CRITICAL THINKING ON ART: FROM MODERN TO CONTEMPORARY
Department of Western Languages and Literature, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Culture & Arts
Fall 2016
Instructor: Dr. Rana Öztürk
Email:
This is a preliminary syllabus to give an idea about the course. It will develop further through the semester depending on interests and needs of the class.
Description:
This course aims to provide students with an overview of critical thinking and approaches to contemporary art through a study of texts by influential critics and theorists since the second half of the 20th century. The course will start with an examination of modernism in America, focusing on Greenberg’s notion of formalist modernism and the hegemonic role of the Museum of Modern Art in New York in the Cold War context. It will continue with a discussion of minimalist and conceptualist tendencies, followed by critical art movements and alternative art groups in the 1970s and 1980s.
The course will then introduce the claims for “the end of art”, linking those claims to the critical debates on Western-centrism of the art world informed by postcolonialism and globalization. It will highlight contemporary art as global art, focusing on biennials as key exhibitions that inform artistic discourse. The starting point of each class will be a key text (if not more) that formulated a critical approach to the art of its time. Through a study of these texts the course intends to introduce the shifting course of thinking from modernism towards global contemporary art. Rather than a chronological and exhaustive survey, the course will investigate key moments that formed the critical and contextual framework that continue to inform contemporary art practice and criticism. The texts will be discussed in relation to specific art works, exhibitions or institutions.
Learning outcomes:
1) Students will learn about critical thinking and contextual frameworks that influenced artistic discourses since the l950s until the present.
2) Students will grasp the shifting notion of modernism with an awareness of key moments that led to the emergence of global contemporary art.
3) Students will learn how to read and evaluate critical texts on art.
4) Students will gain skills to view, discuss and appreciate contemporary art.
5) Students will develop critical writing skills on art.
6) Students will gain an awareness of institutional structures of art.
Procedures & Requirements:
Each lecture will revolve around ideas and arguments in one (or two) critical essay, occasionally supplemented by additional texts that provide larger contextual information for the debates. Students are required to read the essays in advance of the class. Reading assignments are critical for the course and will form the basis for class discussion. Essays will be made available in advance of the class either as scanned copies or photocopies and distributed to the class by email or other appropriate method available at school.
The lecture will introduce the main concepts and issues discussed in the essay with reference to specific artists, art works, exhibitions or other cultural works. The students are expected to contribute to the discussions based on their interpretation of the related reading. They will also be asked to discuss and write on art works and exhibitions relevant to the topics in class. Some historical examples as well as examples from current local exhibitions will become part of the course, either in the form of writing assignments or presentations.
Course Material:
There is no single text book for this course. However, the books listed below can be used as reference and source books for some of the suggested readings. Further book suggestions will be made through the course.
Terry Barrett (2012) Criticizing Art, Understanding the Contemporary, McGraw-Hill.
Harrison, C. & Wood, P. (eds.) (2003) Art in Theory 1900-2000, UK: Blackwell Publishing.
Jones, Amelia (ed.) (2006) A Companion to Contemporary Art Since 1945, London: Blackwell.
Perry, J. & Wood, P. (2004) Themes in Contemporary Art, Milton Keynes, London: The Open University & Yale University Press.
Stallabrass, J. (2006) Contemporary Art: A Very Short Introduction, New York: Oxford University Press.
Williams, Gilda (2014) How to Write About Contemporary Art, Thames and Hudson.
Assessment:
Attendance and participation ……………... %15
Writing assignment on readings ………….. %10
Writing assignment on an exhibition/artist .. %10
Mid-term …………………………………...%25
Final ………………………………………..%40
Course Schedule
Week 1: Introduction
Meeting students; getting to know their backgrounds and interests; introducing the aims of the course and its content; discussing practical issues such as distribution of essays, evaluation, paper assignments, etc.
Week 2: Modernism / Greenberg’s Formalism / Museum of Modern Art, New York
Greenberg, Clement (1960) “Modernist Painting”, in Harrison, C. & Wood, P. (eds.) (2003) Art in Theory
1900-2000, UK: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 773-779.
Grunenberg, Christof (1999) “The Modern Art Museum” in BARKER. E. (ed.) (1999) Contemporary Cultures of Display, New Haven & London: Yale University Press & The Open University, pp. 26-50.
Rosenberg, Harold (1952) “The American Action Painters”, Art News.
Week 3: Minimalism: Major Concerns and Debates
Judd, Donald (1965) “Specific Objects”, in Judd, D. (1975) Complete Writings 1959-1975, Halifax: Nova Scotia.
Fried, Michael (1967) “Art and Objecthood”, Artforum, June 1967.
Meyer, James (2005) “Introduction” in Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties, Yale University Press.
