Doherty C200 (woodshop) and D200 workspace
see shop facilities' website for more info
Isla Hansen
ihansen@andrew.cmu.edu
Tues / Thurs 11:30-1:20pm* and TBA
Office: Doherty D310
Georgia Saxelby
georgia@georgiasaxelby.com
Office hours:
Sculpture is perhaps the broadest field among the contemporary visual arts. Through its privileged relationship to the physical world and the viewer's body, sculpture is the glue that connects the intermedia practices of object, installation, interactive art and performance. In this class we build on skills and concepts learned in 3D media 1 and 2 to develop students' individual approach. Students define independent responses to topics proposed through discussion of contemporary sculptors. Emphasis is placed on individual development. Students are encouraged to explore interdisciplinary approaches.
This is a project-based studio class that allows for student-driven development of an artistic practice in 3D media, installation, and systems. Ours is a widely inclusive and experimental definition of “sculpture.” Aspects of making such as scale, medium, materials, methods, processes, and concept are unconstrained in projects assigned, while time and site become the more specific lens through which artistic peers may engage in group dialogue over common constraints. Through lectures, readings, discussion, individual meetings, hands-on-making, and group critiques, students will develop their abilities to brainstorm, make proposals, and turn ideas into action. Artists will build 3 to 4 major projects from start to finish, develop a working artist’s statement and bibliography, and hone their individual sense of creative identity through the development of personal research interests, aesthetic sensibilities, and their own critical language surrounding common themes through their projects. An emphasis will be placed on extremely contemporary art, and students will make frequent presentations on new art works relevant to class discussions, as we develop our own class database of sculptors, fabricators, media artists, installation artists, makers, and thinkers. The concepts we will explore as a group include physical and sensorial properties such as scale, weight, balance, materiality, and connectivity; relationship of form to context and site; function, transformation, translation, iteration, and interactivity; and the continued relevancy of hand-making and physical construction in an era of post-industrial post-internet capitalism.
Prior experience in at least two 3D Media studio I courses and two 3D Media studio II courses is required and assumed.
By the end of this course, you should…
● be competent in techniques, methods, and processes, specific to your work as an individual artist
● have developed technical and conceptual knowledge for conveying ideas through the creation of three dimensional forms, sculptures, installations, site-specific happenings, performances, or other artistic endeavors
● be able to demonstrate an understanding of your own more personal goals, sensibilities, aesthetics, politics, and criteria for success for your own artworks
● have a written artist statement and working bibliography of texts and media relevant to your work
● be able to translate an idea into a proposal, and a proposal into a prototype, and a prototype into a larger-scale finished project
● have documentation of 4 finished works of sculpture with titles and descriptions
● be able to critically assess and communicate verbally the conceptual and formal aesthetic of your work and the work of your classmates
● understand how to conduct research surrounding contemporary art, your work, and what you need to know or access to do your work
● be able to demonstrate an understanding of the working vocabulary of contemporary sculpture, installation, and fabrication and make historical connections to the history of object making, sculpture, and installation