Welcome to AHIS 210 Art and Culture Since 1950! This course will address global visual art production since 1950, with an emphasis on Europe and North America. Different art practices and aesthetic theories will be examined in order to foreground the complex relations that exist between art objects and practices, and specific theoretical, cultural, and historical contexts. Throughout, students will be introduced to a range of theoretical and methodological models which foreground formal investigations, philosophical inquiry, and social and cultural analysis. Specifically this course will pay particular attention to how artists critically address mass culture and spectacle, public space and experimental social relations, identity politics, anti- and post-colonial struggles and environmental justice. We will consider how artists, activists, and film- and video-makers, and critical theorists have explored innovative ways of approaching the politics of aesthetics, collaborative practices, and socially engaged participation, contributing to creative and critical modes of re-imagining the world and our place within it.
- Teacher: Chessa Adsit-Morris