ARTH-454.001 CONTEMPORARY ART AND CRITICISM
Fall 2014
TR 12:30 – 1:45
Meets in Rutledge 127
3.0 Credit Hours
Dr. Karen Stock
Contact information and office hours:
Office: McLaurin 104
Phone: 323-2659
E-mail: [e-mail is the best way to reach me; please note your name and class in subject line]
Office hours: Thursday 3:00-5:00 [please stop by and sign up] or by appointment
Web site: http://faculty.winthrop.edu/stockk/
Course Description:
This is an intensive writing course on the art, art theory and criticism in Europe and America from 1960 to the present.
Prerequisites: ARTH 175, 176, CRTW 201 or by permission of instructor
We will reflect on the ways that the art created during this period demonstrates that issues of identity, politics, economy, history, and biography have achieved provocative representation.
Expected Student Learning Outcomes : Upon completion of the course, students should be able to identify and discuss the compositional elements of individual images and to integrate relevant, contextual information and achieve comprehensive descriptions of visual forms in satisfactory written and oral formats. They should be conversant with the complexity inherent to the context underlying and interacting with the practice and criticism of art during this time period.
Students with Disabilities
Winthrop University is dedicated to providing access to education. If you have a disability and require specific accommodations to complete this course, contact Services for Students with Disabilities at 323-3290 and make an appointment to see a professional staff member. Once you have your official notice of accommodations from Services for Students with Disabilities, please inform me as early as possible in the semester.
Student Code of Conduct As noted in the Student Conduct Code: “Responsibility for good conduct rests with students as adult individuals.” The policy on student academic misconduct is outlined in the “Student Conduct Code Academic Misconduct Policy” in the online Student Handbook (http://www2.winthrop.edu/studentaffairs/handbook/StudentHandbook.pdf).
Readings:
There is no required textbook for this course. I recommend several books that we will use extensively throughout the course:
David Hopkins, After Modern Art: 1945-2000 (London: Thames and Hudson, 2000).
Irving Sandler, Art of the Postmodern Era (New York: Icon Editions, 1996).
All readings will be posted on my web site.
Requirements and evaluations:
Class Participation (25%): Your participation in discussions is a key aspect of the course. This is not a class for the intellectually disengaged. We will be covering a lot of material with a breadth and depth that exceed the treatment the art receives in the recommended books and will be delving together into accompanying readings.
Reading Reviews/ Précis :(25%) You are responsible for writing a ½ to one page summary (double spaced) of the key points of the article for each day of discussion. These should be composed of complete sentences and paraphrase the most essential aspects of the article. The challenge is to condense complex ideas.
The précis will be graded as an X (0), half credit (5), or a check (10). Each précis is worth ten points and an average will be taken from the writings completed. You can miss two of the précis without penalty. There are approximately 15 précis due so if you complete 13 successfully then you will receive 100% for this portion of the class. You have the opportunity to rewrite the précis if you submit the rewrite with the original that did not pass. I understand that the writing will not be perfect in the summaries; however, there are consistent mistakes that will not be allowed. If you fail to use apostrophes correctly, misspell the name of the author or fail to reference the title of the essay you are reading then the highest credit you receive will be (5).
Leading Discussion: (25%) You are responsible for leading discussion and bringing in images for one day of discussion. Instead of a précis you should bring in a 3 -4 page summary. Turn this in on the day you present and speak to me after the presentation for feedback. If you do not turn in the summary on the day you present then the grade will be penalized.
Post-Modern Artist: (25%) Most critics and art historians agree that we are currently in the post-modern era however there are many different ways to define post-modernism. For this paper you will select one artist who you believe exemplifies the style, medium and character of postmodernism. Argue for the reasons why this artist will be studied 100 years from now in survey texts and will exemplify our era. The paper will be between 8 - 10 pages and when read should take 15 - 20 minutes.
Plus Minus Grading System
A Excellent, achievement of distinction (4 quality points per semester hour).
A- (3.67 quality points per semester hour)
B+ (3.33 quality points per semester hour)
B Good, achievement above that required for graduation (3 quality points per semester hour).
B- (2.67 quality points per semester hour)
C+ (2.33 quality points per semester hour)
C Fair, minimum achievement required for graduation (2 quality points per semester hour).
C- (1.67 quality points per semester hour)
D+ (1.33 quality points per semester hour)
D Poor, achievement at a level below that required for graduation (1 quality point per semester hour).
D- (.67 quality points per semester hour)
F Failure, unsatisfactory achievement (no quality points).
