May 1999 Columbia College, New York, N Y

THE BLUE AND WHITE Vol. V, No. IV May 1999 Columbia College, New York, N Y ON TEACHING ART COLUMBIA AND THE ARTS by Projessor Archie Rand a conversation with Dean Austin Quigley Also in this Number: History of the Philolexian Society, Sex, Race and Art CONTENTS. 76 BLUE J 77 RANDOM THOUGHTS ON TEACHING ART 80 THE DISCOURSE-LOYERS 82 COLUMBIA CONVERSATIONS 85 HARK! HARK! THE LARK! 86 GIRL-. A FICTION 87 ODE TO SENIORS 88 CURIO COLUMBIANA 89 SEX, RACE AND ART: A REVIEW 91 THE JAZZ AGE 93 TOLD BETWEEN PUFFS 94 MEASURE FOR MEASURE 95 CAMPUS GOSSIP On the cover: “Campbell’s Condensed Blue & White,” by Katerina A. Barry. Covers of the BLUE & WHITE incorporate our ancient seal in an image illus trating our current theme. Ifyou are interested in contributing a future cover, please e-mail [email protected] THE BLUE AND WHITE V o l . V . N e w Y o r k , M a y 1999 No. 4 effected by it. THE BLUE AND WHITE In this number, THE BLUE Sc WHITE COLUMBIA COLLEGE inhales a touch of the Columbian arts culture. N e w Y o r k , NY Archie Rand, professor of visual arts and artist, NOAM M. ELCOTT, C’OO Managing Editor lyrically communicates what is involved in M. TILGHMAN TREADWAY, C’OO Publisher teaching visual arts. For Archie, the art of teaching is intimately bound up in his own WRITING ASSOCIATES artistic practice, and so his story is personal. MATTHEW Z. RASCOFF, C’01 Art native to Columbia is found throughout CHARLES A. LONDON, C’02 these pages. Jane Chuang C’01 is feature in PUBLISHING ASSOCIATES Measurefor Measure and her short fiction Girl KATERINA A. BARRY, C’OO Production Mgr. also lurks about. EMMANUEL H. MARKS C’02 Random Thoughts on Teaching Art includes images—reproduced in the blue and white of CONTRIBUTORS The B&W—from the studio of Archie Rand. DEAN AUSTIN E. QUIGLEY Also present are reviews of Columbia’s own PROF. ARCHIE RAND art institutions—our quartet in residence and DAVID M. DAMAST C’99 the School of the Arts’s Master of Fine Arts JENNIFER F. GLASER C’OO thesis exhibition. ANNE-LISE PETERSON C’OO Finally, The B&W and individuals involved ALIZA PRESSMAN B’OO in the arts conversed with Dean Austin RACHEL E. ROBERTSON C’OO Quigley. Among the many issues covered, the MICHAEL SCHIRALDI E’OO Dean introduced the possibility of an integrat KATE J. GROSSMAN C’01 ed arts program. YAACOB H. DWECK C’02 § JANE CHUANG C’01 We continue to solicit your contributions: The Blue and White invites Columbia students Questions to Dean Quigley, Campus Gossip, to contribute original literary work and welcomes feature pieces. Upon returning from Summer letters from all our readers. Communications sojourns, The B&W will investigate Columbia should be addressed to the Managing Editor and international—studying abroad, vacation trav should be accompanied by the name of the writer. els, international students, and the various [email protected] Hauser, casas, and maisons where foreign cul ture can be imbibed. If you are interested in he arts touch us as do few contributing or just have some salacious gos other things. We spend sip, e-mail [email protected]. weeks preparing for “the § big show” or a few hours The Blue and White Writing Prize. Each year, checking it out. We witness The B&W will award a $100 cash prize to the yet another sunrise from author of the best piece published in its pages. behind our still half empty We invite, as always, your questions, thoughts canvases, manuscripts, compositions. On rare and observations. Only now, we are willing to occasions we display our work, view it, are pay. 75 BLUEJ. The Steps; class day address s graduation is fast upon us, it is time once at the class’s commencement will be truly com Aagain to give our farewells to another out mendable. standing Columbia class. Amidst the pomp and $ splendor of Class Day, the Blue J eagerly antic But when the Blue J rails against one tradi ipates the final sagacious words from the class tion he may simultaneously call for the rein o f‘99. statement of another. While basking in the sun And yet the speeches of graduation day, he watched the flocking masses of all walks of made by the Class President, the Salutatorian life come together on the Low Libraiy steps in and the Valedictorian, have not always been as a spring night’s dream as they danced to the insightful as one might hope. Considering the sounds of P-funk. For the Blue J, such a sight competition for grades at Columbia, the vale recalled fond memories of his own freshman dictorian, in order to have become the valedic year, when, after finally unpacking his belong torian, doubtless