Magalie Guerin

This is a team-taught, three-week intensive Summer studio class for students who want to investigate painting issues and explore formal and conceptual interests in detail. The faculty consists of two SAIC faculty members and one visiting-artist-in-residence, working in a studio alongside students. The faculty and visiting-artist-in-residence meet with the students individually and conduct rigorous group critiques. Activities include: visiting artists' studios, galleries and museum collections. Individual studios are provided to each student enrolled this course.

This interdisciplinary critique seminar is designed to help students recognize patterns of inquiry within their studio work while proceeding toward an outward-facing practice beyond graduation. An assessment of previous projects will be the starting point for an ongoing critical examination of your creative practice, through which you will be asked to contextualize and position your work in the art-worlds of the 21st Century. This course is a forum for in-depth individual and group critiques with technical and conceptual discussions tailored to your practice and research. In addition to various readings, screenings, and field trips, class visits by local artists and curators will provide the opportunity for conversation about the lived experience of sustaining a creative practice. With an emphasis on faculty mentorship, class meetings will support the development of a focused, self-initiated Senior Project, a strong portfolio, and the tools for maintaining an independent studio practice.

This course looks at the range of concerns that inform and shape the making as well as the reception of paintings in a contemporary context. As a class, we will read, discuss and debate a range of historical and contemporary texts by artists, art historians, cultural theorists and critics on the continuing role and impact of painting as an art form, market force, and culture shaper, along with readings addressing the ability of art --and of painting in particular-- to effect political, ethical, and psychic change on both an individual and a broader social and cultural level. Thematic topics, readings and screenings will vary but are typically chosen in reference to specific VAP or Departmental artist lectures offered during the semester of the course. Readings/topics may relate to one or more of the following: disability theory and the relationship of art to self-care; the relationship of visibility politics to current impulses in painting; the relationship of art to work, labor and leisure; the case of 'zombie formalism' and market effects on painting trends; the role of autobiography in art making and painting practices in particular. Mandatory individual studio critiques of 45-60 minutes each; weekly written outlines/quick bullet-point responses to one or more class readings; mandatory attendance to VAP lectures and other lectures if scheduled at same time as seminar class; final paper consisting of a critical review of a painting exhibition currently on view in Chicago.