Category: Assignments

Click here for directions on the take-home final.

Your final blog post for the semester is a response to THE JUNGLE at St. Ann’s Warehouse.

By Sunday at 9 pm, please post a 400-500 word reflection on a striking moment, scene, or speech from the play. Pick a detail of the performance, and give an account of what made this moment powerful, moving, or surprising.

After posting, please read through your classmates work. By Monday at 9 pm, add substantial and thoughtful comments to response to at least two other students’ responses.

Next week, we are going to see two shows at the Jewish Museum: “Chagall, Lissitsky, Malevich: The Russian Avant-Garde in Vitebsk, 1918-1922” and “Martha Rosler: Irrespective.”

Both shows—one on early 20th century Russian art, one on a late 20th century American artist—exhibit both formal experimentation and political content. Both address the question of “what is art” and the question of “what does art do, in the world?”

You will choose one work of art from either show, and write a 400-500 word blog post about it. At the museum, after you choose your work of art, take a photo of it to post on the blog.

In your written analysis, answer the following questions:

1. In what way does this work constitute experimental, or avant-garde, art? What boundaries does it push? What innovations does it make? Is it a mimesis—or is it abstract? Pay attention to the medium—the materials—as well as the content and visual style of the artwork, here.

2. In what way is this work political? What message does it hold? How is it—do you think—trying to effect a change in the viewer, or in the world?

3. How are your answers to #1 and #2 related? How is the artwork’s experimentalism (in terms of style, medium, or artistic method) related to its political content, if at all?

NOTE: If you want to review the PowerPoint on avant-garde and political art from our 11/20 class, it is available here.

This assignment asks you to imitate both the content and the style of Open City. Imitation is a form of analysis. It requires you to understand the creative processes that went into the source text, and to exercise your own creative faculties in making something new.

For this post, take a walk of at least 30 minutes (longer, if possible). This can be in any neighborhood, in any borough. It can begin or end in public transit, or it can be a walk from and to your home (try not to retrace your steps, though). Do not walk with a goal in mind—don’t go get groceries, or commute—but instead meander, wander, walk for the sake of walking. You may walk at night, in the daytime, in any weather. As you move through space, take note of what you see, how the air fills, what people you encounter. Take note, too, of your own thoughts: what trains of thought are moving inside your mind, as your body moves through the city? And what’s the relationship between your inward experience, and the outward world?

Within forty-eight hours of taking your walk, write a few paragraphs (at least 500 words) recounting the experience in as much detail as possible. Try to capture with precision your own very particular experiences, but also to draw on Teju Cole’s style in order to do so. Be artful: Cole layers the inner and the outer carefully, creatively. This is not an outpouring of random thoughts and impressions (though it may appear to be so at times); rather, it is an extended meditation on the shifting relationship of the individual to the city. Be open, and see what the city says to you.

This assignment’s aim is to allow you to recreate—as your own—the interplay of inner life (feeling, memory, thought) and outward world (city streets, subways, weather) that structures Cole’s novel.

After you’ve taken your walk, drop a marker on the map assigned to your name’s layer as well as the “Walking” layer. Since you are dropping a marker on a single place, choose a place that was on your walk, and write a tiny bit in your marker content area about why you chose this particular place from the walk.

The literary world in New York is a vibrant, lively, public world. Poets, fiction-writers, and other authors frequently read their work aloud in public settings, participate in Q&A’s with their audiences, and discuss the writing craft. Sometimes multiple authors read together; other times a single author takes the spotlight. These readings are more than just story-time for grown-ups. They are performances, in which authors become performers, and readers become spectators. The poem (or bit of prose) at a reading operates like a musical score: brought to life in a new way when performed out loud.

For this next blog post, you will attend a reading: that is, a public oral performance of a literary text or texts. The reading can be of poetry or prose, fiction or non-fiction. (Below, you will find a list of suggestions on how to find a reading). You have two weeks to complete this post—this will allow you to choose from a wider range of readings, on a wider range of dates. By Sunday 11/4 at 9 pm, post to the blog

• A detailed account of who you saw reading, what they read, and when and where they read it.
• Visual documentation of your attendance at the reading: a photograph of you in the bookstore or lecture hall; a photograph of the crowd, a photo of you with the writer (if you’re feeling bold!)
• A 500-750 word reflective essay on the experience of attending this particular reading. How did the author perform his or her work–how much did s/he dramatize? How did voice, gesture, posture, and sheer embodiment augment the words, or bring those words to life? As a spectator, how did listening (and watching) in public differ from the more common practice of reading silently to oneself in public? What did you learn about the craft of writing, either from the author’s comments or from the Q&A? (You will be doing some creative writing in a future blog post, so be thinking about this!)

