Cluster 3 calendar update

Week 3 – November 17-21

Monday, Nov. 17
12:00- 2:45
Look at preparatory drawings for South Lake Union temporary installation/line intervention. Discuss materials to be used, choice of location, audience, temporary nature of the project.
Following discussion and break, begin installation of line intervention at location. Documentation of all work and process (through drawings, photos, or collage) to be included in Final Artist Book (see below for all staged due dates).

2:45- 3:50
Presentation and discussion of Art + Design collaborative book project. See critique questions (to be attached).

Wednesday, Nov. 18
Critique South Lake Union line interventions on site. Introduce 7 Day mapping project. Distribute moleskines (to be used for 7 day mapping journal, to be included with final book).

Friday, Nov. 21
Bookmaking workshop with Dan, Ruthie, Marc, Kristen, Jessica; multiple stations with demonstrations and projects.

Week 4 – November 24-28
Monday, Nov. 24
12:00- 3:50
Workshop on writing narrative for final proposal (one narrative will described the proposed work, a second narrative will describe the project following completion; some version of these will be included in final book). Further discussion and examples of narrative structures, artists' books and tracking works (see list of artists). Begin preliminary sketches on your book form. Build dummies. Students responsible for providing cover and paper materials.

Wednesday, Nov. 26
No class – Happy Thanksgiving

Friday, Nov. 28
No class – Happy Thanksgiving

Week 5 – December 1-5
Monday, Dec. 1
12:00- 3:50 pm
Work day on Final Artist Book. First narrative draft due, with discussion in class.

Wednesday, Nov. 3
12:00- 3:50 pm
Work day on Final Artist Book. Discussion on book format (and its relation to the content). Narrative revision due, with peer response in class.

Friday, Dec. 5
10:00-11:50 am
Gallery visit: Western Bridge

Week 6 – December 8-12
Monday, Dec. 8
12:00- 3:50
Work day on Final Artist Book. Tracking completed by this date. Revision of narrative due.

Wednesday, Dec. 10
12:00- 3:50
Critique of Final books. Training for Drawing Smackdown, time permitting.

Friday, Dec. 12
1st Annual Cornfounded Drawing Smackdown

***
Description of Final Artist Book

ARTIST BOOK: Investigating Site, Shaping Meaning

Now that you know your site well, your final project will be an artist book that documents/reveals your investigation. Your surveillance of this site will have no doubt expanded, modified, and challenged the original meaning of the site. Your research and interpretations will be ‘contained’ in the form of an artist’s “book” (a book of your definition). Your artist’s book shall include the following elements:

q 1- Narrative – Describe your site in writing. How is it defined by borders/boundaries? What are the characteristics of your site? What is the intended use of this site and how is it actually used? Who are its former/current/future occupants?

q 2. Drawing/Painting – Create no less than three renderings of your site. Show us your site from discrete angles, at different times of day. Materials are open, but consider which materials best tell your story (watercolor, pen and ink, ballpoint pen, pencil, sharpie).

q 3. Research Findings – include all of the following:

· * Digital photos that document your site investigation/intervention

· * Photos/video +/or audio from your seven days of tracking

· * Collage using found elements that relate to your site: additional images, nature, urban detritus, rubbings, sounds, video.

Your challenge is to find a book structure that best integrates all of this information while making sound aesthetic choices. Choose a structure that expresses your site: use a structure we’ve made in class, modify one, or combine various attributes of a variety of books, boxes, bindings, etc. Any size is OK. Challenge the idea of what parts a book has, what books are/do, and how books appear. Think about the properties of the material you are using (wood, metal, plastic, paper, leaves, fabric, rubber, road maps, envelopes, bags, vellum, pencil, pen, string, etc.) and work with those limits/opportunities. Be prepared to talk about all of your material choices.

Semiotics of the Kitchen (1975)

Martha Rosler

Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA)

Sharon Hayes

here

From the Air (1982)

Laurie Anderson

Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978)

Gender

Geoducks

The Geoduck Fight Song

words and music by Malcolm Stilson, 1971

Go, Geoducks go,
Through the mud and the sand,
let's go.
Siphon high, squirt it out,
swivel all about,
let it all hang out.

Go, Geoducks go,
Stretch your necks when the tide
is low
Siphon high, squirt it out,
swivel all about,
let it all hang out.

Alex Bag Untitled '95 !(1995) here

Cindy Sherman Doll Clothes (1975) here

Cluster 1, Fall 2008

Cluster 1: Strategies for Design or,
Notan, The Bauhaus, De Stijl, DIY, and You

Timeline: Approx. 3 weeks—Tuesday, September 2 - Friday, September 19

Project specifications:

Overview:

"The world is complex, dynamic, multidimensional; the paper is static, flat. How are we to represent the rich visual world of experiences and measurement on mere flatland?"
(Tufte, 9) Do we all read compositions in the same way? Are there common approaches in your drawings that you do now, and that you've done all your life?

Working initially through drawing and paper cutting, you will design multiple experiments (Rocks and Water, Expanding the Square, and Letterform Transformations) by taking apart forms and reconfiguring them to explore an array of organizational strategies. Following these series, each class member will design a spread, or two-page layout (utilizing works you've just made) that will then be assembled into a zine; a print collaboration across the class, traded through Foundations. Then, switching scale (moving to a sheet as tall as your body, or taller perhaps), you will extract a selection from the previous works and expand it, responding to the composition in this new, enlarged format.

