The Body Anatomized: New Studio Art and Art History Class with School of Visual Art's Jonathon Rosen, Beginning June 2

We at Morbid Anatomy are beyond delighted to be offering "The Body Anatomized," a new hybrid studio art and art history class with Jonathon Rosen of the School of Visual Art. Over eight sessions, our instructor Jonathon Rosen will present illustrated lectures covering the rich and storied history of anatomical visualization, covering everything from Catholic relics to the "flayed angels" of Jacques Fabien Gautier d'Agoty (top image); Italian wax Anatomical Venuses to the diagrammatic illustrations of Christian Wilhelm Braune (middle image); Clive Barker’s Faust to the man machine of Fritz Kahn (bottom image). Under Jonathon's ongoing critical feedback and guidance, students will generate finished artworks in the medium of their choice incorporating medicine or anatomy as a point of departure, be it personal or political, didactic or obscure.

The course runs over 8 Mondays from June 2nd to July 21st. The class is limited to only 20 people. Full details follow, and tickets can be purchased here. Hope very much to see you there!

The Body Anatomized: Art Studio and History Class with SVA's Jonathon Rosen
Dates: Mondays June 2 to July 21 (8 sessions)
Admission: $300 (Must purchase ticket here)
Time: 7-10pm
Class limited to 20 people
Morbid Anatomy Museum (New Space) , 424A 3rd Avenue (Corner of 7th Street and 3rd Avenue)
This class is part of The Morbid Anatomy Art Academy

Temple of the soul or soft machine? The body is where human art, science, culture, politics and medicine all intersect. This hybrid lecture/studio course takes inspiration from artists ancient to post-modern who use medicine and anatomy as a point of departure for personal, political, religious or scientific commentary.

Over eight sessions, Jonathon Rosen will explore the influence of traditional medical imagery on contemporary art-making and pop culture through the lens of history, culture and aesthetics. Examples will range from medieval doctor’s sketchbooks and illuminated manuscripts, via Renaissance medical surrealism and 19^th century medical devices, to contemporary works by Damien Hirst, John Isaacs, the virtual human project, BodyWorlds, and beyond. On the way we will also touch on aesthetic surgery, genetics, biomechanics, medical museums, anatomy in movies and French underground comics.

With Jonathon's ongoing critical feedback and guidance, students will generate finished artworks incorporating medicine or anatomy as a point of departure, be it personal or political, didactic or obscure. This work can be singular or narrative, 2D, 3D, static or moving, in any medium, and projects are not required to be anatomically correct (and please note: Jonathon will not be giving how-to instruction in traditional medical illustration). There will also be an ongoing in-class assignment, based around anatomizing pre-existing vintage images.

SYLLABUS

Class 1: Coming Attractions. A visual overview of the course as an introduction to the history of medical-art & imagery including an introduction to your instructor’s work. Discussion of class, homework and assignments.

Class 2: Sacred Anatomy and Materia Medica. The invention of scientific illustration: The earliest printed medical textbooks and the pioneers of human dissection. From early Islamic to late medieval European. Barbers, surgeons and wound men, demons, miraculous limb transplants, hybrid monsters and diagnosis by zodiac.

Class 3: The emergence of modernity and the culture of dissection in Renaissance culture. Vesalius, Leonardo Da Vinci, Realdo Colombo, Charles Estienne, Jacopo Berengario da Carpi.

Class 4: Medical Chic: Baroque to Enlightenment era. The Anatomy Theater, Albinus. The Altlas of Jean Baptiste Marc Bourgery. Hogarth and satires of medicine. Spotlight on Jacques Fabien Gautier d'Agoty.

Class 5: 19th century; Optical devices, x-rays, prosthetics, automatons, pop-up books & anatomical manikins. Medical Museums, Mutter, Vrolik, La Specola & wax figuration. Etienne-Jules Marey and motion capture.

Class 6: 20^th century; Medical Industrial Complex: Fritz Khan and mechanical/ metaphorical bodies. Vintage Educational anatomy & health films: How the eyes and ears work. Illustrations by Netter. Vintage Chinese medical posters.

Class 7: Fantastic Voyage: Clive Barker’s Faust, Stan Brakhage’s the act of seeing with one’s own eyes. Body Worlds. New imaging: virtual cadavers, prosthetics, braces, body scanning, genetics, medical animation. Growing body parts and sensor-driven prosthetics. New Artists including; Marseille collective Le Dernier Cri’s Hopital Brut, Damien Hurst, John Isaacs.

Class 8
: Final project due / critique.

Jonathon Rosen is a NY-based artist and animator who teaches at the School of Visual Arts. He has worked with Jean Michel Basquiat and Tim Burton (the journal drawings, Sleepy Hollow), and made artwork for ID Magazine, Popular Science, Oxford Review, New Scientist, Psychology Today, Discover Magazine, RCA Records, Rolling Stone, MTV, the New York Times Science Times and Sunday Magazine, and many more. His work has been shown at PS.1, and is in the collections of David Cronenberg and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Images:

1. Gautier D'Agoty; Anatomy of a Woman's Spine via here.
2. Christian Wilhelm Braune, via Ars Anatomica. 
3. Fritz Kahn via here.