Also by Sunday 11/4 at 9 pm, you should update the class map to reflect where you attended a reading. We will create a new layer for this assignment. Your map update should include an image and a brief description, as well as a location!

*

Where should you go, to attend a reading?

If you want to search by date to see what’s available, the organization Poets & Writers has a nifty tool for that! https://www.pw.org/calendar

Universities sometimes have readings that are free and open to the public. In fact, there’s one coming up at Baruch: the Fall Poetry Revel, at which students in creative writing classes share their work (all are welcome to share, however, so if you’re a poet, you can also present here). Baruch’s Poetry Revel is on Wednesday, October 31 at 3:00 PM, room 14-270 in the VC.

Libraries are also a good bet–check out your local branch library, or the main branch of the NYPL.

For those of you who want to go further afield–and I strongly encourage you to do this–NYC bookstores have frequent readings. Check your local bookstore, or look at the events schedules for McNally Jackson (lower Manhattan), Greenlight (Fort Greene and Lefferts Gardens), Berl’s Poetry Shop (DUMBO), the Strand (near Union Square), Codex Books (East Village). These are just a small handful of the bookstores that have frequent readings!

Finally, there are a several venues dedicated to literary events in the city. You may attend a poetry slam at the Nuyorican Poets Café, a reading at the Poetry Project, or an evening at the Bowery Poetry Club or KGB Bar and Reading Room. Unlike bookstore readings, these are not always free, so double check in advance (and pay, absolutely, if you want to!).

NOTE: Some events at some venues are 21+, so double-check before you make your choice.

Blog post #5: Preliminary proposals for final projects

We are now about halfway through the semester—which means it’s time to start thinking about final projects. For your final projects, you will make a work of art. You have a lot of freedom, here, but here are the mandatory elements to consider before jumping in:

• You will be working with a group of between 2 and 5 people. You may choose your own groups, but I reserve the right to do some integrating/re-shuffling. (Ie, if two tiny groups were proposing similar projects, I might ask them to work together).
• Each member of the group must have a defined role and set of tasks. You’re a unified team, but you aren’t all necessarily doing the same thing. Dividing up the labor is a huge part of the task, here.
• Your work of art must in some way be related to what we’ve read and what we’ve experienced this semester, and you should be able to articulate what that relationship is.
• Your work of art must be displayable—since it will be on display at the STEAM festival. So, if you’re, say, creating a series of lion paintings in different styles, your task is pretty easy here! But if you’re doing, instead, a handmade chapbook or an illustrated anthology of poems (which are also totally acceptable projects), you’ll want to think about how to display this—possibly including a reading of certain poems at key points in the festival.
• Your work of art will be the basis of your own final piece of writing for the class: a reflective essay due at the end of term.

As a reminder, here are some topics we’ve thought about this semester, and that we WILL think about

• New York City – as the subject matter of art, and as a space of displaying and consuming art
• Lions, and the representational strategies artists use in creating them
• The spaces of display: museums vs galleries vs public art. (So, let’s say you now love public art. You could create an artwork meant to be engage audiences moving through public spaces—a portable mural, or a sculpture. Or, let’s say you love galleries. You could create a 3-D model of your own gallery—your own white cube!–and hang it with photos from the class Instagram, or with other (tiny!) works of art)
• Photography
• Opera and performance – you might write a scene to be sung in recitative, ending in an aria! Or you might play around with the idea of using noumenal and phenomenal music in a performance in other ways.
• Writing the city – we’ll be turning to poetry next week, and to Teju Cole’s NYC novel, Open City, after that
• Political art – art that seeks to change people’s minds.

For next week’s blog post I am asking you to write up and post a preliminary proposal. (This is a CHANGE to the syllabus, and the website will be updated to reflect this shortly)

Your preliminary proposal will be a relatively short (500-600 words) document consisting of

1. The names of the group members
2. Your preliminary idea for a work of art you might create for your final project/the STEAM festival. For each one, describe:

– What you might make
– How it relates to the themes and readings of the semester
– How you imagine (at this point) displaying it at the STEAM festival

NOTE 1: This assignment is all about brainstorming. You may include several ideas, rather than committing to just one, if that’s more productive for you. But for each one, tell us what you might make, how it relates to the themes and readings of the semester, and how you imagine displaying it at the STEAM festival.