The propositions (or exercises) here are designed to be cumulative; each component will inform the next, producing a layered, fluid introduction to some of the language we will be utilizing throughout this course. In our observational discussions, we will be questioning the complex relationships between these different studies and proposing ways they may influence one another. How do you translate your ideas about a work from one medium to another, and what may that translation suggest for your viewer?

Components of the cluster:
*Rocks and Water, description in class

*Expanding the Square, further description and examples in class

*Letterform Transformations: Using either stencil or a letterform of your choosing, design a composition that is 75% positive, and moves through four (4) stages to become 75% negative. Each stage will be run in an edition of three (3); four stages, three prints each equals twelve (12) prints total (4 x 3 = 12).

*Zine or, a collection of prints and related writings (the link to Zine World has a good overview in pdf, titled "Zine 101: A Quick Guide to Zines"): We will be designing a collaborative print project--a zine--that will include works from every class member. These pages will be duplicated, assembled, bound, and disseminated throughout the classes. As a designer in this collective process, you will be responsible for making a spread (or layout) of two pages--one is a print taken from the Letterform Transformation, the other a text-based *response* to that image. This visual response will extend from your process book writings; you may choose to include a copy of your own writings, further develop a piece you've already written, or perhaps the process of partnering an image with text may lead you to assembling new, found writings in the form of a text-collage. Final size is 8.5" (height) x 11" (width), with each page 8.5" x 5.5". The final work will be staple-bound in the middle of your spread, orientation will be horizontal.

*Painting to Scale, further description in class.

Tools:
Instruments for drawing, black construction paper, scissors, Xerox machine, vellum, ruler, Bristol board or heavy weight white paper (as mounting), adhesives (Mod podge/glue stick/masking tape), acrylic paint, brushes, gesso. Other materials as needed.

Artists for discussion:
Guillaume Appollinaire, Jean Arp, Lee Krasner, Sol LeWitt, Frank Stella, Donald Sultan, Joel Shapiro, Miranda July, John Baldessari, Mel Bochner, Agnes Martin, Hanne Darboven, Robert Motherwell, Franz Kline, Henri Matisse, Angus Fairhurst, M/M Paris, Sarah Morris, Michael Spafford, Christopher Wool, Jasper Johns, John Cage, and Glenn Ligon, among others.

Further Readings:
Albers, Josef. "VI: Elements". Despite Straight Lines. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1980.
Bochner, Mel. 1967. "The Serial Attitude". Artforum 6, no. 4 (December): 28–33.
Burroughs, William S. "The Cut-Up Method of Brion Gysin." <http://www.ubu.com/papers>
Perry, Michael, ed. Hand Job: A Catalog of Type. Princeton Architectural Press, 2007.
Serra, Richard. Verb List. < http://www.ubu.com/concept/serra_verb.html>
Tufte, Edward. Envisioning Information. Cheshire: Graphics Press, 1990.
van Doesburg, Theo. "Towards a plastic architecture". Translation of original published in De Stijl, XII, 6/7,1924. Architecture & CAAD.

Tentative Schedule:
Approx. 3 weeks: Tuesday, September 2 - Friday, September 19

Week 1, September 2-5
Tues/Wed: Introduction to syllabus. Introduction to Foundations facilities, lab hours, studio policies, safety procedures (facilitated by Jessica Bender), and materials. Introduce Process Book. Notan exercises (rocks/water, expanded square), as described above.
Thurs: Continue Notan exercises
Fri, 9/7: Artist lectures: Ruthie Tomlinson, Kristen Ramirez, Marc Dombrosky, Jessica Bender

Week 2, September 8-12
Mon/Tues: Drawing letterform compositions as preliminary studies for printing.
Wed/Thurs: Reduction printing (using 4" x 6" EZ cut).
Fri: Field trip to Olympic Sculpture Park or Suyama Space (TBA). Drawing intensive, focusing on sculptural works and their context (their relationship to their environment).

Week 3, September 15-19
Mon/Tues: Zine layout: students bring their spread to class for meeting and assembly.
Wed/Thurs: Tall painting: scaling,cropping letterform compositions, exploring composition.
Fri: Interclass observational discussions on painting projects and zines, zine trade

Loris Gréaud

I read about this show a few months ago and this article from Frieze adds more

Graduation Reception

As is our tradition, we will be having a casual graduation reception on graduation day, Friday, June 13, from 11:00 to 12:30 in Sem2 D1107 to celebrate students who have spent time in our evening and weekend curriculum. Friends, family, and faculty of graduating seniors are welcome. There will be refreshments.

Lockers!

Lockers must be emptied and cleaned out by Wednesday June 11th @ 5pm!

Locks may be returned to Judy in Lab 1 057 or left locked on the locker.

Questions?
Call Judy X5031

Duane Michals

TITLE: Alice's Mirror

ARTIST: Duane Michals

WORK DATE: 1974

CATEGORY: Photographs

MATERIALS: Sequence of 7 photographs

SIZE: h: 5 x w: 7 in / h: 12.7 x w: 17.8 cm

Le Cirque de Calder, 1961

Homestretch!

We've got two classes left! Here's a breakdown of our final weeks:

This coming Saturday we'll look at projects from Haley, Dylan, Julia, Eliot, Dan, Christine, and Celia, and while most of our time last week was devoted to discussion, I'd like to propose that following these presentations, we utilize the rest of this class time for your own studio work. As many of you have been bringing in works in progress, revisions/drafts of previous works, and projects that are experimental, my hope is that you bring the tools you need to continue working in class. The classroom is your studio space.


