lectures: Monday & Thursday 2:00-3:25 Heimbold 202 conferences: Tuesday 12-1, Heimbold 210; Wednesday 2-3, Heimbold 211

Transcription

1 Judith Rodenbeck Heimbold 304B x2622 Contemporary Art lectures: Monday & Thursday 2:00-3:25 Heimbold 202 conferences: Tuesday 12-1, Heimbold 210; Wednesday 2-3, Heimbold 211 This course reviews the critical and aesthetic problems that have dominated advanced artistic practice in the West since World War II. The emphasis will be on covering a broad spectrum of issues raised by artworks and art ideas from the late 1950s to the present, including appropriations of earlier aesthetic strategies of the historical avant-garde by recent practitioners. Textbooks All reading is either in the required or the recommended texts or online. Copies of all reading will also be available on reserve. Required texts are available in the bookstore. Reading marked with an (*) will be distributed in class. Required text: Hopkins, David. After Modern Art, (Oxford, 2000). Stiles, Kristine & Selz, Peter (eds). Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art (Berkeley, 1996) (TD). Recommended texts: Frascina, Francis & Harris, Jonathan (eds). Art In Modern Culture: An Anthology of Critical Texts (Phaidon, 1994) (AMC). Harrison, Charles & Wood, Paul (eds). Art in Theory, : An Anthology of Changing Ideas (Blackwell, 2002) (AT). Stangos, Nikos (ed). Concepts of Modern Art, rev. ed. (Thames & Hudson, 1994) (CMA). Unit 1: The 1950s 1/20 Introduction: Modernism and the Contemporary 1/24 & 1/27 Abstract Expressionism, Informel & the New Man Charles Harrison, Abstract Expressionism, (CMA) David Hopkins, Chapter 1, The Politics of Modernism, 5-36 Clement Greenberg, Modernist Painting, (AMC) 1/31 & 2/3 After Abstract-Expressionism: Dada Siegt! quiz 1 David Hopkins, Chapters 2 & 3, Duchamp s Legacy & The Artist in Crisis, & Branden Joseph, White on White, Critical Inquiry 27:1 (Fall 2000): (EBSCO) Allan Kaprow, The Legacy of Jackson Pollock, Art News 57:6 (August 1958): 24-26ff*

2 Unit 2: Production and Consumption 2/7 & 2/10 Material Culture and Everyday Life: Pop & Intermedia David Hopkins, Chapter 4, Blurring Boundaries, Edward Lucie-Smith, Pop Art, (CMA) Edward T. Kelly, Neo-Dada: A Critique of Pop, Art Journal 23:3 (Spring 1964): (JSTOR) Owen Smith, Avant-gardism and the Fluxus Project: A Failed Utopia or the Success of Invisibility? Performance Research 7:3 (Sept 2002): 3-12* 2/14 & 2/17 Minimalism & Post-minimalism quiz 2 Suzi Gablik, Minimalism, (CMA) David Hopkins, Chapter 5, Modernism in Retreat, Isabelle Graw, Just Being Doesn't Amount to Anything (Some Themes in Bruce Nauman's Work), October 74 (Autumn 1995): (JSTOR) Ann Wagner, Another Hesse, October 69 (Summer 1994): (JSTOR) Unit 3: The Expanded Field 2/21 & 2/24 The Expanded Field David Hopkins, Chapter 6, The Death of the Object, Rosalind Krauss, Sculpture in the Expanded Field, October 8 (Spring 1979): (JSTOR) Alexander Alberro, The Turn of the Screw: Daniel Buren, Dan Flavin, and the Sixth Guggenheim International Exhibition, October 80 (Spring 1997): (JSTOR) 2/28 & 3/3 Photographs and Paragraphs Roberta Smith, Conceptual Art, (CMA) Benjamin Buchloh, From the Aesthetics of Administration to the Critique of Institutions, October 55 (Winter 1990): (JSTOR) Jeff Wall, "'Marks of Indifference': Aspects of Photography in, or as, Conceptual Art," in Ann Goldstein & Anne Rorimer, eds., Reconsidering the Object of Art: (MIT Press, 1995): * 3/7 & 3/10 The Body midterm Frazer Ward, Some Relations Between Conceptual and Performance Art, Art Journal 56:4 (Winter 1997): (JSTOR) Amelia Jones, Presence in Absentia: Experiencing Performance as Documentation, Art Journal 56:4 (Winter 1997): (JSTOR) Miwon Kwon, "One Place After Another. Notes on Site Specificity," in October 80 (Spring 1997): (JSTOR)

