Ephraim Rubenstein: The Literature of Art--Looking at Art Through the Words of Great Writers

Silya Kiese: Seminar in Performative Arts

To register, visit the League's front desk, call (212) 247-4510, ext. 101 or e-mail info@artstudentsleague.org

Ephraim Rubenstein: The Literature of Art
Looking at Art Throught the Words of Great Writers

Dates and Readings Below
10 Sessions
February 23 – May 17
Thursdays, 4:45 pm–6:30 pm
Fee: $280 for series
Limited to 25 students

Is there such a thing as an artistic personality? To what extent and in what ways can art be taught? Is there a relationship between art-making and mental illness? And why do so many artists allude to suffering?

In his "Literature of Art" seminar, League instructor Ephraim Rubenstein addresses these and other questions by guiding students through prominent writings about the visual arts. Rubenstein is both a stunning realist painter and a provocative, award-winning teacher.

The seminar, which meets on ten Thursdays in the late afternoon, brings together students and artists from different disciplines, approaches, and walks of life to read and talk about essential questions in the visual arts. The class will examine selected landmarks of theory, criticism, connoisseurship and the writings of artists themselves. Wherever possible, it is important to read the recommended edition. Selections change from edition to edition, as do translations, and having a consistent pagination makes discussions much easier.

NB: Students should come to the first session on February 23 having read Vasari's The Lives of the Artists
.

Wherever possible, it is important to read the recommended edition. Selections change from edition to edition, as do translations, and having a consistent pagination makes discussions much easier.

Class Dates and Readings

February 23:   
Georgio Vasari: The Lives of the Artists
Oxford World’s Classics, translated by Julia Conaway Bondanella, 2008

March 8:   
Leonardo da Vinci: A Treatise on Painting
Great Minds Series Prometheus Books, ISBN 1-57392-950-6

March 15:    
Vincent Van Gogh: Letters
Edited by Mark Roskill
 Touchstone Books (Simon & Schuster), ISBN 978-4165- 8086-7


March 22:   
Kenneth Clark: The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form
A W Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, Princeton/Bollingen, ISBN 0-691-01788-3

April 5:   
Kent Bloomer: Body, Memory and Architecture
Yale University Press, 1977, ISBN 0-300-02142-9

April 12:   
E. H. Gombrich: Art and Illusion; A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation
Bollingen Series/ Princeton University Press

April 26:   
James Abbott McNeill Whistler: The Gentle Art of Making Enemies
Dover Publications, ISBN 0-486-21875-9

May 3:   
Virginia Woolf: A Room of One’s Own
Harvest/ Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, ISBN 0-15-678732-6

May 10:   
Student Presentations

May 17:   
Student Presentations

Ephraim Rubenstein received his B.A. in Art History from Columbia University and his M.F.A. in Painting from Columbia University's School of the Arts.  Mr. Rubenstein has had ten one-person exhibitions in New York: at Tibor de Nagy Gallery, Tatistcheff & Co., and most recently at George Billis Gallery in Chelsea. He has also exhibited at the Butler Institute of American Art, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and the National Academy of Design, where he won the Emil Carlsen and Beatrice Laufman Awards. His work is represented in numerous public and private collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Mr. Rubenstein is an active teacher and is currently on the faculty at Columbia University and the National Academy of Design, as well as at the Art Students League. For more information, visit www.ephraimrubenstein.com.

Silya Kiese
Seminar in Performative Arts

4 Sessions
April 5, 12, 19, 26
Thursdays, 5:00–7:00 pm
Fee: $180 for series
Students may bring laptops
Limited to 10 students



This seminar will explore and question movement, gesture, the written word and sound, from Ancient Greece to contemporary times. We will discuss well-known personalities, including their movement and dress and derived meanings thereof. We will look at video performance and installation art, and discuss the importance of the action that is performed and how it affects the viewer. We will demonstrate how manner, desire and memory register upon gesture and within the body. There will be discussions on how to explore writing for projects that combine the performative arts, and the importance of the experience and adventure of writing as a process for creating works of art in two and three dimensions. How is all of this be used as part of story telling, and how do we present out stories? There will be weekly readings and/or assignments. Please pick up a detail list of each session in the League office.  Click here for a more detailed schedule.

Silya Kiese is a leading practitioner in contemporary art. She combines sculpture, object making, and performance art in her kinetic art, sculptural sound objects, and installations.  She uses performative materials, such as light, sound and the human voice, to demonstrate the diversity and magic in human gestures and socio-cultural performative movements. Ms. Kiese has introduced her performative installation art as a visiting artist at Rutgers University, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, and University of California, Berkeley. She has taught and lectured post-modern and contemporary art at Evergreen State College, Seattle Pacific University, and the School of Visual Arts. Ms. Kiese is known for creating inventive and inspiring environments in the classroom.