Description

This module aims to examine art made in California that addresses the idea of ‘identity’, which might include that of the artist communicated in their work as well as the community within which that work is received. California as a state which up until 1848 was under Mexican rule provides a particularly rich backdrop against which to understand the art created within the struggles for civil rights in the United States at mid-twentieth-century. This module will look at the very particular way in which the debates surrounding race, gender, and sexuality that developed in the 1960s are nuanced in California in the period covered by the course. Students will develop a vocabulary and a theoretical understanding that will allow them to discuss the relationship between identity politics and art making in the period. 

Objectives

At the end of the course students:

• should be able to clearly articulate what is meant by the term ‘identity politics’
• should have a broad understanding of the history of the State of California and the particular geography of Los Angeles and San Francisco
• will have a developed knowledge of the way in which identity politics manifested itself in California (particularly in Los Angeles and San Francisco)
• will have developed nuanced ways of thinking about the relationship between identity politics and art making
• will be able to discuss in detail a number of institutions in the state of California that supported art making linked to identity politics in the period
• will have developed academic and graduate skills
• students will develop key skills in: independent research, presenting their work, condensing and explaining the arguments of others, writing clearly and articulately in an academic context
   
  

Preliminary reading

**EVERYBODY MUST HAVE READ BY THE BEGINNING OF THE COURSE IN OCTOBER RAYNER BANHAM’S BOOK LOS ANGELES: THE ARCHITECTURE OF FOUR ECOLOGIES**

LOS ANGELES: THE ARCHITECTURE OF FOUR ECOLOGIES by Reyner Banham was originally published in 1971 and has been reprinted several times since then, use any edition for your preparatory reading. It is available on Amazon and abe books online at very reasonable prices so I would recommend buying a copy, otherwise there are a few copies in our library and it may be available through your local library. This is a quick read and not too taxing.

I would also recommend the following:

Rebecca Peabody et al eds, Pacific Standard Time: Los Angeles Art 1945-1980, Tate Publishing, 2011, This is an exhibition catalogue that covers a lot of the material we will be covering on the course with excellent photographs and easy to follow text.

Thomas Crow, The Rise of the Sixties, Lawrence King, 2005 (any edition is fine). An excellent introduction to the art of the 1960s, which puts Californian art into a broader context.

William H Chafe, The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War Two, Oxford University Press, first edition 1986 several since. This is a very good textbook on the history of America broadly in the period we will be studying.

Theodore Roszak, The Making of a Counterculture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and its Youthful Opposition, California, 1995. This is a study of the origins of the counterculture published in 1969, it remains one of the most important books on the era.

Mike Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, Verso, 2006, This book is more about the city as it exists today but is excellent preparation for the course.

 

Some other books you might like to read for a flavour of the time and place, they have all had multiple editions so should be available cheaply:

Anonymous, Go Ask Alice, 1971

Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice, 1968

Allen Ginsberg, Howl and other poems, 1956

Jack Kerouac, On the Road, 1957

Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums, 1958

Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, 1968

Armistead Maupin, Tales of the City, 1978

Judy Chicago, Through the Flower: My Struggle as a Woman Artist, 1975

 

Watching the following films will also be useful:

Black Power Mix Tape, (dir. Goran Olsson, 2011)

Blade Runner, (dir. Ridley Scott, 1982)

Howl, (dirs Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, 2010)

Los Angeles Plays Itself, (dir. Thom Andersen, 2003)

Milk, (dir. Gus van Sant, 2008)

Sweet Sweetback’s Badassssss Song, (dir. Melvin van Peebles, 1971)

Vertigo, (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)

Zabriskie Point, (dir. Michelangelo Antonioni, 1970)