A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.

On This Page

Danny Floyd

Lecturer

Contact

Bio

Danny Floyd is an artist, researcher, curator, and educator based out of Chicago. He holds a BFA in Photography from RISD, an MA in Visual & Critical Studies, and an MFA in Sculpture both from SAIC. He is the Exhibitions Director for ACRE and a Lecturer of Visual & Critical Studies and Sculpture at SAIC. 

Since 2013, he has been an active part of Chicago's artist-run space community through two programs, Ballroom Projects and Adler & Floyd. He has held curatorial residencies with ACRE and Chicago Artists Coalition. He was also awarded the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation Curatorial Fellowship in 2017. He has attended studio residencies at ACRE; AS220 in Providence, RI; and Earthbound Moon in Eugene, OR. Danny represents the Part-Time faculty as Lecturer Rep, attending Faculty Business Senate and serving on various committees and working groups.

Personal Statement

At the risk of confusion, Danny's studio work seeks the narrow threshold between meaning and nonsense in text and images. Often at odds with neuro-normative conventions, he embraces divergent thinking through improvisation and the delightfully weird. His conceptual process foregrounds reading and listening practices as cultural production rather than passive reception. His curatorial area of expertise in installation sculpture. His writing practice is closely tied to his curatorial practice, devising exhibition themes driven by research and guided by collaborative conversation with exhibiting artists.

In the classroom, Danny often teaches through questions. Questions challenge the student, pushing them to think deeply and critically while still treating them with empathy without, as sculptor Robert Irwin put it, "hav[ing] have ambitions for someone else’s mind." Danny's courses explore creative and critical approaches to understanding the cultural role of music, architecture and the built environment, and exhibition making. Danny also routinely teaches Thesis Tutorial, and Junior seminar which teachers research, writing, and editing practices to prepare students to write a Senior Thesis on the VCS track.

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

This course will provide a link between Issues in Visual and Critical Studies, required of all first-year B.A. students, and the Thesis Seminar required in their final year. Typically, students will take this course at the end of their second year of full-time study. Building on the Issues course, early in the course students will read material that suggests the range of possibilities for visual and critical studies. Then each student will undertake a project that focuses on some aspect of visual and critical studies of particular interest to them. The project must include a substantial written component, although it might also make use of other media. Student presentation of their projects, as works in progress and then completed work, will provide opportunity for discussion of how they might give coherence to their final semesters of study. This will include suggestions for connections they might make among different aspects of their education, and will serve as an early stage in the process of developing a senior thesis project.

Class Number

1543

Credits

3

Description

This course is designed to provide students an opportunity to gain experience as interns in professional arts and design environments and prepare for professional life after SAIC. During the semester, faculty provide in-depth mentorship and act as liaison with the internship site supporting students meet their learning goals as outlined for the semester. Through group meetings and online discussions, students engage with a peer cohort of students participating in a variety of internships. Students work at internships for a total of 140 hours (approx 14 hours per week) for the term. In addition to successfully completing the internship, students will conduct an informational interview with their employer, attend 4 class meetings and a meeting with the faculty and supervisor, complete an internship supervisor evaluation, revise their resume, and update their online portfolio, website, or professional profile. Students are required to secure an internship prior to the start of the semester. Internships must be approved by the Career and Professional Experience (CAPX) office. Students are encouraged to meet with a CAPX advisor for assistance with researching and applying for internships. In order to begin the internship approval process students should go to https://bit.ly/35vmTTM. Upon approval, course registration is managed by CAPX. Note that international students must receive CPT authorization prior to participating in an off-campus internship. Internships may be in-person, hybrid, or virtual; however all four class meetings are virtual. Class meeting day and time are determined by the faculty.

Class Number

1397

Credits

3

Description

This course is designed to provide students an opportunity to gain experience as interns in professional arts and design environments and prepare for professional life after SAIC. During the semester, faculty provide in-depth mentorship and act as liaison with the internship site supporting students meet their learning goals as outlined for the semester. Through group meetings and online discussions, students engage with a peer cohort of students participating in a variety of internships. Students work on-site at internships for a total of 140 hours (approx 14 hours per week) for the term. In addition to successfully completing the internship, students will conduct an informational interview with their employer, attend 4 class meetings and an onsite meeting with the faculty and supervisor, complete an internship supervisor evaluation, revise their resume, and update their online portfolio, website, or professional profile. Students are required to secure an internship prior to the start of the semester. Internships must be approved by the Career and Professional Experience (CAPX) office. Students are encouraged to meet with a CAPX advisor for assistance with researching and applying for internships. In order to begin the internship approval process students should go to https://bit.ly/35vmTTM. Upon approval, course registration is managed by CAPX. Note that international students must receive CPT authorization prior to participating in an off-campus internship. Internships may be in-person, hybrid, or virtual; however all four class meetings are virtual. Class meeting day and time are determined by the faculty.