For our Final Meeting on Saturday, June 7, we'll look at projects from Jenny, Cole, Blake, Aileen, Jasper, and Jackson.

Following (or during this), I'd also like to propose a Breakfast Potluck Party-- I'll bring (more) coffee, some berries, and whatever else I can get my hands on, you all bring anything to share (Monique, you don't need to bring anything else unless you really want to).

Following this, I'd like to propose an In-class, Process-based Trading Project. Similar to the book trade we did near the beginning of the course, my proposal is for you to bring in materials you've been using in your own work and design a piece (responding to your project, perhaps) that will be given to another class member. We can discuss the specifics of this further in class. Approximate time: 1 hour.

As closure, I'd like to spend the rest of the class time looking at the development of any works you would like to share or receive feedback on, perhaps building off of discussion we have had in previous weeks. Most likely (and most helpfully), this can be done in small focus groups. For some of you, we have not had the chance to see your projects for nearly three weeks, so this might be a great opportunity to share all of the work you have done. Some of you have also expressed desire in receiving deeper feedback on your work, and my hope is that a forum of this nature can provide that sort of opportunity.

IMPORTANT
As we will not be convening during Evaluation Week, please also bring both your Self- and Faculty-Evaluations* (see note below) to class on our last class, Saturday, June 7. In line with this, and as the course has been focused on the identification of your own approaches to studio-based work, your self-evaluation is a vital document and source of information as I write my evaluation of your work. If you have any questions on the process of writing your narrative, please feel free to email me.

Evergreen's policies on Evaluations can been seen here

Here is the college policy regarding evaluations of faculty:

"Students are expected to submit written evaluations of their primary faculty members at the end of a program. Some faculty require a student evaluation of them as one of the terms for the award of credit; this is to be made clear in the program covenant at the outset of the program of study. Because Evergreen wishes to encourage mutual and thoughtful evaluations, the student's evaluation of the faculty will normally be given to the faculty member at the final conference of the program. The evaluation will then be discussed during that conference, after the faculty evaluation of the student and the student's self-evaluation have been discussed and agreed upon.

*However, if the student prefers, s/he may turn in the evaluation of the faculty to the program secretary before the evaluation conference. The secretary will so inform the faculty, but will not give the evaluation to the faculty until the final evaluations of the student are submitted to Registration and Records."

Biggest Drawing in the World

more here

Some of the things I talked about yesterday, and some that I didn't

Barry Le Va (who I didn't mention yesterday, but should have) is REALLY relevant to both Ryan and Drew-- here's a good link to some of his work/ retrospective at ICA-- and check out his drawings!!!!

Some of Paul's videos can be seen here

Paul Pfeiffer
“John 3:16,” details
2000
Digital video loop, LCD monitor, DVD player, and metal armature, 51/2 x 6 1/2 x 36 inches
Edition of 3, AP of 2
Courtesy the artist and The Project, New York and Los Angeles

Cornelia Parker
Mass (Colder Darker Matter), 1997
charcoal retrieved from a church struck by lightning
courtesy D'Amelio Terras


bottom images, from the Tate:
Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View, 1991
Mixed media
Tate. Presented by the Patrons of New Art (Special Purchase Fund)
through the Tate Gallery Foundation 1995
© Cornelia Parker

And this description of the piece comes from the Tate:

Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View was once an ordinary garden shed. Then Cornelia Parker filled it with junk, bought from car-boot sales, and asked the British army to blow it up. She collected the wreckage and reassembled it as this constellation of suspended fragments, frozen as if at the moment of detonation. The smallest elements, such as plastic hair curlers, toy cars, and a crushed tin can are nearest the centre. Larger pieces - shattered planks of wood, a bicycle wheel - are at the edges. A single 200-watt light bulb in the middle of the orbiting debris throws shadows onto the surrounding walls. 'Cold dark matter is the material within the universe that we cannot see and we cannot quantify. We know it exists but we can't measure it. It's immeasurable, unfathomable', says Parker. From the shed's hoarded odds and ends, the kind of everyday flotsam accrued in a life, she has conjured her own sculptural Big Bang.

In Parker's hands, nothing is stable. Solid objects fall apart, collide, combust and are crushed, only to re-emerge from these acts of violence in new and surprising forms. 'I like to take man-made objects and push them to the point where they almost lose their reference', she says, 'so that they become something else, take on other alliances'.

Sometimes the act of transformation is spectacularly destructive, as when she flattened a pile of silver plate with a steamroller. At other times, in her photograms of feathers for instance, it is gentle and fugitive. Parker rearranges the physical world on her own singular terms, finding poetry in the most prosaic of objects.

PRESS

I should have posted this much, much, much sooner, but check out PRESS: A Cross-cultural literary conference (May 24-25) at their website HERE

Folding, all over

Here's a review from Suzanne Hudson (from artforum.com), on this exhibition:

"Falling Right into Place: The Fold in Contemporary Art" KUNSTMUSEEN KREFELD: KAISER WILHELM MUSEUM KREFELD, GERMANY Through May 25
Taking a cue from Gilles Deleuze's invocation of the fold as a basic ordering unit—in turn borrowed from Leibniz's theory of the monad—"Falling Right into Place" will bring together twenty videos, photographs, installations, and sculptures that riff on this theme. More exploratory than didactic, the two-venue show intends to function as a "basic research" effort into the idea of folding and its related, Serra-esque processes: e.g., wrapping, stripping, appearing, postponing. Gareth James's architectural models and Pierre Huyghe's origami sculptures will be shown alongside works by eighteen other artists, including Doug Aitken, John Baldessari, Eva Hesse, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Janaina Tschäpe, and read against a hefty and appropriately interdisciplinary catalogue—with essays by Antje von Graevenitz, curator Sylvia Martin, and others.

image: Wolfgang Tillmans, Lighter II, 2005, unique color print, 24 x 20".

