ETHST

This painting seminar studio course represents a genuine introduction to critical theories that relate to the construction of meaning in visual culture. We will begin at the level of the “sign,” quickly studying the basics of semiotics, as well as theoretical movements inspired by semiotics: structuralism and poststructuralism. We will identify key concepts from influential thinkers of the modern and postmodern period crucial to both a theory of the sign as well as its usage as a cultural lens. Additionally, we will apply this awareness through a racial political lens. First, by reading Frantz Fanon and other seminal articles that reveal how white supremacy and colonialism has violently and continuously impacted non European, colonized, cultures and how that oppression structures our society. Our aim is to practice our burgeoning epistemologies including CRT towards institutional and cultural critique.

Furthermore, we will look deeply at white American folklore, cultural mythologies and origin stories with an aim to deconstruct the signs and signifying tropes of white supremacy, moves to innocence and privilege so that we may get at the sourcing and pathology of racism and colonialism.

Students will be able to develop a critical painting practice inspired by this research so we may meaningfully disrupt entrenched social hierarchies with new demystifying signifying concepts and vital revolutionary pictorial expression advancing painting as a social art practice. Overall strategies are situated in cultural critique and painting as a form of social activism. The goal is for visual artists (students) to shift into this paradigm therefore expanding the notion of art and art practice.

This studio course examines museums, design, and architectural practices as contested sites shaped by colonial histories, extraction, and unequal power relations. While museums have long framed themselves as caretakers of cultural heritage, for many BIPOC communities they function as institutions of displacement, erasure, and possession. Through critical research, material experimentation, and collaborative making, students investigate how colonial legacies persist across design processes, systems of display, and institutional narratives.

We investigate how present-day Asian American artists contest societal assumptions and subvert stereotypes through their socially engaged art practices and participation in local and global social movements. The students will create art projects with strong sociological and political themes that address the underlying problems related to, but not limited to, class, gender, and ethnicity. Through virtual gallery/studio visits, reviews, online exchanges, and discussions with members of cultural and artistic Asian American collectives, students will develop a critical and conceptual framework to examine the bodies of work of selected artists to understand the strategies of resistance and empowerment movements.