Art History is not a degree program at SVA, but all students enrolled in the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree program must complete a minimum of 12 credits in art history coursework. First-year students are generally expected to complete six credits in art history. Fine Art majors must complete 18 credits in art history coursework.
Please refer to the major studio departments for a listing of art history requirements in each discipline.
Following is a selection of Art History courses offered during the 2013-2014 academic year:
AHD-1010
Survey of World Art I
One semester: 3 art history credits
As an introduction to the art of Western and non-Western cultures, this course will examine art from the Paleolithic period to 1450. Key monuments and styles will be explored in architecture, sculpture and painting through methods of visual analysis. Discussions will link the ways in which concepts in art develop and change within different cultural contexts. Field trips and museum visits will augment the course as appropriate.
AHD-1015
Survey of World Art II
One semester: 3 art history credits
Beginning with the art of the Renaissance and continuing into the modern world, this course will explore painting, sculpture and architecture in both Western and non-Western cultures. Discussions will link the ways in which concepts of art develop and change within different cultural contexts. Methods of visual analysis will be explored. Field trips and museum visits will augment this course as appropriate.
AHD-1050
History of Film I
One semester: 3 art history credits
Serving as an introduction to theatrical motion pictures, this course will examine its nascence along with the silent era and early sound. While American narrative film will be emphasized, examples of world cinema will also be screened. Political, cultural and aesthetic history will form a background for viewing selected films—both important works and more transitory ones—to gain an understanding of how the medium developed and its cultural impact.
AHD-1055
History of Film II
One semester: 3 art history credits
A continuation of AHD-1050, History of Film I, this course will examine the history of motion pictures from the ascendancy of the studio system, through effects of World War II on the film industry to the subsequent collapse and re-emergence of prominent studios. The era of independent filmmaking will also be addressed. While American narrative film will be emphasized, examples of world cinema will also be screened, as well as examples from various film genres, including documentary, animation and experimental work.
AHD-1060 / AHD-1065
History of Photography I and II
Two semesters: 3 art history credits per semester
An introduction to the history of photography, this course will begin with a discussion of the invention of photography and continue through the work of the present day. Major photographers and trends in photography will be covered in detail.
AHD-1070
Film History and Criticism
One semester: 3 art history credits
Through an interdisciplinary approach to contemporary theoretical discourses of cinema, the goal of this course is to familiarize students with the formal and stylistic features of film history and analysis. We will examine forms of interpretation and subjects of representation via the evolution of the cinema. Beginning with the Lumière brothers, Georges Méliès and the early works of D. W. Griffith, we will trace the historical development of film with an exploration of genres that include American silent comedies, German expressionism, surrealism and Soviet formalism. Classical Hollywood films and the establishment of the studio system will also be examined. The final segment of the course will be devoted to an analysis of postwar European masters such as Rossellini, Truffaut, Godard, Bergman, Fellini and Antonioni.
AHD-1080 / AHD-1085
History of Animation I and II
Two semesters: 3 art history credits per semester
This course explores milestones in animation, from pioneers like Walt Disney, Norman McLaren and Lotte Reiniger, to present-day digital innovators. Along the way we’ll consider a range of techniques, including line-and-cel, glass painting, stop motion, clay animation, morphs and 3D characters. We’ll also see why animation deserves to be seen as perhaps the most complex art form.
AHD-1170
Animation: From McCay to Burton
One semester: 3 art history credits
Animation milestones will be screened and examined in this course. We will begin with pioneer animators, such as Winsor McCay, Disney, Fleischer and Lantz to study their techniques, and then discuss the works of several contemporary innovators, including Cameron and Burton. Students will view both rare and important animated films that have influenced the direction of animation during the past one hundred years.
AHD-1210 / AHD-1215
Modern and Contemporary Art I and II
Two semesters: 3 art history credits per semester
This is the first of a two-part course that will examine the interconnections among modern art, modernity and visuality. We will examine the major artworks and figures, as well as critical issues in the arts from approximately the end of the 19th century to the present. Topics will include the historical development of “modern” vision, the decline of realism and the emergence of abstraction. The goal of the course is to bring together art historical, scientific and technological studies of the 20th century and relate them to contemporary artistic practice.
AHD-2003
Highlights of European Animation
One semester: 3 art history credits
The historical and artistic developments of European animation, from its 19th-century parlor toy origins to contemporary films, will be surveyed in this course. We will sample the earliest animation by silent-film pioneers Emile Cohl and Ladislas Starevich, and see how Lotte Reiniger produced the first known full-length animated feature in 1926. The immense artistic growth and diversification of animation since World War II and the emergence of many of animation’s most brilliant and influential masters will be discussed.
AHD-2006
A World of Animation
One semester: 3 art history credits
American animation has greatly influenced animators from around the globe, and has in turn been affected by creative animators from everywhere. What is the relationship between Betty Boop and animé? What impact did the work of European animators have on cartoon design as well as Walt Disney’s Fantasia? Were there animated feature films before Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs? In this course, a worldwide selection of cartoon shorts and animated features are screened and discussed. Students will research and write on American and global animation to develop an appreciation for the original and distinct contributions of international animators.
AHD-2010
Art of the Premodernist World
One semester: 3 art history credits
The history of art serves as a visual record of the history of ideas. This course will trace the changing nature of representation in painting, sculpture and architecture from the Paleolithic to the early 19th century. Focus will be placed on the rise of civilizations in the Greco-Roman world as well as their roots in non-Western cultures such as those in Asia and Africa. Discussion, slide presentations and museum visits are a part of the course. Topics include art and ritual, idealism and beauty, iconoclasm and theories of God.
AHD-2020
Modern Art Through Pop I
One semester: 3 art history credits
This course maps the major movements and tendencies in modern art beginning with the realism of Courbet in the 19th century and continuing into the 20th century, including impressionism, postimpressionism, symbolism, fauvism, cubism, futurism, expressionism, Dada, and surrealism. The art will be discussed in terms of the individual artist’s intent as well as in terms of historical events and cultural issues at the times in which they were created. Museum field trips are an important part of the course.
AHD-2025
Modern Art Through Pop II
One semester: 3 art history credits
This course is a survey of art from the emergence of “modernism” through the radical transformations in established modes of art-making of the postwar period. Close attention will be paid to the social, political and economic contexts in which artistic styles and forms have materialized, grown or changed from mid-century to the present.
