There are three components of the New York Arts Practicum: the Practicum, the Critique/Seminar, and Site Visits.
Arts Practicum
The Practicum is an intensive period working one-on-one in the studio of an active professional artist. Participants apprentice with the mentor, assisting the artist in one or more of the following areas: the completion of works, pre-production research, external communications, documentation process, grant and exhibition application process, the managing of the studio practice, or other day-to-day work of the contemporary artist. Students work intimately with one active and successful artist (or artist collaborative), learning core techniques and ideas of that artist’s work, and also indirectly learning how to model their creative practice and artistic attitudes off of their mentor’s model. Participants will complete between 130-210 hours of work.
Critique/Seminar
6-9PM Monday & Tuesday
An intensive critique/seminar focusing on creating artwork while in New York City. Art departments and art schools provide art students with studio space, production facilities, and technical staff, but once graduated they have to learn how to continue their creative practice without that support. The Critique/Seminar starts with the absence of institutional facilities as its core assumption, and builds strategies and practices for making work without this support. Practicum Mentors and visiting artists will serve as guest critics and will lead seminars on selected texts and works.
Site Visits
11AM-4PM Friday
Rather than approach an art history course through slide lectures, this course seeks out the original masterworks on the walls of MoMA et al, modern masters in the galleries of New York, and work in progress in artists studios. Participants engage in intimate conversations with artists about their creative process, the difficulty of being an artist, and what it takes to pull off a major project. We frequently will see new or in progress work. We visit galleries, some of which will include conversations with curators.