Jan10
Apply to SAIC's Graduate and Post-Bacc programs by January 10 for fall 2025 admission.
Friday, January 10 12:00 a.m. - 11:58 p.m. CST
Dual Degree Admissions Information
Graduate Dual Degree
Application deadline: January 10
SAIC's graduate dual degree option in Modern and Contemporary Art History and Arts Administration and Policy provides students with a means to earn two synergistic degrees as efficiently as possible while maintaining the integrity and high standards of each degree.
Application and Admissions Information
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Priority Deadline: December 1 - $45 Application Fee
Application Deadline: January 10 - $90 Application Fee
Apply online via SlideRoomIf you are also interested in applying to the Arts Administration program, please ONLY submit a single application to the Dual Degree: Modern & Contemporary Art History AND Arts Administration & Policy.
SAIC requires applicants to apply online. Filing an online application requires a valid credit card and a current email address. You may apply to up to three programs with one application and fee. If you are applying to either the MFA in Studio or the Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Studio you may select up to three departments of entry.
Applications must be submitted prior to 11:00 p.m. (CST) on the appropriate deadline. When you click the "submit" button on the Graduate Application form, you will be prompted to enter credit card information to pay the application fee. Your application form is not fully submitted until you have entered your credit card information.
Under no circumstances will an application fee be waived or refunded. After you submit the application form you will be directed to a dashboard where you can begin working on your ePortfolio(s).
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A conferred four-year baccalaureate degree or its equivalent is required for admission to all graduate programs at SAIC. Transcripts are records of your studies that list the courses you completed, the grades received, and provide evidence of degree conferral. They may include grade sheets, exam results, final diplomas, degrees, or graduation certificates. Official copies are issued in the original language directly by your university. Copies must bear the official stamp or seal of the institution, as well as the signature of the appropriate official such as the dean, rector, registrar, controller of examinations, or office of teaching affairs. Photos, notarized copies, facsimiles, or email transmissions are not acceptable.
Official translations are expected for all educational documents issued in a language other than English. A translation agency or university language department should issue official translations typed on official stationary and the translator must attest proficiency in the original language and indicate their translations are accurate word-for-word.
During the application process an unofficial transcript is acceptable for review pending an Admissions decision. Official transcripts are required upon admission. Include transcripts both official and unofficial from all universities/colleges from which a degree was obtained or prerequisites were fulfilled. You can attach unofficial transcripts as .pdf or .jpg files in the Educational History section of the application form. If you are in the process of completing a bachelor's degree when you apply, a transcript showing your first three years of study is acceptable.
Transcripts are considered official if sent directly from the degree- or credit-granting institution to the SAIC Graduate Admissions Office. Hard copy transcripts are considered official if the documents remain in the registrar's original signed and sealed envelopes. Official transcripts can be sent both in digital and hard-copy format. Digital transcripts can be sent from the degree- or credit-granting institution to gradmiss@saic.edu. Hard copy transcripts can be mailed to:
SAIC Graduate
36 S. Wabash Ave., Suite 1201
Chicago, IL 60603Students admitted to a graduate program who have not received a high school diploma, GED or equivalent are not eligible for federal Title IV financial aid funds.
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Please submit two responses in your statement of purpose document:
- Write a 500- to 700-word statement of purpose that describes the history of your interests and experiences in Arts Administration, your personal and professional motivations and goals, and your reasons for pursuing graduate study at SAIC, and thoughts on potential future directions.
- Write a 500 to 700 word statement that describes your Art History work or research. Discuss how you came to focus on the medium, body of work, or academic area you wish to pursue at the graduate level. Also discuss future directions or goals for your work, and describe how this area of study is particularly suited to your professional goals.
A statement of intent is required for all graduate programs though the content varies by department. You will upload your statement of purpose to the Attachments section of your E-Portfolio.
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3 letters of reference are required.
You are responsible for securing letters of recommendation from persons who are qualified to write about your potential for success at SAIC. If you are currently a student or are a recent graduate, we recommend you request letters of recommendation from current or former instructors.
Letters of recommendation should be submitted electronically via the References section of the application form. In this section you will be asked to provide an email address for each of your references. Once you click "send request," an email will be sent from SlideRoom to your references with instructions on how to submit their recommendations online.
If your references cannot provide an online recommendation please contact the Graduate Admissions office at gradmiss@saic.edu.
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A current résumé is required.
A resume is required for all graduate programs. Upload your résumé to the Attachments section in your E-Portfolio.
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For the Master of Arts in Arts Administration and Policy program, submit a sample of your critical writing, up to 2,000 words in length. This can be either an essay assignment from a previous course of study, an excerpt from a longer research paper, or a recently published article.
For the Master of Arts in Modern and Contemporary Art History program, submit a 15 to 25 page critical writing sample that demonstrates knowledge of the field, ability in research, and clarity of argumentation. Submissions should be written on a topic in modern or contemporary art history from the 19th century to the present, but papers dealing with earlier historical eras will be accepted if they are in dialogue with current debates and methods. Additionally, topics dealing with relevant theories and philosophies, visual studies, and film studies will be considered.
Applicants are required to submit an E-Portfolio, though the content varies by department. Please visit your individual program of interest to find details. You must submit a separate E-Portfolio for each program or studio department to which you apply. After you pay the application fee and submit the application form, an E-Portfolio for each of the programs you selected in the application form will automatically appear in your SlideRoom dashboard.
Submission Specifications
- Images: .jpg, .gif, .pdf (up to 5 MB each)
- Videos: .flv, .wv, .mov (up to 60 MB each)
- Audio: .mp3 (up to 10 MB each)
- Text documents: MUST be in .pdf format (up to 10 MB each)
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TOEFL: 100
IELTS: 7
DUOLINGO: 120International applicants are required to submit evidence of English language proficiency. You are waived from this requirement if you meet any of the following conditions:
- Your native language is English
- You have an undergraduate degree conferred by a U.S. accredited university
- You have an undergraduate degree conferred by a university whose primary language of instruction is English
If you do not meet one of these conditions, you must submit official English language proficiency test scores. You are strongly encouraged to schedule a language proficiency test appointment as early as possible in order to receive official test scores prior to the application deadline.
SAIC accepts official scores from the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), International English Language Testing System (IELTS), and Duolingo. The TOEFL Institution Code for SAIC is 1713. Please upload an unofficial copy of your test score results to the International Requirements section of the application form.
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The department conducts interviews by invitation only. Applicants who pass the preliminary review will be invited to schedule an interview in Mid-February. Notification will be sent by late January. For students at a distance or unable to travel, interviews may be conducted remotely.
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Dual Degree students writing their thesis in Art History and electing to follow the Design History pathway are expected to take ARTHI 5007 as their methods seminar followed by at least four seminars in the Design History curriculum. Thesis topics should address the history and theory of design or architecture.
Specialization in Design History within the Master of Arts (MA) in Modern and Contemporary Art History
Graduate students in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism's graduate degree programs may elect to follow a specialized pathway in Design History. Coursework in this specialization focuses on the production of knowledge, discourses, practices, and domains of objects that have been understood to fall under the broad category of design. As with the MA in Modern and Contemporary Art History degree as a whole, seminars and research topics focus on the modern and contemporary periods.
Students following the Design History pathway will study the theories and practices of design and examine the conception, production, interpretation, and consumption of design.
MA in Modern and Contemporary Art History students electing to follow the Design History pathway are expected to take ARTHI 5007 as their methods seminar, followed by at least four seminars in the Design History curriculum. Thesis topics should address the history and theory of design or architecture.
Recent graduate seminars and courses in Design History include:
- ARTHI 5101: Theories of Things: Art/Design/Object
- ARTHI 5111: Urbanization and Its Discontents
- ARTHI 5122: Critical Terms in Modern Architecture
- ARTHI 5547: Typographic Modernity & Print
- ARTHI 5571: Design and the Body
- ARTHI 5575: Extraordinary Bodies: Disability/Art/Design
- ARTHI 4547: Biopolitics and Data Visualization
- ARTHI 5480: Vernacular, Colonial, Global: Modern Architecture at the End of Empire
Curricular Requirements for the Design History Pathway 36 credit hours total ARTHI 5007: History of Art History 3 credit hours 4 graduate seminars (5000-level) in Design History
12 credit hours Global Issues seminar (5000 level) that focuses on art worlds outside of Europe and North America or focuses on Global Art Theory.
A list of courses that satisfies this requirement is available from the department every semester.
3 credit hours 2 additional seminars in Art History 6 credit hours 2 interdisciplinary electives (4000-6000 level) or additional Art/Design History seminars 6 credit hours ARTHI 5999 and ARTHI 6999 Thesis sequence in second year 6 credit hours Completion of thesis Degree Requirements and Specifications
- Completion schedule: Students have a maximum of four years from entry into the program to complete coursework and submit a final, approved thesis. This includes time off for leaves of absence. Credit for Thesis Research and Writing (ARTHI 5999 and 6999) is granted only after the thesis is approved and final copies are submitted to the Department.
- Thesis in Progress: Students who have not submitted a finished thesis for review and approval by the end of the final semester of enrollment are given a Thesis in Progress grade (IP). All students with a Thesis in Progress grade (IP) will be charged the Thesis in Progress Fee in each subsequent full semester until the thesis is completed and approved and the grade is changed to Credit (CR). If the statute of limitations is reached without an approved thesis, the grade will be changed to No Credit (NCR).
- Transfer credits: A minimum of 30 credit hours must be completed in residence at SAIC. Up to six transfer credits may be requested at the time of application for admission and are subject to approval at that time. No transfer credit will be permitted after a student is admitted.
- Curriculum: The program requires 36 credit hours, and each individual course is generally three credit hours. Courses are subject to approval by the Art History Graduate Program Director.
- Art History requirement: From the Graduate Seminars and additional courses in Art History, at least one course (3 credit hours) must be taken from the list of courses designated 19th-century art history and at least one course (3 credit hours) designated early-20th-century art history. A list of courses that satisfies this requirement is available from the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism every semester.
- Global Issues Seminar: If the Global Issues seminar is also designated as Design History, students may use it to also fulfill one of the four graduate seminars in Design History. In this case, students would then be expected to take 3 Additional seminars in Art History rather than 2.
- Electives: Electives can be taken from the following departments and programs without additional approval from the Graduate Program Director: Art History, Theory, and Criticism; Visual and Critical Studies; Arts Administration and Policy; Art Education; and Writing. Graduate seminars and upper-level courses in departments other than those listed above may be allowed as electives, contingent upon prior approval from both the Art History Graduate Program Director and the course instructor.
- Internship/Co-op Option: Students have the option of taking up to three hours of credit through the co-op internship program. These credit hours can be taken as part of additional courses or electives, but internship credits never count toward the required number of seminar credit hours.
