90719 - Modern and Contemporary Art

Learning outcomes

Students develop the critical and historical tools of modern and contemporary art. They mature the skills to analyse and contextualize the main artistic currents. They are also able to critically evaluate the works of art and develop the basic skills for carrying out independent research. In particular, they acquire the tools to frame and understand the most important art movements from the Nineteenth Century to the present times.

Course contents

This course outlines the history of modern and contemporary art through a focus on some of the main issues emerged in connection with visual art practices from the advent of the modern era to the present day, with particular attention on the movements and currents emerged since the 1950s. The course opens with an overview of the Nineteenth Century, encompassing movements such as Realism, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. The second and third class will take into account two groundbreaking issues that are characteristic of art in the first half of the Twentieth Century, namely the aesthetics of regression—in connection with the fascination for primitive cultures and the birth of psychoanalysis—and the convergence of art and life encapsulated in the historical avant-gardes’ use of collage, the Readymade and various responses to the totalitarian regimes.

 

In the fourth class we will discuss how artists in the 1950s employed painting—with styles ranging from expressionism to abstraction—to escape from an increasingly consumerist society. On the contrary, various movements of the 1960s, discussed in the fifth class, addressed mass culture directly through forms of détournement, assemblage and replica. Classes six and seven will be devoted to the discussion of movements and practices emerged in the 1960s and 1970s that emphasized the “process” of making art, developing a conceptual and oppositional approach to the work of art, the art institutions and the role of the artist itself. As mass media, notably television, spread reinforcing their subliminal power, some artists of the 1970s, discussed in the eight class, embraced video and performance to explore identity politics, a recurring discourse being feminist issues.

 

Art of the 1980s, also known as the postmodern era, will be discussed in the ninth and tenth class. The former focuses on the allegorical appropriations of the Pictures Generation and the use of pastiche in Neo-Expressionist painting, while the latter discusses how subcultural art practices such as punk and graffiti art epitomized a refusal of academicism and conceptualism, in the name of immediate forms of self-expression. The last five classes will be devoted to the examination of currents emerged since the 1990s in connection with the impact of globalization, liberalist logics of media and finance, and the profusion of digital technologies and the Internet. These include: Post Human, Abject Art, YBA’s, Relational Aesthetics, installation art, socially engaged art, Post-Internet art, and various forms of contemporary painting, photography, video, and sound art.

 

Schedule

1. At the Dawn of the Modern Era: Overview of the XIX Century

2. Aesthetics of Regression: Primitivism, the Unconscious and the Loss of Perspective

3. Art and Reality: The Historical Avant-Gardes

4. Painting in the 1950s: Expressionisms, Informel and Abstraction

5. Art and the Everyday in the 1960s: Situationism, Assemblage and Pop Art

6. Processes and Systems: Minimalism, Conceptual Art and Arte Povera

7.  The Museum Deconstructed: Happening, Land Art, Fluxus and Institutional Critique

8. Body Politics: Video, Performance Art and Feminist Art

9. Postmodernism: The Pictures Generation, Pastiche and Neo-Expressionism

10. Art from Below: Punk, Graffiti Art and Other Subcultures

11. Mutations and Transgressions: Post Human, Abject Art and the YBA’s

12. The Engaged Spectator: Relational Aesthetics and Installation Art

13. Forms of Rebellion: Postcolonialism, Public Art e Art Collectives

14. At the Turn of the Millennium: Painting, Photography and Cinematic Art

15. Electronic Culture: Digital Technologies, the Internet and Artificial Intelligence

Readings/Bibliography

The bibliography consists of a selection of texts that can be downloaded as teaching material from the page “insegnamenti online” linked to the course webpage. A total of 30 essays will be provided, 2 for each class. Most of the readings selected are essays or articles by art historians and critics, including: Claire Bishop, Nicolas Bourriaud, Germano Celant, Douglas Crimp, Arthur Danto, Clement Greenberg, Boris Groys, David Joselit, Rosalind Krauss, Lucy Lippard. The reading selection features also writings by artists including Guy Debord, Coco Fusco, Mike Kelley, Martha Rosler, and Andy Warhol.

Teaching methods

The course is structured in 15 classes based on a historical and theoretical approach to some of the most crucial movements and art practices emerged from mid Nineteenth to the early Twenty-First century. Each class will focus on a specific issue through the presentation and discussion of a series of case studies.

Assessment methods

At the end of the course, the student will be assigned a grade based on a final oral exam that evaluates the methodological and critical abilities acquired. Exams will be conducted individually and structured around a set of random questions on the readings, the case studies taken into account and the topics discussed in class. Attendance is highly recommended as well as active participation in class through comments and observations. Because there is no textbook for this course, it is strongly advised to take notes in class.

Teaching tools

The case studies are documented through the projection of audiovisual material.

Office hours

See the website of Francesco Maria Spampinato