AHD-2068
The Language of Film
One semester: 3 art history credits
Structured as an introduction to the basic terms and concepts of cinematic language, this course will explore the vocabulary, grammar, sign and syntax of film through screenings, lectures and discussion. Feature-length narratives as well as animated, experimental and documentary shorts will be addressed, with an emphasis on examining the function of the film as a formal construct—the basic principles of film form. We will also pay particular attention to the techniques of the film medium along with the questions of types and genres of films. The course is analytical but with a thoroughly pragmatic bent: to map the extraordinary diversity of contemporary cinematic practice in relation to editing, sound, cinematography, framing, genre, auteur and narration.
AHD-2070
International Cinema
One semester: 3 art history credits
Designed to facilitate an understanding of classic and contemporary international cinema, this course is dedicated to the study of films that have adopted a different aesthetic framework from Hollywood. We will discuss themes, ideologies, forms, the impact of history—both political and social—and the background stories of the filmmakers. Screenings will be drawn from the cinema of Mira Nair (India), Jean-Luc Godard (France), Andrei Tarkovsky (Russia), Federico Fellini (Italy) Carl Dreyer (Denmark), Luis Buñuel (Spain/Mexico) and Peter Weir (Australia), among others.
AHD-2090
History of Contemporary Photography
One semester: 3 art history credits
This course will emphasize the last 40 years of photography, and by a thorough analysis and discussion of the work, it will articulate the dominant cultural and aesthetic ideas of the time. All genres of the medium will be considered, as well as the gradual rise of photography as a major visual art. Of particular importance will be the influence on current photographic ideas and students’ work.
AHD-2127
History of Graphic Design: A Survey of Styles from the Late 19th Century to the Present
One semester: 3 art history credits
This course will focus on various graphic design movements from art nouveau and Jugendstil to De Stijl and Dada; from the impact of the Bauhaus to the fervor of the streamlined 1930s; from the Swiss International style of the ’50s to the psychedelia of the ’60s and on to the punk ’70s and postmodern ’80s. We will also examine the subjects, themes and relationship of the designer to the period. Using examples of the period as a focal point, the evolving design styles and their relationship to politics, commerce, social mores, technology and pop culture will be explored. From the beautiful to the ridiculous, the ephemeral aspects of design will be studied. Guest speakers will feature individuals who have created important design work of the periods discussed.
AHD-2129
History of Typography
One semester: 3 art history credits
The history of typography traces the development and use of Western letterforms from inspirational Roman capitals through the invention of type to the present. Typefaces will be examined as products of culture and technology as well as examples of changes in aesthetic ideas of form. Typography will be explored from its roots in manuscript practice to its evolution in books, advertising, posters and ephemera. There will be an emphasis on how typography functions as visual language.
AHD-2136
What’s Your Type?
One semester: 3 art history credits
There’s something magical about the alphabet—its capacity to change shape and style, to express purpose and suggest mood, to be formal and informal, elegant and ugly, classical and romantic, delicate and robust. Although we live in a digital age, with access to a wealth of fonts, there is a movement in typography to revert back to the handwritten alphabet. We see it on the street, stenciled and sprayed. We see it in signage and labels, and on our grocery lists. This course begins with the history of typography and will examine its different movements to the present. Students will complete a series of digital and handwritten typographical assignments and develop their own alphabet.
AHD-2146
The Grammar of the Exhibition
One semester: 3 art history credits
Everywhere we turn these days, there seems to be a new book by curators on curators and curating, analyzing the circumstances of their production, critically assessing approaches used to frame contemporary artistic practice or questioning the exhibition models currently in use. How do we explain the recent shift in artistic production that is increasingly framed by curatorial practice? It seems that more and more, the subject of exhibitions tends not to be about the display of artworks, but the way exhibitions frame their own conditions of production as a work itself. What are the implications for artists who increasingly reflect on the exhibition “form” and the visibility of research processes and development in the art context? To address this and other questions, this course will explore the exhibition form and its position in recent artistic practices to address the conventions, potential meanings, strategies of display and audiences that curators and artists integrate into the exhibition-making process. Accordingly, the course hopes to contextualize the historical implications of curatorial practices that stretch from the early 20th century to the present. Special attention will be given to the following curators and artists: Hans Ulrich Obrist, Emily Pethick, Jens Hoffmann, Anton Vidokle, Daniel Buren, Group Material, Monument to Transformation, Zak Keyes, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Nicolaus Schafhausen, Nikolaus Hirsch, Markus Miessen, Aby Warburg, Alexander Dorner. Weekly lectures and discussions, and occasional trips to exhibitions and galleries are included. Students will undertake a semester-long project.
AHD-2154
Gender, Sexuality and Visual Culture
One semester: 3 art history credits
Visual culture makes arguments about gender, sexuality and the body. To see and be seen is to assume a gendered (and sexualized) position. In this course, we will study how genders, sexualities and desires have been shaped through images, the built environment and the gaze. We will analyze artworks and architecture as well as commercial photography, film and music videos. Themes will include: the sexual politics of looking; movement, desire and space; the public and the private; homosexuality, drag and gender ambiguity; visual pleasure and the unconscious; in/visible sexualities and religion.
AHD-2163
American Beauty
One semester: 3 art history credits
While America has a rich philosophical tradition (James Madison, William James and John Rawls, among others), many people do not realize that several of its contributions can be found in the discipline of aesthetics. This course will investigate that forgotten side of American philosophy. We will read the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Dewey, George Santayana, Nelson Goodman, Monroe Beardsley, Arthur Danto, and others, and examine the roots of these philosophic systems. Additionally, we will seek to understand the role that democracy has played in not only shaping the thought of these philosophers, but also the ways in which Americans experience the beautiful in their everyday lives. The goal of this course is two-fold: to give students a greater understanding of American philosophy, and at the same time provide them with the tools to examine the many ways that the beautiful is presented and received. Class sessions will be supplemented with trips to galleries and museums.
AHD-2188
History of Drawing
One semester: 3 art history credits
In practice as in theory, the concept of drawing contains two somewhat contradictory narratives. The first is the theory and practice of European drawing in the period between the late Middle Ages and the French Revolution, the time when “drawing” became a clearly defined genre. The second is the infinite number of variations in the practice of this genre, such as cartoon, tattoo, graffiti, architectural drawing and “painterly” painting. This course spotlights those aspects of the history of drawing most relevant to present-day artists and art historians—history of techniques, problems of connoisseurship, evolution of theory and systems of representation. We will analyze concepts that include “calligraphic,” “linear” and “spontaneity” in a historical context, as much to understand where we are going as where we have been.
AHD-2213
Film Noir
One semester: 3 art history credits
This course is an examination of one of the most enduring pictorial and narrative styles of American sound films. Named by French film critics in the 1950s, its roots are found in American and German silent films. Influenced, too, by the French poetic realism of the 1930s, film noir reached its zenith in the postwar America of the 1940s and ’50s. Films like Body Heat, Blade Runner and Blue Velvet pay homage to the noir style. An understanding of American film is not possible without a grounding in this mysterious, sinister, graphically vigorous movie style.
