Registration for winter/spring courses is now open. Register now.

MoMA courses offer adults the rare opportunity to study modern and contemporary art with leading art specialists during and after public hours in the Museum's galleries and multimedia classrooms. These discussion-oriented classes are taught by university professors, artists, and Museum staff. Enrollment is limited to twenty per course (twelve for studio courses), so sign up today.

Prices for courses are listed below. Sign up for Museum membership starting at $75 and receive free admission to the Museum for a year and the discounted course prices. Additional discounts are available for educators and staff of other museums.

FM headsets and neck loops for sound amplification are available for all courses.

Course guidelines and frequently asked questions

EVENING COURSES
DAYTIME COURSES
STUDIO COURSES

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WINTER/SPRING 2010

NEW, Special Half-Day Course!

MoMAology: Exhibit I, Monet's Water Lilies

Saturday, March 6, 4:30-10:30 p.m.
$150: $125 for members
Chief Instigator: Amir Parsa, with Corey D'Augustine, Nora Lawrence, and special guests

This half-day course will provide an insider's view of contemporary museum practice, concentrating on several key areas including collection, exhibition, conservation, and education. Once associated only with warehousing cultural patrimony, museum practice is vibrant, diverse, and, at times, controversial. The exhibition Monet's Water Lilies will function as a central prism through which the artistic and intellectual missions, as well as the unique and intertwined practices of museums, will come to light. We will delve into art theory, history, and practice; Monet's vision and struggle; and theories underlying museum practice and how museums function within the context of the art world, their own communities, and in the arena of artistic and cultural production. Refreshments will be served.

Amir Parsa (MPhil, Columbia University) is the author—in French, English, and Persian—of over ten poetry and literary books. He is a lecturer at MoMA, where he also manages the Alzheimer’s Project, and a Visiting Associate Professor at Pratt Institute. His work has been read, exhibited, and performed in various galleries and museums in New York and abroad.
Corey D'Augustine is a painting conservator and an artist. He exhibits in New York and abroad.
Nora Lawrence (MPhil, CUNY Graduate Center) is a Curatorial Assistant in the Department of Painting and Sculpture, and co-author of Monet's Water Lilies (2009).

EVENING COURSES

From Daguerreotypes to Contemporary Photographs: A History of MoMA’s Photography Collection

SOLD OUT

Eight Mondays, 6:00–7:50 p.m., 2/1, 2/8, 2/22, 3/1, 3/8, 3/15, 3/22, 4/5 (no class on 2/15 and 3/29)
$415; $355 for members
Instructors: Leslie J. Ureña and Rosina Herrera

This course unravels some of the mysteries behind making a photograph and provides participants with opportunities to familiarize themselves with the medium's history. Starting with the origins of photography and concluding with the development of color printing, the class considers the social and historical contexts of the photographs, including the work of key photographers such as Nadar, Man Ray, Nan Goldin, and Andreas Gursky. The course explains the technology used to make these works and explores various photographic processes. Participants will gain a deep understanding of the Museum's photography collection through gallery tours, and, by handling of photographic materials, they will learn to differentiate between a salted paper print, an albumen print, a gelatin silver print, and other photographic processes.

Leslie J. Ureña (PhD, Art History, Northwestern University) is a curatorial assistant in the Department of Photography at MoMA. She recently completed her dissertation on how Lewis Hine's photographs of newcomers at Ellis Island sustained or countered turn-of-the-century conceptualizations of the immigrant.

Rosina Herrera (MA, Art History, Universidad Complutense de Madrid) was part of the Advanced Residency Program in Photograph Conservation at the George Eastman House Museum in Rochester, NY. Currently she is the Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in the Conservation Department at MoMA.

Russian Avant-Garde: Revolution in Art, Art in Revolution, 1909–1934

SOLD OUT

Five Mondays, 6:00–7:50 p.m., 2/8, 2/22, 3/1, 3/8, 3/15 (no class on 2/15)
$260; $220 for members
Instructor: Masha Chlenova

This course examines key artists and movements of the Russian avant-garde, from its beginnings in the 1910s until its demise in the early 1930s. Combining a historical overview with a close study of works on view in MoMA’s galleries, the class examines the distinctive features that make Russian avant-garde art one of the most radical and innovative phenomena in the history of twentieth-century art. Moving from Cubo-Futurism to Suprematism to Constructivism and Production art, students consider a variety of mediums—such as painting, sculpture, prints and illustrated books, photography, photomontage, theater, and architecture—and artists, including Kazimir Malevich, Vladimir Tatlin, Aleksandr Rodchenko, El Lissitzky, Lyubov Popova, Varvara Stepanova, Marc Chagall, and Vasily Kandinsky among others.

