3.0

credits

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What happens to art after the widespread production and circulation of readymade commodities in the twentieth century? How does it contend with the technological developments—print media, photography, film—accompanying industrial production and urbanization? Focusing on procedural innovations central to the history of modern art—collage, nominalism, montage, conceptualism, and performance—and debates in art history about art’s “public,” we will ask how artists responded to, critiqued, and incorporated features of the industrial world in their practice. In particular, we will be interested in asking what kind of shared culture art attempted to forge against the homogenizing forces of industrial capitalism. Central to our inquiry is the repeated concern artists, critics, and theorists raise about the distinction between art and life, and about the importance to both of critical historical thinking. While introducing students to the history of modern art, this course also focuses on special contemporary projects by artists of color, theorized together using digital materials. Texts include Marx, Adorno, Benjamin, Federici, and Mulvey.