- Full-time Status Minimum Requirement: 9 credit hours
Core Design History Faculty
- Shiben Banerji, Design History Coordinator and Assistant Professor, Dept. of Art History, Theory, and Criticism
- Michael Golec, Associate Professor, Dept. of Art History, Theory, and Criticism
- Bess Williamson, Associate Professor, Dept. of Art History, Theory, and Criticism
World-Class Resources
SAIC students have special access to incomparable resources including the Art Institute of Chicago and its Modern Wing, SAIC’s John M. Flaxman Library and Special Collections, numerous on- and off-campus collections, and public programs.
Students also have at their disposal a diverse array of arts, cultural and community organizations in Chicago, and have the opportunity to work in partnership with them on a variety of projects sponsored and led by the department’s Management Studio.
On-Campus Opportunities
Students engage directly with current trends in the fields of art history through numerous events and lectures hosted by the Art History department. The Visiting Artists Program has brought in such distinguished artists as Graham Pullin, Arlene Shechet, Anab Jain, Lewis Hyde, Irene Hofmann, Xaviera Simmons, Kendell Geers, Ron Athey, Beatriz Milhazes, and Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle.
Each year, as part of the Lifton Lecture, a prominent scholar presents a public lecture on a topic related to modern and contemporary art history. A theme over the years has been an emphasis on women art historians and their contributions to the field. Students in their final year present their thesis before the department’s faculty and students.
Dual degree students participate in the production of E-merge: journal of arts administration and policy. E-merge is an online journal produced by graduate students in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Master of Arts Administration and Policy and Dual degree programs, featuring collaborations with guest editors from the SAIC Community. The journal is dedicated to fostering creative discussions amongst leading professionals, academics, and students, and provides dual degree candidates with valuable publication and journal-management experience.
Course Listing
| Title | Catalog | Instructor | Schedule |
|---|---|---|---|
| World Cultures and Civilizations: Prehistory to the Nineteenth Century | 1001 (002) | Artie Foster | Wed
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
Art has been many things to many people. This class introduces students to the history of art and art-like things on Earth from prehistory to ca. 1800 CE. It covers canonical examples from older scholarship alongside works and contexts emerging in recent art histories. Students will learn to perform basic art historical analysis and research, and the course will prepare them to form personal art histories, applying such art histories to their own work.
The course surveys historical art in a global scope, from the beginnings of known culture to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. It introduces students to a range of interdisciplinary frameworks for parsing the production, reception, and conceptualization of art. And it challenges students to think about the relationships between past and present, highlighting how later artists and cultures have engaged earlier art and history. There is a small amount of required reading each week-on average about 20 pages. Written work includes weekly reading responses, two in-class quizzes, an annotated bibliography project, and a take-home final exam. |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| World Cultures and Civilizations: Prehistory to the Nineteenth Century | 1001 (003) | Zack Martin | Mon
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
Art has been many things to many people. This class introduces students to the history of art and art-like things on Earth from prehistory to ca. 1800 CE. It covers canonical examples from older scholarship alongside works and contexts emerging in recent art histories. Students will learn to perform basic art historical analysis and research, and the course will prepare them to form personal art histories, applying such art histories to their own work.
The course surveys historical art in a global scope, from the beginnings of known culture to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. It introduces students to a range of interdisciplinary frameworks for parsing the production, reception, and conceptualization of art. And it challenges students to think about the relationships between past and present, highlighting how later artists and cultures have engaged earlier art and history. There is a small amount of required reading each week-on average about 20 pages. Written work includes weekly reading responses, two in-class quizzes, an annotated bibliography project, and a take-home final exam. |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| World Cultures and Civilizations: Prehistory to the Nineteenth Century | 1001 (004) | Zack Martin | Fri
3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person |
Description
Art has been many things to many people. This class introduces students to the history of art and art-like things on Earth from prehistory to ca. 1800 CE. It covers canonical examples from older scholarship alongside works and contexts emerging in recent art histories. Students will learn to perform basic art historical analysis and research, and the course will prepare them to form personal art histories, applying such art histories to their own work.
The course surveys historical art in a global scope, from the beginnings of known culture to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. It introduces students to a range of interdisciplinary frameworks for parsing the production, reception, and conceptualization of art. And it challenges students to think about the relationships between past and present, highlighting how later artists and cultures have engaged earlier art and history. There is a small amount of required reading each week-on average about 20 pages. Written work includes weekly reading responses, two in-class quizzes, an annotated bibliography project, and a take-home final exam. |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| World Cultures and Civilizations: Prehistory to the Nineteenth Century | 1001 (005) | Joana Konova | Tues
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
Art has been many things to many people. This class introduces students to the history of art and art-like things on Earth from prehistory to ca. 1800 CE. It covers canonical examples from older scholarship alongside works and contexts emerging in recent art histories. Students will learn to perform basic art historical analysis and research, and the course will prepare them to form personal art histories, applying such art histories to their own work.
The course surveys historical art in a global scope, from the beginnings of known culture to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. It introduces students to a range of interdisciplinary frameworks for parsing the production, reception, and conceptualization of art. And it challenges students to think about the relationships between past and present, highlighting how later artists and cultures have engaged earlier art and history. There is a small amount of required reading each week-on average about 20 pages. Written work includes weekly reading responses, two in-class quizzes, an annotated bibliography project, and a take-home final exam. |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| World Cultures and Civilizations: Prehistory to the Nineteenth Century | 1001 (007) | Rhoda Rosen | Tues
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
Art has been many things to many people. This class introduces students to the history of art and art-like things on Earth from prehistory to ca. 1800 CE. It covers canonical examples from older scholarship alongside works and contexts emerging in recent art histories. Students will learn to perform basic art historical analysis and research, and the course will prepare them to form personal art histories, applying such art histories to their own work.
The course surveys historical art in a global scope, from the beginnings of known culture to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. It introduces students to a range of interdisciplinary frameworks for parsing the production, reception, and conceptualization of art. And it challenges students to think about the relationships between past and present, highlighting how later artists and cultures have engaged earlier art and history. There is a small amount of required reading each week-on average about 20 pages. Written work includes weekly reading responses, two in-class quizzes, an annotated bibliography project, and a take-home final exam. |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| World Cultures and Civilizations: Prehistory to the Nineteenth Century | 1001 (008) | Rhoda Rosen | Tues
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
Art has been many things to many people. This class introduces students to the history of art and art-like things on Earth from prehistory to ca. 1800 CE. It covers canonical examples from older scholarship alongside works and contexts emerging in recent art histories. Students will learn to perform basic art historical analysis and research, and the course will prepare them to form personal art histories, applying such art histories to their own work.
The course surveys historical art in a global scope, from the beginnings of known culture to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. It introduces students to a range of interdisciplinary frameworks for parsing the production, reception, and conceptualization of art. And it challenges students to think about the relationships between past and present, highlighting how later artists and cultures have engaged earlier art and history. There is a small amount of required reading each week-on average about 20 pages. Written work includes weekly reading responses, two in-class quizzes, an annotated bibliography project, and a take-home final exam. |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| World Cultures and Civilizations: Prehistory to the Nineteenth Century | 1001 (009) | Rhoda Rosen | Tues
3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person |
Description
Art has been many things to many people. This class introduces students to the history of art and art-like things on Earth from prehistory to ca. 1800 CE. It covers canonical examples from older scholarship alongside works and contexts emerging in recent art histories. Students will learn to perform basic art historical analysis and research, and the course will prepare them to form personal art histories, applying such art histories to their own work.
The course surveys historical art in a global scope, from the beginnings of known culture to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. It introduces students to a range of interdisciplinary frameworks for parsing the production, reception, and conceptualization of art. And it challenges students to think about the relationships between past and present, highlighting how later artists and cultures have engaged earlier art and history. There is a small amount of required reading each week-on average about 20 pages. Written work includes weekly reading responses, two in-class quizzes, an annotated bibliography project, and a take-home final exam. |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| World Cultures and Civilizations: Prehistory to the Nineteenth Century | 1001 (010) | Anneliese Hardman | Thurs
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
Art has been many things to many people. This class introduces students to the history of art and art-like things on Earth from prehistory to ca. 1800 CE. It covers canonical examples from older scholarship alongside works and contexts emerging in recent art histories. Students will learn to perform basic art historical analysis and research, and the course will prepare them to form personal art histories, applying such art histories to their own work.
The course surveys historical art in a global scope, from the beginnings of known culture to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. It introduces students to a range of interdisciplinary frameworks for parsing the production, reception, and conceptualization of art. And it challenges students to think about the relationships between past and present, highlighting how later artists and cultures have engaged earlier art and history. There is a small amount of required reading each week-on average about 20 pages. Written work includes weekly reading responses, two in-class quizzes, an annotated bibliography project, and a take-home final exam. |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Adv Hist World Art:Prehst-1850 | 1001 (01S) | James Elkins | Tues
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This is an advanced section of the survey of world art and culture, prehistory to 1850. It is intended for BAAH students, Scholars Program students, and students interested in the history of writing about art (and teaching the survey). We will begin at 500,000 BC, and cover approximately 50 cultures; the list is at ow.ly/Y902K. In each case we will also question the ways historians describe the culture; we will study the ways art history textbooks promote certain senses of art and national identity; and we will consider how other institutions have tried to teach the global survey. The class is difficult, and requires a lot of memorization. Concurrent Registration in one ARTHI 1101: Discussion Section for Advanced Survey of World Art Prehistory to 1850 is required.
|
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Survey of Modern to Contemporary Art and Architecture | 1002 (001) | Hannah Gadbois | Thurs
3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person |
Description
This course surveys developments in nineteenth and twentieth century art and architecture. Particular emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues, as well as the historical, intellectual, and socioeconomic changes that are reflected or addressed in the works of artists and architects. Note: ARTHI 1001 (or its equivalent) is recommended as a prerequisite for ARTHI 1002.
|
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Survey of Modern to Contemporary Art and Architecture | 1002 (002) | Mikolaj Czerwiński | Mon
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
This course surveys developments in nineteenth and twentieth century art and architecture. Particular emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues, as well as the historical, intellectual, and socioeconomic changes that are reflected or addressed in the works of artists and architects. Note: ARTHI 1001 (or its equivalent) is recommended as a prerequisite for ARTHI 1002.
|
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Survey of Modern to Contemporary Art and Architecture | 1002 (003) | Siamack Hajimohammad | Fri
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This course surveys developments in nineteenth and twentieth century art and architecture. Particular emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues, as well as the historical, intellectual, and socioeconomic changes that are reflected or addressed in the works of artists and architects. Note: ARTHI 1001 (or its equivalent) is recommended as a prerequisite for ARTHI 1002.
|
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Survey of Modern to Contemporary Art and Architecture | 1002 (004) | Mikolaj Czerwiński | Tues
3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person |
Description
This course surveys developments in nineteenth and twentieth century art and architecture. Particular emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues, as well as the historical, intellectual, and socioeconomic changes that are reflected or addressed in the works of artists and architects. Note: ARTHI 1001 (or its equivalent) is recommended as a prerequisite for ARTHI 1002.
|
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Survey of Modern to Contemporary Art and Architecture | 1002 (005) | Hannah Gadbois | Wed
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
This course surveys developments in nineteenth and twentieth century art and architecture. Particular emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues, as well as the historical, intellectual, and socioeconomic changes that are reflected or addressed in the works of artists and architects. Note: ARTHI 1001 (or its equivalent) is recommended as a prerequisite for ARTHI 1002.
|
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Survey of Design History: Between Object and Ephemera | 1015 (001) | Lara Allison | Thurs
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This lecture course grounds students in basic critical themes in the history of design and design objects. Through lectures, demonstrations, and readings students study the material and discursive conditions of the history of design.
