Summer ’23 Syllabus

Art 110: Introduction to the Visual Arts

• Session: May 22 – Aug 11, 2023 (SSD)
• Section: 1, Class No. 10273
• Instructor: Glenn Zucman
• Contact: glenn.zucman@csulb.edu
• Format: Online, Asynchronous
• Exams: None
• Textbook: This website, glenn.zucman.com/i2va, +The Internet
• Prerequisites: None
• Due Date: Thursday by Midnight, PDT (California Time)
• Deadline: Sunday by Midnight, PDT (California Time)
• No late work
• Original work: your work should be yours and it should be done this summer during the class (no past work, no copying from classmates or the web, no ChatGPT)

Class Structure

Each week of summer you will:

1. Research & compare-and-contrast a pair of living artists
2. Try a new art activity

Photos, essays, and analysis will all be posted on Canvas.

Objectives

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to Art and Ideas as practiced in the 21st century. Students will try a wide range of art media from traditional tools like Drawing & Paint, to contemporary media like Snapchat & Video. Short videos will introduce artists and art ideas that students will further explore through research and discussions with classmates. Written blog posts will compare and contrast contemporary artists.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to:

• Describe some of the styles, ideas, and issues found in contemporary art.
• Understand and articulate some of the ways that art functions vis-a-vis human culture.
• Build upon their direct, introductory experiences, in Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, Photography, Animation, and Data Visualization in both Physical and Virtual worlds.
• Articulate their understanding of the relationship between art and: culture, speech, creativity, and expression.
• Describe the role of the artist in culture and society.

Schedule

Weeks of Summer

Activities

1. Time Based Media (Vlogging)
2. Sculpture (Plaster Casting)
3. Art & My Major
4. Painting & Street Art (Graffiti Writing)
5. Printmaking (Zines)
6. Drawing (Partner Drawing)
7. Photography (Selfie Time)
8. Photography (Photo Stories)
9. Museum Visit
10. Intermedia Art
11. Student Choice
12. Performance Art

Living Artists (Compare & Contrast)

Some weeks I’ll give you 2 artists to research and write “compare & contrast” essays about. Some weeks you’ll get to pick. In all cases it will be Living Artists. Dead artists are important too! But since we only have 12 weeks to think about a lot, let’s focus on artists who are sharing this contemporary world with you.

1. Your Choice – find 2 YouTube/TikTok/Twitch Content Creators who are currently active (have posted at least 6 videos in 2023) Pick 2 that are personally relevant to you in some way. Try to find one “popular” (100k or more followers) and one less popular (10k or fewer followers)
2. Juliana Cerqueira Leite & Tara Donovan
3. Your Choice – Find 2 Artists/Scientists/Engineers/Business people/Biologists/Nurses, etc, that do work related to your field. Search the net and find 2 people who are interesting. They might be “artists” who use the media of your field… or… they might be professionals in your field who also make artworks or present their work artfully. Your first few searches might not find much. When I tried to find Artworks based on Financial Data I mostly found articles about paintings selling at auctions. If you keep searching and get clever with your search terms, you will eventually find people you can write about.
4. Your Choice – Pick 2 living painters. Painter #1 should be a Graffiti Writer. From anywhere in the world. Or maybe from Los Angeles. Painter #2 should be a Fine Art or Gallery Painter. Meaning simply that they show paintings in art galleries. Maybe a blue-chip artist collected by museums like The Broad. Or a red-chip or emerging artist. Maybe a young painter from the LBSU SOA. Once you’ve got your 2 painters, do some research. Look at their work. Find video interviews with them.
5. Tom Sachs works in many media. Johanna Fateman is a musician and art writer. Both have included zines as part of their oeuvre.
6. Our artists this week are Camille and Sarah Elgart. Camille (Dalmais) is a French singer. Sarah Elgart is a Los Angeles choreographer.
7. Nan Goldin and Annie Leibovitz
8. Lynsey Addario and Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller.
9. museum people
10. Joseph DeLappe and Micol Hebron.
11. Your Choice – pick any 2 living artists!
12. Marina Abramovic and Paweł Althamer.

Your Canvas Posts

You’ll be posting each week’s Activity and Compare & Contrast Artists essays on Canvas.

Activities

Include Photos of both your Process and your Final Results. Or a video.

Describe what you did, how it came out, and what you would try differently if you did this project again.

Be sure to answer the questions on the Activity Page. This post is not “academic writing”. It can be short and casual. It’s mostly about trying the activity and photo-documenting your work. But do answer the questions.

Compare & Contrast Artists

Include samples of the Artists’ Work.

Discuss how each artist works. What do they create? What are their goals? How do you perceive them? What does their work have in common? How is it different? How do you experience them? If you were going to create this type of work, would either of these artists be a model for you? How would your work be similar or different from theirs? What would your goals be?

This is more formal writing. Try to watch your spelling and grammar. Aim for 500 words. And try to think less about number of words and more about thinking about these 2 artists, their ideas, and how you do, or don’t, connect with them. If you really think through their work it should be easy to write over 500 words.

Optional Meetups

You probably appreciate the flexibility of an online asynchronous class. But you might also miss the chance to interact with classmates. We have 5 optional meetups: 2 on Zoom and 3 F2F. You may attend some, all, or none.