Week 4: Conceptualism: Dematerialization of Art
Lippard, Lucy R. (1997) Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972.
Lippard, Lucy R. (2009) “Curating By Numbers”, Tate Papers, Land Mark Exhibitions Issue 12.
LeWitt, Sol (1967) “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art”, Artforum, Vol. 5, No 10.
Weiner, Lawrence (1972) “Statements”, in Harrison, C. & Wood, P. (eds.) (2003) Art in Theory
1900-2000, UK: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 893-894.
“Conceptual Art” in The Art Story: http://www.theartstory.org/movement-conceptual-art.htm
Week 5: Alternative Actions & Institutional Critique
Lippard, Lucy R. (2002) “Biting the Hand: Artists and Museums in New York since 1969”, in AULT, J. (ed.) Alternative Art New York, 1965-1985, Minneapolis & London: University of Minneasota Press, pp. 79-120.
Buren, Daniel (1970) “Function of the Museum”, in Alberro, A. & Stimson, B. (eds.) (2009) Institutional Critique: An Anthology of Artists’ Writings, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Fraser, Andrea (2005) “From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique”, Artforum, Vol. 44, Issue 1, p.27.
Week 6: Feminist Interventions
Nochlin, Linda “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?”
Caldwell, Susan Havens (1980), “Experiencing ‘The Dinner Party’” Woman’s Arts Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Autumn 1980 – Winter 1981), pp. 35-37.
Schapiro, Miriam (1972) “The Education of Women as Artists: Project Womanhouse”, Art Journal, Vol. 31, No. 3, pp. 268-270.
Martha Rosler: “Semiotics of the Kitchen”, Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm5vZaE8Ysc
Week 7: The Crisis of Art & Art History
Belting, Hans (1987) The End of the History of Art?, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Danto, Arthur C. (1984) “The End of Art”, in LANG, B. (ed.) The Death of Art, New York: Haven.
Danto, Arthur C. (1997) “Introduction: Modern, Postmodern, and Contemporary”, in After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of History, Princeton University Press.
Available at http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/d/danto-art.html
Week 8: Mid-term
Week 9: Art of the non-Western World, Primitivism Exhibition at MoMA, New York
McEvilley, Thomas (1984) “Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief: ‘“Primitivism” in Twentieth-Century Art at the Musuem of Modern Art’”, Artforum, November 1984.
Week 10: Contemporary Art in a Postcolonial Constellation
Enwezor, Okwui (2008) “The Postcolonial Constellation: Contemporary Art in a State of Permanent Transition”, in Smith,T., Enewzor, O., and Condee, N. (eds.), Antinomies of Art and Culture: Modernity, Postmodernity, Contemporaneity, Durham & London: Duke University Press, pp.207-234.
Ratnam, Niru (2004) “Art and Globalization”, in PERRY, G. & WOOD P. (eds.), Themes in Contemporary Art, Milton Keynes, London: The Open University & Yale University Press, pp.277-313.
Week 11: Social Turn & Relational Aesthetics
Bishop, Claire (2006) “The Social Turn: Collaboration and its Discontents”, Artforum, February 2006.
Bourriaud, Nicolas (1998) Relational Aesthetics, Dijon, France: Les Presses Du Reel.
Bishop, Claire (2004) “Antagonism and relationship aesthetics”, October, 110 (Fall 2004), pp. 51-79. Available through e-journals: http://www.mitpressjournals.org.ezproxy.fiu.edu/doi/pdf/10.1162/0162287042379810
Week 12: Contemporary Art and the Global World
Stallabrass, J. (2006) “New World Order”, in Contemporary Art: A Very Short Introduction, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 19-49.
Belting, H. (2009) “Contemporary Art as Global Art: A Critical Estimate”, in Belting, H. & Buddensieg, A. (eds.) (2009) The Global Art World: Audiences, Markets, and Museums, Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, pp.38-73. Available at http://www.globalartmuseum.de/media/file/476716148442.pdf
Week 13: Biennials and the Global Art Discourse
Sheikh, Simon (2009) “Marks of Distinction, Vectors of Possibility: Questions for the Biennial”, in Filipovic, E., Van Hal, M., Øvstebø, S. (eds.) (2010) The Biennial Reader: An Anthology on Large-Scale Perennial Exhibitions of Contemporary Art, Ostfildern and Bergen: Hatje Cantz Verlag, Bergen Kunsthall, pp.150-163.
Marchart, Oliver (2014) “The Globalization of Art and the ‘Biennials of Resistance’: A History of the Biennials from the Periphery”, CuMMA PAPERS, NO.7, Helsinki: Department of Art, Aalto University. Available at http://cummastudies.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/cumma-papers-7.pdf
Week 14: Final Exam/Paper