spent the vast majority of her ings and kissing his mother good-bye, he ven Columbia years tucked away in a cubbyhole at tured warily onto the steps where he was Buder, risking contact with the outside world immediately greeted by a stranger who, upon only when absolutely need be. This sacrifice to handing him a cold, malted beverage said, academic excellence should “Here’s a beer. What’s your name?” This, my of course be duly acknowl friends, is college. That edged, but does it qualify unequivocal mix of intense her to make a final speech intellectualism and ridicu which shall stand to repre lous revelry. Yet Columbia’s sent the class of ‘99 for all campus is in desperate want years hence? One year of for specific locations where recent past, our valedictori such congregations can an’s speech consisted of occur. Many a Columbian lamenting her lack of social past, ingenious as always, life combined with vitriolic solved this crisis by selecting words ‘gainst the parents the perfect venue for their who pushed her so hard. festivities: the Steps. As noted in a guidebook Surely this did not leave her class with the to New York, the perfect architecture of our warm feeling of closure which the institution magnificent Low Library Staircase puts it of the graduation speech propounds to pro along side the Spanish Steps as one of the vide. And why should it have? If the speaker is greatest in the world. Yet while the comparison not chosen based on her possession of speech- to the Spanish Steps may be apt in terms of giving virtues, who then can righdy expect a architecture, their is no competition in terms of good speech? Perhaps it is time to forego the jubilation. The administration has been so suc ancient valedictorian tradition and seek out a cessful in harassing students off the Steps, that new process by which the final address may be now only rising seniors can recall the era when selected. The Blue J proposes to the adminis this multi-leveled perch teemed with drunken tration that it offers a speech writing contest merry-makers. Therefore, I call upon each and for any member of the class who wishes to eveiy Columbian to follow in the grand tradi speak at graduation. The speeches would be tions of drinking and protesting. Reclaim your evaluated by a pre-chosen group of faculty and hallowed Steps! Hold fast to the wine and spir students, thus ensuring that all of the speeches its of youth, let administrators that come do what they may! 76 T he Blue and White, May 1999 Random Thoughts on Teaching Art by Professor Archie Rand was asked to write something about teaching, ly featured locales which accommodate unfa Ibut it is difficult to evaluate the art of my miliar subjects. teaching development. I feel that as my teach I was a member of that class of painters who ing career began early in my professional life, had not fought in any of the primary battles of that I should start with those incidents, which post-War art. As I came of age, it was apparent contributed to my formation, and then discuss that the smoke was clearing and there were no how that preparation impacted on my growth. winners. I saw not only intellectual, but moral When teaching, if I can remember how alternatives in my choice of style selection. Our devotion to my practice came about, how I generation did not see ourselves as indiscrimi learned, I can then try to find ways to replicate nate—we had varying affections and an educat those experiments for my students. Since my ed understanding of the positions. To break schooling was pleasurable, it would follow that this stand-off, we had to construct a language my training has heavily informed my attitudes capable of dialogue. Jasper Johns and Robert both as an artist and as a teacher. Rauschenberg had technically instructed us in My father, a part time one mode of cross-pollina painter, was rarely at home. tion. But to me, their meth When he was, on Sundays, ods appeared to be within there was always an unspo the realm of strategy, avoid ken invitation to join him in ing the satisfaction, or even, his painting. He displayed the obligation of statement. whatever tricks of represen At a loss for corroborated tation he knew. It seemed, direction my first answer somehow, that there was a came from someone who was connection between the not a visual artist. sharing of culture and the In my teens, as an amateur finding of community. piano player, I had become My high school art teacher familiar with the pianist/com was encouraging, as were my poser Cecil Taylor.

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