Ben Maltz Gallery Exhibition Archive

At Otis, entire courses as well as visits and modules connecting students to the Otis exhibition, Doin' It in Public: Feminism and Art at the Woman's Building, as well as other Pacific Standard Time exhibitions are in the works.

Check out the student blog posts.

Core Courses

Introduction to Visual Culture (first year core course)
In one module, students will focus on the exhibition “Doin’ It in Public: Feminism and Art at the Woman's Building” which will be mounted in the Otis Ben Maltz gallery. In preparation for this, they will be reading and discussing Feminism, in particular the activities and issues that dominated the 1970s that influenced the activities at the Woman's Building. The students will be attending the related symposium and engage with the scholars who collaborated on the exhibition. | Dr. Parme Giuntini pgiuntini@otis.edu

Critical Analysis and Semiotics (first year English core course) In one module, students will engage with Pacific Standard Time via a semiotic analysis of one specific site drawn from the various contributing groups and exhibit venues. The students will look at the changing shape and nature of that site within the city of Los Angeles through the 1940s to 2011, connecting urban development to the popular culture of those decades (explored earlier in class via documentaries, pop culture database and research). The class will consider how this one space and the cultural codes within the space reflects the time period and how it evolved and changed over the decades. | Jean- Marie Venturini jventurini@otis.edu

Electives

Tidal Shift: Surfing Pacific Standard Time. Siel Ju. Fall junior-level art history elective. This course takes a historical and current look at L.A.'s art world through Pacific Standard Time. Using PST as a starting point, students will investigate the rise of the L.A. art scene ‐‐ visiting exhibits and performances, reading creative and critical literature, and hearing from artists, curators, and other participants in the collaboration. They will also become active participants in both in PST and today's art world as critics, writers, bloggers, and creators.

Feminism and Woman's Building. Marlena Donohue. Fall sophomore-level art history elective. This class will look at the major contributions to the origins and developments of Feminism made by early performance collectives and individual women artists based in Los Angeles from 1960 to 2000.

Art and the City of Angels. Kari Paul. Fall sophomore-level art history elective. Students will step out of the classrooms and studios to participate in Pacific Standard Time. As the city asserts itself as an international art hub, students will reflect on its artistic heritage and its influences on the contemporary context in which they develop and exercise their own artistic voices and engage a wider audience in their semester‐long dialogue.

Legacy: Pacific Standard Time. Joan Takayama-Ogawa. Sophomore-level Integrated Learning course. Students will develop a web based publication to report on the Otis connections within Pacific Standard Time exhibitions.

Otis Student PST Blogs

Special Programs

These programs were inspired by the Ben Maltz Gallery exhibition Doin’ It in Public: Feminism and Art at the Woman’s Building They are are offered through Continuing Education

Feminist Blogging. A hands-on blogging workshop exploiting web 2.0 platforms. Students explore and critique the history and experiment with the latest web-based platforms while creating a community of mutually supportive, thinking, debating and hopefully dissenting contemporary feminist bloggers. Explores source materials from collectives (active at the Woman’s Building and featured in the exhibition) including the Women’s Graphic Center, Feminist Art Workers, the Waitresses, Madre Tierra Press, the Lesbian Art Project, and Ariadne. Students examine their own ethical and political deliberations on feminism with consideration for social justice and transformation. Designed to help students understand and effectively use a variety of “web 2.0″ technologies including blogs, RSS, wikis, social bookmarking tools, photo sharing tools, mapping tools, audio and video podcasts, and screencasts. Focuses on how these tools may be used to engage in feminist discourse and art practice.

Getting Known, Being Shown: A Guide for Emerging Artists. Whether your goal is to exhibit or to sell your work, your portfolio needs to be top notch and your personal presentation has to produce results. Join Gallery owner and radio personality Molly Barnes as she guides students through all aspects of building an art career, with tips on galleries and what sells. Course covers how to make slides, resumes, bios, as well as how to talk about your work. Class discussions and informal portfolio reviews enable students to develop effective marketing techniques. Course also explores selling though art galleries and consultants, starting your own art gallery, and selling to corporate collectors.

Using Your Voice. Inspired by a workshop originally led by Holly Near at the Woman’s Building, this course explores the power and beauty of the natural instrument we call our voice – how does it work; how do we feel about it; how does it affect the listener; how do we use it collectively? Course examines the voice as an instrument of communication and self-expression including use of vocalization, percussion, and unconventional use of sound and pitch. Also covers the connection between the voice, the mind, and the body. Everyone welcome to attend.