3 3/12-3/27 Spring Break Unit 4: Communicating Vessels 3/28 & 3/31 Activism and Identity Christopher Reed, Postmodernism and the Art of Identity, (CMA) Linda Nochlin, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? Art News 69:9 (Jan 1971): 20-39ff; repr. Women, Art, and Power (Harper & Row, 1988): pp * bell hooks, marginality as site of resistance, in Russell Ferguson et al, eds., Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Cultures (MIT Press, 1990), * Dick Hebdige, Postmodernism and the Politics of Style (AMC) 4/4 & 4/7 Video, Technology, Cyborg Culture Barbara London, Video: A Selected Chronology , Art Journal 45:3 (Autumn 1985) (JSTOR) Martha Rosler, Video: Shedding the Utopian Moment, (TD) Edward A. Shanken, Telematics, Telerobotics, and the Art of Meaning, Art Journal 59:2 (Summer 2000): (JSTOR) 4/11 & 4/14 The Abject, the Formless, & New Figuration quiz 3 David Hopkins, Chapter 7, Postmodernism, Yve-Alain Bois, Painting: The Task of Mourning (AMC) Douglas Crimp, Pictures, October 8 (Spring 1979): (JSTOR) Unit 5: Global Groove 4/18 & 4/21 Contemporaneity as Idea & Problem David Hopkins, Chapter 8, Into the 90s, Jonathan Crary, Capital Effects, October 56 (Spring 1991): (JSTOR) Rosalind Krauss, The Cultural Logic of the Late Capitalist Museum, October 54 (Autumn 1990): 3-17 (JSTOR) Reiko Tomii, Historicizing "Contemporary Art": Some Discursive Practices in Gendai Bijutsu in Japan, positions: east asia cultures critique 12: 3 (Winter 2004): (MUSE) 4/25 & 4/28 Relational Aesthetics & the Post-Medium Condition Reading Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics Glossary ( Nicolas Bourriaud, Today s Art Practise ( Nicolas Bourriaud & Bennett Simpson, Public Relations: an interview with Nicolas Bourriaud, Artforum 39:8 (April 2001): 47-48*

4 5/2 & 5/5 The Medium is the Market: Festival Culture & the International Style Reading Iain Chambers, Unrealized Democracy and a Posthumanist Art, in Democracy Unrealized. Documenta 11 - Platform 1 (Kassel: documenta/ Museum Friedericianum-Veranstaltungs GmbH/Hatje Cantz, 2002), * Angela Dimitrakaki, Art and Politics Continued: Avant-garde, Resistance and the Multitude in Documenta 11, Historical Materialism 11:3 (2003): (EBSCO) Anthony Downey, The Spectacular Difference of Documenta XI, Third Text 17:1 (2003): (EBSCO) 5/9 & 5/12 final Course Requirements Assigned reading for each week must be completed in advance of the class session. Suggested reading provides relevant source material; this material supplements each week s discussion and may be read alongside the required reading each week. Attendance: This is an actively visual and discursive course. It is not based on a textbook, but rather on your interaction with the words and work of contemporary artists and with the broader field of ideas from which they emerge and through which they have been understood. Attendance of both lectures and conferences is obligatory; you will not be able to catch up on missed sessions by cramming the reading. Discussion: Each student is expected to be an active and productive participant in class discussion, and will give several presentations in group conference. Evaluation: Your evaluation will be based on a) the quality of your written work, b) the quality of your participation in class, and c) your overall assimilation of the course materials.

