CIEE Global Institute Paris Course name: The Unconscious Eye: Psychoanalysis and the Visual Arts Course number: PSYC 3101 PAFR Programs offering course: OC Summer Language+Culture, Summer Psychoanalysis+Culture Language of instruction: English U.S. Semester Credits: 3 semester credits / 4.5 quarter credits Contact Hours: 45 Term: Summer 2018 Course Description This course will explore psychoanalytic thought and critique in the field of 20th and 21st century visual art. Beginning with Surrealist film and painting, we will discover how psychoanalysis, particularly in France, changed the way we think about what it means to look at an image, particularly the moving image. We will also explore the various links between madness and creativity, testing the limits of psychoanalysis ability to interpret the visual arts. Artists and thinkers such as Breton, Magritte, Buñuel, Freud, Lacan, Giacometti, Hantaï, Deblé, Spero may be considered. Learning Objectives Upon completion of the course, a student should be able to: th 1. understand the historical and artistic implications of Surrealism for the arts in the 20 and 21 st century, particularly in France. 2. identify the influence as well as the limits of the influence of Psychoanalysis and the discovery of the Unconscious on the visual arts. 3. analyze works of art using certain critical tools of Psychoanalysis. 4. recognize the impact of the interconnection of Art and Psychoanalysis on today's wider issues. Methods of Instruction This course is conducted in the seminar style. Films, images and field trips are part of our class activity. Assessment and Final Grade Grading for this class is based on the following criteria:
Participation, writing assignments and oral presentations 40% Mid-term Exam 30% Final Exam 30% Course Requirements Preparation and Participation Participation in the discussion is essential and should be the students main focus. They may use a laptop only if they are able to refrain from using it for other purposes than taking notes. Students will have reading assignments to do in preparation for class; there may be short quizzes based on the assigned readings. Finally, they will write short essays on the field trips based on their own class and study notes, and these will also be considered and evaluated as part of their participation in and contributions to the class. Mid-term and final exams These will cover the texts assigned for the course as well as the lectures, and will consist in essay questions. Course Attendance and Punctuality Regular class attendance is required throughout the program, and all unexcused absences will result in a lower participation grade for any affected CIEE course. Due to the intensive schedules for Open Campus and Short Term programs, unexcused absences that constitute more than 10% of the total course sessions will also result in a lower final grade. Students who transfer from one CIEE class to another during the add/drop period will not be considered absent from the first session(s) of their new class, provided they were marked present for the first session(s) of their original class. Otherwise, the absence(s) from the original class carry over to the new class and count against the grade in that class. For CIEE classes, excessively tardy (over 15 minutes late) students must be marked absent. Attendance policies also apply to any required co-curricular class excursion or event, as well as to Internship, Service Learning, or required field placement. Students who miss class for personal travel will be marked as absent and unexcused. No make-up or re-sit opportunity will be provided.
An absence in a CIEE course will only be considered excused if: a doctor s note is provided a CIEE staff member verifies that the student was too ill to attend class satisfactory evidence is provided of a family emergency Attendance policies also apply to any required class excursion, with the exception that some class excursions cannot accommodate any tardiness, and students risk being marked as absent if they fail to be present at the appointed time. Unexcused absences will lead to the following penalties: Percentage of Total Course Hours Missed Equivalent Number of Open Campus Semester classes Minimum Penalty Up to 10% 1 No academic penalty 10 20% 2 Reduction of final grade More than 20% 3 content classes, or 4 language classes Automatic course failure, and possible expulsion Weekly Schedule week 1 session 1. Psychoanalysis as a means for creation: The Surrealist Movement (1). Automatism. Presentation of Breton s Manifestoes, Surrealism s quest for sublime point, and the desire to free the expression of the unconscious mind. Focus on automatism, borrowed form analytical therapy, and used as a creative technique. Students will experiment automatic writing (individually), and will study Ernst s frottages.
