Required Texts
Barnet, Sylvan. A Short Guide to Writing About Art. 7th ed. Prentice Hall, 2002. ISBN: 9780321101440.
[Harrison] =
Harrison, Charles, and Paul Wood, eds. Art in Theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas. 2nd ed. Blackwell Publishing, 2002. ISBN: 9780631227083.
[Foster] =
Foster, Hal, Rosalind Krauss, et al. Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism, Vols. 1&2. 2nd ed. Thames and Hudson, 2011. ISBN: 9780500289518.
[Frascina] =
Frascina, Francis, and Jonathan Harris, eds. Art in Modern Culture: An Anthology of Critical Texts. Phaidon Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780714828404.
| LEC # | LECTURE TOPICS | READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1–Modernity, Modernism, Modernization | ||
| 1 | Introduction to Theories of Modernism and Modernity |
OptionalView John Berger's BBC program, "Ways of Seeing," Episode 1. 1972. |
| Week 2–Mass Culture and Revolution | ||
| 2 | Introduction to Theories of Mass Culture |
Williams, Raymond. "When Was Modernism?" In [Frascina]. |
| 3 | Eugène Delacroix, or How to Imagine Liberty |
Pointon, Marcia. "Liberty on the Barricades: Woman, Politics and Sexuality in Delacroix (1986)." Chapter 3 in Naked Authority: The Body in Western Painting, 1830-1908. Cambridge University Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780521409995. |
|
Week 3–Field Trip Field trip to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts to see Monet's La Japonaise (Camille Monet in Japanese Costume), 1876, and other paintings. | No readings | |
| Week 4–Post–Revolutionary France | ||
| 4 | Caricature and the Safehouse of "High Art" |
Merriman, John M. "'Philipon Versus Philippe': The July Monarchy and its Enemies." In The Pear: French Graphic Arts in the Golden Age of Caricature. Edited by Elise K. Kenney and John M. Merriman. Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, 1991. |
| 5 | Courbet, Realism, and Popular Images / ASCO preview |
|
| Week 5–Manet's Realism and the Painting of Modern Life | ||
| 6 | Manet: Flâneurs and Flâneuses in the Modernizing City / ASCO |
Clark, T. J. "The Painting of Modern Life," and "Preliminaries to a Possible Treatment of Manet's Olympia in 1865." In [Frascina]. Wolff, Janet. "The Invisible Flâneuse: Women and the Literature of Modernity." Theory, Culture and Society 2, no. 3 (1985): 37–46. Also available in:
|
| 7 | European Orientalism: Camille's Kimono and Gauguin's Skir |
Said, Edward. "Orientalism." In [Frascina]. Expanded version available in:
|
| Week 6–Impressionism & Photography | ||
| 8 | The Impressionist Eye as Camera |
Varnedoe, Kirk. "The Artifice of Candor: Impressionism and Photography Reconsidered." Art in America 68, no. 1 (1980): 66–68. Also available in: Perspectives on Photography: Essays in Honor of Beaumont Newhall. Edited by Peter Walch and Thomas Barrow. Olympic Marketing Corp., 1986. ISBN: 9780826308627. |
| Week 7–Serialism & Semiosis | ||
| 9 | Serial Impressions (Print and Eye) |
Eisenman, Stephen. "The Intransigent Artist or How the Impressionists Got their Name." In [Frascina]. Isaacson, Joel. "Impressionism and Journalistic Illustration." ( Goldwater, Robert. "l'Affiche moderne: A Revival of Poster Art After 1880." Gazette des Beaux Arts 22, no. 910 (1941): 173–82. |
| 10 | Picasso's Cubism: Politics and/or Semiosis |
Leighten, Patricia. "The White Peril and L'Art negre: Picasso, Primitivism, and Anticolonialism." ( Krauss, Rosalind. "In the Name of Picasso." 1981. In [Frascina]. Expanded version available in:
[Foster]. Vol. 1, pp. 78–84 and pp. 106–17 |
| Week 8–New Subjects for Modernity | ||
| 11 | The Soviet Avant-Garde |
Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." 1936. In [Frascina]. Greenberg, Clement. "Avant-Garde and Kitsch." 1939. In [Harrison].
[Foster]. Vol. 1, pp. 130–4 and pp. 180–5. Optional
|
| 12 | Futurism's and Dadaism's Popular Mechanics |
Marinetti, F. T. "The Founding Manifesto of Futurism." 1909. In [Harrison].
