As registration for Fall 2015 academic courses begins soon, I wanted to provide more information about courses I will begin teaching in September, 2015. Please see detailed descriptions below. If you have any specific questions that are not answered here or in the links I provide you to the registration for the courses, you can contact me directly. I look forward to another rich and engaging semester with both new and familiar faces. **NOTE: New pre-requisites for ARTH 3100 and ARTH 2122 allow for more flexibility in registration for non-Fine Arts students**
ARTH 3100: Urban, Street, and Graffiti Art
Kwantlen Polytechnic University (Tuesdays 4:00-6:50pm, Surrey Campus Fir 3414). Prerequisites: 6 Credits of ARTH or 18 credits of 1100-level courses or higher, and ENGL 1100.
Graffiti and street art from around the world will be part of the focus in this special topics course. Come learn more about one of the most visible and highly circulated art forms in the world today.
The recent NYC/Venice Field school had many opportunities to see graffiti and street art around New York-- a city that will play a big role in this course.
This course offers a critical and historical examination of the origins and evolution of graffiti and street art in the urban context. Beginning first with an overview of the subculture of graffiti as it emerged on the streets of Philadelphia and New York over forty years ago, the course will track the rise of graffiti and street art from its first appearance on North American city streets through to its often controversial foray into the contemporary art scene and into its present status as among the most circulated and highly visible forms of public art both on the Internet and in cities around the world. As such, the course will consider the broader role that graffiti and street art have played in the cultural landscape and consciousness of the city, dating back through earlier episodes in history when slogans and political/social commentary written illicitly on public walls emerged as the recognized precursor to modern forms of graffiti and street art.
Themes and issues covered in this course include the form and content of signature graffiti writing (tags, throwies, pieces) and street art media and techniques (murals, stencils, stickers, mosaic tiling, yarn bombing, street sculptures and installations); the emergence of key individuals, crews, and rivalries on local and global scenes; the influence of hip-hop and music cultures on graffiti and street art; identity politics and the contest over real and virtual public space; the role and influence of celebrity graffiti and street artists on the scene (i.e. Shepard Fairey, Banksy, David Choe, Retna, Os Gemeos, JR, Lady Pink, and Miss Van), and the influence of technological, digital, computerized, and networked information technologies in the creation, distribution, and circulation of graffiti and street art today.
ARTH 2122: Modern Art and Visual Culture, 1890-1945
Kwantlen Polytechnic University (Mondays 10:00-12:50pm, Surrey Campus Fir 128). Prerequisites: 6 credits of any 1100-level or higher courses.
Pablo Picasso's iconic Les Demoiselles D'avignon (1907) signalled a radical shift in modern art-- come learn in ARTH 2122 about how and why paintings like this matter to the way we think about art today, and how this work came to be considered one of the most important art works ever made in the twentieth century.
This course offers a survey of changing ideas in the visual arts of Europe and North America during the first half of the twentieth century with special emphasis given to the movements of the historical avant-garde. Considering these major movements in the context of the social, economic and political upheavals of this complex and multi-faceted time period, key to the course will be the broader question of modernity itself and its transformation through a time of radical technological, social and political change. Topics such as the social and representative meanings of abstraction, the internationalization of art production, the development of Modernist theory, and the impact of new technologies on the production and dissemination of art objects will be explored. And while lectures will be organized around the familiar “isms” that have historically constructed the canon of modernism, careful consideration will be given to the fabricated nature of these designations, reading instances of art practice for aesthetic significance together with connections and responses to specific historical and social developments. Traditional media such as painting, drawing and sculpture will be examined alongside the newer media of photography, assemblage, film and collage.
ARTH 1130: Introduction to Film Studies
Kwantlen Polytechnic University **TWO SECTIONS OFFERED** Mondays 7:00-9:50pm, Surrey Campus Fir 128; and Fridays 1:00-4:50pm, Surrey Campus Fir 128). No Prerequisites.
What makes a motion picture iconic and worthy of critical consideration? Come learn the answer to this question in ARTH 1130, an introductory course to one of the most beloved visual art forms on the planet-- movies! Full feature film screenings and discussion are part of each class.
Students will study the history and development of world cinema, and the comprehension and theory of film as a visual language and art-making practice from its inception in the late nineteenth century to the present. The goal of the course is to introduce students to the critical interpretation of the cinema and the various vocabularies and methods with which one can explore the aesthetic function, together with the social, political, and technological contexts and developments, of moving pictures. The weekly format of this course (as a 4 hour block) will normally entail a 1 hour lecture and the screening of a full-length film followed by a group discussion period. Each film will thus serve as a starting point and gateway for discussion about the course’s weekly theme.
FPA 167: Visual Art & Culture I
Simon Fraser University (Thursdays 6:30-9:20pm, Vancouver Harbour Centre Campus 1700). No Prerequisites.
Eduard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882)-- why doesn't this painting add up, and why is this important to the artists part of the Impressionist movement? Come learn more in FPA 167.
This course provides an introduction to the complex ways in which social and political change, and ideologies of gender, class, race and ethnicity, worked to shape aspects of nineteenth century visual culture in Europe and North America. Emphasis will be placed on the roles played by industrialization, political revolution, rapid urban growth, global commerce, and the new media technologies of an expanding consumer culture in defining a wide range of visual culture. Throughout the term we will also examine different representations and debates around the idea of modernity and the “modern.” Since the time period under investigation has often been called “The First Modern Century”, we will pay particular attention to shifting ideas related to labour and leisure, urban social space and spectacle, and issues bearing on Euro-American expansion of empires in relation to indigenous populations, throughout the nineteenth century to turn of the twentieth century up to WWI.