About Virtual Classes
ArtsMuse offers virtual classes via Zoom on a variety of art and culture topics. Classes run approximately 90 minutes, depending upon discussion. No art history background necessary. Sections are capped at 25 students to keep things intimate.
Cost: $30 per class. To secure your spot, you must register and pay. Payment can be made using a credit card (Visa or Mastercard) or Pay Pal in the registration section, or directly through Venmo or Apple Pay.
Zoom links are typically sent out the evening before class - or shortly after you register if it’s the day of. *You may register up to 20 minutes before class.
*Register and pay for classes by clicking on specific time/date links below. If that date/time doesn’t work with your schedule, you can always purchase a video. Most previous classes are also available for purchase.
CLASS OFFERINGS
OCTOBER 2025
Man Ray - Tues. Oct. 7 at 5:30pm EST –OR– Wed. Oct. 8 at 7:30pm EST - Taught by Larissa Bailiff
Inspired by The Met’s fall exhibition “Man Ray: When Objects Dream,” our class will explore the multi-faceted practice of Man Ray (1890-1976), an expat from Brooklyn who became a leading force among the Dadaists and Surrealists in Paris. Along the way, we will encounter others within Ray’s avant-garde circle: good friends, like Marcel Duchamp, and models and muses, like performer Kiki de Montparnasse and photographer Lee Miller, with whom he had a tempestuous and artistically rivalrous relationship. Prepare to play a bit of chess; decode puns; experiment with light, and shadow; dabble in the irrational; and learn to expect the unexpected, as we spend time with an artist who constantly reinvented and blurred the boundaries between different media–from photography to painting and object making.
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Vida Americana: The Legacy of Mexican Muralism in the U.S. - Tues. Oct. 14 at 5:30pm EST –OR– Wed. Oct. 15 at 7:30pm EST – Taught by Dr. Maya Jiménez
Once government commissions dried up in Mexico City, los tres grandes, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros, turned their attention to the U.S. Supported by educational institutions like Dartmouth College (Orozco’s American Epic mural series), art museums like MoMA (Siqueiro’s Dive Bomber and Tank portable murals), and corporations like the Ford Motor Industry (Rivera’s Detroit Industry murals), these muralists found an eager audience. That their arrival coincided with the Great Depression, provided an even greater sense of urgency for a socially conscious and nationally committed public art. The influence and legacy of these Mexican Muralists in the U.S. can be traced across many great artists including Thomas Hart Benton, Jackson Pollock, and Elizabeth Catlett.
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Weaving Worlds: Olga do Amaral, El Anatsui, Ruth Asawa, and Otobong Nkanga - Tues. Oct. 28 at 5:30pm EST–OR– Wed. Oct. 29 at 7:30pm EST – Taught by Larissa Bailiff
Over the last three decades, the presence of textile/fiber art has markedly increased in contemporary galleries, art fairs, and museums, reflecting some of the most innovative, beautiful, and compelling work being shown. Beginning in the late 1940s, several modern artists, mostly women, began to experiment with a host of techniques–of weaving, knotting, and tying, often rooted in indigenous traditions–and a range of materials used in dynamic ways and at unexpected scale. It took time, however, for the art world to recognize this genre’s validity. This class will explore the work of four highly sought-after artists, who have created their own different woven worlds: Olga do Amaral (Colombian, b. 1932), El Anatusi (Ghanaian, living in Nigeria, b. 1944), Ruth Asawa (Japanese-American, 1926-2013), and Otobong Nkanga (Nigerian, living in Belgium, b. 1974). We will necessarily take up the question of what is art vs. what is craft, and consider the rich, cross-cultural conversations provoked by these artists’ boundary-blurring installations.
SOME UPCOMING TOPICS
Mondrian & his Impact
Wifredo Lam
Exploring NY Auctions
Man Ray, The Tears (Les Larmes), 1932. Silver Gelatin Print.