**DRAFT THIS SYLLABUS IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE**

Transcription

1 **DRAFT THIS SYLLABUS IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE** *Readings may be dropped, added, rearranged; class presentations of readings portion of requirements may change* Graduate Seminar: Rauschenberg / Twombly / Johns Catherine Craft, Adjunct Assistant Curator for Research and Exhibitions Nasher Sculpture Center HUAS M 7:00 9:45 Nasher Sculpture Center, 2001 Flora Street, lower level, classroom ccraft@nashersculpturecenter.org tel.: office hours: Monday, 1-3 pm or by appointment, at Nasher Sculpture Center Course description: This graduate seminar will examine the early careers of Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and Cy Twombly, from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. These artists came of age in New York during a period of dominance by the Abstract Expressionists, who stressed authenticity and deeply felt emotion in their art. These three, in contrast, adopted experimental and subversive strategies that challenged conventions of authorship and self-expression through the creation of works that refused to acknowledge distinctions between the media of painting, sculpture, photography, and drawing, and between the conceptual polarities of abstraction and figuration. Because Rauschenberg, Twombly, and Johns were both involved with each other personally and mutually influenced each other as artists, we will also treat them as case studies to consider models of reception and influence; the limits of biography in the practice of art history; and the relevance of queer theory and other areas of gender studies for understanding the creation of works of art. Their relationships to other artists and creative individuals, including Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, and Merce Cunningham, will also be considered. The artworks studied in this seminar will include Rauschenberg s experimental early works (White Paintings, Black Paintings, Elemental Sculptures and Red Paintings) as well as his Combines; Twombly s scored and scratched canvases and related drawings and sculptures; Rauschenberg s and Twombly s photography; and Johns s encaustic paintings of flags, targets, and other things the mind already knows as well as his first sculptures. Requirements: Students should come to class prepared to take part in discussions of artworks and assigned texts. Two times during the semester, you will be asked to introduce readings or special topics and initiate the class discussion by introducing the assigned text, raising pertinent points, and asking questions. Following the presentation, you should turn in a paper containing a written version of your comments (2-3 double-spaced pages). Much of your work for this course will be devoted to a final research project. Suggested topics for papers will be handed out in class on January 30, although students are welcome to propose their own topics. In either case, you should discuss your topic with me individually before proceeding. By March 5, you need to have selected a topic and discussed it with me. The last two class meetings will be devoted to 20-minute presentations of your topic. The final paper, due Tuesday, May 8, should be doublespaced typed pages long. 1

2 Grading: 2 class 15% each = 30% Final paper presentation = 25% Final paper = 45 % Required texts: Joseph, Branden W., ed. Robert Rauschenberg: October Files (MIT Press, 2002) Tomkins, Calvin. Off the Wall: A Portrait of Robert Rauschenberg (Rev. ed., Picador, 2005) Excerpts from books on reserve at McDermott library Electronic reserves: password: perspective Course Schedule: January 23 First day of class - introduction January 30: Rauschenberg & Twombly / Early Work - Tomkins, Off the Wall, Electronic reserves: - Walter Hopps, Robert Rauschenberg: The Early 1950s (Houston, Tex.: The Menil Collection, 1992), through p Branden Joseph, The Gap and the Frame, October 117 (Summer 2006): McDermott reserves: - Kurt Varnedoe, Cy Twombly (NY: MoMA, 1994), through p. 15 Optional if you are unfamiliar with Abstract Expressionism: - Harold Rosenberg, The American Action Painters, in Shapiro and Shapiro, eds., Abstract Expressionism: A Critical Record (McDermott reserves) - Clement Greenberg, Avant-Garde and Kitsch, pdf available at February 6: Rauschenberg & Twombly White Paintings; John Cage; Black Paintings; Europe and North Africa; New York & the Stable Gallery Show Tomkins, Nicholas Cullinan, Double exposure: Robert Rauschenberg s and Cy Twombly s Roman Holiday, The Burlington Magazine CL (July 2008): James Baaden, Black Painting (with Asheville Citizen), Art History 34 (February 2011): Catherine Craft, Conclusion to An Audience of Artists: Dada, Neo-Dada, and the Emergence of Abstract Expressionism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012),

3 - Caroline Jones, Finishing School: John Cage and the Abstract Expressionist Ego. [or for Cage/Cunningham session?] - Varnedoe, Cy Twombly, Branden Joseph, Random Order, pp February 13: Rauschenberg: experimental works, Red Paintings, early Combines Twombly: In the army and after Johns: early work Tomkins, 83-97, Electronic reserve: - Joseph, The Gap and the Frame, (plus review 45-65) - Varnedoe, Cy Twombly, Charley Stuckey, Minutiae and Rauschenberg s Combine Mode, in Robert Rauschenberg Combines, pp Chronology and Plates ( ), Kurt Varnedoe, Jasper Johns: A Retrospective (New York: MoMA, 1996), ; Online sources: - Kate Nisen, Some Notes on Words and Things in Cy Twombly s Sculptural Practice, Tate Twombly symposium (2008): February 20: Rauschenberg Leo Steinberg, Reflections on the State of Criticism, and Rosalind Krauss, The Materialized Image, in Joseph, Robert Rauschenberg: The October Files, 7-37, Brian O Doherty, Rauschenberg and the Vernacular Glance, Art in America 61 (September 1973): Charles F. Stuckey, Reading Rauschenberg, Art in America 65 (March-April 1977): (optional) -? - John Cage, On Robert Rauschenberg, Artist, in Cage, Silence, Thomas Crow, Rise and Fall, in Robert Rauschenberg Combines, James Leggio, Rauschenberg s Bed and the Symbolism of the Body, in Studies in Modern Art 2: Essays on Assemblage, Clement Greenberg, After Abstract Expressionism, in Greenberg, The Collected Essays and Criticism, vol. 4, (optional, re Steinberg: if you are unfamiliar with Greenberg s criticism) 3

4 February 27: Jasper Johns Electronic reserve: - John Cage, Jasper Johns: Stories and Ideas, in John Cage, A Year from Monday (Wesleyan, 1967), [originally published in catalogue to Johns s retrospective at the Jewish Museum, 1964] - Chronology and Plates ( ), Kurt Varnedoe, Jasper Johns: A Retrospective (New York: MoMA, 1996), ; Jasper Johns: The First Seven Years of His Art, in Leo Steinberg, Other Criteria, A Different Kind of Beginning, in Fred Orton, Figuring Jasper Johns, The Disappearance of Objects: Johns in Joshua Shannon, The Disappearance of Objects: NewYork and the Rise of the Postmodern City, March 5: Twombly - Roland Barthes, Sagesse d art - The Wisdom of Art, reprinted in Writings on Cy Twombly, OR - Roland Barthes, Non Multa Sed Multum, reprinted in Cy Twombly: Fifty Years of Work on Paper, Robert Pincus-Witten, Learning to Write, reprinted in Writings on Cy Twombly, Ann Temkin, Out of School, Artforum (Summer 2011) - Richard Shiff, Charm, in Cy Twombly: Cycles and Seasons, pp Varnedoe, Cy Twombly, get pg. nos. Online Sources: - David Sylvester, interview with Cy Twombly (2000), posted online at March 12 Spring Break no class / no office hours March 19 no class / no office hours individual work on research projects March 26: (inter)subjectivity / gender & queer theory / collaboration April 2: Neo-Dada / permission & influence 4

5 April 9: Collaboration / Merce / RR/Cy/JJ in the 1960s April 16: Legacy / or wild card? Group discussion free-for-all April 23: Student presentations April 30: Student presentations 5