2024-2025 Academic Catalog

Nov 18, 2024

2024-2025 Academic 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 contemporary artists and 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.

Prerequisites: Any studio art course

Course Designation/Attribute: DI, POP

Anticipated Terms Offered: periodically