Through lecture, readings, discussions, and museum visits, the class highlights a broad range of objects and formats in graphic design, object design, fashion design, and architectural design. Course works includes object analysis assignments, short research paper, and mid-term and final exams. |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Modern and Contemporary Moving Image | 1016 (001) | Jason Nebergall | Wed
6:45 PM - 9:30 PM In Person |
Description
In this course, students will learn the basics of film language, cover the evolution of various stylistic and ideological trends throughout the medium, and gain a core understanding of how to critically analyze film and other media forms from formal, historical, and cultural theoretical perspectives.
While the specific films screened may vary, course screenings and readings generally cover the development of Hollywood and studio-based filmmaking practices, diasporic and exilic models of filmmaking, European New Waves, televisual practices of media making, and topics in new media. Students will complete quizzes and a comprehensive final exam to demonstrate their understanding of course terminology, concepts, and themes, as well as a number of short written analyses to exhibit their competency and skill in constructing original scholarly argumentation. |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Discussion Section for Advanced Survey of World Art Prehistory to 1850 | 1101 (01S) | Tues
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM In Person |
|
Description
Students will review the materials from the previous week's lecture, both the class's main thematic and conceptual points, and also the names, practices, and places that may be required for quizzes. The TA will also lead workshops in which students exchange ideas about their notebooks, maps, papers, curated projects, or installations. Concurrent Registration with 1353: ARTHI 1001 005: Advanced Survey of World Art From Prehistory to 1850 section required.
PrerequisitesConcurrent enrollment in ARTHI 1001 Scholars Section required. |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Discussion Section for Advanced Survey of World Art Prehistory to 1850 | 1101 (02S) | Thurs
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM In Person |
|
Description
Students will review the materials from the previous week's lecture, both the class's main thematic and conceptual points, and also the names, practices, and places that may be required for quizzes. The TA will also lead workshops in which students exchange ideas about their notebooks, maps, papers, curated projects, or installations. Concurrent Registration with 1353: ARTHI 1001 005: Advanced Survey of World Art From Prehistory to 1850 section required.
PrerequisitesConcurrent enrollment in ARTHI 1001 Scholars Section required. |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Discussion Section for Advanced Survey of World Art Prehistory to 1850 | 1101 (03S) | Fri
9:45 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
|
Description
Students will review the materials from the previous week's lecture, both the class's main thematic and conceptual points, and also the names, practices, and places that may be required for quizzes. The TA will also lead workshops in which students exchange ideas about their notebooks, maps, papers, curated projects, or installations. Concurrent Registration with 1353: ARTHI 1001 005: Advanced Survey of World Art From Prehistory to 1850 section required.
PrerequisitesConcurrent enrollment in ARTHI 1001 Scholars Section required. |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Discussion Section for Advanced Survey of World Art Prehistory to 1850 | 1101 (04S) | Wed
9:45 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
|
Description
Students will review the materials from the previous week's lecture, both the class's main thematic and conceptual points, and also the names, practices, and places that may be required for quizzes. The TA will also lead workshops in which students exchange ideas about their notebooks, maps, papers, curated projects, or installations. Concurrent Registration with 1353: ARTHI 1001 005: Advanced Survey of World Art From Prehistory to 1850 section required.
PrerequisitesConcurrent enrollment in ARTHI 1001 Scholars Section required. |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Issues in Visual Critical Studies | 2001 (001) | Joshua Rios | Tues
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
This course plunges students into content and ideas that universities often leave until graduate school, as we consider the role played by the 'critical' in 'visual and critical studies.' For the past ten years, it has been referred to as 'a primer for the art world.' It will still, mostly, provide you with a working vocabulary and crash course as to bodies of knowledge integral to the study of visual culture. At the same time, to productively engage in a reflective critique of society and culture, it will consider 'texts' from as diverse and contemporaneous a group of scholars, theorists, critics, and cultural producers as possible, from both inside and outside the academic institution.
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentArea of StudyLocation |
| Issues in Visual Critical Studies | 2001 (002) | Patrick Durgin | Mon
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
This course plunges students into content and ideas that universities often leave until graduate school, as we consider the role played by the 'critical' in 'visual and critical studies.' For the past ten years, it has been referred to as 'a primer for the art world.' It will still, mostly, provide you with a working vocabulary and crash course as to bodies of knowledge integral to the study of visual culture. At the same time, to productively engage in a reflective critique of society and culture, it will consider 'texts' from as diverse and contemporaneous a group of scholars, theorists, critics, and cultural producers as possible, from both inside and outside the academic institution.
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentArea of StudyLocation |
| Surveying the Shadows | 2014 (001) | Simon Anderson | Thurs
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
Since the Exposition des arts incoherents in 1882, the orthodox story of art has been pre-figured, parodied, or echoed by ideas and activities which are less well-known but nevertheless informative about the state of the arts through modernism to today. Including Hydropaths, `pataphysicians and members of groups called Lettrisme or Neoism, propagating ideas ranging from transmental to pandrogenic, this course identifies and contextualizes some of the salient adventures of those who ignore convention to create and play before the vanguard and behind the canon.
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
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Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| 20,000 Years of Clay | 2022 (001) | Emily Schroeder Willis | Wed
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This course surveys the history and production of clay and ceramics, from one of the earliest ceramic objects known, dating back some 20,000 years, to the present use of clay in contemporary art, design and craft. The course will take us through every continent and be looking at the use of ceramic in different cultures at different times though history. Attention will be given to the role clay and ceramic plays in our human development both as ritualistic, artistic and functional handmade and mass-produced objects. From ceramic in an ancient caves to NASA and the use of ceramic in space and everything in between.
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Introduction to African American Art | 2065 (001) | Melanie Herzog | Fri
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
Is it possible to have, or should we even want, an African American Art Historical canon?This class argues that the history of African American Art offers us, in practice and theory, resistant histories of 'high' and 'low' art, everyday objects, and ways of seeing. By conducting a chronological approach to African American Art, we will trace moments of historical continuity as well as emerging practices in order to better understand how the methods, materials, and meanings bracketed under the category of African American Art have been a site of innovation, experimentation, and avant-garde practice. We will spend this semester juxtaposing conventional approaches to art (painting, sculpting, line drawing, installation) with innovative approaches to visual culture (found objects, everyday materials, contemporary performance).
Artists of inquiry include Augusta Savage, Aaron Douglass, Hale Woodruff, Charles White, Elizabeth Catlett, Faith Ringgold, Sam Gilliam, Alma Thomas, David Hammons, Senga Nengudi, Marlon Riggs, Arthur Jafa, Rashid Johnson, Sadie Barnette. We will also discuss author-less works, collectives, and collaborate projects. Students are required to complete an annotated bibliography, weekly in-class assignments, and a 3 hour final examination. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentArea of StudyLocation |
| Beautiful Books: Architectural Prints, Drawings, and Paintings | 2146 (001) | Shiben Banerji | Thurs
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
This seminar examines inter-related practices of bookmaking, drawing, painting, and printmaking from Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Renaissance Venice, Safavid Isfahan, Mughal Delhi, Ottoman Jerusalem, colonial Ireland, Baroque Rome, Qing Wutaishan, and Tokugawa Edo. We scrutinize octavos, folios, codices, and albums. We look at how graphite, ink, watercolor, and engraving tools were used to embellish images, and alter the boundaries separating prints, drawings, and paintings. Writing assignments emphasize close looking, close reading, and careful revision. Class discussions focus on representations of architecture, paying particular attention to innovations in visual form and their cultural and political meanings. Students are expected to write and revise short essays responding to texts and images produced by architects.
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentArea of StudyLocation |
| History Of Architecture & Design I | 2191 (001) | Joseph Socki | Tues
3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person |
Description
This course surveys the history of architecture and design, including furnishings, decorative arts and interiors, from the earliest settlements of the Neolithic Era until the onset of Neoclassicism in the late Eighteenth Century. Special attention is given to the developments that have remained most influential within the architecture and design of today, with particular emphasis on ancient Greece and Rome, Early Christian, Byzantine and early Islam, the European Middle Ages, and the Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo cultures.
Through extensive lectures and readings, special focus in this class is devoted to the art of the Greek temple, Roman civil engineering, the rise of monasticism in the early Middle Ages, early Byzantine and early Islamic religious design, pilgrimage and Romanesque church building, Gothic Europe and the age of cathedrals, Italian Renaissance architecture and the rise of Humanism, Baroque churches and papal patronage, French chateaux and absolute monarchy, and the origins of Modernism during the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Students will complete a combination of in-class and take-home exams along with a final research paper on a topic chosen in consultation with the instructor. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
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Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Modern and Contemporary Latin American Art | 2206 (001) | Deanna Ledezma | Mon
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This is an undergraduate survey of modernism and postmodernism in Latin America from the 1920s through the present. Topics will include national identity and 'anthropophagy' in the first wave of modernism in the region, debates over Surrealism and realism in the 1930s, the transition from 'concrete to 'neo-concrete' form and the link between architecture and developmentalism in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, conceptual art and politics in the 1960s and 1970s, and more recent sculptural, photographic, performance, and relational practices.
Specific topics include the cosmopolitan avant-garde that appeared in Mexico at the start of the 1920s, the theorization of anthropofagia in Brazil and indigenismo in Peru, Cuba?s Grupo Minorista, Mexican muralism and surrealism, Joaquin Torres-Garcia?s introduction of abstraction to Uruguay and Argentina, links between art and architecture in Venezuelan and Brazilian developmentalism, the rise of kinetic and participatory approaches in the 1950s and 1960s, conceptual art as a response to the dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s, Latinx and Chicanx actions and performance in the United States, the politics of memory in post-dictatorship/violence art in Chile and Colombia, persistent questions of borders and internationalism in contemporary approaches to ?relational aesthetics? in Central America and the Caribbean, and many other examples. This course requires weekly reading responses, two papers, and a final exam. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
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Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Beyond Oriental: 20th Century Asian American Art | 2385 (001) | Larry Lee | Thurs
3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person |
Description
This course examines the emergence, growth and evolution of art by Asian Pacific Islander Americans throughout the twentieth century especially in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement that also spawned a genesis of Asian American identity, culture and activism to the late 1980?s during the apex of multiculturalism and the politics of representation to the transnationalism of the new millennium and beyond.