94%-100% = A 74%-76% = C
90%-93% = A- 70%-73% = C -
87%-89% = B+ 67%-69% = D+
84%-86% = B 64%-66% = D
80%-83% = B- 60%-63% = D-
77%-79% = C+ 59% or less = F
Tentative Schedule of Topics:
August 26: Introduction/lecture
August 28: Discussion of reading
Clement Greenberg, “Modernist Painting,” in Art in Theory, 1900-1990: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, ed. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), pp. 754-760 [book, listed subsequently as AIT]
Jackson Pollock statements in Readings in American Art, ed. Barbara Rose (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1975), pp. 122-124
September 2: Lecture
Hopkins, ch. 2 “Duchamp’s Legacy: The Rauschenberg-Johns Axis”, After Modern Art: 1945-2000 (London: Thames and Hudson, 2000).
September 4: Discussion of reading – just highlight one sentence that you want to discuss
Leo Steinberg, “Jasper Johns: The First Seven Years of His Art,” in Other Criteria: Confrontations with Twentieth-Century Art (London and Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 17-54
September 9: Lecture
Hopkins, ch. 4 “Blurring Boundaries: Pop Art, Fluxus, and their Effects,” After Modern Art: 1945-2000
September 11: Discussion of reading
Benjamin Buchloh, “Andy Warhol’s One-Dimensional Art: 1956-1966,” in Andy Warhol Retrospective, ed. Kynaston McShine (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1989), pp. 39-61
September 16: Discussion of reading
Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Art in Modern Culture: An Anthology of Critical Texts, ed. Francis Frascina and Jonathan Harris (London: Phaidon Press, in association with the Open University, 1992), pp. 297-307.
September 18: : Discussion of reading
Clement Greenberg “Avant-Garde and Kitsch,” in AIT 539 - 549
September 23: Lecture
Another End of Modernism: Minimalism and Earthworks, Hopkins, ch. 5
September 25:: Discussion of reading
Donald Judd, “Specific Objects,” in AIT, pp. 809-813
Michael Fried, “Art and Objecthood,” in AIT, pp. 822-834
September 30 Discussion of reading
Anna C. Chave, “Minimalism and the Rhetoric of Power,” Arts Magazine, 64 (January 1990), 44-63.
October 2: : Lecture
Modernism to Post modernism in Europe Sandler chapter 2 “The Impact of 1968 on European Art”
October 7 : Discussion of reading
Roland Barthes, “Death of the Author,” in Image, Music, Text, trans. Stephen Heath (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977), pp. 142-148
October 9: Discussion of reading
Gene Ray, “Joseph Beuys and the After-Auschwitz Sublime,” in Joseph Beuys: Mapping the Legacy, ed. Gene Ray (New York, DAP, Inc. 2001) 55 – 74
Benjamin Buchloh, “Beuys: The Twilight of the Idol,” in Joseph Beuys: Mapping the Legacy, ed. Gene Ray (New York, DAP, Inc. 2001) 199 – 211.
October 14: Lecture
Sandler, ch. 3 First Generation Feminism
October 16: Discussion of reading
Lisa Tickner, “The Body Politic: Female Sexuality and Women Artists Since 1970,” Art History, 1 (June 1978), 236-251
Amelia Jones, “’Presence’ in Absentia: Experiencing Performance as Documentation”
Art Journal, Vol. 56, No. 4, (Winter, 1997), pp. 11-18.
October 21: Discussion of reading
Linda Nochlin, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” in Women, Art and Power and Other Essays (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), pp. 145-178
October 23: Discussion of reading
Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” in Art After Modernism: Rethinking Representation (New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art in association with David R. Godine, Publisher, Inc., Boston, 1984), pp. 361-373
October 28: Discussion of thesis for paper
October 30: Discussion of reading
Douglas Crimp, “On the Museum’s Ruins,” in On the Museum’s Ruins (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1993), pp. 44-64
Daniel Buren, “Function of the Museum,” in Richard Hertz, Theories of Contemporary Art (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice Hall, 1993), pp. 189-192
November 4 : Discussion
Michelle Meagher, “Jenny Saville and a Feminist Aesthetics of Disgust,” Hypatia, vol. 18, no. 4 (Fall 2003). 23 – 39.
November 6 : Discussion
Monique Wittig, “The Straight Mind,” in Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Cultures, ed. Russell Ferguson (New York: The Museum of Contemporary Art, 1990), pp. 51-57 .
Harmony Hammond, “Lesbianizing the Queer Field and Other Creative Transgressions,” in Lesbian Art in America (New York: Rizzoli, 2000), pp. 7-13
November 11: Student Presentations (2)
November 13: Student Presentations (2)
November 18: Student Presentations (2)
November 20: Student Presentations (2)
November 26: Student Presentations (2)
November 27: Thanksgiving
December 2: Student Presentations (2)
December 4: last class Student Presentations (2)
FINAL EXAM MEETING
11: 30, Thursday December 11th
Student Presentations (3)