"Practices in Painting in Relation to Context" is an elective course worth 6 ECTS credits offered in the fourth year of the Art degree program during the first semester. It is part of the Painting and Graphics minor along with third-year electives such as "Methodology and Pictorial Project" and "Methodology and Pictorial Processes," as well as fourth-year electives like "Painting, Technologies, and Interdisciplinarity" and "Graphics in the Expanded Field," all of which are worth 6 credits each.



The course is designed to provide essential practical and theoretical training for students aspiring to higher-level education in painting. The methodology combines in-person theoretical sessions with supervised practical workshop sessions, complemented by various non-face-to-face activities to enhance students' understanding and participation in the immediate artistic and cultural context.



Both in-person and non-face-to-face activities are predominantly practical, prioritizing individual initiative and seeking to incentivize and stimulate each student's unique working methods through tailored proposals or limitations. The theoretical component primarily involves collective reading of texts and group discussions and explanations based on them.



The underlying concept of the course revolves around a systemic understanding of the idea of context, viewing it as akin to an ecosystem. In this view, the context is not a pre-existing space independent of the organisms and individuals within it; rather, these entities, individually and collectively, influence both the configuration of the whole and the configuration of each part.



In this sense, the course delves into issues related to pictorial practice and its methods as activities situated within specific contexts. Painting is viewed as a contemporary cultural production in continuous dialogue with the social and human context in which it emerges. The course considers the particularities of these practices, examining their potential integration into both traditional art systems and urban environments, as well as their roles in political-cultural contexts and other circumstances.

Course Competencies:



C4CC01 - Sufficient technical autonomy for the development of individual or collective artistic practice.

C4CC02 - Understanding art as specific knowledge. Knowledge of artists' thinking and methodology through their works and texts.

C4CC04 - Understanding the art system, its mechanisms of operation, and its requirements to integrate professionally into it.

C4CC05 - Recognizing, in artistic activity, relational aspects between individual and collectivity inherent to the social sphere. Taking responsibility for the act of creation and for what is done in relation to the social expectations placed on the contemporary artist. Capacity for commitment.

C4CC06 - Being able to recognize and carry out the basic symbolic operation that accompanies all artistic experimentation and is necessary for it to culminate in a work of art.



Specific Competencies:



Ability to participate and intervene, both individually and collectively, in artistic processes and projects.

Ability to establish conscious relationships between pictorial practice and the social, temporal, and spatial context in which it unfolds.

Ability to experiment with and integrate pictorial and non-pictorial technologies into processes and artistic projects related to a specific context.

Ability to develop one's own criteria regarding the functioning of demands from the art system.



Learning Outcomes of the Course:



The student adopts a systemic idea of the concept of context.

The student has a detailed understanding of the immediate artistic and cultural context.

The student creates a series of pictorial works linked by the coherence of a personal stance towards the conditions of their life context.

The student produces a series of textual and/or audiovisual reports on their observations about the context in which they operate.

The student begins to recognize the possibility of developing their own unique technique from and against a specific context.

This course establishes a dialogue between the practice of painting and the context in which it takes place. It delves into painting as a situated practice that, while drawing from it, also confronts and seeks to transform the context in which it occurs. Both the practice and the very idea of context are seen as a complex system where the parts determine the whole and vice versa.



The course comprises both theoretical and practical work. The theoretical part involves group reading of texts to develop notions that ultimately construct a complex idea of situated artistic work.



The sequential development of the theoretical-practical syllabus may vary according to the calendar of events and artistic occurrences in our immediate context.



1. General Concepts

1.1. Idea of context as an ecosystem. Meta-stable equilibrium and entropy.

1.2. The artist's desire.

1.2.1. Oteiza's aesthetic-molecular equation.

1.2.2. Models of subjectivity.

1.2.3. Desire for connection: substitution and renunciation.

2. Specific Concepts

2.1. Pictorial practice.

2.1.1. Project versus process.

2.1.2. Taste and fashion.

2.1.3. Body and painting. Materiality and illusion.

2.2. Contextual practices.

2.2.1. Urban drifts.

2.2.2. Artist studies.

2.2.3. Independent spaces and art institutions. Criticism, curation, display.

2.2.4. Art and media.

2.2.5. The family.

2.2.6. The economic context.

The course has a theoretical-practical and experimental nature, combining theory and supervised in-person pictorial practice with a series of non-face-to-face activities aimed at bringing students closer to the immediate artistic and socio-cultural context. Active methodologies are employed, emphasizing the autonomy and commitment of each student.



In this sense, students' work proposals will serve as the starting point for experimentation processes through which learning will be articulated.



The course is entirely face-to-face, with a focus on individual studio work. However, a series of exercises and activities related to the main theme of the course, namely the relationship between painting and context, will also be scheduled. These activities will be conducted outside the Faculty autonomously and will contribute to the non-face-to-face credit allocation of the course.