Works in progress, 051008-051708

I didn't get a chance to photograph the folded drawings from Aldo (as I was pretty busy folding), but I'll try and photograph works in progress throughout the next couple of weeks.

Documentary on spectacle?

Here is a 22 minute documentary that gives a comprehensive (?) look at The Situationist International, 1957-1972

Bruce Nauman at Turbine Hall: Unilever

The full article is here

and audio samples are here
the Tate links will also give you video of the installation, to see how visitors explored the work!

Carl Andre

in Portland, 1973

here

Robin Rhode

Thank you Aldo

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

This is a project from Blu, a group based in Argentina. Their website (awesome) is linked on the right.

Week 7: 051708

For this Saturday, we'll look deeper into the mapping projects you've been developing (either independently or jointly), and discuss specific places and projects that you may develop within the route you've designed. Where can your work respond to the location, or people that pass through the area?

Here's a selection of projects that may help inform this approach--
C'etait un rendez-vous is a 1976 film that is about 8 minutes long (but you gotta see the ending!)

C'était un rendez-vous
here

Urban Archives is a project begun and maintained by University of Washington

and this, well, just check it out
Sweet Juniper!

AND

special thanks to Jenny for this link to an Intervention in Pittsburgh

AND

Stanley Brouwn
Portrait, 2005, here

image: Stanley Brouwn, This Way Brouwn, February 25th and 26th, 1961. This Way Brouwn consists of drawings made by passer-bys, directions given to the artist to assist him in getting from one place to another.

Week 5: 050308

images above: Janet Cardiff. Detail from Her Long Black Hair. 35-minute audio walk. 2005. Audio samples from some of Janet's projects can be heard on her website here and linked at right.

***
As the projects in the class are developing in such individual ways, here's an interpretation of the syllabus I am proposing we adopt for the rest of the quarter:

For each week from here on out, the format will essentially be the same: I'll introduce some new works at the beginning of class, and we'll then look at portfolios/projects from 5-6 people in the class, and then spend the remainder of the time on studio-based projects and reflection on those works.

I'm proposing this rather than the format that I've used in the past (which has always been a series of prompted works/projects/assignments, followed by a final critique where we briefly discuss/present works by everyone in the class). Some benefits I see to this new format: knowing that your work will be the focus of a discussion on a certain week could potentially allow you the opportunity to direct that discussion as you see fit. You could provide the class with relevant readings or videos or audio or images. In line with this, it would also allow you time to delve considerably deeper into a discussion of someone's work (or your own).

In many ways, this proposal is not a refutation of the syllabus as it exists, but rather a clarification that should give us more room to explore your processes. As I wrote previously in the syllabus,

Initially, I’ll offer some prompts for the things we make, and some broad, fluid topics will guide us: we’ll look at your processes in terms of everyday actions (what do you do repeatedly, and why?), mapping and surveillance (moving through spaces, responding to our movements in diverse environments), interventions (where can these actions occur, for how long, with what audience), and exchange (where does the work go?)

These frames (or filter, pehaps) will still be guiding principles, providing a series of markers for the works we'll discuss, the writings we'll read, and discussions on your works. Okay? Okay!
Here's the tentative schedule of porfolio presentations. Remember, the portfolio of work you will be showing is not a finished work (this isn't a final), but rather the works IN PROGRESS-- what are you making now, how does it (potentially) relate to other projects you're developing, and where do you see your works going in this course?

Week 6
1 Kyle
2 Kelley
3 Marge
4 Brittany
5

Week 7
1 Ben
2 Drew
3 Celia
4 Haley
5 Aldo

Week 8
1 Caleb
2 Ryan
3 Christine
4 Monique
5 Erik

Week 9
1 Dylan
2 Julia
3 Eliot
4 Dan
5

Week 10
1 Jackson
2 Aileen
3 Blake
4
5

Week 4: 042608

We will be meeting in Sem II E4115

And viewing a number of video works by a range of artists including

Fischli & Weiss
Sam Taylor-Wood
Yoko Ono
Bruce Naumann
William Wegman
David Claerbout
Francis Alys
Gary Hill
and
Bas Jan Ader, among others

also, please bring both the clothing-based pieces you've been developing as well as any documentation you've done. Most likely, we'll break up the videos with some discussion on the projects, some in-class drawing, and some coffee drinkin'.

image:
FISCHLI, Peter
WEISS, David
Beetle,
Object from The Way Things Go
Aluminium water-jug mounted with wires on roller skates, bundles of wire, coal 280 x 230 x 230 mm
Alfred Richterich Collection
from here

Week 3: 041908

For outside work (homework for this week), I asked everyone to consider how they could record their experience walking through the Lab 2 building (we met briefly in the building to look around). Rubbings, writing, photographs, moving, feeling.

