Studio Art in Berlin

Learn how to create art in Europe! Germany offers many oppurtunities.

Kenneth Hall: ken.hall@uni.edu

This is an intermediate and/or advanced course in drawing and painting. It is primarily a studio course and is concerned primarily with making actual works. There will be specific projects for each level of drawing and painting, and these projects will comprise about 75% of your grade. Most of the projects will be relatively small in size, and can be executed in your sketchbooks…others will be explored on slightly larger pieces of paper, Masonite or birch panel, or on canvas.

My highest goal for this class is to help develop within each of you an understanding of research and practice within drawing and painting. In other words, I hope that you will use your journal/writings, gallery experience and travels, and your studio experience to focus on themes that will drive your summer (and future) art-making. Eventually, these themes may drive your life-long studio practice. We will have a short-two or three day-studio time upon our return to the UNI painting studios to make new, larger works based on our smaller pieces. This will help to summarize our abroad experience and give opportunity for making work in a familiar space.

This course will be most valuable for you if you think in terms of a series…and possibly several series of work as you navigate different ideas and processes. In terms of output, I expect that you will have a body of work by the end of the term. Eight to twelve small finished drawings/paintings is a reasonable estimate, which accounts to about one work completed every other day.

You will also respond to readings that I bring for our travel times; I have several readings that deal with contemporary art or painting issues. You should formulate your response in your sketchbook and/or in a separate “physical bag” that I pass around while we’re on the flight, local U-bahn, bus, or during other quieter times.

                Focus Areas:

-Experiment widely in different media, while ultimately pursuing a focus in your studio practice (drawing or painting)

-Understand how the formal elements of a drawing/painting have conceptual implications

-Develop a sensitivity toward the visual properties of painted passages; why does a particular area look the way it does?

-become proficient in color mixing, glazing techniques, and the material craft of painting and drawing

-Learn the links and differences between drawing & painting

-Develop keen evaluative (Critique) skills

-Discover methods of research that feed your studio practice

-Become an “informed observer”; keep a viewing journal and reading list

-Study the function of the artist in society, new artists and art forms, and break down the learned assumptions (or stereotypes) about Art

Daily Program Itinerary for Studio Art in Berlin, May 2013

Depart Cedar Rapids Airport

Arrive Berlin Tegel on May 15

Day 1: Arrive in Berlin and transfer by bus/ubahn to apartments

Day 2-3: Berlin, visit studio spaces of artists in Friedrichshain

Day 4-5: Visit the Damien Hirst gallery and others in Mitte

Day 6: Visits to local art museums on Museum Island

Day 7-8: Trip to Kreuzberg galleries

Day 9: Visit Reichstag and Holocaust memorial

Day 10: Daytime plein aire painting, evening gallery tour

Day 11: Painting onsite, urban location

Day 12-13: Painting at festival/park locations

Day 14: Trip to Hamburger Bahnof (contemporary museum)

Day 15: Final work day; complete summary project, critiques

Day 16: Clean/pack/trip to Berlin Tegel airport, depart for U.S.

Arrive Cedar Rapids Airport

Students pay UNI tuition and fees (in-state or out-of-state), the $65 application fee, and the study abroad administration fee to participate. There will be additional costs for housing, food, books and supplies, round-trip airfare, international health insurance, and other personal expenses.
To ease the financial burden on participants, expenses are broken up into four main categories.
1.) The first large expense is the airfare; shortly after the program is full* and has been declared closed, participants will be notified by the Study Abroad Center how to go about purchasing the airfare (normally organized by Study Abroad Center).
2.) The second amount due will be for any reserved activities associated with the program (e.g., housing, local transportation abroad, some cultural activities, some meals); this amount will be due before the program start, usually in the spring semester prior to the program.
3.) Third, the UNI tuition and fees, the study abroad administration fee, and any remaining amounts will be placed on the U-bill.
4.) Finally, there will be onsite expenses consisting of meals, additional cultural program activities, and any other personal expenses.
*Note that summer programs fill at different times and so airfare purchase dates will vary greatly by each program. Please contact us (contact page URL) if you have questions about a specific program.

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