Course Description

This course is meant to be a space for you to examine and deepen your relationship to the field and your own practice through readings, discussions, and presentations.  The readings are meant to expand your perspective on the field of jewelry and metalsmithing, to define its particularities and concerns in relation to the discourses of the contemporary art world.

Together we will explore a series of seminal theoretical texts, seeking ways to relate them to our own practice.  Through these texts we will encounter a series of themes and historical perspectives that are crucial to the field of jewelry, while also delving into fields and areas of inquiry, that have not commonly been related to our field, but perhaps should or could be.  Our aim is to get a historical and interdisciplinary perspective on where we are as artists/makers today, how we got here and where we could go from here. The course aims to bring up critical questions on why we make, whom we make for and the meaning of our practice beyond the studio and the jewelry and metals world.

This is a chance to practice your skills in connecting theory, reading and writing to your work and to build a vocabulary and ground of reference around your ideas, interests and intentions. It’s a chance to take part in an intense discourse around your field, which you might be asked to do many times in the future of your career.

The Wednesday meetings will adopt the form of a reading/talking circle. Your role in the group is important and the success of our conversations will be based on your participation and engagement. We will all take turns in presenting and leading the discussion and also examine what “research through practice” might mean for us, by exploring some ways of connecting theory and making. 

Oct 8, 2009

From Vienna Secession/Art Nouveau Style... to functionalist style. The trip to the US transformed Loos.


Art Nouveau in Vienna was known as the Secession style. Adolf Loos was initially part of the The Vienna Secession (Union of Austrian Artists, or Vereiningung Bildender Künstler Österreichs) formed in 1897. The first president of the Secession was Gustav Klimt. In 1903 two other members of the Secession group, established the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops), which emphasized the important role of craftsmanship and an integrated approach to the design of interiors. The Wiener Wekstätte - the Austrian version of the British Arts and Crafts Movement!
 Vienna Secession Building 
The Secession building in Vienna was built in 1897 by Joseph Maria Olbrich to accommodate the exhibitions of the Art Nouveau group secession which included the leading artists and architects of the era
Art Nouveau style building in Vienna

1893 to1896 Loos travels and worked as a mason and floor-layer in the U.S., where he became enamored with the efficiency of American architecture. In particular, he comes to admire the work of Louis Sullivan (Frank Lloyd Wrights mentor), who constructed the first steel framed building (1891) and is credited with coining the phrase "Form Follows Function".  In his writing “Ornament and Architecture” (1892) he said  “I shall say that it would be greatly for our aesthetic good if we could refrain entirely from the use of ornament for a period of years in order that our thought might concentrate acutely on the production of buildings well formed and comely in the nude”. This for sure was an inspiration to Loos ideas in "Ornament and Crime" (1907).

Sullivan's Wainwright Building in St- Louis  


Goldman & Salatsch Building in Wien - by Adolf Loos in 1909-1911

Posted by

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)