Studio Art
2023 - 2024 Catalog
Studio Art minor
A minor in studio art requires completion of seven three- or four-credit courses totaling at least 21 credits. A student may not complete both a major and a minor in studio art. In meeting the requirements of this discipline-based minor, a student may not use more than nine credits that are also used to meet the requirements of another major or minor.
- Two introductory-level courses chosen from the following: ARTS 111 or 115, 120, 131, 217, 227, 231
- Four additional courses in studio art (ARTS)
- One art history course, chosen from among the following: ARTH 102, 243, 245, 261, 263, 264, 266, 267, 274, 275, 276, 364, 365, 366, 378
- Two introductory-level courses chosen from the following:
- ARTS 111 - Drawing I
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FDR HA Fine Arts Distribution Credits 3 Development of skills and visual awareness through the study of the basic elements of drawing. Variety of media, including pencil, charcoal, ink and crayon. Lab fee required.
- ARTS 115 - Contemporary Practice in Drawing
FDR HA Fine Arts Distribution Credits 3 An introduction to the basic skills of observational drawing through daily drawing practice. Parallel instruction in contemporary and historical drawing will include discussion, writing assignments and image presentations. Students may earn credit for either ARTS 111 or ARTS 115, but not both. Lab fee required.
- ARTS 120 - Photography I
FDR HA Fine Arts Distribution Credits 3 An introduction to the methods and materials of photography, with an emphasis on composition, exposure, and light. The course includes a combination of image presentations, technical demonstrations, studio instruction, and group critiques. Lab fee required; cameras are available for check-out.
- ARTS 131 - Design I
FDR HA Fine Arts Distribution Credits 3 An introduction to the elements and concepts of two-dimensional design within the context of current digital technology, with an emphasis on contemporary computer software programs.
- ARTS 217 - Painting I
FDR HA Fine Arts Distribution Credits 3 Emphasis on color, design and spatial relationships. Work from observation and imagination in oil and acrylic. Lab fee required.
- ARTS 227 - Printmaking I
FDR HA Fine Arts Distribution Credits 3 A survey of fine art printmaking media, with emphasis on beginning techniques and the artistic potential of the print. Media include a selection of techniques from intaglio, relief, and planographic printmaking.
- ARTS 231 - Introductory Sculpture: Materials and Methods
FDR HA Fine Arts Distribution Credits 3 An introduction to sculpture techniques, tools and materials. Developing skills in working with wood, metal, clay, as well as new media technologies. Lab fee required.
- Four additional courses in studio art (ARTS)
- One art history course, chosen from the following:
- ARTH 102 - Survey of Western Art: Renaissance to the Present
FDR HA Fine Arts Distribution Credits 3 Chronological survey of Western art from the Renaissance through the present. Topics include the Renaissance, from its cultural and stylistic origins through the Mannerist movement; the Baroque and Rococo; the Neoclassical reaction; Romanticism and Naturalism; the Barbizon School and Realism; Impressionism and its aftermath; Fauvism, Cubism, Dada, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop, Minimalism, and the Postmodern reaction to Modernism.
- ARTH 243 - Imaging Tibet
FDR HA Fine Arts Distribution Credits 4 An examination of images and imaging practices of the early 1900s to the present in order to define and analyze the ways in which both Western and Asian (particularly Tibetan and Chinese) artists have imagined Tibet and its people.
- ARTH 245 - Ancient Cultures, New Markets: Modern and Contemporary Asian Art
FDR HA Fine Arts Distribution Credits 3 This course examines the art movements of the last one hundred years from India, China, Tibet, and Japan primarily through the lenses of the larger sociopolitical movements that informed much of Asia's cultural discourses: Colonialism, Post-Colonialism, Socialism, Communism, and Feminism. We also address debates concerning non-Western 20th-century art as peripheral to the main canons of Modern and Contemporary art. By the end of the course, students have created a complex picture of Asian art/artists, and have engaged broader concepts of transnationalism, as well as examined the roles of galleries, museums, and auction houses in establishing market value and biases in acquisition practices. Meets simultaneously with ARTH 394B-01. Students may not register or receive credit for both.
- ARTH 261 - History of Photography
FDR HA Fine Arts Distribution Credits 3 An art-historical introduction to the history of photography, from its origins in the 19th century to the present day. Lectures and discussions examine photography's aesthetic, documentary, and scientific purposes; important contributors to photography and its history; the evolution of the camera and related technical processes; and issues of photographic theory and criticism. Photography is considered as a medium with its own rich history - bearing in mind stylistic shifts and changes in subject matter related to aesthetic, social, and cultural concerns - but also as a key component in the wider narrative of modern art.
- ARTH 263 - 20th-Century European Art
FDR HA Fine Arts Distribution Credits 3 This course covers major European art movements and criticism from the late 19th century through the 20th century. Lectures and discussions explore the implications of what it means for art to be/appear modern," the social and aesthetic goals of the early avant-garde, the "rise and fall" of abstraction, and artistic responses to post-war mass culture. Movements discussed include Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Dada, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and New Realism."
