Research & Critique

Online course via Zoom
Faculty: Alex Callender

About This Course

Studio Research and Crit will focus on the question, what is artist research and how do we transform these ideas to our studio practice? In this class we will consider the constellation of ideas embedded in our studio process and through a project-based approach identify several questions within our practice that we want to research. Whether the research is historical, archival, material, literary, or through other worlds of knowledge, we will develop prompts and look at the works of contemporary artists working in the fields of research-based practice, to help us expand our subject matter and studio approaches. This six-week course will span the research arc from organizing studio questions, research methods, and translating research concepts back into material practice, fostering space for play, curiosity, and new points of reference to one’s work.

Guest Speaker to be announced.

Financial Aid is available. NYC Crit Club provides payment plans, BIPOC scholarships and additional aid based on extenuating circumstances. Please click here to learn more before checking out.

Artists in this course will:

• Practice making a creative mapping and research process

• Work in a collectively creative environment to address what sites of research and methods will best work for your practice

• Think about what art historical influences can best help contextualize and establish lineages for your art practice

• Discuss and critique ways of translating your art research into material expression in the studio

• Discussion and workshop with visiting practitioner

Faculty Bio

Alex Callender received her MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and BA from Connecticut College, she is an assistant professor of art at Smith College (MA). Alex has had recent solo shows at The Gallatin Galleries NYU (NY), Pulp Gallery (Holyoke, MA), LookOut Gallery (Michigan State University), and exhibited at SOCO Gallery (Charlotte, NC), The Drawing Center (NY), ArtSpace (New Haven, CT), Art in Embassies Program, and Boston Center for the Arts.

Callender was selected as a research fellow at the Schomburg Center (NY), and has been in residence with the Santa Fe Art Institute, Alice Yard (Trinidad), BAU Institute (France), The Drawing Center’s Open Session, Drawinternational (France), and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Swing Space.