NOTE 2: You may at this stage post a proposal solo (though you are encouraged to find a group). We will work on integrating you into a group—either of other solo folk or a group that matches your interests. Groups are in part necessary because of the structure of the STEAM festival, as designed by Macaulay, but within those groups members may have very different tasks. (So, for example, if you’re continuing to explore lions in art: one of you might paint a series of lion pictures; another might write and perform music inspired by lions; a third might create a lion graffiti wall.)

Due on the blog Sunday at 9, with category Blog Post 5. Your title should contain group members’ first names plus a description (suggestive or factual, clever or straightforward) of your project idea.

As we move into our unit on street photography, you will be not only reading about and viewing art—you will be making it. Each of you will be, for at least two weeks, an active urban street photographer. Here’s what’s involved:

1. Complete the readings for 10/2. Pay particular attention to Cartier-Bresson’s more theoretical definitions of a strong photograph, and to Jardin’s practical tips for taking photos in an urban environment today.
2. Start taking photos! Use your phone, or a digital camera so that your pictures can be uploaded to Instagram easily. (If you want to work with film, talk to Prof Kolb and Jake—we may be able to work something out).
3. Spend a few days taking frequent photos as a way of framing your experiences of the city. Consider what subject matter you’re drawn to: are you taking portraits? Photos of people aware (or unaware) that they’re being snapped? Or are you more drawn to images of storefronts, or urban vegetation, or signage? Do you like to take pictures in the subway, or are you drawn to open-air spaces, like parks? Do your images highlight contrasts—a trash mound waiting for pickup in front of a row of upscale buildings, say—or are they suggestive of narrative scenarios: a kid’s birthday party in the park; a person feeding a duck? Do you like to be up close to your subject matter, highlighting texture, shadows, light? Or do you step back, to create a composition made up of multiple elements? NOTE: You don’t have to set out with a pre-conceived notion of what kind of photographer you are. But, as you work, notice the kinds of pictures you’re creating.
4. After a few days, choose some photographs you’d like to share with the class. Be selective—choose your best work (whatever your criteria for that might be). Post your chosen photos to the class Instagram account. [NB: Instructions on posting to come]. After you have a sense of yourself as street photographer, you may start posting as soon as you know you’ve taken a great photo, or you may save up a bunch of photos in order to select the strongest ones later.
5. By Sunday, 10/7 you should have posted 5-7 pictures to the class Instagram. By Sunday, 10/14, you should have posted between 10 and 15. Remember to post to the class account, but to identify the photos as your own. Use hashtags and tag your location to invite a wider audience. And feel free to caption or title your photo. (I’ve posted an example, but I suspect your hashtag skills will surpass mine!!). If you need a reminder of the login info, email Jake or me. If you need any help posting, ditto.
6. In class on October 9, you will give a brief oral presentation—a spoken “artist’s statement”—in which you describe your photographic practices: your subject matter, style, and methods. In your presentation, you will discuss your practices as a photographer, and you will illustrate this discussion with images. You must cover the following three areas:
   1. VISION. What is your goal, as a photographer? What motivates you to take pictures? What subjects do you seek out, and what do you want your spectators to notice, or take away? Illustrate this part of your presentation with an image or two that best captures your photographic artistry.
   2. PROCESS. How do you work? Do you take hundreds of photos, and select just one? Do you crop? Use filters? Do you go on long rambling photo walks, or do you go to a specific spot to take pictures? Illustrate this part of your presentation with images that demonstrate your process–including at least one image that did not make it to the class IG page.
   3. INFLUENCES. Please discuss at least two influences: one reading (Jardin, Barthes, Cartier-Bresson) and one photographer or photograph. What in the reading inspired you, or challenged you? What photograph or body of work shaped the way you see–and the way you take pictures?

NOTE: Your presentation will be brief–5 minutes only! (We have to stick strictly to the time limit to make sure everyone has a chance to present). Keep your notes to about a page, and choose 4-6 photos to illustrate. Stick to the three points outlined above. And, above all, practice your presentation–and time yourself practicing it!!

I will make sure the projector is up and running before class, but please let me know if you have any special technology needs.

Choose a photographer from the list below, someone whose work appeals to you, arrests you, holds your attention. In order to make your choice, do some image searching, or even check out a book or two on photography from the library. Familiarize yourself with the style, subject matter, and the artistic preoccupations of a few of these photographers. When you have made your choice, pick a single image from your chosen photographer’s oeuvre (body of work). This should be not just any photograph, but one that grabs you and holds your attention: one that, to borrow from Barthes, “animates” you, perhaps even pierces or “wounds” you. In other words, choose a photograph that has a punctum.

