Further information on BA (Hons) Fine Art

What happens on the programme at Goldsmiths

As a student on the fine art programme at Goldsmiths, you will participate in a variety of activities which include individual tutorials, group tutorials, Convenors, critical studies lectures and seminars, and, of course, working in the studio.

Studios

All students have their own studio space. This is a place in which to work, to meet and spend time with other students, and to have tutorials. It is also a base from which to organise your work in other parts of the college - such as the various research laboratories, the workshops, and the library – as well as your research visits to galleries and exhibitions in London. The studios are open, and are occupied by students from all three years of the course. This arrangement maximises opportunities for conversation and exchange, and helps greatly to encourage sharing of knowledge, interest and experience between students. When you are not working elsewhere, you will be expected to be in your studio.

Tutors

You will be assigned a tutor, who will discuss and give advice on what you are currently doing, and on your ideas and any questions you may have about plans for future work. One important feature of the course at Goldsmiths is that the work you do is your own. We do not set projects. Instead, we respond to, and support the work of each individual student. This means that you will need to be self-motivated, curious, and keen to explore techniques, materials and ideas. You will see your own tutor twice each term, another designated tutor once, and you may in addition request two further tutorials with other members of staff and visiting artists.

The Range of Teaching

Just as art today takes diverse forms, the artists who make up the teaching staff at Goldsmiths work in a wide variety of ways. They can therefore bring a number of different perspectives to bear on the work you are doing. In addition to the core staff, there is a changing group of artists who visit on several days in the autumn and spring terms. Between them they, too, can offer expertise from across a range of contrasting practices. The course also benefits from the input of the research students who are studying at the College. These professional artists with established practices run group sessions and are also available for individual tutorials. A series of Contemporary Artist talks runs weekly through the year, at which the speaker introduces their own practice and discusses it with the audience.

Those visiting Goldsmiths in one way or another this year include Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Alice Channer, Stefan Constantinescu, Judith Goddard, Will Holder, Christina Mackie, Andrea Medjesi-Jones, Jonathan Meese, Ian Monroe, Peter Peri, Olivia Plender, Polly Staple, Sarah Tripp, Rob Tufnell, Martin Westwood, Ian White, Linder, Bonnie Camplin and Bedwyr Williams among others.

Convenors and Group Tutorials

You will be in a Convenor group with approximately 60 other students. Each week, 6-8 students will present finished work or work in progress to half the group for discussion. It is the thoughtfulness, perceptiveness and liveliness of the discussion that is of importance here. There will always be two tutors present, and although they will participate in the discussion, they will not lead it. It is up to the students who are showing their work to decide how they wish the session to be organised and run. That group of 6-8, as well as the whole Convenor, will contain students from all three years.

You will present your work to a Convenor once a term, and will attend at least two other Convenor sessions per term to participate in the discussion. A few days after the Convenor, those who presented will meet for a group tutorial with their tutor in order to pursue and develop some of the issues raised.

Research Laboratories and Workshops

All of the Department’s workshops and labs are run by practising artists with extensive expert knowledge of the relevant area. They will work with you on a one-to-one basis, advising you on the best ways to realise an idea, introducing you to new techniques, instructing you on the use of equipment, discussing appropriate materials, and helping you to develop your own skills. Depending on the kind of work you are doing, many of you are likely to find your time divided between the studio and the workshops.

Return to main BA (Hons) Fine Art information page

Fine Art Critical Studies

Contemporary Critical Studies is a course designed to support your practical work in the studio. The course seeks to engage and extend your critical faculties as a practicing artist and to enable you to develop your ability to talk about, analyse and judge contemporary art. The course is taught through a systematic programme of lectures, seminars and tutorials. Contemporary Critical Studies takes a distinct form in each year that allows you to work towards developing an independent research programme. It is assessed through essays in Levels I and II, and a dissertation in Level III.

Level 1

Lectures:- 10:00 – 11:00 am Wednesdays

Seminars: 12 - 1pm and 1pm – 2pm Wednesdays

The lecture and seminar programme at Level I aims to offer a space for exploring and examining the historical and critical context in which contemporary art is made, circulated seen and understood. The course will enable you to recognise how the current critical debates about art can support opportunities for discussion and evaluation in the studio.

