Aliza Shvarts

What are the most urgent issues in contemporary art now? This online course addresses the central themes and ideas shaping the production and distribution of art. Students will develop and manage their own blogs and participate in continuing online discussions. The final requirement will be a finished paper. This course will explore performance and theories of performativity, with a focus on histories of 20th and 21st century performance art, speech acts, and theories of gender performativity and embodiment. Taking up the core proposition of the “performative turn” in art and philosophy, we will examine not only what artworks, texts, and embodied practices mean, but what they do. Coursework will combine new and canonical works in queer theory, feminism, Black studies, Indigenous studies, and disability studies, and performance studies, as well as assignments that create opportunities to put theory into practice.

Students in their final residency enroll in Thesis Studio: Public Presentation, a two-part course that guides students through their thesis presentation that will be given in the Sullivan Galleries during the MFA Thesis Exhibition. The first portion functions as a seminar, during which students learn about historical modes and forms of the Artist?s Talk and prepare for their own presentations. The second portion of the course consists of the thesis presentations themselves, a culminating statement in the form of a public talk delivered to the entire graduating cohort along with visiting artists and SAIC faculty.

The Graduate Projects course allows students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work and research from their home studio or mobile platforms. The continued development of ideas and approaches initiated during the summer Graduate Studio Seminar will be supported through in-person and online conversation with SAIC Program Mentors. These liaisons are intended to support the off-campus development of work while also providing personal connections to SAIC's vast global network of distinguished alumni. Open to Low Residency MFA students only.