5 Suggested in Stiles & Selz, Art in Theory (AT), and Art in Modern Culture (AMC) 1/24 & 1/27 Abstract Expressionism, Informel & the New Man Eva Cockcroft, Abstract Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold War (AMC) Jackson Pollock, Guggenheim Application, and Interview with William Wright, Mark Rothko, I Paint Very Large Pictures, 26 Robert Motherwell, Beyond the Aesthetic, 26-8 Alfred Barr, The New American Painting, 42-3 Willem de Kooning, Content is a Glimpse, Jean Dubuffet, Anticultural Positions, Michel Tapié, An Unknown Art, Observations, 44 Wols, Aphorisms, 45 Henri Michaux, Movements, 46-7 Lucio Fontana, Manifesto blanco, Antoni Tàpies, I Am a Catalan, Painting in a Void, Harold Rosenberg, from The American Action Painters, (AT) Clement Greenberg, Towards a Newer Laocoon, (AT) /31 & 2/3 After Abstract-Expressionism: Dada Siegt! Robert Rauschenberg, Untitled Statement, Note on Painting, Interview with Barbaralee Diamonstein, Jasper Johns, Untitled Statement, Interview with G. R. Swenson, Notes, Frank Stella, The Pratt Lecture, Questions to Stella and Judd, , Ad Reinhardt, Twelve Rules for a New Academy, 25 Lines of Words on Art: Statement, The Black-Square Paintings, Andy Warhol, Warhol in his own words: untitled statements, Pierre Restany, The Nouveaux Réalistes Declaration of Intention, Forty Degrees Above Dada, Gerhard Richter, Interviews, Francis Bacon, Interviews with David Sylvester, Karel Appel, My Paint is like a Rocket, Piero Manzoni, For the Discovery of a Zone of Images, Yves Klein, Ritual for Relinquishment of the Immaterial Pictorial Sensitivity Zones, 81 Clement Greenberg, from After Abstract Expressionism, (AT) Michael Fried, from Three American Painters, (AT) Leo Steinberg, from Other Criteria, (AT) Unit 2: Production and Consumption 2/7 & 2/10 Material Culture and Everyday Life: Pop & Intermedia Guy Debord, Report on the Construction of Situations, Situationist International, Definitions, Richard Hamilton, Letter, Popular Culture and Personal Responsibility, Propositions, Allan Kaprow, Untitled Guidelines for Happenings, , Claes Oldenburg, I am for an Art, John Cage, Composition as Process Part II: Indeterminacy, Wolf Vostell, Manifesto, dé-coll/age, George Maciunas, Letter to Tomas Schmit, Daniel Spoerri, Trap Pictures, Spoerri s Autotheater, George Brecht, Project in Multiple Dimensions, Yoko Ono, To the Wesleyan People,