Masha Chlenova (PhD candidate, Columbia University) is an art historian specializing in modern art with a focus on Russia. She is currently completing her dissertation on the demise of the Russian avant-garde in the late 1920s and early 1930s. She is a lecturer at MoMA.

Take Five

SOLD OUT

Five Mondays, 7:00–8:50 p.m., 2/1, 2/8, 2/22, 3/1, 3/8 (no class on 2/15)
$260; $220 for members
Instructor: Ágnes Berecz

The course focuses on five works on view at The Museum of Modern Art: Paul Cézanne's Still-Life with Apples, Cy Twombly's Leda and the Swan, Marina Abramović's Art must be beautiful, Tehching Hsieh's One Year Performance, and Gabriel Orozco's My Hands Are My Heart. Based on close readings of these five works, consideration of their artistic, political, and social contexts, and discussion of their critical reception throughout history, the course explores formations of art historical canons, interactions of writing and painting, feminist critiques of spectatorship, and the changing use of artistic mediums, from painting to performance and photography.

Ágnes Berecz (PhD, Université Paris/Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris) teaches at the Fashion Institute of Technology and is a lecturer at MoMA.

Modern and Contemporary Art, 1945–Today

SOLD OUT

Eight Mondays, 8:10–10:00 p.m., 2/1, 2/8, 2/22, 3/1, 3/8, 3/15, 3/22, 4/5 (no class on 2/15 and 3/29)
$415; $355 for members
Instructor: Kim Conaty

This course examines major artists, artworks, and movements after World War II. Through close study of works on view at MoMA, students gain a keen understanding of important art historical moments through the techniques, materials, and subject matter that define them—from the bold painterly gestures of the New York School and the cool hand of Neo-Dada and Pop, to Minimalism’s exploration of form in space and Conceptual art’s radical shift to an idea-based practice. We follow these approaches and themes as artists redefine them (post-Minimalism, Neo-Expressionism, Neo-Geo) and also look more broadly at the development of installation-based, multimedia, and post-studio practices through today.

Kim Conaty (PhD candidate in art history at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University) is a curatorial assistant in the Department of Prints and Illustrated Books, where she assisted with the exhibition In & Out of Amsterdam: Travels in Conceptual Art, 1960–1976 and the recent installation Fluxus Preview.

What Is Now? Art of This Decade

SOLD OUT

Five Mondays, 8:10–10:00 p.m., 2/1, 2/8, 2/22, 3/1, 3/8 (no class on 2/15)
$260; $220 for members
Instructor: Haley Mellin

This course examines the development of contemporary art during this decade, looking at the current global artscape in a modern, historical, and social context. The course moves through the Museum's collection and exhibitions, acting as a guide to understanding the current art market and the shifts in visual production over the past decade. Artists considered include Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Maurizio Cattelan, Olafur Eliasson, Cai Guo-Qiang, Francis Alÿs, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Emily Jacir, BHQF, The Atlas Group, Jeff Wall, Gabriel Orozco, Rudolf Stingel, Luc Tuymans, John Currin, Kelley Walker, Peter Coffin, Richard Prince, and Cady Noland.

Haley Mellin (PhD candidate in visual culture, New York University) is an artist and an adjunct professor of contemporary art and critical theory at NYU. She was a 2006 Studio Practice Fellow at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program.

1960s Art in Japan (1954–1974)

Five Mondays, 6:00–7:50 p.m., 3/22, 4/5, 4/12, 4/19, 4/26 (no class on 3/29)
$260; $220 for members
Instructors: Reiko Tomii and Midori Yoshimoto

In international art history, 1960s Japan is an exciting site of investigation that encompasses scores of innovative and experimental practices, ranging from gestural abstraction to installation art, from performance art to intermedia, from Land art to conceptualism. These practices often paralleled and sometimes preceded the contemporary Euro-American developments. However, only a few names—individuals such as On Kawara, Yayoi Kusama, and Yoko Ono and collectives such as Gutai Art Association and Hi Red Center—have gained recognition outside of Japan. This course offers an overarching story of the expanded 1960s in Japanese vanguard art that spans over two decades—from Gutai to anti-art (Han-geijutsu) to non-art (Hi-geijutsu)—by introducing many lesser-known but vital players in different types of practice. To reconstruct a lively sense of the vanguard art scenes, these movements are considered in the context of postwar Japan’s sociocultural conditions as well as its highly sophisticated art discourse.

