Ever have a bad dream where you show up to class and everyone — including you — is naked? This is reality for one California university’s college art course’s final exam.
The art visual class at University of California San Diego, according to the teacher, involves students acting out a series of gestures. The very last one they’re asked to perform in the syllabus, labeled, “erotic self.”
“It bothers me, I’m not sending [my daughter] to school for this,” said one student’s mother. “To blatantly say you must be naked in order to pass my class, it makes me sick to my stomach.”
The professor, Ricardo Dominguez, says it’s true; students have to be nude to pass the final.
“It’s a standard canvas for performance art and body art,” he explains.
Nearly 20 students, everyone in the class is naked, including him in what he calls a performance of self, in dark room lit only by candlelight
“It is all very controlled,” he said. He says students know what’s expected from the beginning. “If they are uncomfortable with this gesture they should not take the class,” he said.
“Nothing was ever stipulated prior,” the mother said. “Shame on him and shame on the university.”
In a statement, the chair of UCSD’s Visual Arts Department says the class is not a requirement for graduation and that students are not required to be nude to pass the final.
He says students can perform the so-called “nude gesture” without having to remove their clothes.
