ART 171 Sculpture I

Suffolk County Community College

Professor: Matthew Gehring 
gehrinm@sunysuffolk.edu
Office: Rm. 108 Southampton Bldg.

Office Hours:
M/W 11:30AM-4:30PM
T/R 11:30AM-12:30PM
For immediate assistance contact Maria Cherubino: 631-451-4093 or cherubm@sunysuffolk.edu

Problem II: An Object Can Dream

Requirements:

For this project you will be building in one of two processes: fabrication and/or structure and skin. Using cardboard and hot glue, hardware cloth and paper mache, or other similar approaches, create an appendage onto an object of your choosing. The design of your attachment should draw on the language of your chosen object and significantly alter its function and our understanding of it. Once the form is complete, finish/surface it appropriately. You may choose to use a base material (cardboard or other similar material) that is raw, colored, or printed on and if appropriate, use the existing material surface as your finished surface. You may also choose to paint, draw, or collage the surface. You may cover the surface in Durham’s Rock Hard Water Putty (which is formable and sandable) or cellulose clay for a more organic surface.

The scale of this project is open and should be driven by your concept. You may choose to create one appendage or several. Be advised that you must supply your own materials for this project and be excited that they can easily be kept very cheap.

Be advised that while a work consisting of the minimum number of components may very well be successful, completion of this course resulting in a grade that is above “C” will always require substantially more than the bare minimum effort and execution.

Objectives:

Imagine your object had aspirations, desires, or dreams of being more than it is. Your attachment should represent whatever you imagine that thing to be. It should be TRANSFORMATIVE. You should think of your addition as the thing that your found object wants to be or is trying to be, i.e., a grander version of itself. Be inventive! Be clever! Projects must be well executed and visually/spatially engaging.

Your projects must utilize the language of your chosen materials, form, and action in a direct and sophisticated fashion. Be critical of why you are using what you are using and allow the choices that you make to be driven by those factors. Consider class lectures, your previous projects, and all prior notes and discussions as a foundation for understanding this language.

Artists to consider:

Adam Frelin, Irwin Wurm, Jeanne Dunning, Maurizio Cattelan, Wim Delvoyle, Liza Lou, David Mach, Ashley Bickerton, Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Sarah Lucas, Tom Sachs, Chris Gilmour