AHD-2226
American Art: The Rise of Pop Culture
One semester: 3 art history credits
Beginning in the 1920s through Neo-Dada of the 1950s, this course will examine the rise of American pop art and its focus on consumer culture. Discussions will include an exploration of pop art’s European antecedents; the movement’s zenith in the 1960s with artists such as Warhol, Lichtenstein and Oldenburg; pop manifestations in Europe; commodity art of the 1980s and pop art’s lasting influence.
AHD-2229
Neo Avant-Garde: Art Between 1955 and 1975
One semester: 3 art history credits
This course will trace artistic practices during two decades that redefined the very nature of art. Beginning with Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, it will examine other major figures and movements including pop and minimalism, Fluxus and Happenings, conceptual art and postminimalism, “pictures” generation and early forms of institutional critique. We will discuss key concepts (such as “site-specific” work, “deskilling,” the “post-studio” and the “death of the author”) that were central to the work and its legacy for more recent art. The course will also locate precedents for this art in the historical avant-garde of the 1920s.
AHD-2231
Avant-Gardening: Art, Food and Agriculture
One semester: 3 art history credits
Avant Gardening is premised on an egalitarian ideal proposed by a growing number of artists in postwar Europe and the Americas, which recognizes that the materials of everyday life—be it a sock, burlap sack or detritus found in the street—are as equally suitable ingredients of the artist’s palette as a tube of paint. Since the 1960s, artists expanded this principle into the representation and material use of food and its relation to the garden, agriculture and the broader social environment in which it is produced. This course investigates the historical and theoretical backgrounds of art and artists who use gardening, agriculture and food as their medium. Lectures will provide the cultural, environmental and socio-political context in which these artists are working. Field trips and a final project (in research or the creation of an artwork) will be made in collaboration with Project Eats, an organization that works in communities around New York City to create community-owned farms, farmers markets, and arts and cultural projects, among other initiatives.
AHD-2233
Tribal Art: The Mythic Eye
One semester: 3 art history credits
A survey of the art created within the special context of traditional cultures. The art of traditional cultures will be examined in terms of formal visual and material elements and aesthetic quality within Western understanding as well as the meanings and implications of art within its own culture. Areas of investigation will include tribes of Africa, Oceania and the Native American Indian. Actual art objects will be presented as well as music and recent videos of ritual, ceremony, dance and interviews with tribal people.
AHD-2254
The Arts of Ancient Egypt and the Near East
One semester: 3 art history credits
This course will survey the art of the peoples who inhabited the great cultural centers of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Iran from their earliest appearances in the fifth millennium BCE to the conquest by the Greeks under Alexander the Great in the fourth century BCE. We will focus on the stylistic and iconographic developments of the cultures and civilizations that flourished in the area and will emphasize the continuity across the millennia of artistic imagery, forms and techniques.
AHD-2261
What is Latin American Art?
One semester: 3 art history credits
Beginning with an introduction to the ideas that have typified the art from Latin America, this course will explore how the European encounter with the Americas’ vast indigenous cultural models radically altered, transformed and revolutionized art on both continents. Latin America’s cultural interaction with European and U.S. cultural centers, the mutual confrontations of high art and popular culture and relationships between Euro-American and local formal styles will also be addressed. We will study contemporary artists from the United States and Europe in terms of their connections to pre-Columbian and Colonial urban art and culture. Latin American modernism from 1900 to 1945 will be covered to see how ideas and influences traveled back and forth across the Atlantic, enriching the art of the Western Hemisphere—beyond traditional boundaries and geographic borders. Emphasis will be placed on the artistic production of certain countries, such as Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Cuba. The effects of colonialism and modernization on the art from Latin America will also be discussed.
AHD-2277
Chinese, Japanese and Korean Art
One semester: 3 art history credits
This course will concentrate on major epochs of Chinese and Japanese art, from their beginnings to modern trends of the 20th century. The arts of Korea and other Asian countries will be touched on where relevant. Course activities include a museum trip and participation in a Japanese tea ceremony.
AHD-2296
Introduction to Film Art and Aesthetics
One semester: 3 art history credits
Film is arguably the lingua franca of contemporary media culture, even as it continues to multiply and morph into a variety of distinct cinemas. This course will introduce the basic elements of film art and aesthetics by tracing a historical arc from silent film to contemporary digital media. We will study works by the Lumière Brothers, Griffith, Eisenstein, Keaton, Vertov, Welles, Buñuel, Billy Wilder, Hitchcock, Godard, Ozu, Marker, Eastwood, Tarantino, Hsien, and others. Each film will be paired with readings that explore aspects of film such as montage, narrative, shot, genre and sound, as well as questions of film ideology, politics and philosophy. We will also consider works of contemporary art that depart from traditional cinema and how new media innovations are transforming the language and concepts of classical film.
AHD-2297
The Art of the Remake
One semester: 3 art history credits
This course will explore the idea and process of adaptation in works of literature, art, film and music. In addition to thinking about how authors and artists interpret, transform and remake previous works, we will consider the inherent possibilities and limitations of moving between literature, visual art, music and film. Works considered will include Shakespeare, Titian, Brecht, Wolcott, Tarantino, Luhrmann, Kaufman, and others. What is an original? What is the relation between imitation and originality? How do specific arts and media shape our understanding of the stories they wish to convey? We will also read critical writing by Barthes, Benjamin, Hutcheon, and others.
AHD-2302
History of Video Art: 1965 to 1985
One semester: 3 art history credits
What is referred to as “video art” has become a ubiquitous feature of 21st-century art practice, yet it is an art form whose emergence is still a relatively fresh aspect of contemporary art history. This course will explore the origins of video art, examining its sources in film, photography and performance art. Through screenings of key works; discussion with artists, critics and curators, and in directed readings, students will be exposed to important works and individuals associated with the first two decades of video. Special attention will be paid to an understanding of the cultural and social context that supported the emergence of video art. We will focus upon the evolution of video art from both a technological perspective as well as the development of a video’s critical and institutional framework. Artists whose works will be viewed and discussed include Nam June Paik, Wolf Vostell, Bruce Nauman, Yoko Ono, Peter Campus, Vito Acconci, Frank Gillette, Juan Downey, Joan Jonas, Chris Burden, Lynda Benglis, Stan, Ira Schneider, Andy Mann, Martha Rosler, Allan Sekula, Shigeko Kubota, Bill Viola, Gary Hill, Mary Lucier, Woody and Steina Vasulka, Ilene Segalove, William Wegman, Tony Oursler, Muntadas, Keith Sonnier, Bruce and Norman Yonemoto, Dara Birnbaum, Ant Farm, TVTV, Videofreex, Marcel Odenbach, Dan Graham, Doug Hall, Richard Serra, Terry Fox, Howard Fried, Paul Kos, Paul McCarthy, Mike Kelley and Ernie Kovacs.