The scheduled non-face-to-face activities may vary according to the current artistic and cultural landscape, but in general, they will consist of observation, representation, or copying exercises in specific exhibition spaces or locations in the city, visits, conversations, and discussions about exhibitions and artists' workshops, urban drifts to gather work references, field notebook entries with observations on the working processes of peers or professional artists, and the graphical, textual, or audiovisual documentation of any of these activities.



During the first week of the course, the non-face-to-face activities and their specific evaluation system will be specified. In all cases, evaluation will involve submitting a report on the activity in a format chosen by the student (textual, graphical, photographic, audiovisual, etc.).

• Continuous Assessment System
• Final Assessment System
• Tools and qualification percentages:
  • Realization of Practical Work (exercises, cases or problems) (%): 40
  • Pictorial Practice Pictorial Practice (%): 60

The evaluation of the course will be continuous. To pass, it is essential to complete and submit all proposed exercises within the established deadlines, maintain a minimum attendance of 80%, and, regarding pictorial practice, engage in continuous and consistent work throughout the course. Reflective processes and self-assessment will be encouraged. The personal evolution of each student will be closely considered, focusing on maturity in the adaptation of means to ends.



In cases where, with proper justification, attendance in class and work in the Faculty's facilities is not possible, continuous evaluation will be replaced by a final assessment. This assessment will involve submitting all works completed during the course, presenting and defending them orally on a date and in a manner determined at the appropriate time. However, prior to this final assessment, continuous contact between the student and the professor via telematic means or any other agreed-upon method will be essential.



If sanitary conditions prevent in-person attendance, the evaluation system will remain the same. However, in cases where necessary, assessments will be conducted via telematic means through the presentation of photographs and videos of the work completed, ensuring sufficient quality for proper appreciation.



Waiver of Ordinary Call:



Students have the right to waive participation in the ordinary call by submitting a written request to the course instructor before its conclusion.

During the extraordinary call, all works completed throughout the course must be submitted, followed by an oral defense of the same. Additionally, students must respond to a thematic proposal by creating one or more pictorial works. This response must be completed in person within one week.



To be eligible to participate in the extraordinary call, attending at least one prior tutoring session is mandatory. It is the student's responsibility to request this tutoring session.

Materials for pictorial practice, broadly defined.
Texts assigned in class.
Field notebooks, materials for graphic representation, audio and video recording devices (mobile phones are acceptable) for non-face-to-face exercises.

Basic bibliography

- Francastel, Pierre (1992). Pintura y sociedad. Ensayos Arte Catedra: Madrid

- Jameson, Frederic (1991). El posmodernismo o la lógica cultural del capitalismo avanzado. Paidós Ibérica: Barcelona.

- Moraza, Juan Luis (2009). El deseo del artista. Inédito. Disponible en: http://escultura.uvigo.es/web/index.php?d=Juan%20Luis%20Moraza/creacioninvestigacion/documentos/el%20deseo%20del%20artista

- Moraza, Juan Luis (2007). Incógnitas. Cartografías del arte contemporáneo en Euskadi. Bilbao: Museo Guggenheim.

-Zulaika, Joseba (1997). Crónica de una seducción: el museo Guggenheim de Bilbao. Madrid: Nerea.

In-depth bibliography

- Agirre, Peio (2014). La línea de producción de la crítica. Consonni: Bilbao.
- Careri, Francesco (2013). Walkscapes: el andar como práctica estética. Barcelona: Gustavo Gili.
- Fischer, Mark (2016). Realismo capitalista. Caja Negra: Buenos Aires.
- Groys, Boris (2014). Volverse público: las transformaciones del arte en el ágora contemporánea. Caja Negra: Buenos Aires.
- Imaz, Iñaki (2007). Cerdo-jabalí. La enseñanza del arte y sus contextos. Zehar nº 60-61. Arteleku: Donostia. Disponible en: http://2003.arteleku.net/arteleku/publicaciones/editorial/zehar/60-61-la-escuela-abierta/cerdo-jabali.-la-ensenanza-del-arte-y-sus-contextos
- Imaz, Iñaki (2007). Lo mío. Bilbao: Sala Rekalde.
Larrauri, Maite (2007). La amistad según Epicuro. Valencia: Tándem.

Journals

https://a-desk.org/
http://campoderelampagos.org/
https://www.eremuak.net/es/publicaciones
https://esferapublica.org/nfblog/
http://esnorquel.es/
http://latamuda.com/
https://www.materialesconcretos.org/

Web addresses

http://artxibo.arteleku.net/
https://artsandculture.google.com/
http://www.iac.org.es/
http://www.ubu.com/
http://www.xn--crticaymetacomentario-u7b.net/