Class Number

2059

Credits

1.5 - 3

Description

This course is designed to provide students an opportunity to gain experience as interns in professional arts and design environments and prepare for professional life after SAIC. During the semester, faculty provide in-depth mentorship and act as liaison with the internship site supporting students meet their learning goals as outlined for the semester. Through group meetings and online discussions, students engage with a peer cohort of students participating in a variety of internships. Students work on-site at internships for a total of 140 hours (approx 14 hours per week) for the term. In addition to successfully completing the internship, students will conduct an informational interview with their employer, attend 4 class meetings and an onsite meeting with the faculty and supervisor, complete an internship supervisor evaluation, revise their resume, and update their online portfolio, website, or professional profile. Students are required to secure an internship prior to the start of the semester. Internships must be approved by the Career and Professional Experience (CAPX) office. Students are encouraged to meet with a CAPX advisor for assistance with researching and applying for internships. In order to begin the internship approval process students should go to https://bit.ly/35vmTTM. Upon approval, course registration is managed by CAPX. Note that international students must receive CPT authorization prior to participating in an off-campus internship. Internships may be in-person, hybrid, or virtual; however all four class meetings are virtual. Class meeting day and time are determined by the faculty.

Class Number

1256

Credits

1.5 - 3

Description

This course critically examines architecture and the built environment through three expanding lenses: first through form; second through concepts; and finally though politics and civic engagement. Through reading, discussion, and experiential research, students will gain a thorough understanding of the socio-cultural role of the built environment. Students will engage the systems of the built environment to come to an understanding of how social, formal, and methodological aspects of architecture can be deployed, deconstructed and reformulated through critical production. Readings in the first unit will include spatial theory by authors like Zoe Sofia, Elizabeth Grosz, Michelle Addington, and Georg Simmel and material explorations by authors like Pauline von Bonsdorff, WJT Mitchell, and Peter Schjehldahl. Readings in the second unit explore concepts through Michel Foucault, Mark Wigley, and Roland Barthes. The third unit explores the political work of the Forensic Architecture think tank, as well as texts on gentrification, erasure urbanism, and institutional access. Each unit will end with a short research paper, or the opportunity to present in-progress work for a longer semester-length research project. The option for a studio project will be presented with specific guidelines for preparing for critique.

Class Number

2282

Credits

3

Description

This course critically examines architecture and the built environment through three expanding lenses: first through form; second through concepts; and finally though politics and civic engagement. Through reading, discussion, and experiential research, students will gain a thorough understanding of the socio-cultural role of the built environment. Students will engage the systems of the built environment to come to an understanding of how social, formal, and methodological aspects of architecture can be deployed, deconstructed and reformulated through critical production. Readings in the first unit will include spatial theory by authors like Zoe Sofia, Elizabeth Grosz, Michelle Addington, and Georg Simmel and material explorations by authors like Pauline von Bonsdorff, WJT Mitchell, and Peter Schjehldahl. Readings in the second unit explore concepts through Michel Foucault, Mark Wigley, and Roland Barthes. The third unit explores the political work of the Forensic Architecture think tank, as well as texts on gentrification, erasure urbanism, and institutional access. Each unit will end with a short research paper, or the opportunity to present in-progress work for a longer semester-length research project. The option for a studio project will be presented with specific guidelines for preparing for critique.

Class Number

2177

Credits

3

Description

Students who enroll in Capstone 4900: Senior Exhibition will participate in the fall exhibition at SAIC Galleries and will be ineligible to participate in the spring exhibition. Students enrolling in this course must have senior status--90 credits or more completed--when the Fall semester begins. This interdisciplinary capstone class is designed to help students recognize patterns of inquiry within their practice and to help contextualize their work in preparation for their Senior Exhibition. An assessment of previous work will be the starting point for ongoing critical inquiry into your creative professional practice, and how you might position and locate your own work in the art-worlds of the 21st Century. Readings, screenings, and field trips will vary. Class visits by local artists will provide the opportunity to have a conversation about their lived experience sustaining a creative practice. With an emphasis on faculty mentorship, class meetings will support the development of a body of work or project for the Senior Exhibition, building a strong portfolio, and planning for post-SAIC life.

