Contemporary Art in New York
AHIS 470
May 19-June 14, 2014
Suzanne Hudson,
Contemporary art in New York offers a course in contemporary art history and critical writing, seeing these practices in dialogue. Over the weeks of the Maymester term, students will view numerous exhibitions and installations in museums, galleries, and outdoor sites, as well as study the history of criticism with the goal of learning to write about art from looking closely at it. Meetings with a host of art professionals—from critics and editors to curators and educators—will offer a range of opinions that will inform group discussions and provide insight into the practical concerns such jobs entail.
Reading seminars will introduce students to the history and practice of writing about contemporary art. Beginning with examples of exemplary historical criticism, we will then investigate more recent discourses around modern art, finally analyzing contemporary criticism's numerous forms in relation to its diverse venues (e.g., newspapers, magazines, monographs, and online formats) and imagined or real audiences. While reading will thus comprise a significant portion of our curriculum, students will also generate their own writings based on responses to objects and exhibitions that we will also visit as a group, and work as peer editors in the classroom setting. All of the above will contribute to a portfolio of critical writing.
Statement for Students with Disabilities:
Any student requesting academic accommodations based on a disability is required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be sure the letter is delivered to me as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301 and is open 8:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. The phone number for DSP is 213.740.0776.
Statement on Academic Integrity:
USC seeks to maintain an optimal learning environment. General principles of academic honesty include the concept of respect for the intellectual property of others, the expectation that individual work will be submitted unless otherwise allowed by an instructor, and the obligations both to protect one’s own academic work from misuse by others as well as to avoid using another’s work as one’s own. All students are expected to understand and abide by these principles. Scampus, the Student Guidebook, contains the Student Conduct Code in Section 11.00, while the recommended sanctions are located in Appendix A: http://www.usc.edu/dept/publications/SCAMPUS/gov/. Students will be referred to the Office of Student Judicial Affairs and Community Standards for further review, should there be any suspicion of academic dishonesty. The Review process can be found at: http://www.usc.edu/student-affairs/SJACS/.
Class requirements:
Readings and attendance (with assumed participation, including peer editing) in seminars and on related excursions are mandatory. The seriousness with which each member of the class engages the written work of her peers will determine the viability of the workshop model; grades will reflect each student’s commitment to the intellectual life of the group. Participation will determine 10% of your grade; portfolio review/peer editing will be worth 15% of your grade; and an oral presentation at a museum or gallery on that institution’s history will be worth 15% of your grade.
You will write the following throughout the semester, the sum total of which will constitute 60% of your grade:
• A formal analysis of a work of art (1,000 words)
• A review of a museum exhibition (1,000 words)
• A review of a gallery exhibition (choice of 600 or 1,000 words)
For each of the reviews, you will be expected to draft a brief statement detailing your choice of tone, style, method of argumentation, etc., in relation to the piece’s context. Indeed, for what publication—which newspaper, journal, or magazine—was this written? And how does your use of language and prioritization of content respond to the chosen format and/or solicit the relevant addressee?
Grades will be given at the end of the semester based on a revised portfolio of work completed until that time; for each piece, you will turn in the original draft, peer edits, your edits, and the “final” version.
Class Syllabus:
May 19: Reading Session prior to Travel (VKC 151, 12-3)
What is Criticism?
· Thomas Crow, “Diderot’s Salons,” Diderot on Art I (Yale, 1995) ix-xix.
· Denis Diderot, Selections from “The Salon of 1765” and “Notes on Painting,” Diderot on Art I (Yale, 1995)
· Charles Baudelaire, “The Painter of Modern Life,” The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays (Phaidon, 1995) 1-41
· Hal Foster, “Against Pluralism,” Recodings (Bay Press, 1985)
May 20: Reading Session prior to Travel (VKC 151, 12-3)
Who is a Critic?
· John Dewey, Selections from Art as Experience (Perigree, 1980)
· Pierre Bourdieu, “The Production of Belief,” The Field of Cultural Production (Columbia, 1993) 74-111
· Dave Hickey, Selections from Air Guitar (Art Issues, 1997)
· Douglas Crimp, “How to Have Promiscuity in an Epidemic” October (Winter 1987) 237-271
May 21: Reading Session prior to Travel (VKC 151, 12-3)
Admitting Anxiety
· Leo Steinberg, “Contemporary Art and the Plight of its Public,” “Jasper Johns: The First Seven Years of His Art,” Other Criteria (Oxford, 1972) 3-54
· Lucy Lippard, "Change and Criticism: Consistency and Small Minds," Changing (1971) 23–34
· Yasmin Reza, Art (Faber&Faber, 1994)
· Benjamin Buchloh, “Critical Reflections,” Artforum (February 1997) 68-69, 102
May 22: Visit to LA MoCA, 250 S. Grand Avenue (public transit accessible: http://www.moca.org/museum/moca_grandave.php#metro)
Formal analysis due May 23 (please email to me by 6pm, PST)
May 26: Holiday and NYU Move-In Day: Welcome to NY!