[Foster]. Vol. 1, pp. 90–7 and pp. 172–9. |
| Week 9–Production and (Commodity) Fetish | ||
| 13 | In and Around Duchamp |
Duchamp, Marcel . "The Richard Mutt Case." 1917. In [Harrison].
[Foster]. Vol. 1, pp. 160–5. Optional
|
| 14 | Irrational / Rational Production: Surrealism vs. The Bauhaus Idea |
Breton, Andre. Excerpts from "The First Manifesto of Surrealism." 1924. In [Harrison]. Bataille, Georges. "The Lugubrious Game." 1929. In [Harrison]. Gropius, Walter. "The Theory and Organization of the Bauhaus." 1923. In [Harrison]. Koss, Juliet. "Bauhaus Theater of Human Dolls." The Art Bulletin 85, no. 4 (2003): 724–45. [Foster]. Vol. 1, pp. 191–5, pp. 196–201, pp. 214–9 and pp. 224–7. |
| Week 10–Postwar Primitives | ||
| 15 | Anti-culture? Dubuffet, Pollock, and Premonitions of the Postmodern |
Dubuffet, Jean. "Notes for the Well-Lettered." 1946. In [Harrison]. ———. "Crude Art Preferred to Cultural Art." 1949. In [Harrison]. Greenberg, Clement. "Modernist Painting." In [Frascina]. Guilbaut, Serge. "The New Adventures of the Avant-Garde in America." In [Frascina]. [Foster]. Vol. 2, (Dubuffet) pp. 369–74 and (Pollock) pp. 387–91.
|
| Week 11–Marketing Mass Culture | ||
| 16 | Robert Rauschenberg's Coca-Cola Plan / International Pop |
Alloway, Lawrence. "The Arts and the Mass Media." 1958. In [Harrison].
Hamilton, Richard. "For the Finest Art, Try Pop." 1961. In [Harrison]. [Foster]. Vol. 2, (Rauschenberg) pp. 406–10, (Independent Group), pp. 423–8, (Johns) pp. 442–8 and (Cold War) 459–63. |
| 17 | The "Business Art Business," Globalism vs. Globalization |
Oldenburg, Claes. "Documents from The Store." 1961. In [Harrison]. "Andy Warhol: Interview with Gene Swenson." 1963. In [Harrison]. "Roy Lichtenstein: Lecture to the College Art Association." 1964. In [Harrison].
Jameson, Fredric. "Periodizing the 60s." Social Text, no. 9/10, The 60's without Apology (1984): 178–209.
[Foster]. Vol. 2, (Lichtenstein, Warhol, etc.) pp. 483–7, (Oldenburg) pp. 488–93 and (more Warhol) pp. 530–5. |
| Week 12–Simulation, Spectacle, & the Postmodern | ||
| 18 | Postmodernism, Spectacle, and Institutional Critique |
Steinbach, Haim, et al. "From Criticism to Complicity." 1986. In [Harrison]. Wodiczko, Krzysztof. "Public Projection." 1983. In [Harrison]. Debord, Guy. "Writings from the Situationist International." 1957–1961. In [Harrison]. Baudrillard, Jean. "The Hyper-realism of Simulation." 1976. In [Harrison]. |
| 19 | Postmodernism and Feminism |
[Foster]. Vol. 2, (Baudrillard and artists) pp. 624–33, (Jameson and artists) pp. 640–3 and (appropriation) pp. 644–8. |
| Week 13–New Media & Biennial Culture | ||
| 20 | New Media / Mass Media / Sensory Reconfigurations |
Jones, Caroline A. "The Server/User Mode: The Art of Olafur Eliasson." Artforum International 46, no. 2 (2007): 316–25.
|
| 21 | Biennial Culture and the Aesthetics of Experience |
Jones, Caroline A. "Troubled Waters: Caroline A. Jones on Globalism and the Venice Biennale." Artforum International 44, no. 6 (2006): 91–2. [Foster]. Vol. 2, pp. 758–69. |
| Week 14–Present Strategies | ||
| 22 |
Present-day Strategies Vis-a-vis Art and Mass Culture Guest lecturers: Star TAs, Rebecca Uchill and Niko Vicario!
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Spiegler, Marc. "When Human Beings Are the Canvas." ( Fraser, Andrea. "From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique." ( Riding, Alan. "Alas, Poor Art Market: A Multimillion-Dollar Head Case," New York Times, June 13, 2007.
Lambert-Beatty, Carrie. "Twelve Miles: Boundaries of the New Art/Activism." (
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| 23 | Last class: concluding discussion of class themes, review for exam, and discussion of student research paper abstracts. | No readings |

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