CONTEMPORARY ART HISTORY
CADN Courses (not all courses offered every year)
CADN 6B03: Canadian Art, Design and New Media Art History
This course addresses contemporary artistic, new media art or architectural/design practices in Canada. Depending on the instructor’s specialization, the course may analyze case studies of particular artists, designers or architects; specific art and design scenes in the country’s regions and metropolitan centres; Canadian arts institutions, policies and representation in international projects; criticism and theory; and issues such as nationalism, sovereignty and multiculturalism.
CADN 6B05: Contemporary Indigenous Art, Design and New Media Art History
Depending on the instructor’s specialization, this course will survey pioneering and contemporary work by Aboriginal artists, new media art practitioners, or architects/designers. The rich heritage of First Nations’ culture continues as artists and designers translate traditional values and approaches into modern and postmodern contexts. Such work serves multiple functions: asserting Aboriginal voices and methodologies, critiquing Western aesthetics and politics, and forging alternative theories and cultural analyses.
VISA 6B01: Modernist Legacies: Contextualizing the Contemporary
While contemporary art, design and new media practices since the 1980s have been discussed in relation to the postmodern condition, modernist influences are as important for their interpretation and context. This course examines key issues of modernism and texts that address the contemporary's ghosts, ruins and legacies, including the relevance of the avant-garde, the scope of multiple modernities, and the Duchampian turn in the production and reception of culture. The course considers whether it was postmodernity or modernity itself that called into question the relationship of art to society, politics, mass culture, and the crisis in representation.
VISA 6B02: The History of Art History
This seminar traces the evolution of art history as a discipline with a focus upon the major figures who have contributed to the definition and practice of art historiography. From art history’s origins to the present day, figures such as Giorgio Vasari, J.J. Winckelmann, Heinrich Wölfflin, Alois Reigl, Henri Focillon, Erwin Panofsky, Meyer Schapiro, T.J. Clark and Griselda Pollock, among others, will be studied. The historical shifts in concepts such as originality, style, periodicity, movement and artistic subject will also be examined.
VISA 6B04: Issues in Contemporary Artistic Practice
Tailored to the individual faculty member’s research interests, this course investigates emerging and experimental strategies within artistic practice. Utilizing innovative materials, unconventional audience engagements, and a radically diverse range of issues, contemporary artworks often defy categorization and posit thematics that are post-object, post-media, and post-identity.
VISA 6B05: Postcolonial Issues in Visual Culture
This course reflects upon the issues generated by colonialism and its postcolonial after-effects in art and society. The historical legacy of colonialism still deeply inflects visual culture, requiring both the critique and deconstruction of persistent stereotypical notions such as race, centre/periphery, and ethnocentrism. By considering the concepts of hybridity, resistance, appropriation, mimicry, and transnationalism in the work of contemporary artists and theorists, this course will underscore the significance of cultural agency in the twenty-first century.
VISA 6B07: Art in the Public Sphere
As the mythic narratives of collective unity, nationalism and progress have faltered in the era of postmodernity, what then is the public role of art? This course will examine contemporary art as it critiques and reformulates the notions of monument, memory, audience and community. While art may serve the ideological interests of institutions, there also lies the potential for intervention and activism, as well as a more critical relationship with popular culture.
VISA 6B08: Issues in Art History and Culture
New social contexts, theoretical frameworks, and objects of analysis challenge conventional notions of art historical practice. Potential topics range from developments in art history as it exists within academia (e.g., its relation to postdisciplines such as Visual Studies or Cultural Studies) to art history in the expanded sense as it relates to the broader cultural landscape, such as literature, performance and cinema.
VISA 6B11: Politics of Power in the Artworld
Despite the decentralization of the artworld in the past few decades, the influence of institutions such as art schools, museums, corporations and governments persists and has evolved into ever more complex formations of power. This course combines art historical, sociological, and critical perspectives to examine how artists and artworks are situated not only within the cultural sphere, but also in the commercial, entertainment, media, and information industries. As the contexts of production and consumption increase, so too do the possibilities of artist-generated responses to and critiques of such power structures, which this course will also address.
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Suggested Readings
Alberro, Alexander and Blake Stimson, eds., Institutional Critique: An Anthology of Artists’ Writings, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011.
Allen, Felicity, ed., Education: Documents of Contemporary Art, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011.
Augita, Louisa, Ana Belluzo, Hans Belting and Andrea Buddensieg, eds., Global Art World, Berlin: Hatje Cantz Verlag Press, 2009.
Batchelor, David, ed., Color: Documents of Contemporary Art, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008.
Beech, Dave, ed., Beauty: Documents of Contemporary Art, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009.
Belting, Hans, Art History after Modernism, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Berland, Jody and Shelley Hornstein, eds., Capital Culture, Toronto/Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000.
Bishop, Claire, Installation Art: A Critical History, London: Routledge, 2005.
Bishop, Claire, ed., Participation: Documents of Contemporary Art, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006.
Bois, Yve-Alain and Rosalind E. Krauss, Formless: A User’s Guide, Cambridge: Zone Books, 2000.
Bourriaud, Nicolas, Relational Aesthetics, Dijon: Les Presse Du Reel, 1988.