May 27:
11:00 Luxemburg Dayan, Shaped Canvas, Revisited; Uptown Galleries
2:00 Visit Metropolitan Museum – Discussion of Encyclopedic Collection
Meeting with Ian Alteveer, Associate Curator, Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
May 28 (Three hour seminar, Emily Harvey Foundation, 537 Broadway, 10-1)
Performative Criticism vs. Anglo-American Formalism
· Neil Flax, “Fiction Wars of Art,” Representations (Summer 1984) 1-25
· Harold Rosenberg, Selected Writings
· Clement Greenberg, Selected Writings
· Thierry de Duve, “The Three Greenbergs,” “The Paths of Criticism,” Clement Greenberg Between the Lines (Dis Voir, 1996) 7-37
· Boris Groys, “Critical Reflections,” Art Power (MIT, 2008) 111-120
· Boris Groys Interview, Frieze online: http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/who_do_you_think_youre_talking_to/
May 29 (Three hour seminar, EHF, 1:00-4:00)
Taking Positions
· Michael Fried, “Art and Objecthood,” Art and Objecthood (Chicago, 1998) 148-172
· Robert Smithson, “Letter to the Editor,” Artforum (October 1967)
· Robert Storr, “Letter to the Editor,” Artforum (November 2002)
· James Elkins, What Happened to Art Criticism? (Prickly Paradigm, 2003)
· Look at “Assessments” in The State of Art Criticism, ed. James Elkins and Michael Newman (Routledge, 2008) 233-360
We will walk together to the New Museum, 235 Bowery, Discussion of Museum Without a Collection; 4:30 meeting with Johanna Burton, Keith Haring Director and Curator of Education
May 30
11:00 Whitney Museum, meeting with Kathryn Potts, Associate Director, Helena Rubinstein Chair of Education; see Biennial
1:30 Creative Time Kara Walker show, Brooklyn
May 31-June 1: No class
June 2 (Three hour seminar, EHF, 3:00-5:00)
Beginning with the Beginning, or Starting from the Object
· T.J. Clark, The Sight of Death: An Experiment in Art Writing (Yale, 2006)
We will go together to meet Lauren O'Neill-Butler, critic and editor of Artforum.com (please familiarize yourselves with the website before the meeting)
June 3 (1-TBD)
Visit Chelsea Galleries. Meeting at Entrance to Highline, elevator on 16th Street and 10th Avenue (NE side of intersection, just north of Chelsea Market, which I would recommend for lunch)
June 4
11:00 Brooklyn Museum
12:30 Meet with Anne Byrd, Manager of Interpretation for the Whitney Museum (meeting at Brooklyn Museum)
* First review due. Please circulate to whole group before class.
June 5
Meetings among members of each peer edit group. Time and location to be determined by each group.
1:00 Meeting with Claire Gilman, Curator, The Drawing Center
We will continue on to Lower East Side and SoHo Galleries
Studio Visit with Nathlie Provosty, late afternoon
Visit with Phong Bui, Publisher of Brooklyn Rail
June 6
Noon: Meet at Simone Subal Gallery, meeting with Simone Subal and Alexander Dumbaze
We will go to MoMA together, meeting with Paulina Pobocha, Associate Curator (4:30 in Cullman Classroom B in Education Wing)
From Object to Context – The Modern Museum
· Kirk Varnedoe, “The Evolving Torpedo: Changing Ideas of the Collection of Painting and Sculpture of The Museum of Modern Art,” The Museum of Modern Art at Mid-Century (MoMA 1995) 13-73
· Douglas Crimp, “On the Museum’s Ruins,” October (Summer 1980) 41-57
· Rosalind Krauss, “The Cultural Logic of the Late Capitalist Museum,” October (Autumn 1990) 3-17
· Hal Foster, Denis Hollier, Silvia Kolbowski, and Rosalind Krauss, “The MOMA
Expansion: A Conversation with Terence Riley,” October (Spring 1998) 3-30
· Andrea Fraser, “From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique” Artforum (September 2005) 278-286
June 7-8: No class
June 9
10: 00 Neue Gallerie, tour of Degenerate Art show and discussion of private philanthropy
We will then go to the Guggenheim Museum – Discussion of Futurism Show with Curator Susan Thompson
Jewish Museum
5:30, Tribeca office of Artsy at 5:30, meeting with Matthew Israel, Director of the Art Genome Project
* Second review due. Circulate to working group only.
June 10 (Three hour seminar, EHF, 1-4)
When and Where did Criticism Matter?
· Amy Newman, Challenging Art: Artforum 1962-1974 (Soho, 2000)
· Maurice Berger, The Crisis of Criticism (especially Arlene Croce and Joyce Carol Oates) (The New Press, 1998)
· Hal Foster, “Art Critics in Extremis,” Design and Crime and Other Diatribes (Verso, 2002) 104-122
· “Round Table: The Present Conditions of Art Criticism.” October (Spring 2002) 200–228
· Tim Griffin, “Editor’s Letter,” Artforum (October, 2003) 18
· Jerry Saltz, “Has Money Ruined Art?” New York Magazine (October 7, 2007)
Meeting with New York Observer Critic, Maika Pollock
June 11 (Three hour seminar, EHF, 1:00-4:00)
The Contemporary as Boon for Criticism
· Questionnaire on “The Contemporary,” October (Winter 2009)
· Alexander Dumbadze and Suzanne Hudson, Contemporary Art 1989-Present (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013)
Afternoon: Film screening and discussion with Jeffrey Perkins at EHF.
Laura Raicovich, 4:30 Director of Global Initiatives, CREATIVE TIME
59 East 4th Street, 6th Floor
Farewell dinner. Details TBA.
June 12
Morning: Individual meetings with Prof. Hudson.
MoMA PS1 (and Sculpture Center) – optional
Meetings among members of each peer edit group. Time and location to be determined by each group.
June 13
Free day to finish portfolio.
June 14
* Portfolios Due