23.04.2014 / 6:00 p.m.
1300 W Mount Royal Avenue Baltimore. Maryland, United States
Lecture
Coordinated by David Brooks and Organized by Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA)
INTERDISCIPLINARY SCULPTURE
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Sculpture is contemporary art’s meta-medium, where artists cross boundaries, invent hybrid processes, and explore innovative content in the areas of object-making, installation, performance, site-work, time-based art, and digital forms. Students of interdisciplinary sculpture develop the conceptual content of their work concurrently with practical, hands-on knowledge of materials and fabrication techniques, enabling them to produce work relevant to their personal vision.
Classes offered within the department combine theory and practice and encourage students to develop transdisciplinary, multimedia approaches to their work and invent collaborations with new audiences and communities. Through this innovative curriculum, students are exposed to a broad range of creative possibilities within the material, spatial, and non-static arts and develop a range of conceptual skills and strategies that allow them to realize content in inventive ways. Students explore both experimental and established approaches to art making.
Courses within the department allow students to build a solid base of constructive and technical skills by working in such areas as wood, metal fabrication, mold-making, casting, assembling, laser cutting, 3D printing, rapid-prototyping, welding, carving, and construction. Students are encouraged to further explore content in video installation, performance, time-based art, photo-sculpture hybrids, 3D computing, and other newer genres, and are challenged to use these skills to make work that is relevant in our complex, diverse, and ever-changing global culture.
Our accomplished faculty provides the theoretical and historical framework to assist majors in developing a sophisticated critical/self-analytical awareness of their practice, and its place within the larger culture. Interdisciplinary sculpture students are encouraged to develop technical mastery, conceptual sophistication, and an understanding of newer and emerging genres; to explore contemporary issues, ideas, and technologies; and to create a practice that recognizes the past while envisioning the future.
The expansive studio facilities for sculpture at MICA are housed in the recently renovated Mount Royal Station, a converted B&O Railroad passenger station that also houses the College’s graduate sculpture program, the Rinehart School of Sculpture. New classrooms, a renovated metal shop with upgraded ventilation, and a new glass kiln add to the already well-equipped facilities, which include up-to-date computers and software and dedicated areas for work in plaster, wood, and a metal foundry.