reflection upon the immediate impression left by the plastic values. It is only then that the recognizable, the miraculous and the sympathetic enter. They are not immediately or externally present in Picasso's painting, but must be projected into it by the spectator sensitive enough to react sufficiently to plastic qualities. They belong to the "reflected" effect. In Repin, on the other hand, the "reflected" effect has already been included in the picture, ready for the spectator's unreflective enjoyment.(4) Where Picasso paints cause, Repin paints effect. Repin predigests art for the spectator and spares him effort, provides him with a shore cut to the pleasure of art that detours what is necessarily difficult in genuine art. Repin, or kitsch, is synthetic art.

3.Jan 25

Class 3: The Dialectic in Process/Issues of Conceptual Art

Jeff Wall, "'Marks of Indifference': Aspects of Photography in, or  as, Conceptual Art,"
from: Reconsidering the Object of Art: 1965-75 (Los Angeles: The
Museum of Contemporary Art, 1995), Ann Goldstein and Anne Rorimer, eds.,  p. 247.
In Library in FPA 367 “Prof Copy” Binder

4. Feb. 1

Class 4: Postmodernity, Beyond Dialectic: Jameson’s Cognitive Mapping

Fredric Jameson: Postmodernism or the Logic Late Capitalism
In Library in FPA 367 “Prof Copy” Binder

• focus: does Capitalism have a "logic" which permeates and organizes our images, social space and built environment?
  What "logic" is Jameson using?

Summarize Jameson using the “What it says/What it does” model. Pay attention to topic sentences

5. Feb 8

Class 5: Form and Forming

Yve-Alain Bois "Whose Formalism?"

Donald Judd excerpts from "Specific Objects" (see email)

Cargo and Cult: The Displays of Thomas Hirschhorn. Benjamin H.D. Buchloh. Artforum

Clement Greenberg. "The Necessity of "Formalism" on JSTOR from New Literary History.

Reference
Who Do You Love: Isa Genzken and Wolfgang Tillmans in conversation

All Things Being Equal: Isa Genzken
Benjamin H. D. Buchloh. Artforum. November 2005, XLIV, No. 3 (in library)

ESSAY TOPIC/OUTLINES/BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE

7. Feb 22

Class 7: “Design and Crime” & “This Funeral is For the Wrong Corpse” Hal Foster
In Library in FPA 367 “Prof Copy” Binder

8. Mar 1

1. Deleuze and Guatari Smooth and Striated: Library in “prof copy binder”
2. Yve-Alain Bois: Use Value of Formlessness: Library in “prof copy binder”
3.  
4. Reference: Brian Massumi: Users Guide: Library in “prof copy binder”
5. Reference: Dan Graham: Video Television Architecture: 

John Roberts: "Pop Art, The Popular and British art of the 1990s.”

 Library in “prof copy binder”

10.Mar 15

I) SECRECY AND PUBLICITY: SVEN LÜTTICKEN
Reactivating the Avant-Garde
http://newleftreview.org/A2414

II) Andreas Huyssen" High/Low in an Expanded Field" (sign in to the "Project Muse" database through the SFU Library)
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/journals/modernism-modernity/v009/9.3huyssen.html

Please bring all readings to class as some class time will be given to roundtable preparation.

11. Mar 22

Readings from March Artforum

At Alexander Center 12:30 Roundtable on Form

12.Mar 29

Class 11:

Readings from March Artforum

ESSAYS DUE: SUBMIT THROUGH EMAIL (PREFERRED) to: jaradul@sfu.ca

OR INCLUDE A STAMPED SELF ADDRESSED ENVELOPE.

LATE ESSAYS NOT ACCEPTED

Course Assignments
 
Reading the Readings!
Students are expected to come to class having thoroughly read the readings. Skim reading and rereading are expected. Students should prepare questions and discussion points in advance. Participation in discussion is an important element of learning in this seminar.
 
Summaries
Each week you will be asked to summarize one or more of the assigned articles. Different types of summarizing will be introduced in class. You are expected to include some of your own comments on and synthesis of the material (in relation to other readings and your own references). The summaries will be handed in weekly.
 
Quickwrites
Writing generated in class on a suggested theme. All your "quickwrites" should be handed in in your portfolio at the end of semester.
 
Essay or Cumulative "creative reading" summary
An element of your course work as third year students is to devise your own essay topics. The general focus of our readings is the visual art's relation to broad questions of "political engagement" , the "popular" and "form" as questions and strategies for contemporary art making. Devise an essay topic relevant to this line of inquiry in relation to the material we have been reading in class as well as further references and examples indicated by your own research.

The paper should not exceed 3500 words. Late papers will not be accepted. No exceptions without a doctor's note.
 
Lunch Hour Discussions:

In groups the third year seminar will be responsible for identifying a theme relevant to critically engaged studio practice and presenting a noon hour disucssion (with readings and visuals) open to all students at the SFU Alexander Center.
 

 

Missed deadlines result in a 1% grade loss, as well as a lower or lost mark for the assignment.
 


Writing and Study Links (helpful advice)
 
 
Six Reading Myths
www.dartmouth.edu/~acskills/docs/6_reading_myths.doc
 
Concept mapping
http://www.dc.peachnet.edu/~shale/humanities/composition/handouts/concept.html
 
Critical Reading toward Critical Writing
http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/critrdg.html#3
 
Ten Principals of Memory
http://sumweb.syr.edu/ssr/lsc/Learning%20Strategy%20Pages/tenprinciplesofmemorylink.htm
 
Wordiness: Danger Signals and how to react
http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/wordines.html
 
Hit Parade of Errors in Style, Grammar and Punctuation
http://www.utoronto.ca/hswriting/hitparade.htm
 
Advice on Academic Writing and Reading (one of the best sites)
http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/advise.html