ART 350M
When Art is Life OR When Arte es Vida

Nicolas Dumit Estevez Raful Espejo Ovalles
MW 11–2
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

The subject of art and life, and the subsequent argument on the point at which the two of them meet or not is a topic heavily debated by artists and scholars. The discussion continues to be as relevant today as it was decades ago when Linda Mary Montano, and Fluxus, for example, developed key works that existed within the everyday. It is even more so now, when a considerable number of art practitioners are invested in projects and experiences that make obsolete, at least for their particular implementation, the traditional white cube of the gallery. Instead, they find space within the day-to-day, be it a public or an intimate environment. In 2008, El Museo del Barrio in New York inaugurated Art ‡ Life, a groundbreaking exhibition curated by Deborah Cullen. This pivotal show brought to light documentation of mostly ephemeral projects created from 1960–2000 by artists from the Americas, while addressing once more the relationship or separateness of the two subjects in question. Can art and life share a common ground? Should there be awareness on behalf of the artist on what they are doing in order for their action to achieve the status of art? And does that awareness cancel out life and bring us back to art?

When Arte es Vida is structured as a series of presentations on the works of historical/herstorical/theirstorical figures, with emphasis on artists and collectives from the Americas such as: Melquiades Herrera, Geoffrey Hendricks, Hanna Wilke, Linda Sibio, Jesús Natalio Puras Penzo (APECO), Pedro Pietri, and Nao Bustamante, among others. These presentations serve as the starting point for discussions on topics including, but not limited to: living in art, straying into unknown territories, and non-traditional ways of dealing with ephemerality in art. Class exercises and assignments will lead students to tap into the quotidian. Participants then undertake a careful observation and awareness of overtly mundane activities such as talking, sleeping, and eating.

When Arte es Vida is a lecture-based class with emphasis on readings, discussions, and circles, which invites participants to respond to the materials presented with collective performances, actions, ephemeral and process-focused gestures.

When Arte es Vida (formerly called Nowhere to Go) © 2009 Nicolas Dumit Estevez Raful Espejo Ovalles

ART 350M
Art as a Tool for Co-creating Networks of Joy, Nurturance and Belonging (Art as Experience)

Nicolas Dumit Estevez Raful Espejo Ovalles
MW 5–8
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

As a child of the professional development trend of the 1990s, I have come to seek refuge in other forms of network-building and weaving in the arts which are not centered on pyramidal structures based on competition and stardom. In the mid 2000s, I joined artist, environmentalist Mary Ting in facilitating a series of Non-Professional Development Workshops, which gave us the opportunity to listen to the voices of artists and arts administrators urgently questioning and searching for other ways to counter a system modeled on production, competition and consumption. Prior to that, I attended the Ecosexual Symposium conceived by Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle, which offered me an experiential entry into how creatives can build families in their own fields and engage in nurturing lasting relationships. My own testing ground was presented to me when invited by El Museo del Barrio to be a resident artist of some sort for a full year, and I, in turn, invited its entire staff to work as play and to rethink the possibility of looking at El Museo itself as an artwork being shaped by those who tended to it and by the communities who birthed it.

Art as a Tool for Co-creating Networks of Joy, Nurturance and Belonging seeks to imagine art and art-making as a space where the subjects of friendship, illness, aging, death and dying, among others, can find room to be openly discussed. As a group, we will draw inspiration from experts in a variegated number of fields from healing to the arts and to medicine, putting what we learn into practice as in talking, writing, imagining and enacting gestures that can help blue-print restorative genealogies in our areas of work.

Art as a Tool for Co-creating Networks of Joy, Nurturance and Belonging is a lecture-based class with emphasis on readings, discussions, and circles, which invites participants to respond to the materials presented with collective performances, actions, ephemeral and process-focused gestures.