6 Gustav Metzger, Auto-Destructive Art, etc., /14 & 2/17 Minimalism & Post-minimalism Michael Fried, Art and Objecthood, (AT) Donald Judd, Specific Objects, Robert Morris, Notes on Sculpture Part III: Notes and Nonsequiturs, Dan Flavin, Some Remarks from a Spleenish Journal, Bridget Riley, Untitled Statement, 112 Tony Smith, Talking with Tony Smith, Agnes Martin, The Untroubled Mind, Bruce Nauman, Notes and Projects, Eva Hesse, Letter to Ethelyn Honig, Untitled Statements, Richard Serra, Rigging, Barry Le Va,...a continuous flow of fairly aimless movement, Unit 3: The Expanded Field 2/21 & 2/24 The Expanded Field Walter de Maria, Meaningless Work, On the importance of Natural Disasters, The Lightning Field, Robert Smithson, The Spiral Jetty, Michael Heizer, Dennis Oppenheim, Robert Smithson, Discussion, Nancy Holt, Sun Tunnels, Gordon Matta-Clark, Remembrance by Susan Rothenberg, Dan Graham, Three Projects for Architecture and Video/Notes, Marcel Broodthaers, Ten Thousand Francs Reward, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Maintenance Art Manifesto, Sanitation Manifesto! Hans Haacke, Untitled Statements, Museum, Managers of Consciousness, Adrian Piper, Ideology, Confrontation and Political Self-Awareness, Daniel Buren, Beware!, /28 & 3/3 Photographs and Paragraphs Ed Ruscha, Concerning Various Small Fires, Sol Lewitt, Paragraphs on Conceptual Art, Sentences on Conceptual Art, Joseph Kosuth, Untitled Statement, Art After Philosophy, Lucy Lippard, Interview with Ursula Meyer, Postface, (AT) Art & Language, Letter to Lucy R. Lippard and John Chandler, Introduction to Art- Language, John Baldessari, What Thinks Me Now, Recalling Ideas, Victor Burgin, Looking at Photographs, Mary Kelly, Preface to Post-Partum Document, Mary Kelly, Re-Viewing Modernist Criticism, (AT) Jenny Holzer, Language Games, Barbara Kruger, Pictures and Words, Sherrie Levine, Five Comments, 379 Roland Barthes, From Work to Text, (AT) /7 & 3/10 The Body Ed Kienholz, The Portable War Memorial, The Beanery, The State Hospital, Carolee Schneeman, From the Notebooks, Woman in the Year 2000, Otto Mühl, Materialaktion: Manifesto, Gunter Brus, Notes on the Action: Zerreissprobe, Untitled Statements, Valie Export, Women s Art: A Manifesto, Vito Acconci, Steps into Performance (And Out), Biography of Work, Chris Burden, Untitled Statement, Border Crossing: Interview with Jim Moisan,

7 Linda Montano and Tehching Hsieh, One Year Art/Life Performance, Suzanne Lacy, The Name of the Game, James Luna, Interview, Unit 4: Communicating Vessels 3/28 & 3/31 Activism and Identity Adrian Piper, Ideology, Confrontation and Political Self-Awareness, Joseph Beuys, Untitled Statement, An Appeal for an Alternative, Milan Knizak, Aktual Univerzity: Ten Lessons, Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party: A Symbol of Our Heritage, Romare Bearden, Interview, Miriam Schapiro & Melissa Meyer, Waste Not Want Not, Valerie Jaudon & Joyce Kozloff, Art Hysterical Notions of Progress and Culture, Faith Ringgold, Interview, David Wojnarowicz, Post Cards from America: X-Rays from Hell, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Memorial Projection, The Homeless Projection: A Proposal for the City of New York, Leon Golub, The Mercenaries, Nancy Spero, Woman as Protagonist, Group Material, Caution! Alternative Space!, Statement, Laura Mulvey, from Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, (AT) /4 & 4/7 Video, Technology, Cyborg Culture Billy Klüver, Theater and Engineering, Stelarc, Beyond the Body, Mark Pauline, Letter to Dennis Oppenheim, SRL, More Dead Animal Jokes, Technology and the Irrational, Laurie Anderson, Interview with Charles Amirkhanian, Nam June Paik, Afterlude to the Exposition of Experimental Television, Cybernated Art, Art and Satellite, Douglas Davis, Manifesto, 437 Gerry Schum, Introduction to TV Exhibition II: Identifications, Frank Gillette, Masque in Real Time, Roy Ascott, Behaviourables and Futuribles, Is There Love in the Telematic Embrace? /11 & 4/14 The Abject, the Formless, & New Figuration Philip Pearlstein, Figure Paintings are not made in Heaven, Lucian Freud, Some Thoughts on Painting, Anselm Kiefer, Structures Are No Longer Valid, Julian Schnabel, Statements, Georg Baselitz, Pandemonic Manifesto, Francesco Clemente, Interview with Robin White, Jeff Koons, From Full Fathom Five, Karen Finley, I Was Not Expected to Be Talented, Letter, Cindy Sherman, Untitled Statement, Interview with Els Barents, Jesse Helms, Senator Helms Objects, Andres Serrano, Letter to the NEA, Robert Mapplethorpe, Interview,