Hello, and welcome. My name is Jeff Edwards, and I am a faculty member in the Bachelor of Fine Arts program in Visual & Critical Studies at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Under the guidance of department chair Tom Huhn, I have set up this blog to serve current students, prospective applicants, and anyone else who is interested in knowing what’s going on in the VCS program. Since life in art school presents a constantly shifting set of opportunities and challenges, we feel that it is vitally important to provide a clearinghouse for information about the many people, places, and events that shape student life on a day-to-day basis. This blog provides a home base for anyone interested in knowing what’s happening in VCS, as well as a hub from which a wide variety of program-related sites can be accessed.
For those who are new to VCS, here is a little information about it:
The Visual & Critical Studies program represents a unique approach to art education. Launched in Fall 2007, its multidisciplinary design is intended to prepare students for an art world that is vastly different from that of prior eras. Contemporary art-making practices draw from a wide range of mediums and creative strategies, and no single style or technique is dominant. Decades’ worth of art theory and art criticism have also affected life in the studio, making it necessary for artists to master a wider range of aesthetic disciplines and intellectual tools than ever before. A flood of new technologies for image-making and human interaction has upped the ante for artists even further, vastly transforming the way people access, look at, think about, and discuss art.
The VCS program addresses this new art world by integrating studio practice and intellectual discourse to a degree unheard of in more traditional art programs. Studio training in VCS encompasses a vast range of artistic practices, from old to new. Students learn to work in a wide variety of mediums, taking classes in drawing, photography, printmaking, sculpture, and digital imaging. Academic study of aesthetics, art history, philosophy, and theory is integrated with work in the studio, with the goal of transforming art-making into a responsive, thoughtful activity deeply in tune with the complexity of contemporary culture.
In the coming weeks and months, this blog will present information on many aspects of day-to-day life in the VCS program. In addition to reporting on student exhibitions and department-sponsored events, I plan to present profiles of current students and faculty members, links to blogs and web sites maintained by current students, news of local events relevant to VCS, information about off-campus faculty exhibitions and lectures, updates on VCS alumni, and as many other items of interest to our target audience as I can find. It is my hope that the information provided here will serve to enrich the lives of current students, and present a vivid portrait of life in VCS for those who are interested in joining our community.
Prospective students who would like to learn more about the VCS program are encouraged to visit its web site at the School of Visual Arts and request a course catalog. If you have any questions about VCS, please feel free to contact me at the following e-mail address: visualandcriticalstudies@gmail.com. If I am unable to answer your question directly, I’m sure I’ll be able to find someone else who can.
Thanks for visiting the VCS blog. Everyone is encouraged to bookmark this site and check in regularly; updates will be posted at least once a week. Interesting things are on the way.
Hi,
Great site. Does VCS have any clubs or organizations
I could be apart of? My major is VCS and I’m looking for some extra curricular activities.
- Andrew
By: Andrew Kazinec on December 27, 2009
at 4:08 am
Hi, Andrew. Thanks!
Unfortunately, VCS doesn’t have any of its own clubs or activities, other than things such as the lectures the department sponsors (I’ll be writing about one of those soon). I think that SVA has a few clubs for the entire student body, but none of the individual departments do. If you’re interested in looking into what SVA has to offer, let me know and I’ll find some information for you.
A few VCS students and faculty members have talked about starting an informal yoga club, but we don’t know when/if that will happen. If they start one, I’ll write about it on the blog.
Beyond that, there are so many things going on around SVA that it’s not hard to plan informal extracurricular activities on your own, either by yourself or with a few other students in the program. The Chelsea galleries are just a few blocks away, and there are also the galleries on the Lower East Side, uptown, and in Brooklyn, as well as museums like MOMA and the Guggenheim to visit. There are also a lot of concerts, film screenings, and similar events that you might find interesting.
A good way to get a sense of what is going on around school is to read the bulletin boards in various SVA departments and check out the Visual Arts Briefs e-mail that goes out to students and faculty each week. For city-wide events, keep an eye on the listings in papers like the Village Voice and magazines like Time Out New York or the L Magazine. Most galleries also have copies of the free monthly gallery guide, so you can also use that to figure out what shows are up around town.
Your question has got me thinking a lot, so I might write a post soon about finding things to do in NYC. Thanks for giving me a topic to mull over.
Jeff
By: Jeff Edwards on December 28, 2009
at 3:58 pm