AHD-2303
History of Video Art: 1985 to Present
One semester: 3 art history credits
As video art became more widely accepted and the tools became increasingly affordable and available, the medium quickly emerged as a primary site for the global dialogue that characterizes contemporary art practice. Among the topics to be addressed in this screening, lecture and discussion course will be the emergence of Asian, Latin American and European Video Art, the continued development of sculptural video installation work, the emergence of the market for video art. The blurring of the lines among video art digital art forms, digital cinema and art made for the Internet will also be addressed. Artists whose works will be viewed and discussed include Nam June Paik, Wolf Vostell, Bruce Nauman, Yoko Ono, Peter Campus, Vito Acconci, Frank Gillette, Juan Downey, Joan Jonas, Chris Burden, Lynda Benglis, Stan, Ira Schneider, Andy Mann, Martha Rosler, Allan Sekula, Shigeko Kubota, Bill Viola, Gary Hill, Mary Lucier, Woody and Steina Vasulka, Ilene Segalove, William Wegman, Tony Oursler, Muntadas, Keith Sonnier, Bruce and Norman Yonemoto, Dara Birnbaum, Ant Farm, TVTV, Videofreex, Marcel Odenbach, Dan Graham, Doug Hall, Richard Serra, Terry Fox, Howard Fried, Paul Kos, Paul McCarthy, Mike Kelley and Ernie Kovacs.
AHD-2336
When Wasn’t Modernism?
One semester: 3 art history credits
This course seeks to tell a different story about modernism than the one traditionally heard. Like all proper stories it will have a beginning, but where the end should be comes into question. To confine modernism to a particular period, to say that the modernists were somehow special in their feelings, is to disregard the emotional sensitivity and yearnings of those that came before them and those who will feel in the future. Therefore, this course posits that modernism began in the late 18th century and continues today. We will move chronologically from the Enlightenment to Romanticism to Transcendentalism to the present, and try to locate what exactly modernism means through an investigation of the art and philosophy of these different time periods. The goal is for students to expand their understanding of what modernism is while at the same time learning to question the easy definitions that have been thrust upon it. We will supplement class time with trips to galleries and museums as means of understanding these ideas in the wider art world.
AHD-2341
What is Political Art?
One semester: 3 art history credits
In Ezra Pound’s words, artists are “the antennae of the human race.” From the beginning of modernism to the most recent exhibitions in Chelsea, artists have used their work to comment on society and impact the way we view the world, with strategies that range from near-propaganda to radical innovations in form and materials. Art can threaten the status quo, and there are many examples of it being suppressed, censored or destroyed because of its content. At the same time, governments around the world have used art and culture to further their own ends. This course will examine key figures and movements in modern and contemporary art: Picasso, Duchamp and Dada, surrealism, social realism, Diego Rivera, the abstract expressionists, Fluxus, the situationists, Martha Rosler and Group Material, among others. Students will give brief presentations in class and write two papers on the topic. There will also be field trips to museums and galleries, as well as presentations by visiting artists.
AHD-2364
John Coltrane: Jazz, Zen and Action Painting
One semester: 3 art history credits
One of the foremost and celebrated jazz musicians of the 20th century, John Coltrane opened a threshold of musical innovations that touched deeply upon other areas of artistic expression and philosophical knowledge. Considered by many as one of the first American jazz musicians whose technical artistry broadened the scope of multiculturalism, Coltrane was a premier figure in the neo-avant-garde of the 1950s and ‘60s. His improvisations matched the spiritual spontaneity of Zen Buddhism and the improvisations of action painters like Pollock, Kline, Motherwell, De Kooning and Michael Goldberg. Although the composer John Cage is often cited as the musician who brought Zen into music, Cage denied the validity of jazz in his “chance operations.” This bias did not account for the achievement of Coltrane, who understand the principles of Zen on an improvisational level and thereby influenced not only the direction of experimental music and Beat poetry (Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Jack Micheline), but also the action painters of the New York School. Readings will include works by J.C. Thomas, D.T. Suzuki, John Cage, Jack Kerouac and Dore Ashton. The course will include lectures, discussions and media, such as videos of performances by Coltrane, and interviews with musicians, poets, Zen philosophers and painters. Each student will produce a research paper on Coltrane’s influence and/or affinity with a selected artist, musician and poetry, and make a presentation related to his or her topic.
AHD-2382
Contemporary Painting: Representation and Abstraction, 1960 to Today
One semester: 3 art history credits
Despite numerous death threats over the past half-century, painting has stayed alive and kicking—thanks to the artists who reinvented the medium time and again. This course will examine major developments in contemporary painting, starting in the United States with pop art. We will touch on select painters who sustained representation into the 1970s including Alex Katz, Alice Neel and David Hockney, and those in the 1980s like David Salle and Julian Schnabel, who made a loud case for large-canvas painting. We will look at the work of contemporary figurative painters like Neo Rauch and Luc Tuymans in Europe, and John Currin and Lisa Yuskavage in New York, and investigate others working with abstraction (Amy Sillman, Charline von Heyl) or concept (R.H. Quaytman, Jutta Koether). Finally, the course will survey emerging artists who remix imagery from both representation and abstraction, such as Peter Doig, Cecily Brown and Dana Schutz. Through discussions and assigned readings from contemporary journals and magazines, we will come up with a malleable overview of the medium’s recent history, and an understanding of the critical discourse that keeps the painting game viable.
AHD-2417
The Art of Death
One semester: 3 art history credits
This course will examine the history of art with respect to the articulation of un-experienced experience and how the creative process constitutes a vital form of expression in helping to shape an understanding of the ultimate un-experienced experience: death. We will consider ancient practices around the subject of death, but will begin our study with the pessimism of the Middle Ages and work our way to the present. From these observations we can analyze the shifting ways in which the grammar of pain, suffering and loss are translated through works of art and other created objects: macabre, ornamentation, documentation, Romanticism, phantasmagoria, and other responses to mortality will be examined. Finally, we will reflect on the more contemporary resistance to the inevitability of death as an attitude that strongly (and almost exclusively) permeates through created objects and the technologies that help create them, and lays in stark contrast to the attitudes that were held for centuries before it. What is the nature of the various shifting attitudes, and how and to what end do creative works articulate these sensibilities? What sorts of outside influences (economic, cultural, religious, technological) impacted these art forms? We will find that there are many answers to these questions, and a wealth of history, philosophy, and artworks to help us speculate.
