Studies in 20th & 21st-Century Art (460-0-2)

Topic

Modernism Now

Instructors

Christina Kiaer

Meeting Info

Kresge 4354 Art Hist. Sem. Rm.: Tues 2:00PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

This seminar asks, what does the study of modernism look like now, in 2025? Modernism in the visual arts is usually described as a phenomenon that began in Europe sometime after 1850 and came to an end at some contested date around 1970, with the advent of a broadly defined post-modernism. Yet this timeline is highly Euro-American- and capital-centric. Modernist art, as a response to modernity, happened—and perhaps continues to happen—at different times in different parts of the globe and under different political regimes, like socialism. This course will examine defining texts on modernism, including more recent decolonial accounts that decenter modernism (e.g., Partha Mitter). It will also examine recent key books on modernism in art (such as Joshua I. Cohen's The "Black Art" Renaissance: African Sculpture and Modernism across Continents, Stephen S. Lee's The Ethnic Avant-Garde, Anna Arabindan-Kesson's Black Bodies White Gold, and my own Collective Body: Aleksandr Deineka at the Limit of Socialist Realism), which demonstrate the current state of the field and allow us to imagine the possible futures of modernist study from the perspective of our current predicament.

Class Materials (Required)

There is no required textbook for this course.