To begin class, we'll discuss the books that you made, working off of this prompt:

please design a book (the size, materials, and content) that records your experiences in the building (and you may certainly return to the building frequently, the book does not have to record just the time we spent in class). The materials you choose and the scale of the book would ideally reflect the experience. Are there multiple types of books in the book? Are some pages folded (like a map perhaps) while others are bound to show the development of a narrative? What is the story (if any) being told? Are they collected in some type of structure?

The book you make is to be in an edition of 2 (design two works that are nearly identical). One of the books will be traded to another person in class following (or as part of) our discussion.

then

Break, with coffee

Then we'll continue exploring art made with everyday materials, and created through everyday acts. We'll discuss cutting as a procedure and make numerous works that use cutting as their primary operation. Please bring the following to class with you:
scissors (for cutting)
paper and fabric (to be cut)
tape and pins and thread (to put the cut pieces back together)
an article of clothing that you don't mind getting cut. Ideally this would be a garment that you've worn and may already (for you) have some sort of history attached to it. We'll be using these articles of clothing as sculptural objects; taking them apart, performing with them, discussing their history, and documenting their changes.

As frame for this discussion on cutting, I'll be exhibiting some of Lygia Clark's Propositions (specifically focusing on her Caminhando), as well as works by Yoko Ono, Gordon Matta-Clark, Lucio Fontana (his Concetto Spaziale seem especially relevant as early examples), and maybe some other people who cut things apart (Barry Le Va, Robert Morris, Valie Export), depending on how far we get.

The last half of the class will be spent in small groups with each group designing a collaborative sculpture or event integrating the articles of clothing, themselves, and a physical record of the object/experience (through writing or drawing, most likely, although I'm open to other suggestions).

For Week 4, or, work done outside of class:

Return to the set of instructions you made for Week 2 and expand them in some way. Consider the instructions as a visual document of an experience. How do the works you made (text-based, in many cases) function as compositions? How do they look and how does that look effect how they act?

WEEK 4 WE WILL MEET IN SEM II E2124

Image credits:

Gordon Matta Clark
Splitting (still), 1974
Gelatin silver print
Collection SFMOMA
© 2007 Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York


Gordon Matta-Clark (American, 1943–1978)
Splitting, 1974
Chromogenic prints mounted on board; 40 x 30 in. (101.6 x 76.2 cm)
Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1992 (1992.5067)
Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art

from their website:

In the decade between receiving his B.A. in architecture from Cornell University and his death in 1978, Matta-Clark was a key member of the New York avant-garde. His work, like that of Dennis Oppenheim and Robert Smithson, was formed outside the parameters of gallery presentation, and as with many artists who matured in the 1960s, his subversive activities were rooted in a critique of bourgeois American culture.

Compelled to focus attention on the dehumanization of the modern world, Matta-Clark developed a personal idiom that combined Minimalism and Surrealism with urban architecture. Using abandoned buildings for his medium and wielding a chainsaw as his instrument, he cut into the structures, creating unexpected apertures and incisions.

In 1974, Matta-Clark operated on a two-story home in New Jersey slated for demolition, effectively splitting it down the middle. The light from the incision invaded the interior and united the rooms with a swath of brilliance. The artist photographed his work and created a collage of prints, the unconventional disposition of which re-creates the disorienting experience of the unprecedented destruction.

Recap, Week 2 (with supply list)

images above:
Erwin Wurm
Looking for a Bomb 3, 2003

Inspection, 2002 (both works from the series Instructions on how to be politically incorrect)

Bas Jan Ader
On the road to a new Neoplasticism, 1971 (detail)
One of four color photographs

*****
In the attempt of charting our progress, I'm going to try keeping a week-by-week journal (also
in the hopes that if someone misses a class, they can catch up), so

On Saturday, April 12 we did a number of inter-related works:

First we looked at the instructions that you brought in that recorded an act you do (did?) everyday. What were the different mediums being utilized? Why do certain acts lend themselves to writing or drawing versus photography or video?

Then we made books (a Japanese sewn binding--modified and simplified), and I presented a few folded structures.

For outside work, I asked everyone to consider how they could record their experience walking through the Lab 2 building (we met briefly in the building to look around). Rubbings, writing, photographs, moving, feeling.

For our next class, please design a book (the size, materials, and content) that records your experiences in the building (and you may certainly return to the building frequently, the book does not have to record just the time we spent in class). The materials you choose and the scale of the book would ideally reflect the experience. Are there multiple types of books in the book? Are some pages folded (like a map perhaps) while others are bound to show the development of a narrative? What is the story (if any) being told? Are they collected in some type of structure?

The book you make is to be in an edition of 2 (design two works that are nearly identical). One of the books will be traded to another person in class on Saturday.

For next week we'll continue exploring art made with everyday materials, and created through everyday acts. We'll discuss cutting as a procedure and make numerous works that use cutting as their primary operation. Please bring the following to class with you:
scissors (for cutting)
paper and fabric (to be cut)
tape and pins and thread (to put the cut pieces back together)
an article of clothing that you don't mind getting cut. Ideally this would be a garment that you've worn and may already (for you) have some sort of history attached to it. We'll be using these articles of clothing as sculptural objects; taking them apart, performing with them, discussing their history, and documenting their changes.

