Terri Geis

These courses offer detailed engagements with key works of art masterpieces to material culture across a range of media from different times and places to develop the critical apparatus of visual analysis. They introduce the methods and fundamental concepts of art history by taking one work of art and constructing around it a web of diverse objects and practices that allow us to grapple with the meanings of art and its histories within global and trans-historical perspectives. Among the questions we ask throughout the course are: What is art? What is art history? What are the institutions that shape the practice and dissemination of art? How is art affected by histories of cultural exchange? What is the nature of tradition? The course will be conducted through both lecture and discussion. Evaluation will be through written assignments, PowerPoint presentations, and active class participation. No previous knowledge of art history is required.

The surrealist movement began in early-twentieth century France as a revolutionary proposal to discard the rational foundations of Western knowledge and unleash humanity's fullest capabilities through the unconscious and dreams. In dynamic networks, surrealism expanded beyond Western Europe to other regions including Africa, the Americas, and Asia. Around the world, it was viewed as an aesthetic and political tool to combat colonialism and position indigenous forms of knowledge as counterpoints to Eurocentric ways of thinking. This course will examine these cultural intersections and creative crosscurrents in visual art, writing, and film from the 1920s-present. It will place special emphasis on surrealism's experimental practices - ludic activities often meant to encourage collaboration - and its innovative exhibition strategies. Students will explore the history of the movement and also practice its art techniques through hands-on workshops. Artists, writers, and filmmakers that will be considered include André Breton, Leonora Carrington, Aimé and Suzanne Césaire, Salvador Dalí, Frida Kahlo, Harue Koga, Ted Joans, Maria Martins, Jan Švankmajer, and Ramsès Younan.

The capstone experience in Art History provides seniors with the opportunity to work closely with a faculty mentor and to conduct extensive research on a topic of their choice. The program consists of a capstone seminar, taken in the first semester of the senior year, and a year-long individualized thesis tutorial. During the capstone seminar, Art History students will refine a thesis topic of their choice, develop a bibliography, read broadly in background works, and undertake research and/or creative work. In the tutorial, students will work on a one-on-one basis with a faculty mentor to hone their research and produce successive drafts of a capstone project. The capstone experience will culminate in the public presentation of the work and defense before a faculty panel.

Prerequisite: Must be a declared Art History Major and Senior standing.

This course is composed of one-on-one weekly studio critiques with the core MFA faculty. Students will meet regularly with their faculty advisor and this class will provide a platform for the MFA student to present their work and the aesthetic, technical, and expressive concepts underlying it. Critiques offer constructive assessment of the graduate students' work-in-progress in relation to contemporary and historical practice, social and cultural issues, technical and formal concerns and related interdisciplinary interests.

Prerequisite: Declared NYU-AD Art & Media MFA student.

This course is composed of one-on-one weekly studio critiques with faculty and visiting artists. Studio critiques will engage the larger NYUAD/NYU arts community with visitors comprised of arts faculty and scholars from across the arts, humanities, social sciences, and beyond. This class will provide a platform for the MFA student to present their work and the aesthetic, technical, and expressive concepts underlying it. Critiques offer constructive assessment of the graduate students' work-in-progress in relation to contemporary and historical practice, social and cultural issues, technical and formal concerns and related interdisciplinary interests.

Prerequisite: Declared NYU-AD Art & Media MFA student.

This course is composed of one-on-one weekly studio critiques with visiting artists, scholars, curators, and critics. This class will focus on external networking and will provide a platform for the MFA student to present their work to arts professionals and engage directly with the UAE professional art world. Studio visitors will include arts professionals working in the museum and gallery sector, along with established artists and arts faculty from other UAE institutions and beyond.

Prerequisite: Declared NYU-AD Art & Media MFA student.

All Power to the Imagination: Surrealism and the Magical Prague: How can the artists’ desire to participate in social change link to the fantastic explorations of their imaginaries? How does the condemnation of fascism connect with an artistic re-envisioning of social conventions and norms? Is any revolution primarily a liberation of our unconscious, of our ability to dream? The mystery of Prague, a city known for the presence of alchemists, astrologists, and esoteric thinkers, inspired the work of surrealist and avant-garde artists in the interwar era. This seminar will explore the power of the imagination within Czechoslovak art, film, architecture, poetry, and book designs from the 1930s into present times. Students will examine the work of artists and thinkers who attempted to move “against the current” of tradition and into greater freedom by asserting the right to wildly dream, question gender roles, and create revolutionary links between housing and socio-economic justice. Through readings, films, urban walks and visits to Prague’s architecture, and art museums, we will explore the sustained impact of surrealism as a poetic and political force.

What can different notions of the sacred teach us about human relations throughout the world, throughout time? How do sacred sites, artworks, and practices illuminate the deepest possibilities for human connection, healing, and reconciliation? And how do they represent what we stand to lose through environmental extraction and degradation? Historically and today, the sacred has been located within nature, within built environments and material culture, and within the dynamic actions of the human body. As ancient myths reveal, the sacred is a precious - and sometimes tragic - contact zone between gods, peoples, and animals, and it is also a contested place of ideologies and identities. Sacred art and culture also present ethical tensions for research and collecting practices of museums and ethnographers. This colloquium explores case studies from Africa, the Americas, Europe, and Asia, and draws on religious studies, sociology, art and architectural history, film, literature, historic preservation, museum theory, and performance to help us understand the global implications of endangered, thriving, and ever-evolving worlds of the sacred today.

Prerequisite: Must be an NYU Abu Dhabi student and have not completed the Core: Colloquium requirement.