Semester:
Offered:
What role do artistic practices play in the formation of modern culture and society, and how does art foster critical reflection and debate?
Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, David Joselit, and Maria Gough
How has modernity—understood as a socio-economic reality, technological condition, cultural discourse, and set of aesthetic practices—redefined the purpose and function of art over the past three hundred years or so? What role has modern art played in the constitution of the modern experience of subjectivity? Beginning in the early 18thC and concluding in the early 21stC, the course traces art’s transformation from a tool of power elites into an instrument also of broad public instruction and civic debate on controversial topics. By learning about the diversity of ways in which modern artists have contributed to the production and critique of cultural and social life you will acquire the skills to make the most of your experience of art exhibitions and museums. This knowledge of the long history of modern art will help you better navigate a cultural present characterized by the ever-greater importance in everyday life of the production and consumption of images. It will also enable you to gain a deeper awareness of how art participates in critical dissent and aesthetic speculation in today's troubled world.
