How can the materials that construct an artwork support our goals for its content? This question will be put to task in this class, which asks students to align materials and their meanings socially, historically and through metaphor and symbolism. As a staring point this course will act as an introduction to the ideas of Structuralism, its roots in Modernism, and examine ways to expand on the movement's strategies and models of representation. In doing so we will explore ways to align and appropriate historical tactics to make works dealing with contemporary issues, with a focus on identity, and politics.
Through a series of projects, students will gain insight into the possibilities of using structuralist methodologies beginning with using only the constituent materials of painting -the support, canvas, and paint- and expanding toward more non-traditional materials. Experiments with additive, subtractive, and negational approaches to constructing paintings will consider the form as both object and image. Supplemental discussions and lectures on artists, techniques, and processes, will assist in contextualizing relevant contemporary practices that use this historical movement to address relevant current topics,social issues, and identities.