60-487 Advanced CP: The Amateur
10 units, Carnegie Mellon University
If a contemporary artist can truly do and be anything, how come so much art looks the same More and more contemporary artists are pushing beyond the conventional media and methods of the art world by strategically operating as professional amateurs. The term amateur reflects a voluntary motivation to create as a result of personal passion for a particular activity, regardless of expertise or authority. For the artist, embracing the role of the amateur allows for the use of any profession, institution, or social activity as a possible material within their creative practice. This includes artists who perform as amateur preachers, psychologists, geneticists, politicians, and exotic dancers artists who create amateur institutions like sanitariums, circuses, hair salons, talk shows, and planetariums and artists who collaborate with professional hypnotists, ornithologists, stunt coordinators, ventriloquists, and diplomats in order to manifest their work. Students in this class will work on selfdefined projects that utilize the role of the amateur as a critical method for expanding the breath and reach of their art practice into new forms and venues. With faculty mentorship, each student will be responsible for developing their projects through independent research, apprenticeships, and collaborations with experts in fields relevant to their work. Workshops, lectures, and in class critique of ongoing work will look at contemporary trends related to amateurism in art practice, theory, and the world at large. This class is not about being an amateur artist, but about being a serious artist who uses amateurism as a tool. Thus the class is only open to students with
Prerequisites: none listed
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