ART 263 - Modern Art

This course will examine the key developments of the modernist period in visual arts, tracing different avant-garde practices and the key players in art movements such as Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, German Expressionism, Dada, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism as well as Minimalism and Pop Art, and analyze them in the context of philosophical, artistic, social and political developments. These include the catastrophes of World War I and World War II, and the ever-increasing powers of capitalism and mass culture. Throughout the semester, we will look at modernism from multiple perspectives, critically examining its “master narratives” and re-evaluating its various “oversights” with regards to class, ethnicity, race, and gender. We will discuss how the tropes of Orientalism and Primitivism functioned within the modernist discourse and consider tensions between nationalism/ internationalism/cosmopolitanism as well as “avant-garde” and popular/mass culture. Fall semester every other year. (4 Credits)