What to do before Fall? (Reading recommendations?)

[E_b]

I’m headed to a painting MFA program in Fall and trying to figure out the best way to prep myself to get ahead and spend my time there as wisely as possible.

I have an illustration BFA and a huge gap in my education regarding theory etc. I was thinking of starting there so I don’t need to waste as much time wrapping my head around broader things and can focus on my own practice in a more targeted way at school. 

I was wondering if any current students are still lurking… And what you all would have done in the summer months to save yourself time down the road?

[SocialKonstruct]

I am probably not the right person to ask but I read a lot and it tends to be a lot of dense critical theory.

Things like bell hooks all the way to Deleuze and theoretical texts in art criticism.

For fun I have been reading Robert Coover's The Public Burning if that tells you anything

Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Beacon, 1994. Barthes, Roland. Image-Music-Text. Hill And Wang, 1977. ---- Mythologies. Noonday Press, 1973. Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. Schocken, 1969. Beshty, Walead. 33 Texts: 93,614 Words: 581,035 Characters: Selected Writings (2003-2015). JRP|Ringier, 2015. Davis, Ben. 9.5 Theses on Art and Class. Haymarket Books. 2013. Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus. Minnesota University Press, 1987. Dewey, John. Art as Experience. TarcherPerigee, 2005. Derrida, Jaques. Of Gramatology. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976 Debord, Guy. Society of the Spectacle. 1967 Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things. Vintage, 1970. Harrison, Charles; Paul Wood, eds., Art in Theory 1900-1999, Blackwell Publishers Lister, Martin et al. New Media: A Critical Introduction (2nd Edition). Routledge, 2009. McLuhan, Marshal. The Medium is the Message. Random House, 1967. Seltz, Peter; Kristine Stiles, eds., Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art : A Source Book of Artists’ Writings. U. of California Press. Steyerl, Hito. The Wretched of the Screen. E-flux, 2013. Wallis, Brian, ed. Blasted Allegories: An Anthology of Artists' Writings, MIT Press, 1987. ---- ed. Art After Modernism: Rethinking Representation. New Museum, 1984. Zizek, Slavoj. The Plague of Fantasies, Verso Books, 1997.

Maybe you are looking for https://static1.squarespace.com/static/573e2957ab48dee8fdd6ba82/t/5c9be01aeef1a19bd7bcc41a/1553719322652/RISD+Photo+Grad+Reading+List.pdf ?

Edited March 13, 2023 by SocialKonstruct

[E_b]

Really appreciate it. This is perfect