Reiko Tomii is a New York–based independent scholar and curator who investigates post-1945 Japanese art in global and local contexts.

Midori Yoshimoto is associate professor of art history and gallery director at New Jersey City University and is a lecturer at MoMA. She specializes in post-1945 Japanese art and its global intersections.

German Expressionist Prints

Five Mondays, 6:30–8:20 p.m., 3/15, 3/22, 4/5, 4/12, 4/19 (no class on 3/29)
$260; $220 for members
Instructor: Iris Schmeisser

This course offers an introduction to the major movements, individuals, and themes of Expressionism through prints ranging from the Brücke (Bridge) artists' group, founded in Dresden in 1905, to Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), founded in Munich in 1911, up to the years shortly before and during World War I. Brücke artists practiced an experimental approach to material and process, defying the traditional conventions of printmaking. Blaue Reiter artists shared the common desire for intuitive expression, for cultural and spiritual renewal, and for the democratization of art. This class, which offers students the unique opportunity to study original, unframed prints and drawings behind the scenes, examines how these artists used the print medium to express their ideas and explores the networks of exchange between Munich and Berlin. Through study of representations of World War I in a variety of prints by Otto Dix, George Grosz, Max Beckmann, and Käthe Kollwitz, students also consider how the traumatizing experience of war disrupted these artists' lives and changed their aesthetic and political sensibility profoundly.

Iris Schmeisser (PhD, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich) is a curatorial assistant in the Department of Prints and Illustrated Books at MoMA. She has been working on a project sponsored by the Annenberg Foundation that digitizes the German Expressionist prints and drawings in the collection.

Critical Themes in Contemporary Art, 1990 to Today

SOLD OUT

Five Wednesdays, 6:00–7:50 p.m., 2/3, 2/10, 2/17, 2/24, 3/3
$260; $220 for members
Instructor: Tom Williams

This five-week course addresses the development of art during the past two decades. During the course of the term, students examine a number of key themes in contemporary art, the debates they have inspired, and the circumstances they have aimed to address. Lectures also consider the importance of identity art; appropriation, participatory aesthetics, and the “documentary turn” in recent art; the implications of globalization; the art market; and politics for contemporary artists. Artists discussed include Matthew Barney, Maurizio Cattelan, Thomas Hirschhorn, Pierre Huyghe, Jeff Koons, Gabriel Orozco, Kara Walker, and others.

Tom Williams (PhD, Stony Brook University) recently completed a dissertation on Claes Oldenburg, Eros, and the 1960s. He was also a 2008–09 Critical Studies Fellow at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program.

Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Mexican Modernism

Eight Wednesdays, 6:00–7:50 p.m., 2/3, 2/10, 2/17, 2/24, 3/3, 3/10, 3/17, 3/24
$415; $355 for members
Instructor: Veronica Roberts

This course examines Mexican art produced from the 1920s through the 1940s, in the wake of the tumultuous Mexican Revolution (1910–20). Through murals in particular, artists celebrated Mexico’s heritage, and in the process captured the public imagination in the United States as well: in 1930, the Metropolitan Museum of Art held a Mexican art exhibition that traveled to thirteen other cities, and in 1931, MoMA gave Diego Rivera, “the most talked-about artist on this side of the Atlantic,” the second solo show ever held at the Museum. The course takes full advantage of the new fifth-floor Painting and Sculpture Gallery dedicated to such important Mexican modernists as Rivera, Frida Kahlo, José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Rufino Tamayo. We focus in particular on the artists’ careers here in the United States, examining well-known episodes of the period such as Rivera’s Detroit murals and Rockefeller Center controversy, along with lesser-known but fascinating projects such as the Siqueiros Experimental Art Workshop.