***
Here is the supply list I gave out on the syllabus:
*container to hold all of your supplies
*process book
*assortment of pens, pencils, erasers
*x-acto knife with replacement blades
*scissors
*drawing pad, at least 100 sheets, at least 11" x 14"
*bookmaking supplies-- 1/16" hole punch, sewing needles, embroidery floss, bone folder, selection of papers (plain, printed, found)
*ADDITIONAL MATERIALS SPECIFIC TO OUR PROJECTS WILL BE ADDED THROUGHOUT THE QUARTER

Art: Process & Theory

Welcome Evergreeners!
Thanks to everyone who participated in Saturday's class, working your way through Richard Serra's Verb List (1967). The entire list is here (thanks to ubuweb.com, their link is at the right) and we'll be referring to it periodically throughout the course.

Approaching the idea of making art by exploring the process-- how the work is made AS the reason it's made-- may be very different than how many people have worked in the past. Serra's Verb List pointed to this in 1967 and was a new way of exploring sculptural practices. Rather than focusing on an object (or drawing, or painting), Serra is attempting to consider sculpture as a series of actions or, more pointedly, as a verb. Sculpture is not something made, but something done. While it frequently results in an object, sculpture can be (for Serra and us) considered as an activity. Works from this period (and some before) focus on this question. Nauman, Serra, Wegman, and others sought to understand their relationship to their environment. Their work attempted to open up questions of the body-- frequently their bodies-- relative to an object or space (or environment). Painters such as Hermann Nitsch, Jackson Pollack, Yves Klien, Niki de St. Phalle and others also ask these questions with their works (or their works can be seen more clearly through this frame).

In fact, what I hope to show with the class is that for the last half century (and further), this focus on process HAS and IS crucial in making and understanding how we use art in our culture. This focus is going to be difficult, and I will be providing a ton of support-- writings, videos, audio, discussion, examples (exhibitions, movements, specific works), but most of all experiments. We'll try making things and look deeply at trends that may appear between and in those things.

In asking the class to *document* an everyday occurrence-- toothbrushing, making coffee-- you may find it useful to try many different ways of recording the action(s). How do you depict these things in drawing or photographs? What is the vantage point? Lighting? Time of day? How quickly do you need to draw to get a sense of the activity? Is it a series of gesture drawings perhaps? Snapshots? Perhaps a set of written directions? All of the above?

Some of the other pieces we discussed include Steve Reich's Pendulum Music (1968). His description of the project is linked on the right, and I'm still looking for an online audio sample of the work...

William Wegman's is a multimedia artist, and some of his videos are available as quicktime movies here

FOR SATURDAY, APRIL 12
Remember, this coming Saturday will be dedicated to making your process book(s), and I would highly recommend bringing a range of papers, cardboard, chipboard, a ruler (I forgot to mention this in class, but it would be REALLY helpful), a 1/16" hole punch, some sewing needles, embroidery floss (or binding thread), and a pencil. I'll be demonstrating
a number of structures (folded and sewn), and you will have ample time to experiment.

In thinking about the size of the book you will be making, consider what you typically record, where you typically record it, and how you are going to carry this book around with you. And check back here frequently as I'll be adding a series of links on the right hand side that will reference back to earlier postings that you may find useful. Oh wait, I just did this. But there will be more in the future.

Nancy Zastudil is awesome

And wrote this insightful review of Zoe Crosher's exhibition in Texas. I've also added a link (on your right) to ...might be good, the online journal. Don't mess with Texas,

Steve Reich

Thanks to furious.com for this reprint of Steve's notes on his Pendulum Music,

STEVE REICH on "Pendulum Music"
(April 2000)

I was spending the summer in New Mexico, living and working out there in '68. I went up to Boulder to collaborate with a friend of mine, William Wylie, who's a painter. We were trying to put together a 'happening' with sculpture, black light. While we were working on that, Bruce Nauman, who was a student of Wylie, stopped by. The three of us were in this room and I had one of these Wollensack tape recorders- they're these funky 1950's models with a cheap electric microphone. It was an old machine by then. I had holding the microphone, which was plugged into the back of the machine so it could record. The speaker was turned up. Being out West, I let it swing back and forth like a lasso. As it passed by the speaker of the machine, it went 'whoop!' and then it went away.

We were all laughing at this and the idea popped into my mind that if you had two or three of these machines, you would have this audible sculpture phase piece.

The event that Wylie and I did was the first use of this piece, done with two machines. When it was done as a concert piece at the Whitney Museum in 1969, during an event of my music, it was 'performed' by Bruce Neuman, Michael Snow, Richard Sierra, James Tenney and myself. They pulled back their measured microphones and I counted off 4-4 and on the downbeat, they all let it go and sat down, including me. Then the microphones begin to 'whoop!' as they pass in front of the speaker because the microphones had been preset to be loud enough to give feedback when it's in front of the speaker but not when it swings to the left and the right. Over a period of ten minutes, which was a little too long for my taste, and as the pendulums come to rest, you entered a pulsing drone. Once it hit the drone, I would pull the plug on the machine and the whole thing ended.

It's the ultimate process piece. It's me making my peace with Cage. It's audible sculpture. If it's done right, it's kind of funny.

In my earlier days, I was involved with a lot of visual artists and the context for my work was art galleries and museums. This was definitely such a piece. The work of Richard Sierra was like that where he would have sheets of lead propped up against the wall by other sheets of lead. What you see is what you get. This piece does that and hopefully, it's effect is kind of funny at the same time.