In particular, the course in the Autumn term addresses questions such as: what kind of knowledge and skills do contemporary artists need? What is the relationship between art and entertainment? How might we understand art as a critical practice? What constitutes the ‘artworld’? How is art linked to politics and political or cultural struggle? What, if anything, distinguishes art from other forms of cultural production? In what ways might the act of looking be regarded as a power relation between those looking and those looked at? How does the new global economy change the production and circulation of art? And, can art ever escape market conditions?

In addressing these questions Level I Critical Studies provides you with a platform for developing and articulating your own ideas and thoughts about the production and exhibition of art. In addition, the lectures and seminars enable you to become informed about some of the key concepts and historical transformations underpinning twentieth century art production and reception. As it develops through the year, the level 1 critical studies course aims to provide you with the conceptual tools to think about and evaluate the larger issues that shape what it means to be an artist today.

All students receive a Core Reading pack at the start of each term.

Core Readings:- are required reading, and should be read before the lecture. All core readings can be found in the Core Reading Pack.

Further Readings: are not obligatory. They are guidelines for further reading on a topic, either for personal interest or for essay writing.

Essays: The course requirement is two written essays of 2,000 words each (excluding footnotes and bibliography), to be submitted in the first week of the 2nd and 3rd terms. The first essay is formative and diagnostic in nature, and will be used to help you develop your ideas and writing skills for future essays. The second essay is double marked and counts towards your final degree grade.

Essay questions for the First Term are handed out in the 4th week of the course

Tutorials:- Pre essay tutorials will be available in the last two weeks of term.

Feedback tutorials are available after essay submission.

Library Research and Essay writing workshops: All students attend 3 essay writing workshops on how to research and write essays and 2 library research workshops


Autumn term

Week 1 - Who is Art for?
Week 2 - Art and Work: Skill and De-skilling in Recent Art
Week 3 - The Critical Function of the Work of Art
Week 4 - Reading Week (no lecture or seminars)
Week 5 - The Political in Contemporary Art
Week 6 - The Gaze: Desire, Pleasure, and the Ethics of Looking
Week 7 - Postcolonialism
Week 8 - Pre-Essay tutorials


Spring Term

Week 1 - Dialogue, Conversation and the Gift Economy in Recent Art
Week 2 - Spectacle and the Everyday
Week 3 - Post-criticalities. Working from within
Week 4 - Reading Week and Essay hand-back tutorials
Week 5 - Art, materiality and abjection
Week 6 - The Haptic
Week 7 - The Aesthetic: The Sublime and the Beautiful
Week 8 - Pre-Essay tutorials

Level 2 and 3

At level 2 the Critical Studies course takes the form of small group seminar sessions. These seminars are led by a member of the C/S staff and are organised around the reading of key texts distributed in a core reading pack. Over the autumn and the spring terms students attend two seminars and write two 3,000 word essays. Seminars on offer during 2009/10 included:

The Film Effect: Moving Image Art in Context  [pdf]
Acts of Appropriation [pdf]
Please Touch, Use and Destroy: Transgression, Boundaries and the Public Art Institution [pdf]
The Texture of Memory: cloth, memory and materiality [pdf]
Performativity and the Body [pdf]
The Right to the City [pdf]
Post-criticalities
‘The Stranger’: Postcolonial Identities and Representation [pdf]
The Lure of the Ordinary: Art and the Everyday [pdf]

The Dissertation

From the summer term of level 2 onwards Critical Studies takes the form of a self-motivated research project and is supported through tutorial supervision by the critical studies staff and research and writing workshops. The aim of this part of the course is to develop independent research relevant to your studio practice. This research is then presented in the form of a written dissertation of 7000 words which is submitted at the beginning of the Spring Term of level 3.

The dissertation must demonstrate a creative and critical use of historical and theoretical models, combined with a carefully argued and imaginative interpretation and analysis of contemporary art or material that lies within the realm of visual culture that is relevant to your studio practice.