MFyAy: July 2009

27 July 2009

First Year/First Semester Registration, 10:00am EST

At 6:58am, my phone alarm went off reminding me of the two minutes I had to quickly log into my school's online student account site and register for classes. It was a little anticlimactic, but I did snag the last spot for a graduate critique course that I wanted to take which was exciting.

Here are a list of the three courses I registered for this morning and their descriptions. On September first, I am registering for an art history course through Tufts. I'll include that one too cause I am almost positive I will be taking it with the others. This should give you a pretty good idea of what my first semester is going to be like... on paper at least:

Grad Group Critique (Mondays, 6-9p)

This course is designed to build verbal and written articulation critique skills in a group setting among the first and second year graduate students. Led by a faculty member students examine the art work of their fellow classmates as the catalyst for critique. All first and second year Master of Fine Arts students are required to take this course each semester for the first two years of the program.

Grad CAP Seminar (Mondays, 9-12p)

Contemporary Art Practice. This mandatory MFA graduate seminar is open to first year Master of Fine Arts graduate students only. In the fall 2009 semester the course will be taught by faculty members of the graduate faculty. Topics will be announced.

Advanced Seminar: Material Photography (Tuesdays, 9-12p & 2-6p)

This course looks at the intersection of photography and sculpture, making material interrogations into the medium of photography. Looking at Man Ray's Rayographs and Henry Wessel's deadpan physical puns as important historic seeds of the gestures that have vastly expanded in the last 10 years of contemporary photography we address the materiality of the medium. As artists now collage, build, cut, perform, unfold, dance with photographs in the digital, ephemeral era we forge new relationships with a medium previously thought to be merely "2D," drawing out the sensual, tactile nature of the medium, exposing and playing with the physical mechanics of its exhibitions strategies. We will look at performative photographs with sculptural content that function somewhere between documentation and staged photography while also looking at sculptures created for the purpose of being photographed. Explorations between material and ephemeral photography (projections, digital screens) will be explored as students work in non-traditional ways with the medium, thinking in terms of sculpture and installation with photo materials and construction for photography.

Historiography and Methodology of Art History (Wednesdays, 1:30-4p)

Art History has undergone a period of intense self-examination in the last 25 years or so, i.e. the “crisis in/of the discipline”. We will survey some key theoretical vantage points ranging from connoisseurship to queer theory, social history to semiotics. Our goal will be to translate theory into practice and conversely, to understand the theoretical and methodological implications of what we do as art historians (students, teachers, critics, museum professionals, artists).

I can feel the workload already.

07 July 2009

One Week: A Lease is Signed and the Parents Explore the City!

Last week I was in Boston with the primary goal of signing a lease on an apartment for this upcoming school year. Aside from that, my parents had never been to Boston before so it was a good chance to show them around and get them familiar with the MFA program. We had an appointment with the associate dean of the graduate school which was much needed considering I was pretty out of the loop in actually understanding what classes I would be taking as well as the overall structure of the MFA program.

First things first we had to knock down an apartment. With the help of a great realtor who happened to be a Museum School alum, we were signing a lease after three days of viewing a colorful variety of apartments ranging from the shamefully spacious to the crooked floored. Regrettably I was not able to take pictures of the one we ended up going with, but I did use my friend Google Maps to give you all an idea of where it is and what the building looks like:

Here is how a robot sees the complex from a moving van during pleasant weather

And this purple line signifies the distance from my apartment to the main campus via walking. Little does Google know that there is a secret trail that cuts through the park. Approximate time: 5 minutes on foot.

More to come on setting up the new space when I am actually a tenant (September 1st).

Our meeting with the associate dean was very informative. The MFA program is two or three years, most choosing three. Courses consist primarily of graduate studio art courses alongside two graduate level art history courses and two graduate level non-art courses, both taken on the Tufts campus. Aside from that, each semester MFA students enroll in a graduate seminar that seems to be theory based and a graduate critique course where the student brings in their own work to discuss. The average class size for all these courses is around twelve. There seems to be a relatively intense workload that all has to be managed alongside producing your own work, which in my mind is hands down the most important activity within a MFA program.

At the end of the week I was emailed my advisor along with instructions on how to contact her and what to expect. Class registration begins in August and as of now I am waiting to hear back from my advisor so we can begin talking about what classes to take. More on that to come as I hear about it.

Aside from the business elements of the trip, we had a great time exploring the city and being tourists. The weather was pretty depressing for most of the days, but the sun did come out for a teasing minute or two.

Here are some pictures taken on the trip and more to come about classes when I find out more myself!