Conceptually, it fits hand-in-glove with my other work. It's a phase piece, a process piece. It's the idea of a piece that runs on its own once you set it up and load it and you can walk away. In terms of what I've done from '65 to the present, it's a totally oddball piece. Bang On A Can did a 60th birthday for me at Lincoln Center (1996) where they performed "Pendulum Music." It's a very provacative piece because it's not something you usually hear at concerts. So, it sits there as kind of a loner.

It's not a piece that needs to be done very often. I was not interested in recording (it). The Avant Garde Ensemble recording is very good- the pitch content becomes kind of a phase piece. They wisely did several versions and presented them all- it's the only piece of mine that doesn't have a sonic outcome. I never have been close to John Cage but this piece was a way of saying "OK, here it is but it isn't!"

I just heard about the Sonic Youth version and now I have to hear it! Here's a piece that's been unrecorded for 30 years and now I've got two recordings of it!

Cluster 7

CLUSTER 7: FIGURE AS FORM

The rules of play for The Exquisite Corpse (le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau): "They sit five at a table. Each of them notes on a sheet of paper, hidden from the others, a noun, which is to serve as the subject of a sentence. After this sheet has been folded so that the script cannot be seen, they give it to their neighbor" (Ulrich-Obrist 14) 

PROJECT DESCRIPTION
How do we understand the human body as a form? We may be familiar with the dimensions and we know its weight and balance from physical experiences like wrestling, falling, sitting, or sleeping, but how can you transform active experiences into a static form? How do you capture movements or postures in clay? This project addresses these questions, exploring "form" and "figure" from an intuitive perspective, while experimenting with the properties of clay. 

Beginning with a series of drawings and collages based on the Surrealist game of The Exquisite Corpse (looking for chance combinations of forms and concepts) and preparatory drawings exploring the figure (exploring formal concerns--scale, orientation, balance, cropping) you will search for a format for your sculptural work in clay. In preparing the studies, you may find it useful to try MANY different poses-- feel your weight shift, the tension in your body change, and consider possible readings from your poses. Draw bodies imagined, out of scale, alert, lost, disoriented, quiet. What does it mean when you stand that way?  

Using clay (and your drawings as models), you will then build your figure as a mass. Where is it weighted? How is it affected by gravity? Will it appear heavy or light? How many points does it need to balance? The cluster moves fluidly between works on paper and works in clay, and between individual and collaborative work. The sculptural aspects of the cluster are temporary but will be recorded through drawing.

THE COLLABORATION
This cluster is a collaborative process. In the manner of the Exquisite Corpse, the figure is divided. Half of you will make the upper portion of a figure and half will make the lower portion. A template for the meeting point will be provided. At the end of the process, working as a group, we will determine which halves will come together. It is these combinations that will be translated to finished/developed drawings. The final collaboration takes place with all the foundations classes when figures are halved again and reconfigured before recycling.

THE DRAWING 
Drawing will inform your process through every step in this cluster; look for ways that documentation can aid you as you develop and transfer your concept from drawing to clay and back. The project is completed with drawings of the assembled form. This drawing is informed by your physical understanding of the final form.

THE ENVIRONMENT
The clay we are using is from Seattle Pottery. If the clay is not contaminated and remains damp throughout your working process, it is possible for us to recycle it at the end of this cluster.

INSPIRATION WALL
Bruce Naumann         
Rachel Whiteread    
Eva Hesse
Gabriel Orozco
Henry Moore
Constantin Brancusi
Gaston Lachaise
Renato Giuseppe Bertelli
Charles Long
Louise Bourgeois

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE
Week 1
Mon    Discussion on site-specific installation work
Wed    Introduce Cluster 7, Exquisite Corpse drawings figure drawing exercises, Allocate clay to class. Set-up studio. View Art: 21, Gabriel Orozco 
Fri        TBA

Week 2
Mon    Building forms in clay, drawing studies of built forms
Wed    Combine with other class forms, drawing combined forms 
Fri       No class for Foundations students; Second-year reviews to be conducted. 

Week 3
Mon    Class discussion on all projects (clay forms and all drawings)
Wed   Introduce Cluster 7
Fri     Collaborative critique/ remix clay works

***

Before I run this huge pile of books downstairs, here's the list of some of the artists I was bringing to the table for this project:

Alberto Giacometti (the DVD is awesome)
Louise Bourgeois
Jean Arp
Michelangelo
John Heartfield (on reserve)
Nancy Spero
Henry Moore (next year I'd like to take a field trip to see the Moore sculpture-- it is a Moore, right?-- in front of the Seafirst building, on 4th Avenue)

Dada and futurist music, including pieces by Schwitters (from 1932, really) and Huelsenbeck, among others (CL 963)

I don't even know what to say about this

Richard Serra

Hand Catching Lead, 1968

video here

image source: http://www.portlandart.net/archives/2007/09/walking_the_pat.html

Process and Theory

I'll be posting it all as a Google Document shortly, but here's a trailer for the upcoming course next quarter at The Evergreen State College

COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This studio-based course will explore a broad range of process-oriented work through individual and collaborative projects, readings, and discussions. We’ll experiment with different ways to make paintings, sculptural objects, installations, and drawings; studio works will be complemented with relevant texts. What do your actions mean for the viewer? How is the art you make a record of your experience? What can it suggest when you twist, crumple, layer, crease, open, mix, rotate, stack, support, collect, store, bend, shorten, tear, split, cut, drop, splash, arrange, or simplify?

