Discovering Manhattan: Drawing and Painting in the Spirit of the Modern Art Pioneers

Semester and Year	SP 2013
Course Number	ARTS-UG1425
Section	001
Instructor	Barnaby Ruhe
Days	Thu
Time	3:30 PM - 6:10 PM
Units	4.0
Level	U
Foundation Requirement

Description

This workshop explores images of New York City as envisioned by various schools of modern art, including Ashcan, Bauhaus, Futurist, Dadaist, and High Tech, and by the artists of the modern period, including Sloan, Mondrian, Hopper, Marin, Brancusi, O'Keefe, Duchamp, Grooms, and Nam June Paik. In response to studying these visions of New York, students create their own art works—sketching in Times Square with the garrulous attitude of Reginald Marsh, drawing a skyscraper in an ecstatic John Marin breath, creating a collage by rifling through bins with Arman and Duchamp. The workshop concludes with a collaborative mural project and a final paper analyzing various strategies of expression whereby modern artists discovered the meaning of Manhattan. Through a process of appropriation, imitation, and parody, students are thus encouraged to re-enact the process of "discovering Manhattan," to engage in a dialogue with the city, and thereby to discover their own artistic voices. Readings include E.B.White's ineffable "Here is New York," Alan Ginsberg's outrageous Howl, Robert Henri's Art Spirit, as well as excerpts from Natalie Edgar, Harold Rosenberg, and Irving Sandler.

Course Type

Arts Workshops (ARTS-UG)