4.301 Introduction to the Visual Arts

This course is an introduction to contemporary art practice and aesthetic analysis. Students communicate ideas though various media, including sculpture, performance and video. Projects evolve through stages of conceptual and material development to final presentation and critical discussion. Lectures, visiting artist presentations, field trips and readings supplement studio practice, providing an index to the historical and cultural forces that affect both the development of an artistic practice and the reception of the work of art.

Section 1: TBA

Section 2: Knock offs, Phonies, Fakes, Frauds, Forges
A number of artists, from Marcel Duchamp to Andy Warhol to Eric Doeringer, have used 'faking' or 'copying' as their primary artistic process. Comedians and satirists have used the power of parody to make politically charged entertainment with a strong critical edge. Tribute bands, celebrity, impersonators and drag queens have taken homage to a new level. Cheap knock offs, from perfume and purses to cell phones and computers have created an economy based on 'close enough'. In this interdisciplinary seminar/studio, you make your own 'genuine fakes' and take on your own false personalities. Through drawing, photography, rapid proto-typing, performance and video installation, we will explore the crisis of the 'real' in the digital era and its historical precedents. How have our current notions of authenticity been contested by the pervasiveness of doctored images? What new spaces for artistic practice does this altered relationship to the 'real' create? Through our readings and studio work, we will investigate issues such as deceit and fraudulence, drag and parady.

Fall 2008

Section 1
Visiting Professor Yvonne P. Doderer
Meets TR 2:00-5:00
Room: N51-348

Section 2: Knock offs, Phonies, Fakes, Frauds, Forges
Lecturer Joe Zane
Meets TR 2:00-5:00
Room: N52-342

Undergraduate Level Subject
Prereq: --
Units: 2-4-6
Credit cannot also be received for 4.302
You must enter the HASS-D lottery to take this subject.