Spring 2009
M, W, F: 2 to 2:50
Office Hour:
Wednesday, 11-2 and Friday, 3-4
Contact:
617-492-2709;
esielonis@att.net;
Requirements: midterm (20%); a looking assignment (20%); a short research paper (30%); and a final (30%). Exams will consist of slide comparisons and essay questions, while the looking assignment (3-5 pages) will involve examining works in area museums and the research paper (8-10 pages) will focus on a topic of your choice. For the exams, I will not ask you to memorize creator, title, date, but instead ask you when studying the images to focus on what you might say about them.
February
9: First paper due
February
25: Midterm
April
28: Second paper due
TBA: Final Exam
Texts: The required texts are . Hal Foster, et al, Art since 1900:
Modernism, Anti-Modernism, Postmodernism, vol. 2 (1945 to the Present) (New
York: Thames & Hudson, 2004); 2-vol. edition and David Hopkins, After Modern Art 1945-2000 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000)
Images: Review images for the exam will be available on the
course website.
January 14: Introduction.
January 16: The 1930s: Realisms and Surrealism
Reading: Clement Greenberg, ÒAvant-Garde and
Kitsch,Ó in Art in Theory,
pp. 521-41.
January 19: Holiday
January 21: The Beginnings of the New York School
Reading: Art since 1900, 348-54, 362-67
Hopkins,
5-16, 23-25
January 23: Jackson Pollock
Reading: Art since 1900, 355-59.
Clement
Greenberg, ÒThe Crisis of the Easel PictureÓ*
Harold
Rosenberg, from ÒThe American Action PaintersÓ*
January 26: Pollock II
Reading: Michael
Leja, ÒJackson Pollock: Representing the
Unconscious,Ó Art History, December 1990, 13/4, pp. 542-
565.
Jackson
Pollock, ÒAnswers to a QuestionnaireÓ (1944) and
Interview with
William Wright (1950)
January 28: DeKooning
January 30: Newman and Rothko
Reading: Adolph
Gottlieb, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman,ÒStatement,Ó
in
Art in Theory, pp. 561-563.
Mark Rothko, ÒThe Romantics Were Prompted,Ó in Art in
Theory, pp. 563-564.
Barnett
Newman, ÒThe Ideographic Picture,Ó in Art
in Theory,
pp. 565-566.
Barnett Newman, ÒThe First Man was an Artist,Ó in Art in
Theory, pp. 566-69.
February 2: Post Painterly Abstraction
Reading: Art Since 1900, 439-444.
Hopkins, 25-34.
Serge Guilbault, ÒThe New
Adventures of the Avant-Garde in
America,Ó in Art in Modern Culture, pp. 239-251.
Eva
Cockcroft, ÒAbstraction Expressionism, Weapon of the
Cold War,Ó in Pollock and After ed. Francis Frascina), pp.
125-133.
George
Dondero excerpts from 1949 Congressional Record
Alfred
Barr, ÒIs Modern Art Communistic?Ó
Ben
Shahn, ÒThe Artist and the PoliticianÓ
Michael
Fried, excerpts from ÒThree American PaintersÓ
Clement
Greenberg, ÒModernist PaintingÓ
Click here to download a .pdf of select portions of Art in Theory 1900-1990.
Click HERE to download study presentation for the MidTerm
February 4: The Combines of Robert Rauschenberg
Reading: Art Since 1900, pp. 368-72.
Hopkins, 37-53.
February 6: Jasper JohnsÕ Signs and ÒHappeningsÓ
Reading:
Art Since 1900, pp. 404-410.
Hopkins, 53-64.
Leo
Steinberg, ÒJasper Johns,Ó in Other
Criteria.
Allan Kaprow, Òexcerpts
from ÒAssemblages,
Environments, and HappeningsÓ
Jasper
Johns, excerpts from ÒInterview with David
SylvesterÓ
February 9: European Figuration and Situationist International
Reading: Art Since 1900, pp. 391-397, 421-425.
Jean
Paul Sartre, excerpt from ÒExistentialism and
HumanismÓ
Jean
Dubuffet, excerpts from ÒNotes on the Well LetteredÓ
Jean
Dubuffet, excerpts from ÒCrude Art Preferred to
to Cultural
ArtÓ
Jean
Paul Sartre, excerpts from ÒThe Search for the
ÒAbsoluteÓ
Asger Jorn, Òexcerpts from ÒForms
Conceived as
LanguageÓ
February 11: The Beginnings of British and American
Pop
Reading: Art Since 1900, pp. 385-90.
Hopkins, 95-104.
Richard
Hamilton, ÒFor the Finest Art, Try PopÓ (1961)
Lawrence
Alloway, ÒThe Arts and the Mass MediaÓ
February 13: American Pop: Warhol and Lichtenstein
Reading: Art Since 1900, pp. 445-455, 486-491.
Hopkins, 110-119.
Andy
Warhol, ÒÓInterview with Gene Swenson (1963)
Roy
Lichtenstein, ÒLecture to the College Art Assoc.Ó (1964)
February 16: Holiday
February 18: Pop Conclusion
Reading: Hopkins,
119-128.
February 20: Review for Midterm
February 23: Midterm
February 25: European Art in the 1960s
Reading: Art Since 1900, 434-438.
February 27: Museum Visit
March 2:
Film screening: Emile de Antonio, Painters Painting, 1972
March 4: Sixties Painting and the Grid
Reading: Art Since 1900, pp. 398-403.
March 6: Minimalism
Reading: Art Since 1900, 470-474..
Hopkins, 131-149.
Statements
from Stella, Morris, and Judd
Michael
Fried, excerpts from ÒArt and ObjecthoodÓ
March 9-13: Vacation
March 16: Minimalism II
Reading: Anna
Chave, ÒMinimalism and the Rhetoric of Power,Ó in Art
in Modern Culture, pp. 264-281.
March 18:
Art and process, post-minimalism
Reading: Art since 1900, 496-99, 534-37
Hopkins,
152-59
Richard
Serra, ÒRiggingÓ*
March 21: Assemblage and Fluxus
Reading: Art Since 1900, 416-420, 480-485.
Hopkins, 104-110.
March 23: Conceptual Art
Reading: Art Since 1900, 527-534.
Hopkins: 161-169.
March 25: Conceptual Art II
Reading: Art Since 1900, pp. 554-559.
March 27: Site Specific Art
Reading: Art Since 1900, pp. 505-508, 540-544.
Hopkins, 172-76.
Robert
Smithson, ÒA Sendimentation of the Mind:
Earth ProjectsÓ
Ana Chave, Minimalism and the Rhetoric o Power pp264-281
March 30: Site Specific Works
Reading: Joseph Serra, excerpts from the ÒYale
LectureÓ
April 1: Arte Povere
Reading: Art Since 1900, 509-514.
April 3: Performance Art and Body Art
Reading: Art Since 1900, 560-569.
April 6: Screening of early video art
Reading:
Art since 1900, 560-64
April 8: Art and Feminism
Reading: Art since 1900, 570-75
Hopkins,
183-195
ÒThe
Artist and Politics, a SymposiumÓ
Laura
Mulvey, excerpts from ÒVisual Pleasure
and Narrative
CinemaÓ
April 10: No Class
April
13: Art and Feminism II
April 15: Pictures, appropriation, photo-conceptual
art
Reading:
Art since 1900, 580-83, 586-95
Hopkins,
208-12
April
17: Museum Visit
April
20: Holiday
April
22: TBD
April 24:
Theories of Post Modernism
Reading: Art since 1900, 596-604
Hopkins,
197-208
April
27: Conclusion
April
29: Discussion and Review