In class we’ll make many things quickly, working both independently and in team-based environments. Your works this quarter may look different than other art classes you’ve taken; many will be temporary, ephemeral, and unfinished. The works may be considered as propositions; as experiments or trials. Many of our works will exist in documentation or notation only. It’s about the process, not the product.

COURSEWORK
Four hours each Saturday will be devoted to developing your studio practice and will include demonstrations, research, discussions, concentrated work on projects (with individualized attention), and critical feedback from peers and instructor-- learning to discuss artwork/practice, deepening your experience and the experiences of the viewer. The learning objectives for the course include a deep analysis of your own processes for creating visual art. Classes will consist of a series of introductions—systematic research and discussion of the ways that you choose to make the art that you do, the historical context for similar works, and feedback for others in the class on things that they are creating.

Initially, I’ll offer some prompts for the things we make, and some broad, fluid topics will guide us: we’ll look at your processes in terms of everyday actions (what do you do repeatedly, and why?), mapping and surveillance (moving through spaces, responding to our movements in diverse environments), interventions (where can these actions occur, for how long, with what audience), and exchange (where does the work go?).

Establishing drawing and writing as primary tools for investigation will link all of our projects. They will offer you the ability to quickly record an idea, responding visually to new situations, concepts, or places, and may act as preliminary research for larger/extended projects or series of work. Drawing and writing (as activities) are tentative, preliminary, and questioning. Some pieces will be built over multiple sessions, but much of our drawing work will happen quickly, like glancing. In line with this, we will be exploring the campus at Evergreen, observing the ways we move through the space, and recording the objects, people, and architecture that make up our surroundings. What objects describe a place? How do you use your space?


The majority of your production in this course will take place in the classroom. This is designed to give you as many opportunities as possible to take advantage of an active learning community. While some projects may be collaborative, others may develop individually, but having access to each other’s progress in every forum is crucial in building visual language (or, more appropriately, visual discussion).
Each cluster of works will include presentations and discussions of the projects. We’ll discuss the form that these will take more in class.

As the course focuses on developing an understanding of your own action, your self- evaluations and faculty evaluations will both play vital, active roles in your studio work this quarter. It is suggested that you keep everything you write over the course of the quarter, looking for connections between seemingly disparate pieces, no matter how unrelated the works may at first appear.

In support of this work, you will also be expected to maintain a process book. The process book is a required element of this course. The format of this book will be your choice, but it is recommended that it be a size easy for you to transport, as it will be accompanying you both in and out of the classroom. In addition to the “process book” assignments given, this book is for you; it is a repository of what you see, hear, think, and speculate. It will be a place to work things out, to store things for later, to try something new. You will need to have your process book at each class session. In fact, carry it everywhere.

COURSE EQUIVALENCIES: Process-based art, Drawing as an everyday practice, Intermediate drawing. No prerequisites required.

READINGS/WORKS CITED
The “theory” part of the course title will extend from the works themselves. We’ll be reading a broad range of artist’s writings, where they describe how, where, and why they make the things they do. While much of the writings are grounded in philosophy, cultural studies, arts criticism, sociology, and other fields, my intention with focusing on the words of the artists themselves is two-fold: first, to offer you the chance to read how the artists themselves are problem-solving in their practice, and second, to use those writings as models for your own writing. Writing—in a variety of forms—will augment all of our projects this quarter. You will be writing notes on your production, writing proposals for works, responding to one another’s work, and writing as exploration, akin to sketching.
Some of the works you’ll encounter and utilize include:

Burgin, Victor. Some Cities. London: Reaktion Books, 1996.
Dean, Tacita, and Jeremy Millar. Art Works: Place. London: Thames & Hudson, 2005.
Fogle, Douglas. Painting at the Edge of the World. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2001.
Koolhaas, Rem. Mutations. Bordeaux: ACTAR, 2001.
Richter, Gerhard. The Daily Practice of Painting: Writings 1962-1993. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995.
Schaub, Mirjam. Janet Cardiff: The Walk Book. Walther Konig, 2005.
Schimmel, Paul. Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1998.
Selz, Peter and Kristine Stiles. Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists’ Writings. Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1996.
Smithson, Robert. The Collected Writings. Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1996.
Ulrich-Obrist, Hans. Do It. New York: Independent Curators International, 1997.
Ulrich-Obrist, Hans and Barbara Vanderlinden, eds. Laboratorium. Antwerpen: Dumont, Promotie Antwerpen Open, 2001.
Vyzoviti, Sophia. Supersurfaces. London: Gingko Press, 2006.
Warhol , Andy. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again). New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1975.

Thom Heileson at Luis de Jesus

Here is a virtual tour of Thom Heileson's new show at Luis de Jesus Seminal Projects in San Diego.

Max Ernst

Just so I don't forget it in a small journal sitting in my kitchen, here's a quote from Ernst (from his Ecritures, 1970),

human heads, animals, a battle which ends with a kiss (the bride of the wind), rocks, the sea and the rain, earthquakes, the sphinx in her stable, little tables around the earth, Caesar's palette, false positions, a fabric woven of hoarfrost, the pampas, whippings, strings of lava, fields of honor, scarecrows, the fall of the chestnut tree.

Self-evaluations, TESC

As promised, here are a few helpful links to guid you in the evaluation process

This is from Evergreen's site and links to many aspects of the Writing Center

This is more general, but offers links to the templates you'll need

and

This links back to a previous Foundcorn post, providing some scaffolding for the portfolio

As always, please feel free to email me with any questions, or post here as a comment