Through readings, field trips, and film screenings, our class will consider the ongoing debate of what constitutes Asian American art by looking at artists including Isamu Noguchi, Roger Shimomura, Nam June Paik, Yoko Ono, Maya Lin, Tseng Kwong Chi and others within these historical, cultural and political contexts to discuss how questions related to stereotype, cultural difference, gender politics, and identity construction affected and shaped its development and meaning. Course work will include in-class presentation, two research papers as well as a mid-term and final exam. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentArea of StudyLocation |
| History of Korean Art | 2460 (001) | Yeonsoo Chee | Fri
3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person |
Description
This course introduces Korean visual culture by examining images and objects in their historical, social, religious, and philosophical contexts. It covers key examples of paintings, ceramics and Buddhist art from the Three Kingdoms period to the Choson dynasty, through Modern Korean art, This course helps students gain a comprehensive understanding of traditional Korean visual culture and its modern legacy.
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Origins of Modern Architecture | 2500 (001) | Timothy Wittman | Tues
6:45 PM - 9:30 PM In Person |
Description
This course examines significant developments in European architecture, with regard to structure, function, and style, from the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century through the outbreak of World War I. Major architects and their works are dealt with in the context of pertinent practical, theoretical, and social issues, to assess the overall prominence of architecture in the period of emergent modernism in Europe.
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| History of Dress | 2566 (001) | Sandra Adams | Thurs
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This course is a chronological history of human dress from pre-history to the 20th century, and from archaeological remains of ancient cultures, through diverse global material technologies and markets influencing dress, through European monarchical and social class attire, to global exploration and colonialist effects upon worldwide human dress and ways of life. Portraiture, artistic dress and reform dress will be seen to evolve and transform long-standing gender binaries in human dress. Historic styles will be seen to continue to influence contemporary dress and fashions. The sartorial contributions of diverse historical and global human cultures also be appreciated for their innovations and ongoing influences. All students may become conversant with the anatomy, language and literature of dress.
Learning experiences include lectures, readings, library and museum visits, observational sketching and noting from documents of dress, film viewing and spoken illustrated presentations in class. Focus on primary, secondary and tertiary sources of clothing information will be essential. Historical accuracy, creative anachronisms and research of period clothing will be expressed in film viewing and Ryerson Library antique costume books. Visits to Art Institute curatorial departments to view period armor, textiles and garments will provide essential experiences of historic dress. Assignments will include: self-introductory observations on a museum exhibition visit, a spoken presentation from a group of diverse Documents of Dress sketched and noted by each student on visits to about 6 libraries, museum installations and curatorial departments, and a final presentation/research paper of 10 pages on a Personification of Style, an individual whose attire and accomplishments made important cultural contribution in their time. Citations and bibliography are essential for credit. Knowing your sources is essential. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentArea of StudyLocation |
| Film Analysis | 2583 (001) | Jason Nebergall | Wed
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This course is designed to serve as an introduction to film analysis, in which students learn the basic concepts and vocabulary of film aesthetics and criticism. We examine different trajectories of film, studying mainstream film practices next to alternative ones. By studying the basics of film form and film style, through examples from different national cinemas, genres, and directorial oeuvres, students learn to analyze and write about films as both formal and cultural constructs. Along with questions of film technique and style, we study cinema's relationship to popular culture and fine art. The films discussed include works by Griffith, Eisenstein, Welles, Hitchcock, and Godard. This course does not assume any prior exposure to film studies.
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Propaganda&Counterculture-Cinema from Eur to Asia | 2588 (001) | Mechtild Widrich, Jennifer Dorothy Lee | Tues
6:00 PM - 9:00 PM In Person |
Description
This seminar is part of the 'Global Cinema Histories' film series at the Gene Siskel Film Centre, where we will meet to watch films and discuss them.
The term propaganda, originally used for religious purposes to ¿propagate¿ faith, has historically been seen as a neutral or even positive tool to disseminate information, and is characterized by forceful messages and aesthetics. For both politicians and activists, propaganda has practical uses. More often than not, today the term elicits strong responses of wariness and dubious denial. The focus of this course is on the filmic output related to propaganda in the 20th and 21st centuries, when new technologies and the use of reproductive media met mass movements and big political shifts. We will cover Italian Fascism and German National Socialism¿s ¿aestheticization of politics¿, as Walter Benjamin described it. We will address Eastern European Socialist Aesthetics, revolutionary cinema in China and Hong Kong, the White Terror years in Taiwan, the pop culture of a divided Korea, and the revolutions in South America. We will explore the relationship of propaganda to colonialism, imperialism, and globalization. We will consider official politics, grassroots movements, and the blurred lines distinguishing these realms. Writing short reflections and reviews, some reading, and lots of time for discussion will structure the course. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentArea of StudyLocation |
| Propaganda&Counterculture-Cinema from Eur to Asia | 2588 (001) | Mechtild Widrich, Jennifer Dorothy Lee | Tues
6:00 PM - 9:00 PM In Person |
Description
This seminar is part of the 'Global Cinema Histories' film series at the Gene Siskel Film Centre, where we will meet to watch films and discuss them.
The term propaganda, originally used for religious purposes to ¿propagate¿ faith, has historically been seen as a neutral or even positive tool to disseminate information, and is characterized by forceful messages and aesthetics. For both politicians and activists, propaganda has practical uses. More often than not, today the term elicits strong responses of wariness and dubious denial. The focus of this course is on the filmic output related to propaganda in the 20th and 21st centuries, when new technologies and the use of reproductive media met mass movements and big political shifts. We will cover Italian Fascism and German National Socialism¿s ¿aestheticization of politics¿, as Walter Benjamin described it. We will address Eastern European Socialist Aesthetics, revolutionary cinema in China and Hong Kong, the White Terror years in Taiwan, the pop culture of a divided Korea, and the revolutions in South America. We will explore the relationship of propaganda to colonialism, imperialism, and globalization. We will consider official politics, grassroots movements, and the blurred lines distinguishing these realms. Writing short reflections and reviews, some reading, and lots of time for discussion will structure the course. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentArea of StudyLocation |
| 19th Century Photography | 2621 (001) | Alice Maggie Hazard | Tues
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This course discusses the development of photography as both an art and a tool, including its invention, the initial social reaction to the photograph, the careers of major photographers, movements, and commercial publishers. The interrelationships between photography, art, science, and society are emphasized.
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| 20th Century Photography | 2622 (001) | Giovanni Aloi | Tues
3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person |
Description
In 1839 a new means of visual representation was announced to a startled world: photography. Although the medium was immediately and enthusiastically embraced by the public at large, photographers spent decades experimenting with techniques and debating the representational nature of this new invention. This course focuses on the more recent history of this revolutionary medium. From the technological advancements that characterized the rise of photography in the commercial world during the 20th century, and the acknowledgement of photography as an artistic medium in its own right, to the digital revolution and its social media applications, we will consider the technological, economic, political, and artistic histories of photography through selected works of art and seminal critical texts.
This course considers photography in a global context. We focus on seminal texts and images in order to explore ethical, commercial, artistic, and political issues that make photography essentially important to our contemporary visual culture. The course explores broad range of photographic practices, techniques, and approaches including the work of Hannah Hoch, Martha Rosler, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Dawoud Bey, Gordon Parks, Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, William Eggleston, Shirin Neshat, Wolfgang Tillmans and many more. We regularly visit the collections of AIC and MCoP to enrich our class discussions with private print viewings and exhibition critiques. Students are expected to share an image of their choice in response to the assigned weekly reading. These images are used in class discussion. There also is a final paper, a final presentation, and an in-class test. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| History Of Sonic Art | 2660 (001) | Seth Kim-Cohen | Wed
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This course offers an historical survey of music as a sonic art form from the Futurists to the present day. Emphasis is placed on works that tune the performance environment, explore sound as sculpture, interact with the listener/viewer, and employ intermedia. Class discussions include topics such as basic psycho-acoustics, sound manipulation, conceptual art, installation techniques, and constructivist aesthetics.
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Introduction to Video Art | 2670 (001) | Emily Faith Martin | Mon
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This course is designed to provide a comprehensive introduction to the history of video art from its emergence in the late 1960s through our present moment. Students will examine key works and the major historical, cultural, and aesthetic influences on the form.
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentArea of StudyLocation |
| History of Modern Graphic Design | 2730 (002) | Michael Golec | Wed
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
This general survey of graphic design between the 19th and 20th centuries maps the relationships between graphic design and various commercial and cultural institutions under the broad category of the modern. Students study the issues and problems that faced designers, their clients, and their audiences, in the negotiation of commercial and social changes.
Through lectures, readings, discussions, and museum visits, the course examines the cultural, social, economic, political, industrial, and technological forces that have influenced the history of graphic design. Course work includes object analysis assignments, research paper, and mid-term and final exams. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentArea of StudyLocation |
| Interwar Art: Notions of Beauty | 2865 (001) | Mark Krisco | Thurs
3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person |
Description
Exploring the art, fashion, music of the 'Jazz Age'this class reveals the enduring impact 1920's aesthetics has had on contemporary fashion, art and social customs. Starting with an exploration of the differing mind sets of Europeans versus Americans, this class then takes an in-depth look of the artists and lifestyles 1920's Paris that had been greatly impacted by the influx of Americans after the First World War. The class ends with the lasting legacy of the Jazz Age, which was seen particularly in the 1960's, but currently has resurfaced in contemporary issues of gender identity.
More specifically, this class examines using film and texts the two key Jazz Age couples; F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and Gerald and Sara Murphy. The former couple establishing the persona of 'the flapper' and the latter couple establishing a major link between American in France and the Famous School of Paris artists particularly Picasso. Other key figures are examined such as the first major Chinese American actress Anna May Wong and the black performer Josephine Baker as well as fashion designer Coco Chanel and film star Clara Bow. Course work revolves around two key texts as well as a reading the Great Gatsby. Reading questions accompany the 1st text and essay is required to explore the other text in relation to the Great Gatsby. There is also one final paper on one Jazz age artists of the student's choice. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Medieval Secular Arts | 3131 (001) | Nancy Feldman | Wed
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This course examines secular art of Europe and the Mediterranean cultures. The traditions of epic story telling, fabliaux writings, popular and courtly narratives and political commentary are examined by looking at medieval tapestries, ceramic tiles, glass, wood sculpture, woven and embroidered textiles, enamels, ivories, metalwork, wall paintings, architecture and articles of dress. Students look at how the world of visual satire invades the sacred space of church and religious manuscripts and how the narrative image, public and private, religious and profane acts as text in a time before the printed book. The course includes two field trips to local museums.
