ARTH 019. Contemporary Art

This survey class introduces students to key developments within global art practices since 1950. The course will explore how the politics, ideologies, and the contexts of contemporary artists working around the world shaped diverse artistic approaches in diverse media, including painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, performance, new media, and digital art. Students will be introduced to the major stylistic trends in art since 1950 and examine how these styles were translated across international and cultural contexts and developed in response to or as an alternative to the dominant narrative of modernism as conceived by the West. Areas of study include instances of Abstraction, Pop art, Minimalism, Conceptualism, Land Art, Video, Performance Art, and Installation Art in geographic areas including the United States, Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa, Oceania, and the Indigenous Americas. Each class will explore major historiographic themes through case studies of exemplary contemporary artists including postcolonialism, feminism, postmodernism, hybridity, decolonization, ecocriticism, and transnationalism.

Note: This course is an Introductory Survey Course
Humanities.
1 credit.
Catalog chapter: Art History
Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/art

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