- ARTH 264 - Surrealism
FDR HA Fine Arts Distribution Credits 3 Surrealism was one of the most multi-faceted and influential intellectual movements of the 20th century with a legacy and practice that continues today. This seminar examines the key writings and ideas that underlie surrealism with a focus on its artistic practice. We will consider works by artists including Salvador DalÃ, René Magritte, and Max Ernst; watch surrealist films; discuss the significance of dreams; and play surrealist games of chance.
- ARTH 266 - American Art to 1945
FDR HA Fine Arts Distribution Credits 3 A survey of painting and sculpture in the United States from its earliest settlement to about 1945. Lectures and discussions emphasize the English eastern seaboard development in the 17th and 18th centuries, though other geographical areas are included in the 19th and 20th centuries. Topics include art of the early colonies, the Hudson River School, Realism and Regionalism, and the reception of abstract art in the United States.
- ARTH 267 - Art Since 1945
FDR HA Fine Arts Distribution Credits 3 This course introduces students to art and art theory from 1945 to the present. The objectives of the course are: (1) to enhance student knowledge of the major works, artists, and movements of art in Europe and the United States since 1945; (2) to integrate these works of art within the broader social and intellectual history of the period; and (3) to help students develop their skills in visual analysis and historical interpretation. Among the issues we examine are the politics of abstract art; the ongoing dialogue between art and mass culture; the differences between modernism and postmodernism; and contemporary critiques of art history's prevailing narratives. This is a lecture course with a heavy emphasis on in-class discussion.
- ARTH 274 - Art and Revolution: Mexican Muralism
FDR HA Fine Arts Distribution Credits 3 A survey of public monumental art produced by Mexican artists Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros in Mexico and the United States from 1910 to the 1970s. Lectures focus on art that promotes social ideals and the role that art played in building a new national consciousness in Mexico. Students also examine the impact of Mexican muralism throughout Latin America and the United States. This course fulfills the Arts and Humanities requirement for the LACS minor.
- ARTH 275 - Community Muralism: The Art of Public Engagement
FDR HA Fine Arts Distribution Credits 4 Same as ARTS 275. Our nation is currently witnessing a community mural renaissance. Public murals help to create welcoming and inclusive public spaces, build and solidify community identity, commemorate individuals or events, arouse social consciousness or impact social change, and recognize the voices of traditionally disempowered groups. During the term, we trace the historical development of community murals. Students participate in studio exercises that give them experience with a variety of methods, materials, and techniques necessary to plan, design, and produce a largescale community mural. We produce and document a mural in collaboration with a local community partner.
- ARTH 276 - Chicana/o Art and Muralism: From the Street to the (Staniar) Gallery
FDR HA Fine Arts Distribution Credits 4 This class examines the process by which Chicana/o artists have garnered public attention and respect, taking their artworks from the peripheries of the art world to museum and gallery spaces. Using the half-mile long mural entitled The Great Wall of Los Angeles as a connecting thread, this class considers the broad theme of identity creation and transformation as expressed by Chicana/o artists from the 1970s to the present. This course fulfills the Arts and Humanities requirement for the LACS minor. Open to all students.
- ARTH 364 - Seminar on Art of the 1960s
FDR HA Credits 3 An exploration of the art produced during the decade of the 1960s. A seminal period, it includes Pop Art, Post-Painterly Abstraction, Minimalism, and socially conscious and politically oriented art reflecting feminism and black radicalism. Emphasis is placed not only on the major artistic currents of the period but also on the broader cultural reflections of these movements. .
- ARTH 365 - Women, Art, and Empowerment
FDR HA Fine Arts Distribution Credits 3 This seminar explores female artists from the late 18th century through the present, whose depictions of women have directly challenged the value system in art history that has traditionally privileged white heterosexual male artists, audiences, collectors, historians, curators, etc. Lectures, discussions, and research projects address multicultural perspectives and provide a sense of feminism's global import in a current and historical context.
- ARTH 366 - African-American Art Seminar
FDR HA Credits 3 An exploration of the art produced by African-Americans from the Colonial period to the present. Weekly lectures, readings, essays, films and discussion.
- ARTH 378 - Border Art: Contemporary U.S. Latinx Art
FDR HA Fine Arts Distribution Credits 3 This seminar engages broad-ranging debates that have looked at the Mexico-US border as a fruitful site of identity formation. In this seminar, we examine artworks with an emphasis on location, critical standpoint, interrelatedness, and the geopolitics of identity. Through readings and class discussions, students investigate protest art and arts activism. Students develop methods of critical seeing through image analysis, art historical analysis, and cultural critique. We consider artworks produced by Chicanx, U.S. Latinx, and other transnational artists in a wide range of formats including printmaking, performance art, mural painting, photography, film and video, books, comics, public art projects, and an array of post-conceptual practices. This course fulfills the Arts and Humanities requirement for the LACS minor.