HART681 Art After Modernism 3cr

The range of approaches and interpretations of the meaning and purpose of contemporary art has expanded to levels never before seen. How do we make sense of this seemingly chaotic landscape where often directly conflicting interpretations
of art making coexist? This course introduces major issues in contemporary art and criticism that help negotiate the relationship between art making and global art worlds. It takes a critical and historiographic perspective on major
social/aesthetic problems such as expression, abstraction, identity politics, globalization, relational aesthetics, conceptualism, and the ideology of consumerism. Major artists, movements, and themes in contemporary art are introduced, including geometric and gestural abstraction, conceptual art, institutional critique, earth art, political intervention, feminism and art, neo-expressionism, postmodernism, video, performance, and installation art. Emphasis is on how our understanding of the history of art since the 1960s is continually being reframed by critical debate.