Visual Arts Courses

Visual Arts Courses

Drawing I

VIS 202 / ARC 202 · Spring 2024

U01 · Tuesdays, 12:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Lex Brown

The great thing about drawing is you can do it anywhere! This course approaches drawing as a way of thinking and seeing. We'll introduce basic techniques while also encouraging experimentation, with a focus on both drawing from life and drawing as an expressive act.

Painting I

VIS 204 / ARC 328 · Spring 2024

U01 · Tuesdays, 12:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Pam Lins

An introduction to the materials and methods of painting, addressing form and light, color and its interaction, composition, scale, texture and gesture. Students will experiment with subject matter including still life, landscape, architecture, self-portraiture and abstraction, while painting from a variety of sources: life, sketches, maquettes, collages, photographs and imagination.

Graphic Design: Link

VIS 208 · Spring 2024

U01 · Tuesdays, 1:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Laurel Schwulst

In this introductory studio course, participants explore the world wide web as an opportunity for self-publishing.

Analog Photography

VIS 211 · Spring 2024

C01 · Mondays, 12:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Deana Lawson

An introduction to the processes of photography through a series of problems directed toward lens projection, the handling of light-sensitive material, and camera operation. The goal of this course is to make art, and by doing so, understand the necessity for the invention of photography.

Digital Photography

VIS 213 · Spring 2024

C01 · Thursdays, 1:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Staff

This studio course introduces students to the aesthetic and theoretical implications of digital photography. Emphasis will be on gaining competency with digital equipment and editing techniques so that students can learn to express themselves and their ideas through the medium.

Graphic Design: Circulation

VIS 217 · Spring 2024

U01 · Tuesdays, 1:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: David Reinfurt

The practice of graphic design relies on the existence of networks for distributing multiple copies of identical things. Students in this course will consider the ways in which a graphic design object's characteristics are affected by its ability to be copied and shared, and by the environment in which it is intended to circulate.

Digital Animation

VIS 220 · Spring 2024

S01 · Wednesdays, 12:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Tim Szetela

This studio production class will engage in a variety of timed-based composition, visualization, and storytelling techniques. Students will learn foundational methods of 2D animation, acquire a working knowledge of digital animation software and technology, and explore the connective space between sound, image, and motion possible in animated film.

Sculpture I

VIS 222 · Spring 2024

U01 · Thursdays, 12:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Amy Yao

This class will be a studio introduction to sculpture, with particular emphasis on the study of how form, space, and a wide variety of materials and processes influence the visual properties of sculpture and the making of meaning.

Archives Of Justice: Black, Queer, Immigrant Stories Unsilenced

VIS 233 / AAS 233 · Spring 2024

S01 · Tuesdays, 1:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Medhin Paolos

The "truths" found in traditional archives are incomplete: books and mainstream film productions are often biased; silences and omissions enter every level of archive-making and historical production. Students will engage in the critical analysis of the historical relationship between race, diaspora, and citizenship as they appear in film, media, and cultural productions.

Narrative Filmmaking I

VIS 265 · Spring 2024

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Moon Molson

An introduction to narrative and avant-garde narrative film production through the creation of hands-on digital video exercises, short film screenings, critical readings, and group critiques.

Topics in German Film History and Theory: Regimes of Spectacle in Weimar Cinema

GER 308 / ART 383 / ECS 308 / VIS 317 · Spring 2024

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Staff

How do films structure values and desires? What is propaganda? Is there a politics of narration? These and other deeply contemporary questions of media history and theory will be explored through an interdisciplinary interrogation of key works of expressionist, documentary, proletarian, avant-garde, queer, horror, and paranoid-thriller cinema (both silent and sound) produced in Germany during the Weimar Republic (1918-1933).

Printmaking I

VIS 309 · Spring 2024

C01 · Mondays, 12:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Daniel Heyman

In a digital world, this course promotes hand-made printed images. Students will examine two kinds of printmaking: relief and intaglio. To make images that matter, students will learn to cut blocks, fashion stencils, plan and execute color layers, etch and drypoint copper plates, and understand the range of mark making possibilities available in printmaking.