Class Number

1262

Credits

3

Description

This class is premised on the idea that language – spoken, written, published, discursed, and so on – constitutes immense potential for studio practice. Creative textual practices abound in poetry, essays, fiction, print, painting, installation, screen and web technologies, and lectures, but perhaps even more intriguingly, in the figurative and literal margins of these practices. Students will be tasked with executing self-initiated projects, thinking critically about their own and others’ work, planning and implementing detailed proposals, and engaging in wider cultures that influence contemporary language practices. Class sessions will include individual work time supported by mentoring with faculty as well as critique. The class includes viewing the work of a set of artists and writers who are diverse both in terms of identity and in practice. Examples range from formal play with text to political engagements. Artists and writers to be considered include but are not limited to Glenn Ligon, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Mel Bochner, Christine Sun Kim, Tony Lewis, Lawrence Weiner, Kay Rosen, Edgar Heap of Birds, Susan Howe, Hito Steyerl, Raymond Pettibon, Aram Saroyan, Robin Deacon, Gregg Bordowitz, Nyeema Morgan, Bruce Nauman, Jessica Vaughn, Sol LeWitt, Kenneth Goldsmith, Hans Haake, Ed Rucha, Martin Creed, Gertrude Stein, Settler Colonial City Project, Forensic Architecture, Christian Bök, Christopher Wool, Joseph Grigely, and Park McArthur. As a Capstone class, students will be challenged to discuss their practice effectively and engage in critical dialog with their peers as well as interrogate how language becomes assembled and documented material. This may include investigating strategies of exhibition and publication.

Class Number

1273

Credits

3

Description

Students who enroll in Capstone 4900: Senior Exhibition must have been assigned the Spring exhibition at SAIC Galleries. The Spring exhibition assignment takes place in the preceding term (Fall). Enrollment in this course will only be permitted for students eligible for the Spring exhibition. Students who fail to subsequently complete the Spring exhibition registration process may not ultimately participate in this exhibition-focused course. This interdisciplinary capstone class is designed to help students recognize patterns of inquiry within their practice and to help contextualize their work in preparation for their Senior Exhibition. The class will collaboratively organize a group curated section of the exhibition. Students will tackle both critical and practical aspects of exhibition planning from writing conceptual supporting texts to the nuts-and-bolts methods of installation and preparator work. An assessment of previous work will be the starting point for ongoing critical inquiry into your creative professional practice, and how you might position and locate your own work in the art-worlds of the 21st Century. Readings, screenings, and field trips will vary. Class visits by local artists will provide the opportunity to have a conversation about their lived experience sustaining a creative practice. With an emphasis on faculty mentorship, class meetings will support the development of a body of work or project for the Senior Exhibition, building a strong portfolio, and planning for post-SAIC life. Prerequisite: To enroll, students must be assigned to the Spring exhibition at SAIC Galleries. Assignments take place in the preceding term (Fall). Students who fail to complete the registration process may not ultimately take this course.

Class Number

1454

Credits

3

Description

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.

Class Number

1040

Credits

3

Description

What are the concerns that drive one's creative practice? How does one set the terms for its future development? Spine Intensive is a course for students needing to complete Sophomore Seminar, the Junior Professional Practice Experience, or the Capstone. The course offers interdisciplinary strategies for the evaluation and communication of students' individual practice as artists, designers, and/or scholars. Through essential readings, studio projects, and writing, students will generate narratives about how and why they make art. Students will receive individual advising sessions with lead faculty as they work toward generating documentation of their work, a statement of purpose, and other professional practice materials to support their practice post-graduation. Spine Intensive can only be taken once to count for credit.

Class Number

1145

Credits

3

Description

This course is designed to provide students an opportunity to gain experience as interns in professional arts and design environments and prepare for professional life after SAIC. During the semester, faculty provide in-depth mentorship and act as liaison with the internship site supporting students meet their learning goals as outlined for the semester. Through group meetings and online discussions, students engage with a peer cohort of students participating in a variety of internships. Students work on-site at internships for a total of 140 hours (approx 14 hours per week) for the term. In addition to successfully completing the internship, students will conduct an informational interview with their employer, attend 4 class meetings and an onsite meeting with the faculty and supervisor, complete an internship supervisor evaluation, revise their resume, and update their online portfolio, website, or professional profile. Students are required to secure an internship prior to the start of the semester. Internships must be approved by the Career and Professional Experience (CAPX) office. Students are encouraged to meet with a CAPX advisor for assistance with researching and applying for internships. In order to begin the internship approval process students should go to https://bit.ly/35vmTTM. Upon approval, course registration is managed by CAPX. Note that international students must receive CPT authorization prior to participating in an off-campus internship. Internships may be in-person, hybrid, or virtual; however all four class meetings are virtual. Class meeting day and time are determined by the faculty.

Class Number

2061

Credits

1.5 - 3