Note: Remember that the punctum is partly subjective—it is located in your own idiosyncratic experience of viewing the picture—but that it is also very much in the photograph. Barthes defines this term in multiple ways, but he is clear that, in most cases, it is a detail within the photograph itself.

When you have chosen your photograph, post a (large, high quality) image of it to the blog. Include the title (if any), the photographer’s name and dates (of birth and, if applicable, of death), and the year the photo was taken. In a post of 400-450 words, give an account of both the photograph’s studium and of its punctum. If you need help defining these terms, turn back to Camera Lucida and to your notes from our class discussion. Be sure to select the category “Blog Post 3.”

Photographers (in alphabetical order by last name)*

Shirley Baker

Dawoud Bey

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Martha Cooper

Robert Doisneau

Elliott Erwitt

Walker Evans

Jill Freedman

Harness Hamese

André Kertész

Helen Levitt

Vivian Maier

Dmitry Markov

Susan Meiselas

Daido Moriyama

Musa N. Nxumalo

Alexander Petrosyan

Malick Sidibé

W. Eugene Smith

Daniele Tamagni

Gary Winograd

*If there is a specific photographer whose name does not appear here whose work you’d like to analyze, email me for permission. The photographers I’ve chosen all practice urban street photography (though this is not what all of them focused on all of the time), which feeds into our next unit directly. That said, I have no desire to be unnecessarily restrictive, here.

Choose one work of art in an art gallery, and one in a public space. (Note: public art can include permanent structures, like statues and monuments, and temporary installations, like those covered in Ameena Walker’s Curbed article. It may also include murals, graffiti, and subway station art. If it’s a work of art in a public space–a park, a station, a bridge, a street–it counts.)

Include a photograph of each work. This must be a photograph taken by you,  not downloaded from an image search online.

In a blog post of 500-750 words

-Describe each work of art in thick, textured detail. Bring it to life before your readers’ eyes. In other words: create a vivid ekphrasis of each work.

-Describe each work’s environment in equally vivid detail, bringing your reader into the gallery space (for work #1) and public space (for work #2).

-Include a statement—a claim—about how the environment shapes, distorts, or augments, or otherwise changes our perception of the work of art. How does the space in which we view art change the nature of the artwork? (Conversely, how does the work of art alter the space?)

In addition to your blog post, please create map markers for both your gallery art and your public art. Add both to your personal layer (the one with your last name), as well as the appropriate layer: either “Galleries” or “Public Art.” If you have any issues or questions about the map portion, ask Jake. This is also due by 9pm on Sept. 23.

Blog post #1: Find a lion – Post by Sunday 9/2, 9pm

Choose an art museum in the city that you have never been to before. In that museum, look around—take some time!—and find a representation of a lion. This may be a drawing, a painting, a sculpture—as long as it is a mimesis (imitation) of a lion.

Some interesting lions can (probably!) be found in the following museums. All of them have lions in their collections, and most will have a lion or two on display.*

• The Cloisters
• The Rubin Museum
• The Frick
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
• The Guggenheim

Blog post #1 has three parts:

1. A photograph of the artwork you have chosen. If the museum does not permit photography, find an image online later, and link to it. Most museum websites contain such images; wider Googling often works, too.
2. Detailed information about the artist, country or culture of origin, date, and medium (i.e., pen and ink; wood; oil paint). All of this information may be found near the artwork itself, usually on a small card affixed to the wall.
3. A written analysis (200-250 words) of your lion, with particular attention to the way it is represented—to the strategies the artist employed in creating this lion. In order to do this, consider:

• What is immediately striking about the lion? (Is it noticeably textured? Does it resemble a dog? Is it hyper-realistic—a very life-like lion—or is it stylized? Is its color unusual?)
• What aspects of the lion are emphasized? (Are its teeth bared, are its paws enormous? Does it have a minimal mane, or a giant ring of flame-like fur?)
• What is its relationship to the rest of the artwork? (Is this a representation of just a lion—or a lion in relation to other figures, or to a landscape?).
• And finally, what is the overall effect of how the lion is represented?—what is your reaction, as a viewer?

Be as detailed as possible in your account of the lion’s representation. Do not rely on the image to do this work—description is analysis. Call your readers’ attention to the features of the lion you find most striking and most meaningful.

*If your museum of choice has no lion—do not fret! You may complete the assignment with another animal (horses are a good one)—though please make a good faith effort to find a lion. Do not spend too much time trying to figure out in advance what you’ll look at or write on. Choose a museum that seems interesting to you, and go!