Assignment : Research: Find out which famous artists were, at least at one point, member of the Surrealist group. Why is it adequate to speak of a group? Can you explain why and how certain artists left the group again? week 2 session 2. The Surrealist Movement (2). Collage, assemblage, photomontage. Short oral presentations by students: discussion of the above research assignment. Focus on the association technique, also taken from the analytical therapy model. Students will experiment Exquisite corpse writing/drawing (small groups), and will analyse the visual puns in assemblages by Dali (small groups). Assignment : Creative writing (approx. one page) : Associate freely from one of Man Ray s photomontages or rayographs. Be ready by class 3. Optional : Visit the surrealist section of the Musée d art moderne de la Ville de Paris. session 3. The Surrealist Movement (3). Dreamland. Short oral presentations by students: discussion of their lectures of Man Ray s photomontages/rayographs. Focus on Onirism in surrealist paintings and films. Study of Man Ray s Ciné-poème and/or René Clair s Entr acte. Introduction to Freud s Interpretation of dreams and to the Freudian concept of the uncanny. Magritte and Belgian Surrealism. (If there is enough time: Role and importance of certain Greek Myths for Freudian psychoanalysis and their echoes in Surrealist Art (Oedipus, Narcissus )). Assignment : Creative writing : Try to keep a dream-diary for at least one week. Write down your dreams as soon as you wake up: be attentive to what Freud calls the picturepuzzle i.e. the rebus-like quality of your dream. Which words and meanings your
dream s images translate into? Which ideas/events do you associate with them? Choose one dream you feel comfortable about sharing in class. Be ready 03/07. Preparative reading : Read the selected extracts of Breton s Nadja in the textbook. session 4. The Surrealist Movement (4): Equivoque : A Taste for Ambiguity. We will study Surrealists interest for ambiguous places and themes, including eroticism, as linked to the unconscious mind. Discussion of selected chapters in Breton s Nadja. Focus on the question of Surrealism and gender: facets of the Surrealist Muse (Nadja, Elsa Triolet, Gala, Nusch Eluard, Sonia Mossé, Dora Maar, ), her position and importance within the movement. Visit of Paris s passages couverts (covered passages). Assignments : Preparative reading : Read Nadja and Freud s essay The Uncanny until the mid-term exam. Research : Which women Surrealists can you find? Compose a personal picture book (10-15 photographs/paintings/sculptures) with works that seem interesting to you. Hand in by class 6. session 5. The Surrealist Movement (6). Surrealism and Social Criticism. Focus on Surrealism s revolutionary ambitions: against bourgeois society and the kingdom of reason, Surrealism proposed revolutionary forms. Psychoanalysis contributed to such experimentations and fed the spirit of revolt. Focus on Bunuel and his cinema, from An Andalousian Dog to The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. Assignments : Research : Find out about Bunuel s political and aesthetic involvement and the scandals it caused. Optional : Choose one of Bunuel s films and try to analyse its subversive power. You can either hand in a brief essay or present your discoveries to your fellow students. session 6. Psychoanalysis as a means for interpretation:
Richness and limits (1). Can Art be understood as a Symptom? Short oral presentations by students about the findings of yesterday s assignment. How can art reveal the operations of the unconscious mind? Focus on Giacometti s Cube and Georges Didi-Huberman s psychoanalytical interpretation of its signification at the junction between Giacometti s Surrealist and figurative periods. Students will compare Giacometti s Surrealist sculptures with his later works. Visit of the Surrealist section of the Centre Pompidou. Assignment : Research : Chose one of the works seen at the Centre Pompidou and find out about the process of its creation, its importance for its creator, its critical reception. Be able to speak about it for the Mid-term exam. week 3 session 7. Psychoanalysis as a means for interpretation: Richness and limits (2). Can Art be thought of as a cure? Short presentations by students: discussion of the dream-diary. Art, conceived as an intermediary realm, has been described as a reconciliation between reality and fantasy. We will reflect on this proposition while focusing on Louise Bourgeois work: how does the symbol of the spider reconcile the artist with the figure of the mother? How does the artist use phallic symbols to address trauma? Assignment : Essay writing (up to 6 pages) : Choose one of Bourgeois works that has particularly impressed you. Explain how an analytical approach may help to read it. Hand in until class 10. session 8. Psychoanalysis as a means for interpretation: Richness and limits (3). From personality to jouissance.
From Freud s interpretation of Leonardo da Vinci s The Virgin and Child with St. Anne, conceived as a biographical fiction, to Lacan s concept of jouissance : artistic creation overflows the artist s personality. We will use both Freud s and Lacan s conceptions of art in relation to the divided self in order rethink some of Leonardo da Vinci s mysteries. Assignment : Reading : Read Freud s essay on Leonardo da Vinci in its entirety until the final exam. session 9. Mid-term exam (1h30). Time permitting: visit of the Louvre to see Leonardo da Vinci s paintings. week 4 session 10. Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Art: an Exploration (1). Adel Abdessemed and Art s Death Instinct. Violence is a recurrent theme in contemporary creation. Can Freud s Death instinct account for the persistence of violence, for instance in Abdessemed s installations, his Shams or Printemps (Spring)? Students will study some of Abdessemed s installations, drawings and photographs in order to contextualise the violence that emanates from them. Assignments : Creative writing (approx. 2 pages) : Try to formulate your own creative response to one of Abdessemed s works. session 11. Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Art: an Exploration (2). Simon Hantaï: the thinking canvas. Short presentations by students: discussion of reactions to Adel Abdessemed s work. We will see how Hantaï transforms the Surrealist s idea of automatism and makes it into a reflection on canvas as an autonomous matrix for creation. We will study the series of
Mariales, Meuns and Tabulas in class and analyse the implications of Hantaï s technique of pliage. Assignment : (Re)visit either the collection of modern art at the Centre Pompidou or the collection of modern art at the Musée d art modern de la ville de Paris. Both museums own numerous paintings by Hantaï unfortunately not always exhibited. Be ready to write about your impression of the painting(s) you saw at the final exam. session 12. Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Art: an Exploration (3). Colette Deblé and the language of desire. Short presentations by students: discussion of Hantaï s paintings. We will see how Colette Deblé engages the traditional imagery of love and desire in western art into a slow and non-violent deconstructive process of rephrasing. Her art of quoting from our pictorial heritage brings out the latent contents in some of our best known and loved paintings and prompts us to reformulate them to different meanings. Assignment : Create a pictorial quote inspired by Colette Deblé. session 13. Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Art: an Exploration (4). Nancy Spero and the infinity of language in art. Students will study the multiple artistic traditions and languages that Nancy Spero s oeuvre hosts and revives. We will compare her approach to the more conceptualist methods in contemporary art and explore the question of sensibility in creation and reception. Final exam.