AHD-2596
Museum Studies
One semester: 3 art history credits
How are art collections and museums formed? Who decides what a museum exhibits? Is a museum like a bank vault filled with precious objects, or is it more like a secular cathedral? This course will address these questions by surveying the history and philosophy of art collections and museums. Topics include: public, private and corporate art collections; the conservation and preservation of art; museum architecture; installation design; traveling exhibitions; museum education programs; exhibition catalogs; museum trustees; laws that impact museums; commercial galleries and non-profit artists’ spaces.
AHD-2633
Graphic Imaging: A History
One semester: 3 art history credits
This is a course about concepts and ideas in graphic art. Such diverse areas as medieval illumination and modern animation, drawing and photography, illustration and collage will be presented in context. Related literature and music, as well as film and videos will be presented at each session.
AHD-2722
History of Comedy in Films
One semester: 3 art history credits
This course seeks to identify and define the fundamentals of comedy in film history through an in-depth study of the comedians, directors and films that make up the body of this genre. The course will establish the two basic forms of comedy—physical and situational—and, by extension, their subsets in spoof, slapstick, satire and the one-liner, from Chaplin to Woody Allen. The utilization of comedy as a method of commentary on and a release from geopolitical, social and cultural factors in the 20th century will provide the context and overview against which films as chronologically diverse as City Lights, Dr. Strangelove and Annie Hall are examined. Special attention will be given to those contemporary artists stretching the boundaries of and redefining traditional comedy (in SoHo’s performance art scene, Chicago’s Second City, Monty Python and Saturday Night Live) and their contribution through avant-garde theater techniques and improvisation to current film comedies.
AHD-2733
Expressionism in Films
One semester: 3 art history credits
Expressionism, briefly defined, is art in an agitated, anxious mode that distorts the normal appearance of things by presenting them through a perturbed consciousness. It is an art of exaggeration and intense subjectivity; giving primacy to the disquieted self, it characteristically portrays the world as a disrupted, menacing place. This course will examine various manifestations of expressionism and its influence in the art of film. The first flourishing of expressionism in films took place in Weimar Germany, and we will study several notable instances: Dr. Caligari, Fritz Lang and Murnau. We will consider how expressionism took root when transplanted to American films: in the American work of German filmmakers, in the gangster films, the horror film, film noir, etc. We will look into the work of such expressionist-influenced filmmakers as Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Ingmar Bergman and the new Germans. We will also consider expressionism in the broader context of other art forms and of contemporary life.
AHD-2741
War and Religion in Art and Film: From Ancient Civilizations to the Middle Ages
One semester: 3 art history credits
Using the medium of film as narrator, this course will examine historical periods and defining events to try and understand the relationships among war, art and religion. In addition to film screenings, we will also address other art forms in our quest to comprehend the ingredients that bind such disparate areas of our lives.
AHD-2742
War and Religion in Art and Film: The Second Millennium
One semester: 3 art history credits
Using the medium of film as narrator, this course will examine pivotal events in the political, artistic and religious realms throughout the second millennium. In addition to film screenings, we will also consider the triad of war, religion and art in the broader context of other artistic practices.
AHD-2761
Wandering in the Boneyard: The Horror Film Genre
One semester: 3 art history credits
As they say in the film biz, “horror travels.” It’s one of the only genres left that makes money theatrically all over the world. That’s because of its psychic link with the 12- to 29-year-old audience—the age group that comprises more than half of the movie-going audience. Many of today’s cinematic giants began their journeys in horror, including Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, Roman Polanski and Oliver Stone. This course will explore the genesis of the horror genre and its evolution over the last hundred years, generously supported by features, clips and guest lecturers. We will examine Lon Chaney’s groundbreaking work, modern masters such as George Romero, Tobe Hooper and Wes Craven, as well as European and Japanese horror films.
AHD-2772
The Narrative (R)evolution: Language and Art
One semester: 3 art history credits
Storytelling is one of the most pervasive expressions of human nature. It is also the means by which we invent, store and retain our collective and personal histories. This use of language has shifted dramatically over time, from the oral storytelling methods of the ancients to the invention of linear writing and, finally, to the advent of technology and cyberspace. How have these shifts been visualized in works of art? How has the element of language affected our notions of what art is and vice versa? By looking at contemporary artists who use oral, written and technologically enhanced language in their work, this course will address such questions of meaning and content, and examine our role in the formation of “new” narratives. Visits to galleries and museums will supplement discussions and lectures.
AHD-2808
Who’s Looking? (The Function of Women in Film)
One semester: 3 art history credits
Film both reflects and generates ways in which women are seen and function in our culture. The development of feminist film criticism and theory has given women a perspective from which to challenge the male-dominated film industry. Women are fighting back as critics, scholars and filmmakers. This course examines, from a feminist position, films by such masters as Jean-Luc Godard, Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese and also takes a look at some current box-office biggies. Critical readings by Laura Mulvey, Meaghan Morris and Angela Carter will ground discussions of such issues as the relationship of aesthetics and politics, and the construction of gendered positions both on the screen and in the audience.
AHD-2811
Women Make Movies
One semester: 3 art history credits
During the 1970s, the feminist movement gave rise to a powerful wave of women filmmakers; they emerged on a worldwide scale, primarily in the independent sector. During the ’80s, the number of women directors increased, and one or two even penetrated that patriarchal monolith—the Hollywood film industry. We will examine the past 30 years of women’s filmmaking and also take a look at some of its antecedents. We will screen films by Chantal Akerman, Jane Campion, Julie Dash, Susan Seidelman, and others.
AHD-2817
Comics Criticism
One semester: 3 art history credits
This course will examine comics as an artistic medium and as a product of their social and historical context. Topics will include the superhero, horror, alternative and underground comics as well as newspaper strips. We will analyze comics using traditional techniques of literary criticism such as the study of symbolism, narrative structure, and character development, as well as visual analysis and recent innovations in literary theory such as semiotics, feminism, and post-colonialism. We will also discuss the influence of major historical events on the development of comics, shifts in audience base, and the relationship between comics as an art form and a mass medium.
