Joel Sternfeld

This is an untraditional course, as I will be offering it separately for both fall and spring; however, students are more than welcome to take both semesters in sequence for the year, as each semester will cover different material. Every week, a different photographic idea or genre will be traced from its earliest iterations to its present form through slide lectures and readings. And each week, students will respond with their own photographic work inspired by the visual presentations and readings. Topics include personal dress-up/narrative, composite photography/photographic collage, the directorial mode, fashion/art photography, new strategies in documentary practice, abstraction/“new photography,” the typology in photography, the photograph in color, and the use of words and images in combination. In the second semester, the emphasis will shift, as students choose to work on a subject and in a form that coincides with the ideas that they most urgently wish to express. No previous experience in photography is necessary nor is any special equipment. A desire to explore, to experiment, and to create a personally meaningful body of work are the only requirements.

What does contemporary America really look like? What does it mean? Perhaps no single photograph can describe the zeitgeist, particularly now; but, cumulatively, a grouping of photographs might. This is a picture-maker’s course—whether you would like to look at the social landscape, the political landscape, the built landscape, the psychological landscape, or the poetic landscape. This is a course that will welcome such efforts. No previous photographic experience is necessary, just a willingness to work at getting to the heart of the matter—which is essential. The teaching method will be weekly discussions and critiques of student work.

A photograph presented alone and without a description in words is a simple utterance. “Ooh,” “Aah,” and “Huh?” are its proper responses. When pictures are presented in groups with accompanying text (of any length) and perhaps in conjunction with political or poetic conceptual strategies, any statement becomes possible. The photographs can begin to function as a sentence, a paragraph, or an entire treatise. Whether working in fiction, nonfiction, or in a fictive space, artists such as Robert Frank, Jim Goldberg, Roni Horn, Dorothea Lange, Susan Meiselas, Alan Sekula, Taryn Simon, Larry Sultan, and numerous others have been in the process of transforming photography with their work. Or perhaps they have created a medium: the new narrative photography. In this course, students will initially study the work of these “narrative” photographers and either write about their work or make pictures in response to it. The culmination of this experience will be students’ creation of their own bodies of work. If you have a story to tell, a statement to make, or a phenomenon that you wish to study and describe, this course is open to you. No previous photographic experience or special equipment is necessary. The opportunity to forge a new medium is rare. This course aims to create the forum and the conditions necessary for all to do so in a critical and supportive workshop environment.

A photograph presented alone and without a description in words is a simple utterance. “Ooh,” “Aah,” and “Huh?” are its proper responses. When pictures are presented in groups with accompanying text (of any length) and perhaps in conjunction with political or poetic conceptual strategies, any statement becomes possible. The photographs can begin to function as a sentence, a paragraph, or an entire treatise. Whether working in fiction, nonfiction, or in a fictive space, artists such as Robert Frank, Jim Goldberg, Roni Horn, Dorothea Lange, Susan Meiselas, Alan Sekula, Taryn Simon, Larry Sultan, and numerous others have been in the process of transforming photography with their work. Or perhaps they have created a medium: the new narrative photography. In this course, students will initially study the work of these “narrative” photographers and either write about their work or make pictures in response to it. The culmination of this experience will be students’ creation of their own bodies of work. If you have a story to tell, a statement to make, or a phenomenon that you wish to study and describe, this course is open to you. No previous photographic experience or special equipment is necessary. The opportunity to forge a new medium is rare. This course aims to create the forum and the conditions necessary for all to do so in a critical and supportive workshop environment.