Art as a Tool for Co-creating Networks of Joy, Nurturance and Belonging ©2009 Nicolas Dumit Estevez Raful Espejo Ovalles

ART 352C
Painting for Non-Majors

Polly Lanning Sparrow
MW 11–2
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

Lauz Bechelli
TTH 8–11
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

This course introduces a beginning painting student to basic materials, techniques and ideas germane to historical and contemporary painting. Through the production of paintings, one-on-one conversations with the instructor, and class discussion/critique, each student will become more sensitive, insightful and critical about works they produce and encounter. Note: The content of this course is determined by the instructor.

ART 352D
Drawing for Non-Majors

Peter Abrami
MW 11–2
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

Anna Teiche
TTH 11–2
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

This course introduces a beginning drawing student to basic materials, techniques and ideas germane to historical and contemporary drawing. Through the production of drawings, one-on-one conversations with the instructor, and class discussion/critique, each student will become more sensitive, insightful and critical about works they produce and encounter. Note: The content of this course is determined by the instructor.

ART 352F
Print for Non-Majors

Erin Miller
MW 11–2
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

As a print survey course, Print for Non-majors will introduce students to the basic conceptual issues of print and the technical processes of risograph, relief, intaglio, monoprint etc. This course is a “sampler platter” in that it will give students a taste of numerous processes so that students can get a sense of which they would like to explore further. The structure will include a mix of demonstrations, hands-on instruction, and lectures on historical and contemporary print artists.

ART 352G
Sculpture for Non-Majors

John Stoney
TTH 11–2
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

Exploration of the processes involved in the production of object-oriented sculpture.

ART 352J
Photography for Non-Majors

Melissa Nuñez
MW 8–11
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

This class will introduce you to the fundamentals of black & white photography. You will learn how to use a manual medium-format camera, expose and develop black & white film, and make gelatin silver prints. You will also study aspects of photographic history and begin to define your individual voice as an artist using photography.

ARH 301
Introduction to the Visual Arts

Dr. Douglas Cushing
MWF 10–11
Fulfills →  VAPA / Global Cultures flag
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face
 

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Dr. Ann Johns
MW 10–11 + Discussion Section
Fulfills →  VAPA / Global Cultures flag
Instruction Mode →  Hybrid

Art is a language: how do we decode its meaning and its extraordinary effect on us, the viewers? How does art reflect the era, location, and culture of both its maker and its patron? Through a blend of online lectures (2 per week), quizzes (each class through Canvas), and tests (3 on Canvas), as well as TA-led visits to UT’s Blanton Museum of Art, students will learn that art is a prism—often beautiful, always challenging—through which we can view the human experience, both past and present. Throughout the semester, students will increase their visual literacy and critical thinking skills by looking at a global array of works from many eras and locations. The only prerequisites are open eyes and open minds! We will concentrate on the familiar media of painting, sculpture, and architecture, but we will also examine drawings, prints, photography, garden planning, ceramics, textiles, earthworks, installation art, and other forms of visual culture, both through live online lectures and through in-person visits to UT’s collections of art.

ARH 302
Survey of Ancient through Medieval Art

Dr. Nassos Papalexandrou
MW 11–12 + Discussion Section
Fulfills →  VAPA / Global Cultures flag
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

This course discusses art from the prehistoric period to the Early Renaissance (ca. 1300) in Europe, the Middle East and the ancient Americas, with emphasis on style and social and cultural context. The focus on arts—architecture and city planning, sculpture, painting, metalwork, and ceramics—is global with special attention lavished on ancient Near East, Egypt, Africa, Greece, Rome, Islam, Mesoamerica, India, and the European Middle Ages. The control of the viewer’s experience, the political and religious use of art, the meaning of style, the functions of art in public and private life, and the role of art in expressing cultural values will be among the major themes considered. This is also an introduction to the discipline of art history and archaeology, training students in basic vocabulary and techniques of close looking and analytical thinking about visual material.
 

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Kearstin Jacobson
TTH 5–6:30
Fulfills →  VAPA / Global Cultures flag
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

ARH 303
Survey of Renaissance through Modern Art

Mara McNiff
MWF 11–12
Fulfills →  VAPA / Global Cultures flag
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face
 

Dr. Douglas Cushing
TTH 8–9:30
Fulfills →  VAPA / Global Cultures flag
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face
 

A study of selected visual works throughout the world from 1400 CE to the present.