AHD-2842
Understanding Kitsch
One semester: 3 art history credits
Although the etymology of the term is debatable, “kitsch” is generally understood to refer to the questionable aesthetic of mass-produced items created to appeal to crass, unrefined tastes. Since its emergence in the mid-1800s, artists have borrowed from and been inspired by this aesthetic; by the twentieth century, kitsch and high culture seemed at times to be so intertwined as to be indistinguishable. Championed by some as the “democratization” of taste and decried by others as catering to the lowest common denominator, kitsch embraces notions eschewed by arbiters of high culture, such as sentimentality, melodrama and cuteness. This course will discuss the culture and environment that gave birth to kitsch and its continued development. We will use kitsch as a vehicle for examining concepts that may shed light on how we view fine art objects, including an introduction to political, historical and psychoanalytical models of interpreting art; the origins of suburbia, and the difference between kitsch and propaganda. All of these topics are considered as we try to get to the root of the question: What makes fine art “art” and kitsch “kitsch”?
AHD-2847
What Is Conceptual Art?
One semester: 3 art history credits
Conceptual art is a term that is frequently bandied about as if everyone knows what it is. The assumption of the course will be that the premises of conceptual art have been largely misunderstood. While emphasis is given to the “idea” in works of art, we will undertake an investigation into the language of how the idea is transcribed into art. The course will show the development of the phenomenon, beginning with Marcel Duchamp and will trace its evolution from the late 1960s through to the present. Artists discussed will include Lawrence Weiner, Bruce Nauman, Robert Barry, John Baldessari, Adrian Piper, Joseph Kosuth, Haim Steinbach, Sherrie Levine, Joseph Nechvatal and Maurizio Bolognini.
AHD-2947
Video Game Culture
One semester: 3 art history credits
Virtual reality has entered a new realm of accessibility gained by an influx of video games and the rapidly growing game culture that surrounds them. Video games are no longer limited to arcades—they have taken over homes and traveled alongside users on buses; they have extended into the everyday world, creating normalcy out of virtual environments in public and semi-public spaces. We will examine this expansion—its negative and positive effects—and the role game culture plays in the American economy, global exports, attitudes toward violence and general consumption of our daily rituals and free time. Looking back at the short but significant history of gaming, we will explore its transformation from hobby to cultural tool. Finally, this course will address how gaming encourages group activity, serves as cultural commentary and bridges the physical gaps that separate participants and their varying identities.
AHD-2953
Technology of Art: Inching Toward the Virtual
One semester: 3 art history credits
This course will examine how technological development affects works of art, media and everyday life, allowing for the potential of interactivity. The ease and accessibility of technology allows us to create artistic work more affordably and efficiently. We can adjust on the fly; fix in postproduction; and alter, duplicate or manipulate with the appropriate software. Technological advances have increased the absence of the material form, which takes shape in computer art, virtual mapping, television/TiVo, MP3/iPod, and mediated public and semi-public spaces. The result is a do-it-yourself revolution, making interactivity a more acceptable and attractive feature. As creators and receptors of art, we are both inhibited and enlightened by this technology. From YouTube to the ubiquitous MySpace phenomenon, these outlets have a positive and negative impact on how we perceive, use, and create works of art and media.
AHD-3002
The Social History of Photography
One semester: 3 art history credits
This course will be a thematic survey of photography from its invention to the present day. Students will study the range and influence of photographic imagery, both “high” and “low” in photojournalism, fashion and advertising art. Sessions are designed to emphasize the ways in which photographs have changed our perceptions of ourselves, our society and the world in which we live.
AHD-3003
The Aesthetic History of Photography
One semester: 3 art history credits
This course will be a chronological survey of art photography with an emphasis on the relationship between photography and other visual art forms. Included will be a survey of the history of criticism, and of the various ways in which artists have negotiated their definition of photographic aesthetics.
AHD-3060
Masters of Light
One semester: 3 art history credits
Light is more than an aesthetic choice. It is also the electric bulb, x-rays, the beginning of the world (Genesis), photography, the big bang, cinema, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, photonics; it is the most important tool we currently use in medicine, communications, engineering and art. This course begins with the history of the physics and science of light and shadow. What exactly is light and when did we define it? What are the differences between artificial and natural light and how did the invention of artificial light change the nature of art and culture? In the second part of the course, each student will give a presentation on a master of light—painter, photographer, filmmaker or light artist.
AHD-3067
American Maverick Filmmakers
One semester: 3 art history credits
This course will study American masters of filmmaking who, during the second half of the 20th century, worked outside the established aesthetic and narrative conventions of mainstream Hollywood production methods. We will examine the innovative forms of cinematic grammar and storytelling of such filmmakers as Robert Altman, John Cassavetes, Stanley Kubrick, Sam Peckinpah, Martin Scorsese and Oliver Stone. Through lecture, discussion and exploration of stylistic and thematic issues, their work will be analyzed for filmic and expressive properties. Topics will include the directional process, utilization of cinematography, editing, sound, production design and collaboration with actors and screenwriters. Films to be studied include: McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Nashville, Paths of Glory, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, Faces, A Woman Under the Influence, Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Born on the Fourth of July and JFK.
AHD-3078
The Sublime and Transcendence
One semester: 3 art history credits
The concept of the sublime has fallen on hard times. Now relegated to the easy idea of the awe-inspiring, the sublime is as frequently invoked when describing a touchdown pass or a tasty dessert as it is used to describe a scenic vista. However, the sublime is more difficult to define than is often believed. The sublime is about terror, the threat of death and, if we really examine it, the sublime leads to an experience of transcendence. This course addresses the idea of the sublime as conceived by aesthetic theorists Kant and Burke, the power of transcendence promoted by artists such as Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, and the art of the Hudson River School. We will use our investigations into past notions of the sublime in an attempt to answer questions that include “Can the sublime be depicted in contemporary pictorial art?” Discussion and lectures are supplemented by trips to galleries and museums.
AHD-3121
The Future of Jackson Pollock
One semester: 3 art history credits
A considered look at the contradictions between the public myth and the art of Jackson Pollock, one of the premier American artists of the 20th century, whose larger-than-life persona has come to define the tortured creative figure—witness the recent award-winning Hollywood movie. Through slides and film screenings and museum visits, Pollock’s torment will be seen not as singular and private, but public and historical, as he projected his life into his era of passion and conflict. Through the study of Pollock in the context of his time—the Great Depression and World War II—a new figure will emerge: one devoted to the public issues of the 1930s and 1940s, such as mass culture, mass man, the struggle for renewed cultural personality, and the dualism of human nature and action. In this course, Pollock will newly be seen as someone who internalized the conflicts of history as his own, yet emerged triumphant—before he drove off the road.
