This course, Writing the Visual: The Art of Art Writing, will explore the relationship between writing and visual art, which has been theorized as everything from an act of translation and interpretation to one of collaboration or competition. Oscar Wilde even suggested that, "criticism is itself an art." Students will study these varied approaches to art writing and put them into practice by responding to artworks seen in person around the Bay Area, with the goal of publishing a print journal of student writing at the end of the quarter. Through direct engagement with these writerly modes, students will also develop a personal stance on writing about art, championing one form of art writing in a scholarly essay.This year's topic: What is Contemporary Art? Focus on the production, criticism, and curating of contemporary art. Through a series of required readings, intensive class discussions, class trips, and first-hand encounters with art objects and exhibitions, we will investigate current understandings of contemporary art. We will also consider the history of contemporary art by looking at how art of the past was understood in its own moment, when it was new and now.
5 units · Letter (ABCD/NP) · GER: WIM
This course, Writing the Visual: The Art of Art Writing, will explore the relationship between writing and visual art, which has been theorized as everything from an act of translation and interpretation to one of collaboration or competition. Oscar Wilde even suggested that, "criticism is itself an art." Students will study these varied approaches to art writing and put them into practice by responding to artworks seen in person around the Bay Area, with the goal of publishing a print journal of student writing at the end of the quarter. Through direct engagement with these writerly modes, students will also develop a personal stance on writing about art, championing one form of art writing in a scholarly essay.This year's topic: What is Contemporary Art? Focus on the production, criticism, and curating of contemporary art. Through a series of required readings, intensive class discussions, class trips, and first-hand encounters with art objects and exhibitions, we will investigate current understandings of contemporary art. We will also consider the history of contemporary art by looking at how art of the past was understood in its own moment, when it was new and now.
Offered in Winter 2026 at Stanford University.