ARH 322
Issues in Exhibitions and Collections of Visual Arts

Dr. Astrid Runggaldier
TTH 11–12:30
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

This course explores, through the lens of architecture and sculpture, the ancient world of the Maya, encompassing both monumental, non-movable art, and smaller-scale sculpture and portable artworks. You will learn about the Maya from recent interdisciplinary research highlighting the deep history of art an architectural design, and the social functions of sculptural and artistic programs. In fall 2023, you will additionally benefit from direct observation of Maya artworks for a special exhibition at the Blanton Museum of Art, where you will see ideas from course readings reflected in the objects on view. With a focus especially on the Classic period of the Lowland regions within the Maya area, you will develop an understanding of the role art plays in society, politics, and religion, and you will explore how Classic-period artworks express Maya concepts of kingship, divinity, gender, cosmology and worldview in general. As a writing-focused course, this upper-level undergraduate seminar comprises ongoing student engagement throughout the semester with several writing-based projects and assignments.

ARH 327U
Love, Beauty, and Protection in the Visual Culture of Ancient Greece and Rome

Dr. John Clarke
TTH 11–12:30
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

This course aims to examine Visual Culture to gain a better understanding of how ancient Greeks and Romans thought about themselves with regard to love, sexuality, divine and human beauty, and protection from demonic forces. We will analyze specific works of Greek and Roman art between the sixth century B.C. and the fourth century A.D. to increase our understanding of what these concepts meant within social and cultural contexts that were very different from our own.

My hope is that you will leave the course with a greater understanding of the processes of acculturation or attitude-formation. You will be able to recognize how, in a given culture, the processes of acculturation lead to specific constructions of love, beauty, and security. Indeed, you may come to realize that all the practices of everyday life are cultural constructions: that each culture constructs the rules that regulate social behavior. I hope that your study of these ancient cultures will give you greater understanding of the phenomena of cultural diversity in the world. You should also gain a greater understanding of the major developments within the visual arts over this long period, from classical Greece to early Christianity.

You will improve your ability to read critically, and to recognize and scrutinize the arguments presented in the readings. The course will help you develop your ability to express your ideas in writing and speaking.

This is primarily a lecture course with three exams. The exams combine slide identifications and comparisons with prepared essays. These exams have the goal of getting you to engage with visual representations through the lens of class discussion and the readings. In particular, the prepared essay should develop your critical skills as well as your writing skills. Finally, the five assignments are designed to help you think about how different cultures mirror or contradict the Greek and Roman cultures we are studying.

Grading:

• Exam 1: 25% of grade
• Exam 2: 25% of grade
• Exam 3: 25% of grade
• 5 assignments each 5% of grade

ARH 331P
Art and the City in Renaissance Italy

Dr. Ann Johns
MW 12–1:30
Fulfills →  VAPA / Global Cultures flag
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

Florence, Venice, Siena: the cultural landscape of Italy is dominated by cities so rich in artistic treasures that any one example is worthy of a whole course. We begin with the most famous Renaissance city-state, Florence. We will explore the development of art and architecture in civic, ecclesiastic, monastic, palatial, and private settings, from Brunelleschi’s dome to private, secular decoration in the city’s palazzi. We will then examine the cities of Venice and Siena; each of these cities is distinguished by its own unique style of art and architecture. We’ll study Italy’s “court” cities, including Ferrara, Mantua, and Urbino. We’ll observe the unique sense of “place” that distinguishes these communities, but we’ll also discover cultural, artistic, and urban commonalities throughout Renaissance Italy.

We’ll also examine issues such as the role of women and the family; the importance of race and international trade; the rise of specialized hospitals and quarantine islands in an era of plague; and the delicate balance between the growing urban centers and the control of the surrounding territory, so necessary for crops and other resources.

