2022-2023 Academic Catalog

Apr 25, 2024

2022-2023 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

ARTH 144 - Art Since 1970

A survey of the major trends in art since 1970, focused primarily, but not exclusively, on the art scene in Europe and the U.S. We will begin with the art movements of the 1970s that challenged the traditional definition of “a work of art,” including conceptualism, performance art, and body art. The course will examine, in the 1980s and 1990s, the rise of post-modernism, appropriation, and the death (and resurrection) of the author, and in the post-2000 decades will explore the expanded field of painting, sculpture, video, and installation art. We will study art made in recent decades in light of contemporary social and political concerns, such as the women’s movement, civil rights and racial justice, the pervasiveness of commercial culture, and the increasing globalization of identity. While the earlier part of the semester is grounded in historical chronology, the latter two-thirds will be devoted to thematic explorations of art in the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries, with particular attention to artists whose identities have been historically under-represented in the predominantly white art world.

Course Designation/Attribute: AP, D&I

Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every other year