Optional Meetups – Art 110 – Summer 2023

• Week 1 – Monday 22 May – Zoom – Noon-1pm – Syllabus, Getting Started, etc
• Week 2 – Thursday 1 June – Seal Beach Pier – 11 am – 1pm (come early, late, or whenever works) – Plaster Casting Activity
• Week 4 – Saturday 17 June – Venice Beach Art Walls – 11 am – 1pm (come early, late, or whatever works) – Graffiti Writing Activity
• Week 6 – Thursday 29 June – Long Beach State Campus – 11 am – 1pm (come early, late, or whatever works) – Partner Drawing Activity
• Week 7 – Monday 3 July – Zoom – Noon-1pm – Answering questions, chatting with classmates and talking art & life for the 2nd 6 weeks of Summer

Zoom Coordinates

• https://csulb.zoom.us/my/glennz
• password: soa

Points & Grades

Points

• Weeks 1-10 Art Activities x 4 points = 40 points
• Weeks 11-12 Art Activities x 5 points = 10 points
• Weeks 1-10 Artist Essays x 4 points = 40 points
• Weeks 11-12 Artist Essays x 5 points = 10 points
• Total Possible = 100 points

Grades

• 90 points = A
• 80 points = B
• 70 points = C
• 60 points = D
• 59 & below = F

No Late Work

Be Professional – there is no late work.

• If you’re late for an interview, you won’t get hired.
• If you’re late delivering work you won’t get rehired (and may get sued)
• Take this course, and your career, seriously.
• Meet your deadlines.

Each week your work is due on Canvas:

• Due Date is Thursday @ 11:59 pm PT
• Deadline is Sunday @ 11:59 pm PT

If you plan to have your work completed and submitted by the weekly “Due Date” of Thursday, then you’re give yourself cushion for anything that might come up: technical issues, personal things, and so on.

Work submitted by the Sunday Deadline receives full credit. Work submitted after the deadline receives no credit.

Other Course Details

Incompletes

The School of Art grants “incompletes” rarely and only for the most extreme conditions.

Withdrawal Deadlines

• CSULB Enrollment Services: Key Dates & Deadlines
• CSULB Dropping & Withdrawing Policies

Accommodation

LBSU will make reasonable accommodations for any student who has different needs. It is the student’s responsibility to notify me in advance of the need for special accommodations.

Eliminating Anti-Blackness

Faculty at LBSU strive to create an environment that supports meaningful dialogue grounded in research, academic inquiry, and mutually respectful relations. We also strive to remain conscious of and attentive to the damage that anti-Blackness does to the lives of our students, faculty, staff, administrators, and their related communities.

Freedom of Expression 

The College of the Arts (COTA) at Long Beach State University (LBSU) embraces freedom of expression in the arts and encourages students’ creation of work that thoughtfully engages with all facets of the human experience. COTA recognizes that respect, openness, inclusiveness, and access are essential to creating a productive and constructive place for our students, faculty, and staff to teach, learn, study, create, and expand their fields. LBSU supports creative, thoughtful, and respectful discourses in which conflicting perspectives are vigorously debated and thoroughly discussed. LBSU is dedicated to affording all members of the LBSU community freedom of speech, expression, right to assemble, religion, and press, and protections for all identities under the U.S. and California constitutions, as well as under all applicable federal and state laws, in accordance with the University’s purpose and function except insofar as limitations on those freedoms are necessary to LBSU’s functioning. 

For more information about the First Amendment, freedom of expression, and hate speech, see:

• csulb.edu/student-affairs/free-speech/freedom-of-expression
• csulb.edu/student-affairs/free-speech/faq
• csulb.edu/academic-senate/policy-statement-00-07-faculty-professional-responsibility-policy  

For more on COTA’s support of inclusivity and diversity, see:

• csulb.edu/college-of-the-arts/mission-and-vision

Campus Confidential Advocates, Not Alone @ the Beach

Title IX prohibits gender discrimination, including sexual harassment and sexual misconduct. If you have experienced sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape, dating/domestic violence, or stalking, the Campus Confidential Advocate is available to help.

Jaqueline Urtez and Rocio Telumbre, email: advocate@csulb.edu, phone: 562-985-2668, can provide free and confidential support, accommodations, and referrals for victims without having to report the assault to campus authorities. While students are welcome to discuss assaults with faculty or disclose such experiences in class discussions or assignments, both faculty and teaching assistants are responsible employees who are required to report all known incidents of sexual harassment/misconduct to the Office of Equity & Diversity/Title IX Office for follow-up. Reporting this information will result in the student being contacted by the Office of Equity & Diversity/Title IX Office with information on accommodations and reporting options for possible investigation. Students do not need to respond to the Office of Equity & Diversity/Title IX Office, but students who do wish to report the assault for possible investigation are encouraged to contact the Campus Confidential Advocate, who can help them through the reporting process, or they can report the assault directly to the Office of Equity & Diversity/Title IX Office by completing an online reporting form at https://www.csulb.edu/equity-diversity/title-ix or contacting the Office of Equity & Diversity at OED@csulb.edu.

For more information about confidential advocacy services and violence prevention education at LBSU, please contact our campus project Not Alone @ the Beach https://cla.csulb.edu/natb