FYE 101 - What is Art For?: The Art of Writing about Art

WHAT IS ART FOR? Why do we create art? Does it have a broader social or political purpose beyond personal self-expression? In this FYE, we will focus as much on process as we do on finished product, to see how the creative disciplines of art writing, image making, and performance are connected modes of thinking, each with its own means for connecting to audiences. To write, make and perform are interrelated modes of communication with histories that inform each other. One commonality in the creative processes for each is that research is required to bring ideas to concrete fruition. Any writer, practicing artist, or performer working in the 21st century is keenly aware of historical precedents for their work. It’s where artists and writers locate voices, ideas, and purpose. This FYE team is taught by an art historian/museum curator, a visual artist, and a performance artist. Collectively, we will work in teams to create original work in multiple formats, as part of a sustained and specific response to historical objects from Wheaton’s Permanent Collection. Students will work collaboratively to give these objects multiple voices, both historical or imagined.

THE ART OF WRITING ABOUT ART: “Looking is not as simple as it looks,” said the painter Ad Reinhardt. Can writing help us to look, and eventually see, more intensely? We’ll explore writing as a way to think about the arts. We look at a variety of efforts to do so, from Renaissance biographers to contemporary journalists. Students will have an opportunity to test out several genres of writing about art objects (research-based histories, journalistic reviews, museum gallery texts, exhibition proposals). Students will work on a series of written responses to one work of art all semester long, and use their writing to collaborate with students working on parallel projects in two other creative media.

Credits 1

Compass Attributes
First Year Experience