All readings will be posted on Canvas. Assignments include reading responses and other urbanistic analyses. All tests are non-cumulative.

ARH 335N
European Art, 1789–1848

Dr. Michael Charlesworth
TTH 1–2:30
Fulfills →  Writing flag
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

This course studies European Art from Romanticism (especially the work of Francisco Goya in Spain and William Blake in England, together with Sublime landscape in painting and gardens) to modernism. The course will embrace works of German romanticism, the Abolition movement, the French Romantics (Gericault and Delacroix), the French Realist School (esp. Gustave Courbet) and the Pre-Raphaelites. We shall also look at some architectural history.

Three tests and a paper.

ARH 339M
American Art, 1958–1985

Dr. John Clarke
TTH 2–3:30
Fulfills →  VAPA
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

This course surveys the major movements in American art from about 1958 to about 1985. We will look at the work of selected artists associated with the major trends, including pop art, minimalism, conceptual art, site-specific art, performance and body art, photorealism, patterning and decoration, and the varieties of figural art that emerged in the 1980s, including neo-expressionism, graffiti, and appropriation.

We will look at these trends from three principal points of view: their relationship to prior historical developments, their self-stated aims, and their treatment by contemporary critics.

This course should give you a good survey knowledge of the art—including much more than traditional painting and sculpture—between 1950 and 1985. You will gain an understanding the interactions between art movements, artists, critics, and dealers, and you should be able to walk into a museum or art gallery and recognize all of the styles and approaches mentioned above. More importantly, you will learn how visual representation reflects social change. “Art”—broadly defined—always reflects social change, but in this period there were many Counter-Cultural Movements. Most importantly, the Civil Rights Movement for racial equality. But also important were the development of Feminism, the Hippie Movement, and the Gay Liberation Movement—all with important visual components.

This is primarily a lecture course. To help you study the content of these lectures, I will post lecture outlines and the PowerPoints of each lecture on Canvas after I present them to you in class. I expect you to keep up with the assigned readings on canvas and to memorize a group of images.

There will be three one-hour examinations at the end of each of three modules, testing you on the content of that group of lectures and images. I also regularly set “plus” assignments that will give you the opportunity to raise your exam grades.

ARH 341K
Modern Art of Mexico

Dr. George Flaherty
MW 11:30–1
Fulfills →  VAPA / Global Cultures flag
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

This course looks closely at Mexican art and visual culture from the late nineteenth century through the 1950s, a period characterized by rapid modernization but also violence and glaring social and political injustices. With the Mexican Revolution, the first major social upheaval of the twentieth-century, the country became a beacon for politically committed art throughout the Americas and beyond. Our focus will be the emergence of cosmopolitan avant-garde artists and their relationship to state and market. Mixing native and international influences, these artists, writers, and intellectuals contributed to notions of national identity that still resonate today.

ARH 346K
Introduction to African Art

Dr. Moyosore Okediji
MW 1:30–3
Fulfills →  VAPA / Global Cultures flag
Instruction Mode →  Online

This course is a comprehensive study of the visual arts of Africa, in the social and cultural contexts within which people make and use these images. Students will explore historical, contemporary, and diasporic aspects of African art, as part of a larger expressive complex that includes music, dance, literature, and cinematography.  The course will present the works of major artists, art groups, ethnicities, and communities, as a lively dialog between the creative imaginations of those who make the objects, and the philosophical responses of those to whom the artists address the objects.

ARH 346L
Africana Women's Art

Dr. Moyosore Okediji
MW 9:30–11
Fulfills →  VAPA
Instruction Mode →  Online

Can we adopt the criteria used for the analysis and presentation of western art and artists for the analysis and presentation of works by Africana women artists? How do we define Africana women’s art and artists? Who are the most influential Africana women artists, and in which mediums do they work? What tasks do they tackle and what challenges face them? What are the stylistic diversities that define and distinguish their contributions? What are the technological tools available to them, and how have they manipulated and fashioned these tools? How have they shaped the past and present trends in art history, and what are their aspirations and hopes for the future? These are some of the questions that this course will investigate with the use of art historical and critical theories that draw on oral and written literatures, music, films, and other formal and informal documents.

