Description

This course has two interrelated aims. First, we will attempt to come to terms with some of the prevalent themes and issues of contemporary art such as ‘globalisation’, ‘ecology’ and ‘relationality’ and we will consider how they have been understood by artists, critics and theorists. The second aim is to place the category of the ‘contemporary’ under scrutiny, to ask what makes a work of art contemporary, and under what conditions (aesthetic, political, ethical, geographic, economic) particular works come to be recognized as such.

The module will be broadly thematic in structure, focusing on specific case studies and drawing on a range of different kinds of art writing and approach.

Objectives

By the end of the module students should have acquired:

• familiarity with a range of artistic and critical practices in contemporary art
• knowledge of a range of theoretical and art historical texts and art works relating to contemporary art
• the ability to think critically and carefully about art studied from both a theoretical and historical perspective

Preliminary Reading

• ‘Questionnaire on ‘the contemporary’, October, 130, Fall 2009
• The monthly magazine Artforum is a terrific source for reviews and articles on contemporary art
• Y-A Bois, B. Buchloh, H. Foster, R. Krauss, Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism, 2005, roundtable ‘The predicament of contemporary art’