AHD-3137
Irony and Beauty
One semester: 3 art history credits
Irony is a puzzling concept, far deeper than the dictionary definition: “Irony is the act of using words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning.” If this were the case, all sarcasm would be irony and the truly ironic act would be nothing more than a cheap theatric. Thankfully, real irony is hard to come by. It is rooted in something more than cleverness, just as beauty is more than simply being pretty. The idea of beauty is, at its core, a moment of transcendence, an experience of something greater than the tangible world has to offer. When done well, irony is a concentrated disaffection with what has been presented as truth; it is a mode of rebellion. Can beauty and irony co-exist or are they mutually exclusive? Is there any irony in the paintings of Barnett Newman or is it all deadly serious? Has irony become too easy? And has beauty ceased to answer any real questions? These are the issues we will address as we try to reconcile these seeming opposites.
AHD-3140
Memory and History in Film
One semester: 3 art history credits
A range of issues will be addressed in this course, all intended to explore the relationship between history and memory in the films of Alain Resnais, Chris Marker, Andrei Tarkovsky and Alexander Kluge. How do the modernist and postmodernist discourses of memory and history take shape in these filmmakers’ works? Questions crucial to the understanding of how cinema (re)works the ideas of history and memory through representation will be raised. What is the nature of this relationship? How do individual and social memories intersect? We will attempt to answer these and other questions as we trace the trajectories of two forces—memory and history—always at odds with each other in the films of these directors.
AHD-3145
Issues in Contemporary Art Globalism—New Patterns of Practice, Shifting Grounds of Discourse
One semester: 3 art history credits
We will focus our attention this semester on the impact/influence of globalism on visual culture and contemporary art. On one hand, we will frame the idea of “globalism” by rifling through the bones of history, including post-World War II distribution networks and post-Colonial legacies that begin to manifest in art in the 1960s and ‘70s. On the other hand, we will investigate various exhibition formats, artists, audiences, narratives, circumstances and more (emphasis on the 1980s to the present), all of which contributed to the thrilling complexity of “worldwide visual culture” and the “global communication continuum.” As Guy Davenport stated, “Art is the attention we pay to the wholeness of the world.” This idea will be our starting point.
AHD-3212
15 Weeks/15 Artists
One semester: 3 art history credits
This course will examine the influences of 15 notable post-World War II artists, one per class session. The study will include the art they created and readings of critical responses to their work, as well as their own writings. We will consider the legacies they inherited and what they have left behind in order to develop an understanding of what makes these artists some of the most important creative contributors of this era. Artists include Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Joseph Beuys, Robert Smithson, Donald Judd, George Maciunas, Cindy Sherman, Richard Tuttle, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Vito Acconci, Eva Hesse and John Baldessari. Readings and research papers will be assigned.
AHD-3247
Radical Interventions
One semester: 3 art history credits
The global financial meltdown has precipitated major economical and political processes. The collapse can also be seen as caused by social and ethical failure. Deleuze, Baudrillard and Gergen, among others, have already articulated this acute and deteriorating situation. If society is what they claim it is (personal saturation and fragmentation, cultural schizophrenia and multiphrenia), a radical intervention by artists is required. We will study, strategize and create ways to work with the prevailing social saturation and the phenomena of “distracted-from-distraction-by-distraction” in the age of postproduction. We will follow radical art actions, non-art resistance practices and counterculture groups to find possible ways to work effectively with the public through sculpture, video/performance, photography, painting, object/text-based work and indoor/outdoor actions.
AHD-3404
Experimental Movies: 1918 to 1980
One semester: 3 art history credits
The history of experimental movies within the century of modernism is the focus of this course. Within the context of constructivism, surrealism and Dada we will examine the first avant-garde cinema—films produced in Europe and the Soviet Union between 1920 and 1930. Then we will look at experimental film in the U.S. between 1944 and 1980 in relation to abstract expressionist, minimalist and conceptual art. Filmmakers to be studied include: Vertov, Buñuel, Dulac, Man Ray, Deren, Brakhage, Snow, Lynch, Van Sant. Students are required to attend five screenings or exhibitions outside of class (chosen from a list of 30) and to keep a written journal about them.
AHD-3899
The Experimental, Electronic Moving Image: 1965 to the Present
One semester: 3 art history credits
The development of what has been called video art will be examined, from the “TV” installations of Nam June Paik to the current proliferation of video in galleries and museums. This course will consider video as a medium struggling to define itself as an art form, and the contradictions in doing so in the postmodern era. In addition, we will look at electronic and digital technology, not only in terms of representation, but also as delivery systems. How have the Web, YouTube and video games redefined the moving image? Included are screenings of pioneering video makers such as Wegman, Acconci, Viola and Web-based work by such artists as David Lynch and Marina Zurkow. Outside of class viewing of recommended installations is required.
AHD-3901
The Art of Telling a Lie
One semester: 3 art history credits
“Lie, manipulate, cheat, falsify, conceal, mythologize…” We are living in a time when language and images are manipulated more than ever before. Democratic and totalitarian regimes around the world strategically utilize words and images to enlist the support of the public in order to implement national policies. In an era of incessant, invasive production of messages, there has been a radical shift in the way images and words are used and perceived. Doublespeak has become the norm—wars are presented as an attempt to create peace. Under this predicament, why should someone tell the truth? And if not, is it in order to tell a truth? Who benefits from the current anti-intellectual climate and how can one work with a public that is resistant to alternative sources of information? Are the terms “truth” and “lies” interchangeable in certain situations? Through readings, films, alternative radio programs and student projects, we will explore the advantages and hazards involved in cultural production and each student’s future role.
AHD-3909
Surrealism
One semester: 3 art history credits
This course will examine the social, artistic and political background out of which (and often against which) the surrealist movement began in the 1920s in Paris and surrealism’s particular relationships to the modernist art movements that preceded it, particularly its immediate ancestor, Dada. The course will survey the various sources of surrealist inspiration and ideas in the areas of literature, psychology, art and philosophy. It will cover surrealist drawing and painting, sculpture, photography and film as well as surrealism’s invention and cultivation of multimedia techniques, games and exercises that aimed to free image, object, language and experience from the constraints of traditional form and practice. We will explore surrealism’s many paradoxes, including its highly problematic relationship to Woman (as fantastic object of its unrelenting passion) and women (as real members and associates of the movement), and its ambivalent position regarding popular culture.
AHD-3921
Altered States: Under the Influence
One semester: 3 art history credits
Experiences of spontaneous visions and altered perceptions are common in the telling of art history. Countless artists have had experiences that go beyond those that are granted by the “ordinary” five senses. Some artists have dabbled in drugs to bring about these visions; others are haunted by illness that can impose hallucinations or a sense of otherworldliness. This course will examine the role of intoxicants (with particular attention to psychedelics) and other induced states as creative inspiration for works of art from 1850 to today. Topics will include: why these altered states are fascinating to artists, the kinds of inspiration that can be gained from going beyond the physical world, the creative dangers of toying with altered states of consciousness.
