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Teaching goals (program content, subject description)
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The subject MODELS OF CONTEMPORARY FIGURE (realized in the 4th Drawing Studio 55) is dedicated to fourth and fifth year students who, based on their own reflections and experiences gained during their studies, wish to realize an independent, individual project connected with the obligatory appendix.
The student is expected to independently prepare a diploma as well as its public presentation in accordance with an individual exhibition concept. Moreover, the student is obliged to make a verbal presentation of the diploma project and to defend it.
The primary task of program teaching is to help students develop their creative individualities while respecting different artistic attitudes, often different from those of the instructor. In an effort to see and respect the individualities of students with a variety of temperaments, sensibilities, talents, and intellectual interests, the studio program is designed to further their development. This program is based primarily on the completion of a problem-based annual assignment common to all years. In addition, for second-year students, there is a study of the figure from nature and its interpretation while respecting the values of composition and workshop. Apart from discussing such basic issues as form, color, light, shape, expression, it is very important to raise in more or less casual conversations intellectual and philosophical problems, various concepts raised by artists and theoreticians such as interdisciplinary arts. Work with students also includes individual projects and concepts proposed by the lecturer or students. To meet the important needs related to the development of creative individuality, the program also includes the organization of film presentations, lectures, joint meetings with experienced theoreticians and art critics. During the meetings, important international exhibitions, such as the Venice Biennale or the Documenta in Kassel, are also discussed. We have all experienced how important it is for a young artist to go beyond the walls of the studio with his or her work. That is why in the didactic programme special attention is paid to facilitating and emboldening the often daunted student to cross the Rubicon. This path, usually starts with shows in the university corridor, but should lead as soon as possible to various galleries and places of art presentation in the city.
Last academic year, in a text about an exhibition of works by students of the "Studio 55" drawing studio, connected with the "Parallels" subject (which, for some reason, was not realized), I wrote down, as it turned out, a prophetic sentence: "We are on the eve of new thinking - never seen before. A new paradigm is emerging in an instant, difficult to perceive. Are we able to notice it?" This "new paradigm" describing reality has appeared suddenly, embedding reality in the disturbing context of a pandemic. It somehow forces changes in the organization of our functioning in many areas of life. Obviously, these changes also include the organization of work of all higher education institutions. In the present conditions, in the current academic year, there is a need to construct a new order of didactic and artistic activities, also in my drawing studio "Studio 55". Classes and lectures will now take on a hybrid form - a mix of stationary and remote classes. I would like to emphasize with all my conviction that I perceive the current situation, forcing organizational changes, not as a regression, a retreat in development - but as a new opportunity and challenge. I recognize these difficult conditions as circumstances that are a transitional phase for the emergence of not so much a new, but a specific form of education. Let me take this opportunity to present some of my thoughts and observations concerning the spiritual condition of young art students. Solitude plays an important role in practising the profession of an artist. One might even say that preparation for this profession requires particular determination and patience. We know that the creative work of artists involves concentration and creating in a certain isolation. Of course, often artistic ideas are an opportunity for collective action. However, we usually depend on individual work. It should be clearly emphasized here that the development of the workshop of the artist-painter and his spirituality, intellect are an integral whole. It is a resultant of creative attitude to life and creativity. Creativity resulting from synchronization of individual and collective feeling of the spirit of the times in which we and the artist function. The price of this choice, this priceless freedom may sometimes be perceived by other people as too high. As too great a sacrifice. In fact it is quite the opposite. For many people who create, it is the only possible choice to be fulfilled in life.