Veronica Roberts (MA, University of California, Santa Barbara) is a curatorial assistant in the Department of Painting and Sculpture. Her most recent projects include the fifth-floor Mexican modernism gallery, The Erotic Object: Surrealist Sculpture from the Collection, Focus: Sol LeWitt, and Focus: Alexander Calder.

Modern and Contemporary Art, 1945–1970*

SOLD OUT

Five Wednesdays, 6:30 – 8:20 p.m., 2/3, 2/17, 2/24, 3/3, 3/10 (no class on 2/10)
$260; $220 for members
Instructor: Jongwoo Jeremy Kim

This course examines major artists, artworks, and movements after World War II. Students explore the emergence of the New York School and its links to a new global economy centered in New York, Dada's revival and Pop art's flowering in mass consumer society, and Minimalism's formal refinement and emphasis on spatial context. During the course, students learn about works by Jackson Pollock, Jean Dubuffet, Francis Bacon, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, and others.

Jongwoo Jeremy Kim (PhD, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University) taught modern art at the University of Vermont as a full-time faculty member for the last two years. He is a lecturer at The Museum of Modern Art.

*Students interested in this course may also wish to enroll in Modern and Contemporary Art, 1970 to Today.

What Is The Contemporary? Conversations with Artists, Curators, and Directors

SOLD OUT

Six Wednesdays, 7:30–9:20 p.m., 2/3, 2/10, 2/17, 2/24, 3/3, 3/10
$365; $315 for members
Instructor: Haley Mellin

“What Is The Contemporary?” is a special series of conversations with contemporary artists, curators, and others who are actively shaping the terrain of current movements and dialogues. Each week one invited guest discusses his or her work, thoughts, and interests, progressing into a conversation and viewing. Current exhibitions in the museum and images of the guest's work will form a visual basis for discussion. As a culmination of the evening, the guest will curate a private viewing experience in the museum galleries. This series is a direct way to engage with the ideas and images of the artists, curators and directors who are creating what is contemporary.

Haley Mellin (PhD candidate in visual culture, New York University) is an artist and an adjunct professor of contemporary art and critical theory at NYU. She was a 2006 Studio Practice Fellow at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program.

Modern Art, 1880–1915*

SOLD OUT

Five Wednesdays, 8:10–10:00 p.m., 2/3, 2/10, 2/17, 2/24, 3/3
$260; $220 for members
Instructor: Larissa Bailiff

This course introduces students to the key works and ideas of modern art, from late Impressionism to Cubism. Moving chronologically through the Museum's collection, students encounter an array of renowned and provocative objects—from paintings, sculptures, and collages that challenged the official Academy and revolutionized the conventions of representation, to photographs that capture the dynamism of modern life. Artists covered include Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Ernst Kirchner, Gustav Klimt, Vasily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, and many others.

Larissa Bailiff (PhD, ABD, Institute of Fine Arts) is a specialist in nineteenth-century French art and social history. Formerly an associate educator at MoMA, she has also lectured at other New York museums and has taught graduate and undergraduate courses at both the Fashion Institute of Technology and the Pratt Institute.

*Students interested in this course may also wish to enroll in Modern Art, 1915–1945.

Modern and Contemporary Art, 1970 to Today*

SOLD OUT

Five Wednesdays, 6:30–8:20 p.m., 3/17, 3/24, 3/31, 4/7, 4/14
$260; $220 for members
Instructor: Jongwoo Jeremy Kim

This course examines major artists, artworks, and movements from 1970 to the present. Students explore Conceptual art's fundamental questioning of art, the development of multimedia artistic practices, the revival of painting, the rise of a global art scene, and recent tendencies that are still being debated and defined. During this term, students learn about works by artists such as Joseph Beuys, Bruce Nauman, Robert Smithson, Gerhard Richter, Cindy Sherman, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Matthew Barney, Damien Hirst, and others.

Jongwoo Jeremy Kim (PhD, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University) taught modern art at the University of Vermont as a full-time faculty member for the last two years. He is a lecturer at The Museum of Modern Art.

*Students interested in this course may also wish to enroll in Modern and Contemporary Art, 1945–1970.

