Modern Art and Mass Culture, Spring 2004

Abstract: Examines significant episodes in the history of modern art from the end of the enlightenment to the early twentieth-century in relation to emerging visual technologies (lithography, photography, the poster, photomontage), urban audiences, and consumer culture. Major artistic movements (Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Surrealism) are discussed along with theoretical writings about the relationship between avant-garde artistic practices and mass culture. No previous knowledge of art history is required. This class provides an introduction to modern art and theories of modernism and postmodernism. It focuses on the way artists use the tension between fine art and mass culture to mobilize a critique of both. We will examine objects of visual art including painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, and video. These objects will be viewed in their interaction with advertising, caricature, comics, graffiti, television, fashion, folk art, and so-called "primitive" art.

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