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| War: Art and Photography in the 20th Century | 3133 (001) | Conor Lauesen | Fri
3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person |
Description
This course explores the history of 20th century warfare through the lens of art and history, most especially photography. An upper-level undergraduate course, lectures and discussion likewise aim to introduce students to both the uncanny strangeness and implicit violence embedded in the photographic medium. In this way, the material of the class reaches beyond only explicit representations of war, and instead also considers how the medium of photography is today part and parcel with our modern, contemporary experience of witnessing violence. Chronologically structured, the course considers the ever-shifting ethos of representation and war with pictures beginning in 1898 and the American imperial projects across the Philippines.
However, with the American Civil War looming in the immediate background of democratic identity and pictorial practice, the 1865 war photographs from Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan unofficially commence our investigations. We then speedily arrive at the wars in the Pacific (1898) and slowly traverse through the long 20th century: WWI, the inter war years, WWII (Hiroshima; the death camps and Lee Miller's Hitler), Korea to Vietnam, Iraq and the 'Desert Storm' wars, 9/11, and Abu Ghraib--these are some of the historical markers structuring the material of the course. As we often traverse beyond the edges of mere binary and literal representations of war, the course will as importantly incorporate art photography from some of the most consummate American masters of the last century: Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Eugene Smith, Carrie Mae Weems, Diane Lawson, Dawoud Bey, An My Le and others comprise this short list. The ways in which pictures are often obliquely and subtlety inscribed with a pathos of war are always fundamentally at stake. Finally, the basement photography gallery at the Art Institute as well as rotating special exhibitions will offer the class firsthand opportunities to discuss photographic works of art in person. Moreover, their will be two film screenings across the term and students will be expected to attend the screenings and in turn contribute to related conversation. Students will be asked to complete one short (2-3 pages) and one long (6-8) end of the term paper. Topics may vary but all students will be asked to discuss their final project with the professor; most pressing at stake is the writing process, one's own art historical temperament, and perhaps most fundamentally: how can we (students and artists) learn to put words to images, going beyond blithe captions and ironically glib, disinterested tropes. Ideally there will also be a short final written exam (20% of the final grade): this will include two long essay questions; three short questions; and 15-20 works of photography to be identified.*I write this with hopes that a short exam, though challenging, will encourage students to truly engage with the material at hand--learning and memorizing and critically thinking that goes beyond rote knowledge. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentArea of StudyLocation |
| The Italian Renaissance | 3150 (001) | Joana Konova | Wed
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
This course will survey a broad range of objects and settings, and attempt to familiarize students with relevant media and techniques, as well as important intellectual, social, and political developments that informed the production and reception of art in Italy from the 15th through the early 17th centuries. Students will gain exposure to original works through appropriate use of relevant collections. They will hone their skills in visual analysis and their ability to engage art and express positions and observations about art orally and in writing. The major assignments for the class will include a formal analysis paper, an object presentation, and an object response. Introductory context readings will be complemented by selected original readings (in translation) and exemplary art historical scholarship on the period. All readings will be available on Canvas.
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| History of Manga | 3173 (001) | Ryan Holmberg | Mon
6:45 PM - 9:30 PM All Online |
Description
This course offers a survey of the history of manga (Japanese comics) from its premodern predecessors to the present. Beginning with narrative picture scrolls in the medieval period, it will touch on forms of humor and political cartooning in the 19th and early 20th centuries, before moving onto multi-page stories, serials, and standalone books within the serially paneled comics medium. Related developments in non-Japanese comics and media like film, animation, illustration, and painting will also be considered.
Among the major artists to be considered in this course are: Hokusai, Tagawa Suiho, Tezuka Osamu, Tatsumi Yoshihiro, Shirato Sanpei, Tsuge Yoshiharu, Hagio Moto, Otomo Katsuhiro, Takahashi Rumiko, and Tagame Gengoro. Students will be required to complete weekly readings, including translated manga and historical/interpretive essays, in addition to occasional reading responses, a research paper, and a final exam. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentArea of StudyLocation |
| Abstract Art | 3302 (001) | Conor Lauesen | Thurs
3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person |
Description
This course investigates the international art movements of the 1920s and 1930s such as Constructivism, Purism, the Bauhaus, De Stijl, Neoplasticism, and other movements that favored a nonobjective mode. After its initial development before World War I, how did nonobjective art develop, justify itself, change, and find new roles in the troubled period of the Roaring Twenties and the Fascist Thirties? These questions are explored in lectures and discussion.
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Modern and Contemporary Japanese Prints | 3311 (001) | Mami Hatayama | Fri
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This course surveys the history of Japanese prints of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Beginning from the last phase of the ukiyo-e woodblock prints, we will examine the two major art movements, shin hanga and sosaku hanga, and also some contemporary prints. The variety of expressions were cultivated by artists reviving and renewing traditional prints, reflecting social cultural changes, individual interests and styles, as well as by refining printing techniques. Alongside gaining understanding of historical developments, the course considers the wide array of ideas on what the print medium can characteristically express.
The works we will examine range from the traditional print subjects such as landscapes or figures to completely abstract subjects such as emotions. Examples of the artists who might be studied include Hashiguchi Goyo, Ito Shinsui, Kawase Hasui, Kasamatsu Shiro, Yoshida Hiroshi, Yamamoto Kanae, Onchi Koshiro, Kawakami Sumio, Azechi Umetaro, Munakata Shiko, Hamaguchi Yozo, Saito Kiyoshi, Komai Tetsuro, Ikeda Masuo, and many others. Individuals, some artists' groups, and art magazines that were important to the development of the print history will be reviewed. There will be visits to the AIC to view the actual print examples of the artists we will study in the classes. Course work will vary but typically includes weekly reading, two writing assignments, presentation, and one exam. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| American Art: 1913-1945 | 3341 (001) | Conor Lauesen | Mon
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
Beginning with the Armory Show in 1913, this course examines the arts in America from the time of the Stieglitz circle's modernist views through the various strains of Regionalism leading up to the emergence of the first generation of Abstract Expressionists in the early 1940s. The artistic developments are considered in the context of the complex social and political issues of the period.
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Modern and Contemporary Native American Art | 3382 (001) | Risa Puleo | Mon
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
In this course, we will explore the ways in which the idea of persistence might be said to characterize modern and contemporary Native American and Indigenous arts practices--including performance, film, video, painting, sculpture, printmaking, and photography, among others. The artists we will examine employ a range of tactics to engage social, cultural, economic, and political relationships as they occupy and articulate Indigenous worldviews and systems of knowledge that are often incommensurable with Settler structures and ideologies.
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentArea of StudyLocation |
| African-American Art: A History of Exhibitions | 3427 (001) | Sarah Estrela | Tues
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
This course explores African American art through a study of significant museum and gallery shows from the 1920s to the present. The course offers a survey of African American art through an examination of the institutions and also the conceptual contexts (or ideological framings) that have supported its presentation over the past 90 years. Exhibits such as 'Harlem on My Mind'; 'Freestyle'; 'Frequency'; 'Only Skin Deep'; and 'Let Your Motto Be Resistance,' among others, provide a context through culture.
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentArea of StudyLocation |
| Design Between Wars: 1920-1940 | 3543 (001) | Lara Allison | Fri
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
This course surveys decorative and industrial arts and design in Europe and America from 1920 to 1949, in cities including Paris, London, Berlin, Munich, Prague, Budapest, Milan, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Styles ranging from Art Deco to Art Moderne are covered, with special focus on the impact of the Bauhaus and Cranbrook, as well as on the contributions of Mies van der Rohe, Gropius, Saarinen, Wright, and Loewy, et al. Textiles, furniture, ceramics, glass, interiors, and automobiles are among the topics discussed.
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| History & Technique of The Old Masters' Drawings | 3554 (001) | Mark Krisco | Thurs
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This class surveys the development of draftsmanship as the key element of workshop practice. This class exploring in-depth all the major drawing materials and their formulation; all of which are still used today. This class then looks at which major artists chose each of these media as an example to illuminate how students should also search for the proper drawing materials to express their own individual visions. Aspects of drawing such as history of caricature and self portrayal are also analyzed.
Major artists are explored from post medieval age i.e. Jan Van Eyck to Renaissance masters such as Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael especially in regards to drawing materials, techniques and anatomy. Contemporary artists as diverse as David Hockney, and Jim Dine, William Kentridge are also examined through documentary films and discussed in relation to former art techniques. This class making the student aware of the ongoing impulse of mankind to draw and yet also makes the student highly aware how the discipline of drawing is key to a whole range of artists from fine artists, to architects to animators. There are weekly reading fromm a book on Old Master Drawings mostly in regards to materials, techniques and anatomy. But equally are many trips to the Art Institute museum to establish through discussions the learning of connoisseurship. Two papers: a mid-term and a final are written about specific drawing of a specific artist of the student's choice; one of which must be a class presentation. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Documentary: Photo/Film/Video | 3598 (001) | Thomas Comerford | Fri
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
The documentary, once regarded a vehicle for the heroic confrontation of artist and society, has been questioned in recent years. This course studies readings and selected documentaries that illustrate certain key issues: 1) truth claims: Does the documentary seek to validate its claim to truth or does it problematize such claims? 2) the authority of the documentaries: By what right do the makers speak for the subject of the documentary? How are subjects allowed or made to speak for themselves? How is the authority of the maker of documentaries undercut? and, 3) construction of the audience: Do the documentaries or their subjects seek to address or ignore the beholder/audience? How does it try to move its audience to action or participation?
Recent feature-length works have included Yance Ford's 'Strong Island'; Kirsten Johnson's 'Cameraperson'; and works by Harvard University's Sensory-Ethnography Lab. Short works have included videos, photos and installations by Sky Hopinka, Beatriz Santiago-Mu?oz, Hito Steyerl, Kevin Lee, Shengze Tzu, Laura Huertas-Millan, Oli Rodriguez and Martine Syms. Student read large portions of Bill Nichols' 'Introduction to Documentary' in addition to a number of interviews with the artists to prepare for each class meeting. In addition to completing preparatory readings and participating in discussions during classtime, students will be required to complete 3 essay-form take-home exams, each 3-5 pages in length, in response to prompts about the course materials. Students may also be asked to make revisions on the exams. Some students may get approval to complete a 10-12 page research paper in lieu of exams 2 and 3. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
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| Seminar:Manifestations- Public or Private | 3805 (001) | Simon Anderson | Wed
6:45 PM - 9:30 PM In Person |
Description
What is the value of a manifesto? This course examines the difference between published proclamations by artists and the work they produce. Using contemporary and current criticism, the course will scrutinize, compare, and contrast a limited number of texts, objects, and activities within and since the Modern era. Students will not only learn more of the perceived-or misperceived-aims of given artists or movements, they will also learn more about the continuing conversation between theory and practice.