Fascism in Italian Cinema

ITA 312 / VIS 445 · Spring 2024

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Staff

This course, conducted in English, is a study of Fascism through selected films from World War II to the present. Topics include: the concept of Fascist normality; Racial Laws; the role of women and homosexuals; colonialism; and the opposition of the intellectual left.

Intermediate Photography

VIS 313 · Spring 2024

C01 · Wednesdays, 1:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Staff

This course will examine photography's impact and evolving technologies. Students will work with analog and digital media to broaden photographic strategies, technical skills, and understanding how a photograph’s material form influences how it is understood. A range of tools will be introduced, including camera operation, darkroom printing, Photoshop image management tools, and inkjet printing.

Lighting Design

THR 318 / MTD 318 / VIS 318 · Spring 2024

U01 · Mondays, 1:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Jane Cox

An introduction to the art and craft of lighting design for the stage and an exploration of light as a medium for expression. Students will develop an ability to observe lighting in the world and on the stage; to learn to make lighting choices based on text, space, research, and their own responses; to practice being creative, responsive and communicative under pressure and in company; to prepare well to create under pressure using the designer's visual toolbox; and to play well with others-working creatively and communicating with directors, writers, performers, fellow designers, the crew and others.

The Visible Wild

VIS 324 / ENV 312 · Spring 2024

C01 · Tuesdays, 12:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Jeff Whetstone

Students will learn techniques of wildlife surveillance photography using remote cameras to photograph animal populations on and around Princeton's campus. The photographs and apparatus will be considered as both ecological research and works of art.

Site: Place in Art, Performance and Dance

DAN 327 / VIS 327 · Spring 2024

U01 · Tuesdays, 12:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Colleen Asper · Rebecca Lazier

Whether referred to as site-specific, site-responsive, or site-engaged, site is understood in interlocking and distinct ways in visual art, dance and across performance. Through the bisecting lenses of dance and visual art, this course will examine site-based work in land art, environmental and ecological art, urban intervention, community engaged practices, and public art.

Ceramic Sculpture

VIS 331 · Spring 2024

U01 · Fridays, 12:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Amy Yao

This course is designed for students who are interested in learning the fundamentals of working with clay. A wide variety of hand-building will be taught, enabling students to make utilitarian vessels as well as sculptural forms.

The Ceremony is You

MUS 344 / DAN 380 / VIS 380 / THR 380 · Spring 2024

C01 · Mondays, 1:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: yuniya edi kwon

An exploration of ritual and ceremony as creative, interdisciplinary spaces imbued with intention and connected to personal and cultural histories. A broadening and deepening of knowledge around historical and contemporary ritual, ceremonial, and community-building practices of queer and trans artist communities from around the world, with a deeper focus on the extraordinary history of the queer trans shamans of early 20th century Korea.

Short Screenwriting: A Visual-Temporal Approach

CWR 347 / VIS 340 · Spring 2024

C01 · Wednesdays, 1:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Moon Molson

This course will introduce students to the foundational principles and techniques of screenwriting, taking into account the practical considerations of film production. Questions of thematic cohesiveness, plot construction, logical cause and effect, character behavior, dialogue, genre consistency and pace will be explored as students gain confidence in the form by completing a number of short screenplays. The course will illustrate and analyze the power of visual storytelling to communicate a story to an audience, and will guide students to create texts that serve as "blueprints" for emotionally powerful and immersive visual experiences.

Documentary Filmmaking II

VIS 363 · Spring 2024

C01 · Tuesdays, 1:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt

There are unlimited ways in which to record and portray the world around us. In this class, we will analyze classic and contemporary strategies for making a documentary film, and see if we can invent some new ones of our own.