Contemporary Artistic Practice: The Ever-Expanding Studio

Five Wednesdays, 6:00 – 7:50 p.m., 3/10, 3/17, 3/24, 3/31, 4/7
$260; $220 for members
Instructor: Roni Feinstein

This course will take an in-depth look at the work of American and international artists who since 1990 have taken a leading role in expanding the nature and scope of artistic practice. All defy the stereotype of the artist laboring in isolation in his or her studio and offer models of new, multidisciplinary modes of artmaking. These artists often simultaneously practice, and occasionally combine, painting, sculpture, photography, video, installation and performance art. Many of these artists produce their work through intensive collaboration with professionals in other fields, such as with engineers, musicians and film crews. Central to the course's inquiry will be the retrospective exhibitions currently on view at MoMA devoted to Marina Abramovic and William Kentridge. Precedents for their work in earlier twentieth-century art will be examined. Other contemporary artists to be considered include Bruce Nauman, Gabriel Orozco, Shirin Neshat, Matthew Barney, Olafur Eliasson, Roni Horn, Urs Fischer, and Kara Walker.

Roni Feinstein (PhD, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University) is an independent curator and art historian. She has written extensively for Art in America and recently taught at the University of Miami, Coral Gables.

A Brief History of Performance Art

Five Wednesdays, 8:10–10:00 p.m., 3/10, 3/17, 3/24, 3/31, 4/7
$260; $220 for members
Instructor: Filip Noterdaeme

This five-week course provides a condensed overview of performance art from its earliest manifestations in Dada and Futurism to Marina Abramovic’s 596-hour performance marathon at The Museum of Modern Art, scheduled for early 2010. The course explores protest actions by performance artists in the 1960s and 1970s; the assimilation and institutionalization of performance art in the 1980s and 1990s; and the controversial re-creations of seminal performance works at the Guggenheim Museum in 2005. In addition to lectures, in-class visits to exhibitions at MoMA provide students with the unparalleled opportunity to study influential moments of performance art history in relation to a new generation of performance artists, such as Tino Sehgal, Guy Ben-Ner, and Tamy Ben-Tor.

Filip Noterdaeme (MA, New York University) is a gallery lecturer at the Guggenheim Museum and an adjunct professor of art history at New York University and the New School.

Modern Art, 1915–1945*

Five Wednesdays, 8:10–10:00 p.m., 3/10, 3/17, 3/24, 3/31, 4/7
$260; $220 for members
Instructor: Larissa Bailiff

This course introduces students to the key works and ideas of modern art, from Dada, de Stijl, and the Bauhaus to the beginnings of the New York School. Moving chronologically through the Museum's collection, students encounter an array of renowned and provocative objects—from paintings that challenged the official Academy and revolutionized the conventions of representation, to photographs that capture the dynamism of modern life, to modernist buildings that fill city skylines. Artists covered include Marcel Duchamp, Constantin Brancusi, Paul Klee, Marcel Breuer, Hannah Hoch, Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian, Salvador Dalí, and many others.

Larissa Bailiff (PhD, ABD, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University) is a specialist in nineteenth-century French art and social history. She is a lecturer at MoMA.

*Students interested in this course may also wish to enroll in Modern Art, 1880–1915

Modern Art, 1880–1945

Eight Thursdays, 6:00–7:50 p.m., 3/4, 3/11, 3/18, 3/25, 4/8, 4/15, 4/22, 4/29 (no class on 4/1)
$415; $355 for members
Instructor: Heather Cotter

This course introduces students to the key works and ideas of modern art, from late Impressionism to the beginnings of the New York School. Moving chronologically through the Museum's collection, students encounter an array of renowned and provocative objects—from paintings that challenged the official Academy and revolutionized the conventions of representation, to photographs that capture the dynamism of modern life, to modernist buildings that fill city skylines. Artists covered include Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Constantin Brancusi, Marcel Duchamp, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and many others.

Heather Cotter (MA, Boston University, and MEd with a specialization in art education, Harvard University) is a lecturer at The Museum of Modern Art.

