Contemporary Art Survey (270-0-1)
Instructors
Lane B Relyea
640Lincoln St, Evanston Campus
Meeting Info
Block Pick-Laudati Auditorium: Mon, Wed 11:00AM - 12:20PM
Overview of class
This slide-lecture survey course is designed to give both art majors and non-majors an introduction to the myriad forms and concerns of art from the 1960s to the present. We will begin in the present and work our way backwards, looking first at the impact of globalization on the conditions underlying art making, exhibiting and viewing. Emerging paradigms will be examined, such as the superceding of images by information, and of art exhibition by communication and media platforming. We will consider some of the different ways that artists handle information and new media and technology, for example how they have appropriated relatively new forms like networks and databases. The social and technological changes associated with globalization and the artistic responses to such changes will lead us to track shifts in art's relationship to audiences and culture at large, and to question the relevance today of distinctions between high and low, margin and mainstream. With these developments as our framework, we will then review and update notions of modernism and postmodernism in the visual arts, and question the status today of more traditional media like painting and sculpture, as well as re-evaluate the idea of the avant-garde and its long-held desire to merge art and life.
No prerequisites. P/N permitted only if course is not used either as a general distribution or departmental requirement.
Class Materials (Required)
No course cost.
Class Attributes
Historical Studies Foundational Discipline
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Historical Studies Distro Area
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area
Associated Classes
DIS - Kresge Centennial Hall 2-435: Fri 10:00AM - 10:50AM
DIS - Kresge Centennial Hall 2-410: Fri 11:00AM - 11:50AM
DIS - University Library 3370: Fri 1:00PM - 1:50PM
DIS - University Library 3370: Fri 2:00PM - 2:50PM