I believe that the current difficulties and organizational changes in the functioning of our university may paradoxically become a catalyst for a breakthrough change in thinking about one's own work and artistic didactics. Without undue exaggeration, I can say that the stationary consultations and remote forms of online communication planned for the current academic year are one of the best opportunities that a young art student can have experimentally. The studios at the Academy of Fine Arts in the form they have had so far have been a disturbing phenomenon. Not only recently - during the ongoing pandemic, but for about ten years now I have noticed a clear decrease in the number of students attending classes with a model. The current reduction in this form of work, and the reduction in face-to-face interpersonal contact, does not equate to a reduction in imagination. The multitude of electronic means of communication and platforms for virtual social contact available to us is an excellent tool for communication during programs and projects in studios at universities. Art is rich and fresh when it confronts and uses the potential of new possibilities, phenomena and realities. So we can see that now, in these unprecedented conditions, new horizons are opening for us.
On the basis of many years of observation and experience I state that the best effects and the greatest artistic achievements are achieved by those young adepts of art who do not limit their development to working from nature. As I mentioned at the beginning - studies from nature are not a priority for us. Students of our academy have already had many opportunities to work with a model at the high school stage, during entrance exams or obligatorily during the first year. Now they can face more difficult, more challenging passwords and problems. I suggest, therefore, going out into the wide waters of art and making attempts at artistic self-definition. Here the number of ways is probably unlimited. It seems that the contemporary art world is integrated with new technologies and media. For a long time now, creatively inspired by photography, press, film and the Internet, it has been tackling contemporary social, political and philosophical issues. Due to the fact that the painting image - as opposed to film, happening, performance or theater art - is in a way a frozen phase of movement, in our studio we try to creatively use this property - in the context of the most important problems of contemporary civilization.
https://www.instagram.com/studio.55_
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Compulsory literature used during classes
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Kobiety, sztuka i społeczeństwo, Whitney Chadwick, Rebis, 2017
Słowa i rzeczy. Archeologia nauk humanistycznych, Michel Foucault, 2007
Teoria widzenia, Władysław Strzemiński, Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1969
Oryginalność awangardy, Rosalind E. Krauss, słowo/obraz terytoria, 2012
Yve Alain Bois. Painting as Model, MIT Press, 1990
Art in Theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas by, Charles Harrison&Paul Wood, 2014
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Additional literature recommended for the student's self learning
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Powrót realnego: awangarda u schyłku XX wieku, Hal Foster, Universitas, 2012
Dzielenie postrzegalnego. Estetyka i polityka, Jacques Ranciere, Korporacja Ha!art, 2009
Historia szaleństwa w dobie klasycyzmu, Michel Foucault, PIW, 1987
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| Learning outcomes
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| Knowledge | Skills | Social competences |
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Apart from basic knowledge of the construction of an image on a plane (composition, contrast, light, space, rhythm, etc.) knowledge of appropriate means of expression resulting from work on one's own technique.
Knowledge of reading (books, specialist magazines and internet portals devoted to art)
Knowledge of filmography concerning contemporary art.
Familiarization with current exhibitions and the offer of prestigious Polish and foreign galleries.
Possession of intellectual competence in the formulation of independent judgments concerning art and its contemporary phenomena.
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Free use of contemporary drawing techniques (e.g. collage, decollage).
Creatively combine drawing with photography, performance and installation. Proficiency in the use of their own technique acquired with experience in previous years' work.
Recognizing and developing their own creative sensitivity (in the context of contemporary issues).
Making attempts to define one's artistic self-consciousness.
To use own experience and knowledge in formulating critical judgments about reality.
Creative inspiration by photography, press, film, Internet.
Taking up in their works contemporary social, political and philosophical problems.
Communicating their ideas in the form of sketches and projects and verbally arguing while talking about them.
Creative use of contemporary media.
Conceptual approach to one's own work, creating self-presentation and one's own portfolio.Organizing solo exhibitions.
Co-participation in collective problem exhibitions.
Individual preparation of a diploma as well as its public presentation in accordance with an individual exhibition concept.
Verbal presentation of artistic assumptions of the thesis and its defense.
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Awareness of the place of one's own work in the context of contemporary art trends.
The orientation to current social, political and cultural issues.
Knowledge of important phenomena in contemporary culture, society and civilization (e.g. LGBT, feminism, ecology, climate change, etc.).
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