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
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Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Foreigners Everywhere: The Aesthetics of Migration | 3823 (001) | Tamar Kharatishvili | Tues
6:45 PM - 9:30 PM In Person |
Description
In 2015, migration leapt into the headlines, becoming a topic of contemporary discussion like never before. From the plight of refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean into Western Europe to 'illegal immigration' as a campaign issue in the last U.S. elections, the world's attention is focused on people on the move, often in quite desperate situations. Yet migration has been with us for a long time-- some would say, for much of human history-- and it has not always been linked to crisis. Migrants have included intellectuals who have exported ideas from country to country, as well as today's nomadic artists who journey around the world to exhibit and develop their practices. Starting from the era of World War II, this course investigates connections between artistic practice and migration over time, integrating historical case studies with critical theory to evaluate how contemporary art might continue to engage this topic in the 21st century. We will consider and differentiate different types of subjects on the move, among them migrant, nomad, emigre, exile, refugee, tourist, expatriate, and guest worker, and consider the implicit hierarchies that can subject them to drastically different institutional responses. At the center of our discussions will be questions of the personal and the affective. How might we responsibly address migration as contemporary subject-matter, and how might our own migration stories be made relevant for others?
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
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Credits |
DepartmentArea of StudyLocation |
| Junior Proseminar: Topics in Art History Methods | 3900 (001) | Margaret MacNamidhe | Thurs
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
These courses use case studies and themes as a context for examining the role of methodology and the practice of writing in the history of art. The topics of these writing-intensive seminar vary according to the instructor. These courses fulfill the Junior Proseminar requirement for the Bachelor of Arts in Art History.
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: 2900 course |
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DepartmentLocation |
| Asian Identity in Film | 3982 (001) | Tatsu Aoki | Tues
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This course looks at America's perceptions of Asians through their portrayal in American mainstream media in contrast to those made in Asia by Asian filmmakers. By comparing films made by Asians and those produced by the American mainstream, we find major differences in their perspectives and approaches. In doing this, we investigate issues of representation and misrepresentation in mass culture stereotypes of Asians to show how they have been rooted in confusions surrounding cultural differences between Asians and Asian Americans. The course presents Hollywood films, mainstream Asian films, as well as independent works from both the Asian and Asian American communities.
Weekly readings and short journal. One Midterm and One final Paper PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement |
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Credits |
DepartmentArea of StudyLocation |
| Nation and Narration : Modern and Contemporary Indian Art | 4017 (001) | Arshiya Lokhandwala | Tues
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM All Online |
Description
This survey class of Modern and Contemporary Indian art from the 20th century to date examines the rich and complex art practices which emerged from pre-independent India to its transition as an independent nation in 1947. We will discuss the works of the most significant Indian artists and unpack the concepts of tradition/ modern, nationalism/internationalism and, globalization, to investigate the same through the writings of eminent postcolonial scholars such as Geeta Kapur, Homi Bhabha, Partha Mitter, Gayatri Spivak, and Saloni Mathur to name a few. The course gives a critical insight into India as a nation, the challenges it faces including the socio-political climate that is reflected in the artist's work and practices that make Indian art distinct.
The class examines Indian art from the early 20th century including the works of Raja Ravi Varma and Amrita Sher-Gil to the currently contemporary emerging avant-garde art practices today. This includes the work of the Progressive Artist Group; such as Maqbool Fida Husain, Syed Haider Raza, and Francis Newton Souza amongst others, to other prominent artists such as K. G. Subramanyan and Bhupen Khakhar. We will examine the first wave of the feminist artist's as Nalini Malani, Nilima Sheikh, Arpita Singh, and Madhvi Parikh, moving to the more contemporary art practices such as Subodh Gupta, Anita Dube, Bharti Kher, Jitish Kallat, Nikhil Chopra, Mithu Sen, and Shilpa Gupta to name a few. The course work will include weekly readings a mid- term paper and a final paper. Class participation and discussion is encouraged. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student |
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Credits |
DepartmentArea of StudyLocation |
| Alt-Manga: Experimental and Literary Comics in Japan | 4025 (001) | Ryan Holmberg | Tues
6:45 PM - 9:30 PM All Online |
Description
This course will offer a focused exploration of 'alternative manga,' looking at Japanese comic book artists working outside the mainstream publishing industry in Japan. Topics to be discussed include crossovers between contemporary art and manga, wordless and audiovisual experiments, the advent of 'literariness' in manga, and comics grappling with contentious social and political issues. Comparisons with underground and art comics outside of Japan will also be explored. Among the major artists to be considered in this course are Tatsumi Yoshihiro, Tsuge Yoshiharu, Hayashi Seiichi, Tsurita Kuniko, Maruo Suehiro, and Yokoyama Yuichi. Major works of comics theory will also be assigned. Students will be required to complete weekly readings, comprising manga and historical and theoretical essays, all of which will be in English. In addition to a final research project, regular seminar presentations about course readings will also be required.
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student |
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Credits |
DepartmentArea of StudyLocation |
| Ars Domestica: Clothing Cooking Caring | 4029 (001) | Dijana Granov, Caroline Marie Bellios | Mon
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This class plots domestic histories of design in pursuit of inclusive design and community. Readings, writings, and collective experiments in sewing, cooking, organizing, and caregiving explore the pleasures and constraints of domestic life; adaptation of commercial designs and DIY kits; and plotting design justice futures. Making and writing options are introduced throughout the course and are flexible to students of all skill levels.
This course combines making with research to shape our field of study. Historical materials include sewing patterns, feminist housekeeping critiques, and Flaxman Library¿s extensive collection of cookbooks. Making projects (no skills/experience required) focus on DIY learning, learning through verbal and visual cues rather than written ones, and collective ¿stitch-n-bitch¿ models. Readings include theories of the family and queer domesticity; disability and illness as a part of home design and adaptation; and feminist and anti-racist critiques of household labor and proposals for liberatory alternatives. All students in this class will make things, engage with a variety of writing modes, and combine traditional research methods with the knowledge gained through making. Reading responses and papers will accompany their practice-based material culture study. Final projects will include a choice of formats incorporating historical research. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Ars Domestica: Clothing Cooking Caring | 4029 (001) | Dijana Granov, Caroline Marie Bellios | Mon
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This class plots domestic histories of design in pursuit of inclusive design and community. Readings, writings, and collective experiments in sewing, cooking, organizing, and caregiving explore the pleasures and constraints of domestic life; adaptation of commercial designs and DIY kits; and plotting design justice futures. Making and writing options are introduced throughout the course and are flexible to students of all skill levels.
This course combines making with research to shape our field of study. Historical materials include sewing patterns, feminist housekeeping critiques, and Flaxman Library¿s extensive collection of cookbooks. Making projects (no skills/experience required) focus on DIY learning, learning through verbal and visual cues rather than written ones, and collective ¿stitch-n-bitch¿ models. Readings include theories of the family and queer domesticity; disability and illness as a part of home design and adaptation; and feminist and anti-racist critiques of household labor and proposals for liberatory alternatives. All students in this class will make things, engage with a variety of writing modes, and combine traditional research methods with the knowledge gained through making. Reading responses and papers will accompany their practice-based material culture study. Final projects will include a choice of formats incorporating historical research. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student |
Class Number |
Credits |
DepartmentLocation |
| Terrorists In the Library: Experimental Research in Contemporary Art | 4032 (001) | Ruslana Lichtzier | Tues
3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person |
Description
Answering Duchamp¿s explosive question, ¿[how] can one make works that are not `of art¿?' this class will center on experimental, research-driven contemporary art practices that work against the world as it is now. We will focus on works that manage (albeit mostly partially) to escape the global capitalist structures of meaning-making while pointing towards the horizons of liberation. De-centering the division between the first and third world, the class will analyze contemporary artistic practices that insist on the making of utopias across the globe.
The class will examine a wide array of works and practices, such as Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Forensic Architecture, Jumana Manna, Jesse Chun, Joseph Grigely, Devin Mays, Grupa Spomenik, Laura Henno, Lydia Ourahmane, and others. The practice of writing and constructing 'speculative' art history will be examined via scholars such as Hannah Feldman, Kristine Khouri, and Krista Thompson. Experimental curatorial practices will include those of Marcel Duchamp, Lucy Lippard, The Guerrilla Art Action Group (GAAG), Strike MOMA, and others. Course work will vary but will include weekly reading responses and a final research-based project which may take the form of an art, curatorial, performance, or archival project, or a research paper. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student |
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Credits |
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| Postmodern Design: From Ambivalence to Permissiveness | 4040 (001) | Michael Golec | Thurs
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
This course will focus on what has been provocatively defined as the 'postmodern condition,' an the acknowledgment of uncertainties arising from modernity's internal complexities and contradictions. Ranging between antagonism and accommodation, postmodern design and theory (roughly between 1970s and 1990s) has sought to interrogate modernity and its effects. This course seeks to better understand postmodern discourses as they relate to design, broadly understood, by asking: To what extent is modernity¿s ongoing project thwarted by key themes such as permissiveness and ambivalence? Is postmodern design best understood as enacting a break with modernism and its limiting orthodoxies? And/or, can postmodern design be understood as providing object lessons for an appreciation of complex relationships?
Through readings and discussions, this course will address, but is not limited to, such themes as ambivalence (or suspended judgement), anaesthetic, anti-formalism, consumption regimes, distraction, endings, hyperreality, genealogies, kitsch, lateness, linguistic turns, ornament, pastiche, permissiveness, symbolism, symptom. Some of the theorists and designers we will study include, but are not limited to, Reyner Banham, Roland Barthes, Jean Baudrillard, Martine Bedin, Denise Scott Brown, Cheryl Buckley, Michel de Certeau, Mike Davis, Enrique Dussel, Luce Irigaray, Frederick Jameson, Shiro Kuramata, Francois Lyotard, Katherine McCoy, Edward Said, Peter Shire, Ettore Sottsass, Jan van Toorn, and Cornell West. Course work will require students to participate in class discussion, and submit reading outlines and reading responses. Additionally, a final research presentation and paper will complete the course requirements. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student |
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| Entangled Bodies and Media Ecologies | 4042 (001) | Lisa M Zaher | Tues
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM All Online |
Description
This course explores new possibilities for understanding the materiality and agency of media: its bodiliness, liveness, and performative interactions in/with space and time. Extending our investigation to the lived body, the course will embrace new corporealities, unconfined by normative limits of form, language, or social construct. We will investigate performative utterances and gestures through their technological recordings and playback to account for how various technologies convert/convey energy, power, breath, thought and action. Drawing upon texts in performance, dance, music, cinema and media studies, philosophy and science, with an emphasis on readings in phenomenology and new materialism, we will encounter big questions about our Being, in bodies, with others, in spaces and places, along with media ontologies and their shared entanglements with planetary forces and elements.