Some 60 or 70 years ago, the idea of art as a comfort to middle- and upper-class tastes and values—more or less a visual soporific to be occasionally consumed, as needed—began to come under assault. The methodologies of the Fluxus Movement, the happenings of the ’60s, and various conceptual practices of the ’70s provided a ground from which artists such as Hans Haacke or Neo Rauch could make work that was critical of prevailing economic or political realities. In 1971, when a pointed artwork by Haacke caused the Guggenheim Museum to cancel his retrospective, the then-director of the museum wrote to Haacke to say that the institution’s policies “exclude active engagement toward social or political ends.” Unfortunately for the museum, a constantly expanding and ever-more vital ocean of such work has ensued. Using Nato Thompson’s Seeing Power: Art and Activism in the 21st Century as our text, we will examine the work of artists whose work has intentionally called for a different social or political order. Exemplars to be studied will include Francis Alys, David Hammons, Alfredo Jaar, Barbara Kruger, Suzanne Lacy, Ana Mendieta, Adrian Piper, Pussy Riot, Martha Rosler, Doris Salcedo, Carolee Schneemann, Felix Gonzalez Torres, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, Ai Weiwei, and Fred Wilson, to name but a very few. In the beginning of the semester, students will respond to readings, class discussions, and prompts with artworks that relate to the issues at hand. As the semester progresses, students will also work on a conference project that is borne of their own independent concerns.

In the past 75 years, our understandings of the photographic image have changed utterly: A simplistic belief in the image as a truth-conveying artifact of a real moment or object is deeply suspect and perhaps archaic. With these changes in understanding have come different usages of the lens-based image or light-based image (that might not even involve a lens) in art intended to function within the gallery or museum or book or digital space. The plurality of approaches and results is overwhelming and does not lend itself to simple categorization for study. And so, this is a course designed to provide a survey introduction to the would-be practitioner through a deeper study of exemplars: noted figures whose work has stood out…so far. Of course, the designation of someone as an exemplar runs the risk of new canonization; so, the exemplars to be studied each semester in this two-semester course will be democratically determined. Approximately three weeks will be spent on slideshows, presentations by faculty and students, and review of student work in class criticism—all inspired by the exemplar culled from a list that will include (in no particular order): La Toya Ruby Frazier, Alfredo Jaar, Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, David Wojnarowicz, Carrie Mae Weems, William Eggelston, Robert Adams, Justine Kurland, Lucas Blalock, and others.

From the inception of photography, images have served as a means of identification, as seen in mugshots, and in misidentification, as exemplified by Cindy Sherman’s portraits where she adopts the personas of Hollywood B-movie starlets. In this course, we will explore various paradigms of self-transformation through photography. We will study artists who engage in this practice and use their work as prompts for creative exploration. We will look specifically at the work of Hippolyte Bayard, Oscar Gustave Rejlander, Julia Margaret Cameron, Claude Cahun, Cindy Sherman, Anna Gaskell, Nicki Lee, Gillian Wearing, and others. The ultimate goal of the course will be to examine the nature of the self, the possibilities of self-reinvention, and the role of the camera as a tool for transformation.

A photograph presented alone and without a description in words is a simple utterance. “Ooh,” “Aah,” and “Huh?” are its proper responses. When pictures are presented in groups with accompanying text (of any length) and perhaps in conjunction with political or poetic conceptual strategies, any statement becomes possible. The photographs can begin to function as a sentence, a paragraph, or an entire treatise. Whether working in fiction, nonfiction, or in a fictive space, artists such as Robert Frank, Jim Goldberg, Roni Horn, Dorothea Lange, Susan Meiselas, Allan Sekula, Taryn Simon, Larry Sultan, and numerous others have been in the process of transforming photography with their work. Or perhaps they have created a medium: the new narrative photography. In this course, students will initially study the work of these “narrative” photographers and either write about their work or make pictures in response to it. The culmination of this experience will be students’ creation of their own bodies of work. If you have a story to tell, a statement to make, or a phenomenon that you wish to study and describe, this course is open to you. No previous photographic experience or special equipment is necessary. The opportunity to forge a new medium is rare. This course will aim to create the forum and the conditions necessary for all to do so in a critical and supportive workshop environment. Photographers studied will include: Duane Michals, Danny Lyon, Sophie Calle, Eve Sonneman, Bill Owens, Bill Burke, Adrian Piper, Hamish Fulton, Susan Meiselas, Anne Turyn, Carrie Mae Weems, Lorna Simpson, Roni Horn, Tacita Dean, Alfredo Jaar, Allan Sekula, Gillian Wearing, Taryn Simon, Joel Sternfeld, Jenny Holzer, Rachel Sussman, Shirin Neshat, Richard Prince, Clarissa Sligh, Wendy Ewald, Lawrence Weiner, Jim Goldberg, Robert Frank, Dorothea Lange, Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa, Paul Graham, Jeff Wall, Gregory Crewdson, Walker Evans, Eugene Smith, Martha Rosler, Barbara Kruger, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Chris Verene, Larry Sultan, Diana Markosian, Helen Levitt, and more. In fall and spring, students will meet biweekly with the instructor for individual conferences, alongside corequisite First-Year Studies Project (ARTS 1000), which will meet weekly as a group.

