VSA2110

Critical Perspectives in Modern Art

(ART)

Annette Van den Bosch

6 points + 2 hours per week + Second semester + Clayton + Prerequisites: A first-year sequence in Visual Culture or permission + Prohibition: VSA3110

Synopsis: This unit examines the critique of modernism that in part created the conditions of postmodernism. The major aesthetic tendencies and critical concepts examined are: formalism versus materialism, autonomy, war, modernist utopias, the communicative potential of abstraction, the discourse of colour, the rappel a' l'ordre, , industrial production and the machine, the unconscious, and psychoanalytic interpretations of art. Examples will be drawn from major art movements, Jugendstil, Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, Orphism, Dada and Surrealism, De Stijl and the Bauhaus, Art Deco and Streamlining, Neue Objectivity and Anti-Nazi Art and Nazi and Fascist Art, Russian Avant Garde.

Assessment: Essay (3000 words): 60% + Visual analysis test (1 hour): 40%