Painting II

VIS 404 · Spring 2024

U01 · Wednesdays, 12:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Colleen Asper

This class will focus on how contemporary painting considers the human figure. Portraits without people, the selfie, imagined figures, forgotten figures, fragmented figures, figures from our lives, abstract figures, cyborgs, crowds, and composite figures will be considered within a structure of exploratory painterly approaches. This class will not focus on "how to" paint the figure. No experience painting the figure is necessary.

Advanced Screenwriting: Writing for Television

CWR 405 / VIS 405 · Spring 2024

C01 · Thursdays, 1:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Susanna Styron

This advanced screenwriting workshop will introduce students to the fundamental elements of developing and writing a TV series. Students will develop critical thinking skills by watching television pilots, reading pilot episodes, and engaging in in-depth discussion about story, character, structure, tone, dialogue, and other aspects of visual storytelling.

Drawing II

VIS 407 · Spring 2024

U01 · Tuesdays, 12:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Troy Michie

This course focuses on the development of various approaches in observational drawing from the human figure.

Advanced Questions in Photography

VIS 411 · Spring 2024

C01 · Tuesdays, 12:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Deana Lawson

Advanced Questions in Photography will examine ways in which lens-based media can interrogate representation, class, gender and race. The class will look artists of the 1960's through 1990's such as Eleanor Antin, Adrian Piper, Douglas Huebler, Martha Rosler, Barbara Kruger, Carrie Mae Weems, Felix Gonzales Torres, Lyle Ashton Harris and more recent artists Trevor Paglen, Hank Willis Thomas, Jason Lazarus, Walead Beshty and Hito Steyerl.

Advanced Graphic Design

VIS 415 · Spring 2024

U01 · Mondays, 12:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: David Reinfurt

This studio course builds on the skills and concepts of the 200-level Graphic Design classes. VIS 415 is structured around three studio assignments that connect graphic design to other bodies of knowledge, aesthetic experience, and scholarship. The class always takes a local concept or event as the impetus for investigations. The course will explore information design and visual problem solving specifically for electronic media.

Spring Film Seminar

VIS 419 · Spring 2024

S01 · Mondays, 7:30-10:20 PM

Instructors: Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt

This class concentrates on the editing process. Students will re-edit samples from narrative and documentary films and analyze the results. We will also critique ongoing edits of your own thesis films. This course will give you a better understanding of how many ways there are to approach and solve the puzzle of editing a film.

Sculpture II

VIS 421 · Spring 2024

U01 · Tuesdays, 12:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Martha Friedman

This sculpture class will engage contemporary approaches to the figure with an emphasis on the figure as body. Students will take a multivalent approach to the historical precedents from which current representations have emerged and explore the limits of what constitutes the body and figuration in contemporary sculpture through the process of class discussions and making sculpture.

Black: The Chromapolitics of Darkness, Shadow, and Light/Life

VIS 423 / ART 426 · Spring 2024

S01 · Tuesdays, 1:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Tina Campt

"Chromapolitics" challenges us to consider color as neither arbitrary nor neutral, but instead deeply enmeshed in powerful social and cultural dynamics. Structured around creative and collaborative student responses to the work of Black, Latinx and Indigenous artists and thinkers this seminar asks students to reexamine their own use and understanding of color by focusing on the resonances and intensities of the color black and adjacent dark tonalities such as browns, blues, and violets, as well as how shadow, night, and negative space register both in the work of artists and theorists of visual culture and in their experience as makers.

How to be Undisciplined

EGR 473 / VIS 473 / ENT 473 · Spring 2024

U01 - Lucy Partman · Tuesdays, 1:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Staff

This course is about developing the urgent skills of connecting, systems thinking, and designing innovations informed by a broad understanding of human experiences.

Abandoned Art Clause

Each student is responsible for collecting any and all works of art that he/she may submit in connection with a given course/studio within 14 days after the conclusion of the term, unless he/she makes special arrangements with the program. The program may use or dispose of any uncollected works as it deems appropriate.