Bryan-Wilson, Julia, Art Workers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam War Era, Berkley: University of California Press, 2011.
Buckley, Brad and John Conomos, eds., Rethinking the Contemporary Art School: The Artist, the PhD and the Academy, Halifax: Nova Scotia College of Art and Design Press, 2010.
Buskirk, Martha, The Contingent Object of Contemporary Art, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005.
Cashell, Kieran, Aftershock: The Ethics of Contemporary Transgressive Art, London: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2009.
Chiu, Melissa and Benjamin Genocchio, eds., Contemporary Art in Asia: A Critical Reader, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011
Dillon, Brian, ed., Ruins: Documents of Contemporary Art, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011.
Doherty, Claire, ed., Contemporary Art: From Studio to Situation, London: Black Dog, 2004.
Doherty, Claire, ed., Situation: Documents of Contemporary Art, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009.
English, Darby, How to See a Work of Art in Total Darkness, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007.
Evans, David, ed., Appropriation: Documents of Contemporary Art, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009.
Foster, Hal, The Return of the Real: The Avant-Garde at the End of the Century, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996.
Foster, Hal, ed., The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, New York: New Press, 2002.
Frascina, Francis, Art in Modern Culture, London: Phaidon Press, 1994.
Fried, Michael, Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.
Giunta, Andrea, Avant-Garde, Internationalism and Politics: Argentine Art in the Sixties, Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.
Groys, Boris, Art Power, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008.
Halsall, Francis, Julia Jansen and Tony O’Connor, eds., Rediscovering Aesthetics: Transdisciplinary Voices from Art History, Philosophy, and Art Practice, Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2008.
Harris, Jonathan, Identity Theft: Cultural Colonisation and Contemporary Art, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2009.
Heartney, Eleanor, Art & Today, London: Phaidon Press Inc., 2008.
Hickey, Dave, Air Guitar: Essays on Art & Democracy, Los Angeles: Art Issues Press, 1997.
Higgie, Jennifer, ed., The Artists’ Joke: Documents of Contemporary Art, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007.
Hung, Wu and Peggy Wang, eds., Contemporary Chinese Art: Primary Documents, Durham: Duke University Press, 2010.
Iverson, Margaret, ed., Chance: Documents of Contemporary Art, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010.
Johnstone, Stephen, ed., The Everyday: Documents of Contemporary Art, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008.
Jones, Amelia, Body Art/Performing the Subject, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1998.
Jones, Amelia ed., A Companion to Contemporary Art since 1945, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006.
Jones, Amelia, ed., The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader, London: Routledge, 2010.
Kelly, Caleb, ed., Sound: Documents of Contemporary Art, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011.
Kester, Grant, Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art, Berkley: University of California Press, 2004.
Kwon, Miwon. One Place after Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002.
Le Feuvre, Lisa, ed., Failure: Documents of Contemporary Art, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010.
Leung, Simon and Zoya Kocur, eds., Theory in Contemporary Art Since 1985, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2004.
Madoff, Steven Henry, ed., Art School: Propositions for the 21st Century, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009.
Martin, Lee-Ann, ed., Making a Noise!: Aboriginal Perspectives on Art, Art History, Critical Writing and Community, Banff: Banff Center, 2006.
Merewether, Charles, ed., The Archive: Documents of Contemporary Art, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006.
Mitchell, WJT, What do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.
Morley, Simon, ed., The Sublime: Documents of Contemporary Art, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010.
Mouffe, Chantal, Svent Lutticken and Nina Montmann, Art as a Public Issue, Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2008.
Myers, Terry R., ed., Painting: Documents of Contemporary Art, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011.
Noble, Richard, ed., Utopias: Documents of Contemporary Art, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009.
October 130, “The Contemporary,” 2009.
O'Reilly, Sally, The Body in Contemporary Art, London: Thames & Hudson, 2009.
Perry, Gil and Paul Wood, eds., Themes in Contemporary Art, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.
Ranciere, Jacques, The Politics of Aesthetics, London and New York: Continuum, 2006.
Ranciere, Jacques, Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics, London and New York: Continuum, 2010.
Rogoff, Irit, Terra Infirma: Geography's Visual Culture, London: Routledge, 2000.
Robertson, Jean and Craig McDaniel, Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art After 1980, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Rushing, Jackson W., ed., Native American Art in the Twentieth Century, New York: Routledge, 1999.
Schneider, Arnd and Christopher Wright, eds., Contemporary Art and Anthropology, Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2006.
Smith, Terry, What Is Contemporary Art?, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.
Smith, Terry, Okwui Enwezor and Nancy Condee, eds., Antinomies of Art and Culture: Modernity, Postmodernity, Contemporaneity, Durham: Duke University Press, 2008.
Stallabrass, Julian, Art Incorporated: The Story of Contemporary Art, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Van Alphen, Ernst, Art in Mind: How Contemporary Images Shape Thought, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2005.
Walker, John, Art and Celebrity, London: Pluto Press, 2003.
Williams, Gilda, ed., The Gothic: Documents of Contemporary Art, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007.
Yúdice, George, The Expediency of Culture: Uses of Culture in the Global Era, Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.
Last Modified:2/16/2012 8:20:55 AM
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