Creativity and Partnership: Sex, Gender, and Genius in Modern Art, 1880–1955

Five Thursdays, 7:00–8:50 p.m., 2/4, 2/11, 2/18, 2/25, 3/4
$260; $220 for members
Instructor: Megan Brandow-Faller

Beginning with an exploration of gender, sexuality, and creative genius, this course focuses on artist couples in modern movements from late-nineteenth-century Impressionism/Post-Impressionism to mid-twentieth-century Abstract Expressionism and Pop art. The course examines artist couples in which both partners assumed the role of creator, as well as dynamics between artists, muses, and models. While scholars have conventionally divided processes of artistic creation according to active and passive lines, the artist-couple case studies surveyed in this course reveal models of mutual support and creative inspiration. The course is divided between digital lectures and discussions in the classroom and interpretations of works currently on view in the MoMA galleries. Movements covered include Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Expressionism, Dada, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and Pop art. Artist relationships surveyed include Gabriele Münter and Vasily Kandinsky; Hannah Höch and Raoul Hausmann; Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera; Leonora Carrington and Max Ernst; Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg; and Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock; as well as muse/model dynamics in the careers of Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Gustav Klimt, and Pablo Picasso.

Megan Brandow-Faller, the 2009–10 Royden B. Davis Lecturer at Georgetown University, has published various articles, book chapters, lexicon entries, and reviews dealing with Central European art and culture. Her research centers on issues of gender, art, and creative production in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Central Europe.

Conceptual Photography

Eight Thursdays, 7:00–8:50 p.m., 3/11, 3/18, 3/25, 4/1, 4/8, 4/15, 4/22, 4/29
$415; $355 for members
Instructor: Béatrice Gross

Since the mid-1960s, photography has become instrumental for artists who would not consider themselves to be photographers in the conventional sense. Conceptual art, understood broadly as an art that emphasizes the role of ideas in its productions, placed at its center the practice of photography, implemented in various ways, always experimental, often provocative and comical. Whether documenting the specific sites of Land artists (Robert Smithson, Richard Long), recording process-oriented experiments (Jan Dibbets, Douglas Huebler), revealing the artist's own body as a critical site of exploration (Rudolf Schwarzkogler, Vito Acconci, Valie Export), or investigating the medium's inherent seriality and reproducibility (Ed Ruscha, Dan Graham, Sherrie Levine) and its relationship to text (Joseph Kosuth, John Baldessari), Conceptual photography played a decisive role in the transformation of art photography. The course explores how Conceptual photography redefined the medium through its hybridization with other fine arts, notably sculpture and performance, with an often theatrical sense of humor and parody (such as that seen in the works of Bruce Nauman, Sigmar Polke, Charles Ray, Erwin Wurm, and Fischli and Weiss).

Béatrice Gross is an independent curator and art critic based in New York. She teaches in the MFA Photography and New Media Department at the School of Visual Arts. Formerly a curatorial assistant in MoMA's Department of Photography, she is currently a PhD candidate at La Sorbonne, Paris.

DAYTIME COURSES

What Is Art?

SOLD OUT

Seven Tuesdays, 11:00 a.m.–12:50 p.m., 2/2, 2/9, 2/16, 2/23, 3/2, 3/9, 3/16
$365; $315 for members
Instructor: Margaret Wilkerson

What is the purpose of art? What is the value of visual images? What counts as art? Who gets to define art? What is art’s relationship to social history? Addressing these and other questions, this course provides the critical tools necessary to appreciate art and to view it intelligently. Art is approached not only as a mirror of history, but as itself history. The course examines art stylistically and historically, emphasizing points of change and asking, “Why and how does it change?” Students tease out multiple layers of public criticism, particularly in relation to “difficult” art. Discussion and analysis concentrate on a selection of key works currently on view at MoMA, including those by Piet Mondrian, Jean Dubuffet, Joseph Beuys, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Robert Ryman, Cy Twombly, Louise Bourgeois, John Baldessari, Jenny Holzer, Rachel Whiteread, and Roman Signer.

Margaret Wilkerson (PhD, University of Maryland, College Park) has lectured at the Whitney Museum, where she was a Joan Tisch Teaching Fellow and the coordinator of the Docent and Teaching Fellow Program. She has also lectured at the National Gallery of Art, the National Museum of Women and the Arts, and the Corcoran Gallery, and has recently taught courses at New York University, The New School, and Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts.

