FINAR604 FAS: 3D Focus

This graduate seminar is most relevant to 3-D/ time based students who are working in hybridized forms between sculpture, installation, performance, photography, film/video, and social practice. Along with relevant readings, discussions, and several visiting artist presentations, the course is intended to sharpen students' analytic and verbal skills in relation to both their individual practices and the work of their peers. Intensive group critiques will focus on individual research and exploration with an emphasis on how the work is experienced by viewers, relevance to other contemporary work, as well as the relationship between the maker's intent and the audience's experience. An underlying current of the seminar will include discussions centered on the shape and sustainability of a lifelong creative practice. With these questions in mind, a primary focus is a dense, all day field trip and exploration to the inspirational, underground home and gardens of Baldasare Foresterie in Fresno. This complex, sculptural labyrinth consists of dozens of rooms, tunnels, and gardens hand carved over 40 years through many acres of farm land. The class is open to both 1st and 2nd year graduate students.