University of Colorado Boulder Post-Studio Art teaching collection

This collection contains materials collected and currently (as of 2017) used by the CU Boulder Libraries for instruction in Post-Studio Art classes.

Series 1: Center for Land Use Interpretation

Founded in 1994, The Center for Land Use Interpretation is an organization “interested in understanding the nature and extent of human interaction with the surface of the earth, and in finding new meanings in the intentional and incidental forms that we individually and collectively create,” To that end, the organization has produced dozens of exhibits for public institutions, published books, conducted public tours, and offered information and research resources through its library, archive, and website. This series includes promotional and educational materials created to accompany exhibits and be used as resources for research.

Series 2: Hand Drawn Map Association

This series includes several original maps collected by Kris Harzinski, founder of the Hand Drawn Maps Association in 2008, which were used in the artwork series From Here to There: A Curious Collection from the Hand Drawn Map Association. This series became a 2010 book by the same title, which is available through the CUB Library catalog. From the publisher (Princeton Architectural Press): ‘It's a situation we are all acquainted with: planning to visit friends in an unfamiliar part of the city, you draw yourself a rudimentary map with detailed directions. In March 2008, graphic designer Kris Harzinski founded the Hand Drawn Map Association in order to collect just such drawings of the everyday. Fascinated by these accidental records of a moment in time, he soon amassed a wide variety of maps, ranging from simple directions to fictional maps, to maps of unusual places, including examples drawn by well-known historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Ernest Shackleton, and Alexander Calder. From Here to There celebrates these ephemeral documents--usually forgotten or tossed aside after having served their purpose--giving them their due as artifacts representing stories from people's lives around the world. There is the young woman suffering from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis who created maps of the Humira injections on her stomach and thighs to help her remember the sites, and give them time to heal. Or the young boy who imagined a whole country for ants and put it to paper. Lucas from Australia drew an obsessively detailed map of his local traffic island, and a teenage girl contributed a map of her high school locker. Two American tourists got lost in the Bulgarian mountains following the hand drawn map of a local, and Britanny from Denmark drew directions to an animal rights protest in Copenhagen. The maps featured in From Here to There are as varied and touching as the stories they tell.’

Series 3: SIMPARCH

SIMPARCH was founded by Matthew Lynch and Steve Badgett in 1996 as an artist collective that creates large-scale, usually interactive installations and works that, as the group's name suggests, examine simple architecture, building practices, site specificity and materials that may be salvaged, recycled or generally brought together with a kind of DIY (do it yourself) attitude. At the request of Professor Richard Saxton of the Post-Studio Arts Program of the Department of Art and Art History and the University of Colorado Boulder, CU Boulder Libraries purchased blueprints and a publication copy from SIMPARCH in 2011.

Series 4: 2012 Venice Architectural Biennale, 2009- 2013

The 13th Venice Architectural Biennale (International Architectural Exhibition, Biennale Architettura) was held the 29th of August through 25th of November in 2012 and titled Common Ground. The exhibition, designed by British architect David Chipperfield, hosted 69 projects made by architects, photographers, artists, critics and scholars with of total of 119 participants in the Pavilions at the Giardini, at the Arsenale and in the city of Venice Following the event, Professors Richard Saxton and Yumi Roth, founders of the Post-Studio Arts Program of the Department of Art and Art History and the University of Colorado Boulder, along with Alexander Watkins, Assistant Professor and Art and Art Architecture Librarian, solicited special collections materials from participants to be used for research and teaching. The materials in this series are mostly from participants involved with the American Pavilion, titled Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good, which presented 124 socially-minded urban interventions that have brought immediate improvements to the public realm. Richard’s M12 artists’ collective was one of the 124.

Series 5: 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale

The 15th Venice Architectural Biennale (International Architectural Exhibition, Biennale Architettura) was held the 28th of May through the 27th of November in 2016 and titled Reporting from the Front. The exhibition, curated by Alejandro Aravena and organized La Biennale di Venezia chaired by Paolo Baratta, was held in the Pavilions at the Giardini, at the Arsenale and in the city of Venice. The materials in this series, collected by Alexander Watkins, come from various international pavilion participants.