A Close Look at Three Exceptional Contemporary Artists: Gabriel Orozco, William Kentridge, and Marina Abramović

Five Thursdays, 11:00 a.m.–12:50 p.m., 2/25, 3/4, 3/11, 3/18, 3/25
$260; $220 for members
Instructor: Jennifer Katanic

This course is designed to take advantage of three exciting retrospective exhibitions taking place at MoMA this spring. Gabriel Orozco (b. 1962) is a Mexican artist working fluidly between the mediums of drawing, photography, sculpture, installation, and innovation. The exhibition highlights the diversity of Orozco’s material and the variety of his methods while presenting an oeuvre that is formally captivating and intellectually rigorous. William Kentridge (b. 1955) is a South African artist best known for his animated films, which he meticulously constructs by filming his drawings. Kentridge is a prolific printmaker who uses various techniques, including monotype and etching, to explore the political and social themes prevalent throughout his work. Marina Abramović (b. 1946) was born in Belgrade, then the capital of Yugoslavia, and is an internationally acclaimed performance artist. Exploring the physical and mental limits of her being, she uses her own body as subject, object, and medium, creating pieces that require her to experience pain, exhaustion, and comfort in the quest for intellectual, emotional, and spiritual transformation. This course provides a rare opportunity to take a close look at the careers of these three individual artists and to discuss a number of issues central to contemporary art and practice. No previous knowledge of contemporary art is required.

Jennifer M. Katanic (PhD Candidate, The Graduate Center, City University of New York) is a specialist in modern and contemporary art, with an emphasis on Slavic studies. In addition to lecturing at MoMA she works with International Art Guides as a contemporary art educator at Art Basel Miami Beach.

Picasso: Printmaker, Painter, and Sculptor

SOLD OUT

Five Tuesdays, 11:00 a.m.–12:50 p.m., 3/23, 4/6, 4/13, 4/20, 4/27 (no class on 3/30)
$260; $220 for members
Instructor: Deborah A. Goldberg

This course will examine the exhibition Picasso: Themes and Variations, an investigation of Pablo Picasso's creative process through his printmaking. Lectures focus on Picasso's development as a printmaker; his experimentation with etching, lithography, and linoleum cut; and the interplay between his prints and work done in other mediums. Participants view Picasso's art in MoMA's collection galleries in order to trace the path from his Blue and Rose periods through Cubism, Neoclassicism, and his involvement with Surrealism, leading up to his work done in the mid-twentieth century. We will also consider Picasso's relationship with other members of the School of Paris.

Deborah A. Goldberg, (PhD, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University) is on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts and lectures regularly for The Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA. She co-edited and contributed to the book Alexander Archipenko Revisited: An International Perspective (2008).

STUDIO COURSES

Materials and Techniques of Postwar Abstract Painting

Eight Thursdays, 7:00–9:30 p.m., 2/4, 2/11, 2/18, 2/25, 3/4, 3/11, 3/18, 3/25)

SOLD OUT

$570; $515 for members. Includes $50 fee for materials.
Instructor: Corey D’Augustine

This class teaches students about postwar abstract painting from the perspective of the artist by examining the materials and techniques used in paintings of this period. Two introductory classes cover the basics of stretching and preparing a canvas, as well as mixing and applying paint; each subsequent class focuses on one artist who is well represented in MoMA's collection. Each class begins with a brief slide lecture to introduce the artist's work, followed by a visit to the galleries to view his or her materials and techniques first hand; then, each student paints a small canvas based on that artist’s work in the studio. Artists covered will include Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, Willem de Kooning, Agnes Martin, Robert Ryman, and Ad Reinhardt. At the conclusion of the class, the students visit the galleries and/or conservation lab to share their insights into the role of materials and technique in abstract painting.

Corey D'Augustine is a painting conservator and an artist. He exhibits in New York and abroad.

Materials and Techniques of Russian Avant-Garde Painting

Five Thursdays, 7:00–9:30 p.m., 4/1, 4/8, 4/15, 4/22, 4/29
$375; $340 for members. Includes $50 fee for materials.
Instructor: Corey D’Augustine

This course examines Russian avant-garde painting from the perspective of the artist by employing the materials and techniques used by artists of the period (1915–35). After introducing the aesthetic and political influences of the era, each class focuses on one artist who is well represented in MoMA's collection. Each week combines a brief slide lecture, a close examination of the artist’s work in the MoMA galleries, and a discussion of the relevant materials and techniques before each student paints a canvas based on that artist’s work. The course integrates studio techniques, visual analysis, and art historical concepts to create an understanding of the advent and early development of abstract art. Artists covered include Kazimir Malevich, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Lyubov Popova, and El Lissitzky.

Corey D'Augustine is a painting conservator and an artist. He exhibits in New York and abroad.