AHD-3922
Altered States: Ritual, Magic and Meditation
One semester: 3 art history credits
Events like Burning Man draw hundreds of people into the desert to commune with one another and experience a state that exists beyond the limits of ordinary existence. It is a ritual that seems at once to be both a throwback to a more primitive era and a quest for contemporary answers to age-old questions. But what does this resurgence of interest in the visionary realm mean? By examining the cultural lineage of these events—Eastern and Western religious traditions, occultism, spiritualism and channeling, meditative practices, the concepts of primitivism and the “native mind,” we will trace how they have influenced the history of art and culture. Artworks from the cave paintings at Lascaux to the present will be considered in light of these belief systems, with particular emphasis placed upon the 19th and 20th centuries.
AHD-3952
Survival Strategies for Artists
One semester: 3 art history credits
It’s not enough to simply produce art in your studio anymore or to passively wait and hope to be discovered. In today’s market, and given the opaque nature of the commercial art world, artists must acquire additional skills to build a professional career. In addition to producing artwork, this course will investigate how artists organize to create visibility for their work. We will study how to form an artists’ cooperative and how alternative art spaces operate with limited resources. Students will also learn how to curate shows, critique current art production in New York City and create the proper context for their work.
AHD-3966
Strip-Searched: Art and Sexuality
One semester: 3 art history credits
According to the British art critic John Berger: “Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.” How are art and sexuality intertwined? Pin-ups, odalisques, goddesses, divas and poseurs are some of the sexualized and stereotyped images found in art history. This course will delve into the analysis of artworks that are overtly sexual, erotic and titillating. From Manet’s Olympia to Meret Oppenheim’s L’Objet/Fur Tea Cup to Hannah Wilke’s Hello Boys strip act performance video, we will examine the representation of sexuality as seen in art whose subject is woman in all her many definitions. The course will include visits to museums and galleries, screenings of films/performances, reading of theory texts and works of fiction, as well as a look at autobiographical literature on artists and art-making.
AHD-3976
Art and Activism
One semester: 3 art history credits
This course addresses the cultural responses to social crises in the 20th century. Focusing on the international movements in art since the 1960s, artists to be discussed include Joseph Beuys, Guerrilla Art Action Group, Group Material and the public art projects of Gran Fury, the Guerrilla Girls and Act Up. Topics covered range from artists’ involvement in the antiwar protests against Vietnam, Artists Call Against U.S. Intervention in Central America and the civil rights movement, as well as artistic responses to the AIDS crisis, domestic violence, etc. The course covers the historical background behind these unconventional art practices in lectures and through student research. The semester culminates in the development of a final project that will take the form of an activist work (i.e., an exhibition, event, artwork) to be designed by the class. Guest speakers will be featured.
AHD-3989
Art and the Beat Generation
One semester: 3 art history credits
One of the fascinating periods in recent American culture was the period of the 1950s, when members of the abstract expressionist and neo-Dada art community (Pollock, de Kooning, Guston, Berman, Conner, Mitchell) worked in relative proximity with writers of the “beat generation” (Kerouac, Ginsberg, Corso, the Cassadys, Ferlinghetti). The premise of this course is to examine the structural relationship of the visual and literary arts by exploring how language and imagery signify cultural ideas during the 1950s and ’60s.
AHD-3992
Art and Popular Culture
One semester: 3 art history credits
This course will explore the interrelationships of high and popular art in the 20th century. Through a variety of approaches, we will discuss formal and sociopolitical ramifications of the reciprocal relationship of popular and fine arts, and examine the relationships of different aspects of popular production—crafts, comics, films, music, performances—and high art in the work of Kandinsky and the Blue Rider group; the Soviet avant-garde and the futurists; the Mexican muralists; the “English” independent group; pop artists; ironic postmodernists and the MTV generation. Readings will include manifestos, such as Eisenstein’s “A Montage of Popular Attractions,” Clement Greenberg’s “Avant-Garde and Kitsch,” Italian futurist manifestos, as well as various comics and humor publications.
AHD-3994
Introduction to Visual Culture
One semester: 3 art history credits
Tired of hearing about art versus design versus advertising versus the comic book? This course is designed to explore the issues of what constitutes culture—who said so, why, and what we can learn from and change about it. Our “society of the spectacle” engages case studies from sports, the mall, Madonna, James Bond, drag balls, Disneyland, Spike Lee, television, comic books and, yes, the fine arts, for their role in the construction of cultural values. Subtopics range from contemporary myth, the hero and heroine, the use of stereotypes and icons, attitudes toward gender and ethnicity and their consequences for the meaning and understanding of “culture.” Critical approaches are introduced to explore how cultural norms are established and to develop your own position in the current debates. Readings are from the German Frankfurt and British Birmingham schools of social thought, film and visual theory, studies in popular culture, feminism and cultural theory.
AHD-3999
Public Art and Social Activism
One semester: 3 art history credits
This course is dedicated to the study of public art, socially engaged practice and activism. We will seek to define public art and study the interconnections of art and community by addressing such questions as: Can artists truly collaborate with communities? Can art contribute to society, affect it and, perhaps, better it? During the second part of the course, students will have the opportunity to work directly on a public art project in collaboration with children in middle school. Students will be in charge of creating a public art project that is both artistically relevant and socially engaged. The basics of cultural production, including proposal writing, budgeting and documentation will be addressed. The class presents a unique opportunity for students to discover the mechanisms of the nonprofit world and work on their own collaborative art project. In addition, visiting artists involved in public art will discuss their work. Recent guests have included Tim Rollins, Gary Simmons, Anna Gaskell, Michael Joo, Luca Buvoli, Kimsooja, Joan Jonas, Pablo Helguera, Xaviera Simmons and Krzysztof Wodiczko.
AHD-4140
Senior Seminar
One semester: 3 art history credits
Unlike the historical avant-garde that situated itself outside of mass culture, today’s emerging avant-garde art seems to anticipate ways of working from within and in relation to mass culture. Art is steadily moving out from the “white cube” to participate in a global continuum that’s hosted by satellite TV and cable, the Internet, all forms of wireless communication and international biennials. The fractious history of art and mass culture has grown exponentially within the past two decades in direct proportion to the invention of new imaging technologies and the development of global economies. This course proposes to examine the scant, but rich, history of relations between art and mass culture, and to chart the rise of media-related art. We will immerse ourselves in screenings of contemporary video/multimedia work of the past two decades and seek out as many pertinent exhibitions as we can throughout the semester. We will also read interviews with artists and curators, as well as texts on media theory, globalism and the like.
