2020-2021 Academic Catalog

Nov 21, 2024

2020-2021 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

ARTS 274 - Contemporary Directions

This course will explore the subjects, issues and themes that are important to artists working today. As a Diversity & Inclusion (D & I) designated course, content will center on artists from underrepresented groups and the impact their work has on the cannon of visual art and culture. Students will research a roster of artists including Theaster Gates, Maya Lin, Felix Gonzales Torres, El Anatsui, Carmen Herrera, Ghada Amer, Bill Traylor, and Judith Scott, among many others. Featured artists will address a variety of topics, including race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, age, religion, class, and ability/accessibility. Emphasis will be placed on the positionality of artists and audiences, structures of power within cultural institutions, and intersectionality as a compounding form of discrimination. Students will be expected to actively participate in discussions, complete all readings, short writing assignments, and projects. Two long-term projects will be assigned in which each student selects a contemporary artist to research and create a body of art work in response. Course projects will investigate the lived experience of diverse artists and how identity is and is not reflected in aesthetic images and objects.

May be repeatable for credit.

Prerequisites: Any studio art course

Course Designation/Attribute: DI

Anticipated Terms Offered: periodically