Readings will include texts by Lucretius, N. Katherine Hayles, Mark Hansen, Gilbert Simondon, Emmanuel Levinas, Martin Heidegger, José Gil, Vivian Sobchack, Walter Benjamin, Béla Balázs, Giuliana Bruno, Ara Osterweil, Laura Marks, Delinda Collier, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Tim Ingold, Donna Haraway, Karen Barad, Erin Manning, Brian Massumi, Michael Taussig, Luce Irigaray, Fred Moten, Gernot Böhme, Philip Auslander, and Erika Fischer-Lichte, among others. The course will include works by Eadweard Muybridge, Etienne-Jules Marey, Loie Fuller, Maya Deren, Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown, Merce Cunningham, OpenEndedGroup, Nam June Paik, John Cage, Alvin Lucier, Gordon Mumma, Halim El-Dabh, Onyx Ashanti, Patrick Clancy, Hollis Frampton, Anthony McCall, Chris Welsby, Ana Mendieta, David Rodowick, Leighton Pierce, Wu Tsang/boychild, Vito Acconci, Bruce Nauman, William Kentridge, Ethan Osman, Steina and Woody Vasulka, Lynn Marie Kirby, Dawn Roe, Liz Deschenes, and Hiroshi Sugimoto, Carolee Schneemann, Aria Dean, and many more! Course work will include weekly reading responses that may be experimental in nature, plus a final research paper including an abstract and annotated bibliography. Students will present their research to the class at the end of the semester. |
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| Art and Technology: 1900 to Now | 4152 (001) | Edward Kac | Tues
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM All Online |
Description
This course examines the impact of new technologies on the aesthetics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Issues explored in the course include the structure of synthetic pictorial spaces, creating art in a global scale, responding to images of pure light, the aesthetics of motion, behavior in virtual environments and the experience of interactive artworks. In some cases the emphasis is on a particular new medium and the multiple artistic approaches to it; in other cases, the emphasis is on particular artists and their experimental work.
Main lecture topics include: Moholy-Nagy's work, early radio and the impact of auditory images, kinetic art, robotic art, telecommunication art, computer art, digital photography, virtual reality, telepresence, holographic art, and bio art Readings include texts by featured artists and historians including Dieter Daniels, Rudolf Frieling, Philip Auslander, as well as original texts by the instructor. Course work will include weekly reading assignments, in-class discussions, a midterm research proposal, a 15-page research paper, and a final presentation. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student |
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| Post-Nature: Art in the Age of the Anthropocene | 4181 (001) | Giovanni Aloi | Tues
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
This seminar considers past and present histories of 'visual culture' (a spectrum of representation including painting, photography, film, installation, performance, geological and geographical mapping, data processing, and journalism) which focus on the specific challenges posed by current political, ecological, and cultural crises. What new roles can art play in mapping and critically addressing the interconnectedness of the ever-so-fragile ecologies we inhabit? From the construction of posthuman identities through new and old media to the fragmentation of post-photography, the new reconfigurations of nature and culture, and the urgency posed by climate change and unprecedented diasporas, this seminar focuses on new conceptions of art as a political tool capable of outlining new trajectories in the absence of cultural certainties.
The course will focus on the key intersections of art and science from the 1700s through to today considering important philosophical traditions like Cartesianism and Kantian philosophy, thereafter moving on to explore issues of colonialism and decolonization of nature. The course focuses on the work of contemporary artists and scholars who have actively engaged in the definition of the anbthropocene and its new aesthetic models designed to reimagine our relationship with the non-human through new perspectives on gender, race, and interconnectedness. Coursework will involve weekly reading responses in the form of Canvas discussions that will be elaborated in class and a final major project. Readings include: Haraway, D. J. (1984) `Teddy bear patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden, in Social Text, n. 11, Winter, pp.20-64 PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student |
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| FVNM Sem:Queer Pictures | 4225 (001) | John D Neff | Wed
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
This seminar explores questions of cinema and television in relation to the larger issues concerning visual representations and definitions of sexuality and gender. Themes and approaches include theories of spectatorship, in particular, feminist, postcolonial, and queer theories of looking as related to sexuality and gender; stereotypes and social roles; and the interplay between unconscious processes and forms of representation.
The course consists of weekly discussions based on screenings of moving image work, as well as critical and theoretical texts that, from a variety of perspectives, address these issues. Some of the scholars and artists we will study include Jose Mu?oz, B. Ruby Rich, Leotine Sagan, Jean Genet, Kenneth Anger, Shu Lea Cheang, Barbara Hammer, Frederic Moffet, Gregg Bordowitz, Cassils, David Getsy, Liz Rosenfeld, Marlon Riggs, Judith Butler, Vaginal Davis, Dee Rees, Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski, Cheryl Dunye, Richard Fung, George Kuchar Course work will include in-class discussions, screening/reading responses, a midterm critical response essay, and a final research paper PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student |
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| The Modern House | 4514 (001) | Joseph Socki | Thurs
3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person |
Description
This reading-intensive course surveys the development of residential architecture and interiors in Europe and the United States from the middle of the nineteenth century to the onset of Postmodernism. It concentrates on individuals and movements that helped shape the history of modern housing and interior architecture, with a focus on the pioneering work of designers beginning with the British Arts & Crafts Movement and culminating in Mid-Century Modern. Students are introduced to a wide array of primary and secondary sources, and numerous methodological approaches, in order to understand and appreciate the meaning of ?The Modern House.?
Through weekly readings this course will introduce students to the ideas of several architects, designers and movements, including the Arts & Crafts Movement?s Wm. Morris and Greene & Greene; the Art Nouveau designs of Horta, Hoffmann and Gaudi; the Prairie School work of Frank Lloyd Wright; the abstract designs of Rietveld and Tatlin; the Bauhaus work of Gropius, Breuer and Mies van der Rohe; Le Corbusier?s l?Esprit Nouveau and International Style designs; Art Deco architecture and design; Alvar Aalto?s architecture in Finland; and the mid-Century work of Eero Saarinen and Charles and Ray Eames. Students write weekly response essays and two take-home exams, and complete a final research paper with annotated bibliography on a topic chosen in consultation with the instructor. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student |
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| Defining Contemporary Dress: History, Exhibition and Literature | 4560 (001) | Gillion Carrara | Fri
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
This course is a chronological inquiry into fashion and dress and their relationship to a legacy of visual arts and literature. Content begins with the life and work of nineteenth-century dressmaker Charles Frederick Worth in Paris, and continues through to the modern radical designers of 1960s Paris.
Students should expect to learn about art, decorative arts, literature, and the lives, times and oeuvre of designers. Visits to various libraries are included in the syllabus. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student |
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| Alternative Animation: 1960-Present | 4580 (001) | Christopher Sullivan | Tues
3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person |
Description
This class is a survey of alternative animation, primarily from the United States, Canada and Europe, with some work from Asia. We look at this work in relationship to experimental work in film, video, performance and installation, Painting. This course also discusses the political landscape that made animation an important political tool, particularly for eastern Europe . The main Goal of The class is to introduce you to this amazing body of work.
Students are exposed to a world of cinema that is vital though often ignored in discussions of contemporary Cinema. We will see works by, Tony Oursler, Robert Breer, Piotr Dumala, Susan Pitt, Jan Svankmajor, Caroline Leaf, Janie Gieser and William Kentridge, David O'rielly, Susie Templeten, Ruth Lingford, to name a few. Readings for the class address ideas about manipulation of sculptural objects, puppetry, narrative and allegory, the real and the unreal. text for the Class are Unsung Heroes of Animation, Understanding Animation, and Animation of the Unconscious. Students attend all classes, read weekly assignments, and participate in discussion, There are two papers for the class - one at midterm and a final Paper. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student |
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| The Philosophy of Modernism | 4703 (001) | Christopher Cutrone | Fri
3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person |
Description
Several questions are paradigmatic for the study of 19th and 20th (and now 21st) century art, including: How might we understand and explain modern art?s increasingly radical practices? How does subjectivity become the critical object of diverse artistic practices? How does ?art? itself emerge as a specifically modern and critical category of aesthetics?
Readings range from late 18th to early 19th century philosophers Kant, Schiller and Hegel, through Nietzsche?s criticism of the values of social and aesthetic modernity (for which the opposition of Bizet?s Carmen to Wagner?s Parsifal reveals the crisis and bad faith), to 20th century critics of modern art and society Lukacs and Adorno, as attempts to grasp the emergence of modernism in art, the peculiarities of modern artistic practices and the critical possibilities of their subjectivity to the present. Poetry by Wordsworth and Paul Celan provide framing and contrasting (early 19th and late 20th Century) examples for considering the subjectivity for modern art. Course assignments include in-class team presentations on the readings, a midterm paper and a final paper. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student |
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Credits |
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| Art, Activism & Response | 4823 (001) | Rebecca Keller | Thurs
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
What is the relationship between artists, arts, institutions and the body politic? This class looks at how artists respond to political moments, and how those moments are in turn shaped by artists. The course provides an overview of activist and protest art from the early twentieth century until today, and also focuses on the political and institutional responses engendered: raising issues of censorship, identity, public funding, community, and the role of art and artists in society at large.
Beginning with pioneers like Kathe Kollwitz and Jacob Lawrence, we look at a wide range of 20th C artists and how they responded to the issues of their day (topics include War, Propaganda, McCarthyism, Feminism, ACT-UP, the 90's Culture Wars, etc,) and continuing to 21st Century artists and exhibitions engaging political and social concerns. The class links historic developments and artist's responses, including artworks and exhibitions on the front lines of institutional and cultural change. Major assignments : Students prepare a 20-25 minute presentation with a bibliography and write a research paper. Graduate students will write an additional essay PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student |
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Credits |
DepartmentArea of StudyLocation |
| Feminist Film Theory Seminar | 4843 (001) | Patricia Erens | Thurs
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
Feminist Film Theory will cover four areas of study: the historic contributions of women to the development of the film industry; the rise of several generations of female auteurs (including Agnes Varda, Jane Campion, Chantal Akerman and Julie Dash); the emergence of new voices in the 21st century (many from previously marginalized groups); and the development of theoretical texts which informed film production and spectatorship, as well as influencing other art forms.