ARH 347R
Architecture and Sculpture in the Maya World

Dr. Astrid Runggaldier
TTH 11–12:30
Fulfills →  Global Cultures and Writing flags
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

This course explores, through the lens of architecture and sculpture, the ancient world of the Maya, encompassing both monumental, non-movable art, and smaller-scale sculpture and portable artworks. You will learn about the Maya from recent interdisciplinary research highlighting the deep history of art an architectural design, and the social functions of sculptural and artistic programs. In fall 2023, you will additionally benefit from direct observation of Maya artworks for a special exhibition at the Blanton Museum of Art, where you will see ideas from course readings reflected in the objects on view. With a focus especially on the Classic period of the Lowland regions within the Maya area, you will develop an understanding of the role art plays in society, politics, and religion, and you will explore how Classic-period artworks express Maya concepts of kingship, divinity, gender, cosmology and worldview in general. As a writing-focused course, this upper-level undergraduate seminar comprises ongoing student engagement throughout the semester with several writing-based projects and assignments.

ARH 348K
Formation of Indian Art

Dr. Janice Leoshko
MW 5–6:30
Fulfills →  Global Cultures flag
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

Two thousand years ago “the wonder that was India” was well known not only elsewhere in Asia but as far away as Rome. This course examines the ways in which visual culture developed through the centuries as a result of India’s material and spiritual wealth. Themes to be examined include the constructions of sacred space that led to distinctive architectural traditions, the principles of image-making that resulted in elaborate iconographies and the entwined nature of political allegory and religious narrative in the works and monuments created there up to 1500. How these visual forms were shaped by particular social and religious factors is an issue that will allow us to consider the relationships among India’s religious traditions (Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism). Another focus of this class is upon understanding how we investigate and produce knowledge about the past and why this is important. Course carries a global flag.

The course broadly engages with the practices of art history and the ways in which it explores cultural differences. Students will become familiar with socio-historical and religious traditions in which multiple artistic traditions developed in South Asia.

Another facet of concern will be the ways in which the study of Indian art first developed and the colonial constraints upon this process. Assignments will involve creative thinking and analysis in order to evaluate material presented in lectures, discussions and readings.

ARH 362
Ancient Lives of Roman Buildings

Dr. Penelope Davies
TTH 3:30–5
Fulfills →  Global Cultures flag
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

Taking a broad view of Roman architecture from Republic to Empire, this lecture course examines different phases of ancient buildings’ lives, from construction to restoration to demolition, with a view to determining their political valencies at these moments. Readings will cover issues such as construction process, damnatio memoriae (condemnation of memory) and vandalism, drawing on examples from, and scholarship on, diverse periods and cultures. Participants are encouraged, in turn, to bring expertise/interests of their own to the discussion.

ARH 366P
Modernisms

Jacob Stewart–Halevy
MW 8:30–10
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

A broad study of the histories and meanings of modern art from circa 1850 to 1950 with special attention to social and cultural shifts and related developments in the history of form, technique, and media. Themes include art and political upheaval; the avant-gardes; craft and colonialism; primitivism and futurism; representation of history, landscape, and the nude; non-objectivity, collage, the readymade, and abstraction.

ARH 374
Contemporary Art Worlds

Jacob Stewart–Halevy
MW 1–2:30
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

An introduction to art since the postwar era with a particular emphasis on the present. Who is making contemporary art, where is it being made, and why? Do these elements constitute an “art world” or multiple and fragmented pockets of production? How do they relate to uneven flows of commerce and capital and what is their connection to emerging political and technological trends? The course treats center/periphery relations; relational and activist art; experimental groups across the Americas, Europe, and Asia; Conceptualism and abstraction; the dynamics between offline and online reception; and the dilemmas of producing art in a digital economy.