Each week of the first semester, a different photographic idea or genre will be traced from its earliest iterations to its present forms through lectures and readings. And each week, students will respond with their own photographic work inspired by the visual presentations and readings. Topics will include personal dress-up and transformation, composite photography/photographic collage, the directorial mode, fashion/art photography, new strategies in documentary practice, the typology in photography, the photograph in color, and the use of words and images with narrative intention. The emphasis will shift in the second semester, as students choose to work on a subject and in a form that coincides with the ideas that they most urgently wish to express. This more personalized work will eventually culminate into a final conference project. No previous experience in photography is necessary nor is any special equipment. A desire to explore, experiment, and create a meaningful body of work are the only prerequisites.

Over its relatively short history, photography has often relied on well-worn conventions—the landscape, the portrait, the snapshot. Like all artistic mediums, every advancement in photography builds upon what has come before. In this course, we will explore how these developments have unfolded within some of photography’s most dominant tropes. Through discussion and practice, we will work toward creating images that radically mutate and reimagine these traditions. We will study the work of artists who have disrupted expectations, challenged formal norms, and redefined what a photograph can be. Students will be encouraged to question their own habits as image makers and to embrace experimentation as a means of pushing beyond the familiar.

A photograph presented alone and without a description in words is a simple utterance. “Ooh,” “Aah,” and “Huh?” are its proper responses. When pictures are presented in groups with accompanying text (of any length) and perhaps in conjunction with political or poetic conceptual strategies, any statement becomes possible. The photographs can begin to function as a sentence, a paragraph, or an entire treatise. Whether working in fiction, nonfiction, or in a fictive space, artists such as Robert Frank, Jim Goldberg, Roni Horn, Dorothea Lange, Susan Meiselas, Allan Sekula, Taryn Simon, Larry Sultan, and numerous others have been in the process of transforming photography with their work. Or perhaps they have created a medium: the new narrative photography. In this course, students will initially study the work of these “narrative” photographers and either write about their work or make pictures in response to it. The culmination of this experience will be students’ creation of their own bodies of work. If you have a story to tell, a statement to make, or a phenomenon that you wish to study and describe, this course is open to you. No previous photographic experience or special equipment is necessary. The opportunity to forge a new medium is rare. This course will aim to create the forum and the conditions necessary for all to do so in a critical and supportive workshop environment. Photographers we will look at include: Duane Michals, Danny Lyon, Sophie Calle, Eve Sonneman, Bill Owens, Bill Burke, Adrian Piper, Hamish Fulton, Susan Meiselas, Anne Turyn, Carrie Mae Weems, Lorna Simpson, Roni Horn, Tacita Dean, Alfredo Jaar, Allan Sekula, Gillian Wearing, Taryn Simon, Joel Sternfeld, Jenny Holzer, Rachel Sussman, Shirin Neshat, Richard Prince, Clarissa Sligh, Wendy Ewald, Lawrence Weiner, Jim Goldberg, Robert Frank, Dorothea Lange, Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa, Paul Graham, Jeff Wall, Gregory Crewdson, Walker Evans, Eugene Smith, Martha Rosler, Barbara Kruger, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Chris Verene, Larry Sultan, Diana Markosian, Helen Levitt, and more.

In 1981, Sally Eauclaire summed up the first decade of fine-art photography by coining the term, “The New Color.” She used this coined term as the title of her book, which documented many of the important images of that decade. The chromatic aesthetics of that decade have endured. Is a new palette or a new approach to color in photography possible? In this course, students will be asked to do graphic analysis of color that attempts to break through to The New New Color.