Beginning with Laura Mulvey¿s seminal essay on the ¿male gaze,¿ the class will critique the ways in which feminist film theory continues to be reassessed and reformulated. In addition, the class will focus on newer issues and agendas relating to race, class, ethnicity and sexuality deriving from the contribution of women of color and the LGBTQ community. The class will run as a seminar in which students meet in small discussion groups to share and debate ideas from their readings, screenings and response papers. Students will also present original research drawn from their own fields of interest. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student |
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| Senior Thesis I | 4899 (001) | David Raskin | Mon
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
Senior Thesis I is designed to guide senior BA in Art History (BAAH) students through the first half of their yearlong capstone project: a senior thesis. This course will equip students with the skills to develop an advanced art historical research project. Students will evaluate possible topics and methodologies via research questions. They will then draft, revise and submit a project proposal, outline, annotated bibliography, and research plan, and turn in 10 or more pages of the thesis as the final assignment. The course will also hone their abilities as interlocutors of the work of their fellow students, as students will regularly present to the rest of the class on their progress while participating in group reviews of their colleagues. There will also be individual mentoring sessions with the professor at junctures throughout the term that will orient students toward more individualized research and writing in the Spring term and second half of Senior Thesis.
Prerequisites: Art History Survey requirement; ARTHI 2900, 'Sophomore Seminar: Writing Art History'; student must be enrolled in the BAAH or BFAAH program. PrerequisitesPrerequisite: Art History Survey requirement. Student must be enrolled in the BAAH or BFA w/ Art History Thesis program. |
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| Utopias and Provocations | 5002 (001) | Chris Reeves | Mon
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This section surveys select moments throughout art history in which artists aimed to agitate for social, political, or artistic change. In this collaborative and interdisciplinary course will explore such topics as the political satire of Meiji era Japan; William Morris' socialist utopia of the 19th century in conversation with Lizzie Borden's in the 20th Century; significant South American artistic dissent from the Grupo de Artists de Vanguardia and Tropicalia movements of the 1960s; Post WWII Japanese experimental groups such as Hi Red Center and Gutai; Benjamin Patterson, Robert Filliou, and George Brecht inside and outside of Fluxus; The Guerrilla Television movement of the 1970s-80s relative to YouTube culture of today; and many other minor gestures that continue to have major power today. The work, ideas, movements, and artists discussed in this course are potent reminders of art's potential and desire to not just manage the system we are all in, but to actively work to transform it.
PrerequisitesThis course is primarily for incoming MFA students, and students should only take this survey once. |
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| The Image, Power and Difference | 5002 (002) | Lisa M Zaher | Thurs
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM All Online |
Description
Moving from the 19th to the 21st centuries, this course explores various social, political, and cultural uses of visual media in the construction of categories of difference and normativity, with an emphasis on photographic media and moving images more broadly, while presenting an array of creative strategies devised to evade and subvert these exercises of power. The course explores the ways in which visual media is complicit in the production of a wide array of forms of difference, and to the normalization of oppression and inequality. Highlighting key moments in the history of art and visual culture, we will confront head-on the intersecting violences of white supremacy, heteronormativity, misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, ableism, and the many other ideologies of oppression, exclusion, and devaluation.
PrerequisitesThis course is primarily for incoming MFA students, and students should only take this survey once. |
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| Drawing: Modern and Postmodern Possibilities | 5002 (003) | Margaret MacNamidhe | Thurs
3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person |
Description
This course address the current prominence of drawing and the histories that led to it. One of SAIC¿s biggest departments has drawing as part of its name; artists across the School pursue drawing as a significant activity. In the world of global contemporary art, an extraordinary variety of work testifies to drawing¿s current status as a free-standing endeavor. This course incorporates visits to local collections of drawing to demonstrate how this variety (across differently abled bodies, across public and private domains) is the result of developments in global histories of art and design over three centuries.
PrerequisitesThis course is primarily for incoming MFA students, and students should only take this survey once. |
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| Reframing | 5002 (004) | Donato Loia | Fri
3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person |
Description
This classes introduces topics, themes, methods and theories of modern and contemporary art from the late 19th century to the present. The class is geared at incoming MFA students to engage in issues relevant to art historical methods to supplement their artistic practice. Individual instructors will adapt the content based on their individual areas of expertise.
Content will vary depending on instructors but include key texts in Modern and Contemporary art history. The course will include reading by relevant scholars in the field of Modern and Contemporary Art. Students will turn in weekly responses, take quizzes and tests and possibly write a research paper at the end of the semester PrerequisitesThis course is primarily for incoming MFA students, and students should only take this survey once. |
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DepartmentLocation |
| Modern Art and After | 5002 (005) | Risa Puleo | Mon
6:45 PM - 9:30 PM In Person |
Description
What was modern art? How does it relate to social, political, and economic processes of 'modernization'? What resources does it offer us now? What, if anything, might we want to make with the 'master narratives' of formal innovation, autonomy, and criticality we might think we have left behind? What will modern art be? This class is a highly selective narrative of signal works of art and important critical texts of modernism, the avant-gardes, postmodernism, and beyond, centering on these questions and making the most of the museum¿s resources to explore them. I have sacrificed breadth for depth, with the idea that focusing in tightly on particular problems and works will equip you with some art-historical skills and concepts that will aid you in investigating the many fascinating developments we don't cover.
PrerequisitesThis course is primarily for incoming MFA students, and students should only take this survey once. |
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| Identities | 5002 (006) | Deanna Ledezma | Wed
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This interdisciplinary course focuses on issues of identity and artistic production in modern and contemporary art from the nineteenth century to the present. Situated in the context of the United States, the class examines how individual and collective identities shape the production, categorization, and reception of art. While the terms ¿modern¿ and ¿contemporary¿ remain largely undisputed, categories of identification adopted by and placed upon artists are neither universally accepted nor applied. Even as more nuanced understandings of intersecting identities (including race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, nationality, and religion) develop, simplistic and reductive ideas concerning the correlation between identity and aesthetic persist. In our investigation, we will study how histories of migration, settler colonialism, activism, and the emergence of political identities intersect the art worlds and visual culture.
PrerequisitesThis course is primarily for incoming MFA students, and students should only take this survey once. |
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| Material Politics: Agency, Memory, and Identity in | 5002 (007) | Giovanni Aloi | Tues
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
Materials link past and present histories in original and compelling ways, connecting different cultures, geographies, and identities. No longer the passive media that artists breathe life into, today materials are always political: active participants in the ongoing negotiations involved in the envisioning of cultural and ecological sustainable futures.
In this course, we deconstruct past and present histories of materiality in art, exploring agency, memory, and identity in the broader context of the power relations that shape these archetypal concepts. Through the philosophical lenses of Queer Ecologies, Indigenous Knowledge, Black Humanities, Anthropocene Studies, and New Materialism, among others, we will navigate the cross-currents of artistic disciplines, media, and ethics that currently redefine political discourses at a time in which all of us are reconsidering the nature of truth, the factual foundations of our histories, and the validity of bearing witness. PrerequisitesThis course is primarily for incoming MFA students, and students should only take this survey once. |
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| History of Art History | 5007 (001) | Donato Loia | Fri
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
In this seminar, the genesis of the discipline of art history, its founding and continuing assumptions are examined through close readings of key texts in the discipline up until the period of high formalism in the 1950s. Readings are chosen from among the following thinkers: Kugler, Schnaase, Morelli, Riegl, Wolfflin, Focillon, Panofsky, and Warburg. Student reports focus on others. Discussions introduce issues regarding the rise of art history in universities, professional organizations, and conferences, and the relation between museum and academia. Formalism, contextualism, universal history, and the relation between nationalism and art are explored.
PrerequisitesYou must be a Master of Art History student to take this course. |
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| History of Art History | 5007 (002) | Donato Loia | Thurs
6:45 PM - 9:30 PM In Person |
Description
In this seminar, the genesis of the discipline of art history, its founding and continuing assumptions are examined through close readings of key texts in the discipline up until the period of high formalism in the 1950s. Readings are chosen from among the following thinkers: Kugler, Schnaase, Morelli, Riegl, Wolfflin, Focillon, Panofsky, and Warburg. Student reports focus on others. Discussions introduce issues regarding the rise of art history in universities, professional organizations, and conferences, and the relation between museum and academia. Formalism, contextualism, universal history, and the relation between nationalism and art are explored.
PrerequisitesYou must be a Master of Art History student to take this course. |
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| Ideas Market: How to teach art history | 5013 (001) | James Elkins | Tues
3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person |
Description
Are you going to be looking for a teaching position after SAIC? It can be very useful to be able to teach an intro to art history. For MFA students, it can make you a stronger candidate: many mid-size and smaller institutions hire studio instructors who can also teach art history. Teaching an intro to art history is difficult, and it can overwhelm you in your first year teaching. This class will give you the materials you need. We will cover basic texts and issues for cultures from prehistory to the present, with lists of suggested readings and class plans.
Readings will typically include: bibliographies and introductions to different art movements and cultures; syllabi from other institutions; textbooks in English and other languages; readings on the history of art history instruction; material to teach decolonial theory, gender, and race. Students will develop their own packet of course materials and readings, and have a chance to workshop them in class. |
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| The Postcolonial Paradigm: Biennales and Large-Scale Exhibitions in a Global Age | 5018 (001) | Arshiya Lokhandwala | Wed
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM All Online |
Description
The Postcolonial Paradigm: Biennales and Large-Scale Exhibitions in a Global Age examines the history of the art world as one that is multilayered, overlapped in order to contradict the grand narrative of Western modernity. It closely engages postcolonial theory while examining how the non-Western ¿other¿ has come to be viewed through the examination of two significant exhibitions: Magiciens de la Terre, 1989, and Documenta 11, 2002 in Kassel Germany curated by Jean Martin, and Okwui Enwezor. While unpacking these two important exhibitions, to understand the emergence of postcolonial discourse in the context of contemporary art practices we engage with postcolonial theory including the work of Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, Edward Said and Dipesh Chakravarty amongst others. We will also investigate the emergence of the large-scale exhibitions and biennales particularly within the third world context, to engage outside the singular modern domain of the West, allowing for a new understanding to view the world and humanity through the realm of contemporary art.
We will examine the history of exhibtiions and biennales closely looking at the work of artist's from the Third world. We will also closely unpack the curation of these two mega space shifter exhibtions Magiciens de la Terre, 1989, and Documenta 11, 2002 in Kassel Germany curated by Jean Martin, and Okwui Enwezor, to understand the contributions that exhibtiions can bring about in changing the discourse of art. As we engage with postcolonial theory we unravel the euro-centric trope within art and curation and devlop a criticality voice in viewing art and exhibitions alike. Two essays - midterm and finals essay are expected including active discussion in class. |
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| Lit Art: Literary styles of describing, interpreting, and explaining works of art. | 5025 (001) | David Raskin | Mon
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This graduate seminar is for all types of writers (creative writers, critics, and scholars) who want to analyze the dimensions of literary, paraliterary, and scholarly forms of description, interpretation, and explanation, and their interdisciplinary intersections and boundaries. Poetry, short stories, personal essays, passages from novels, and art-history articles will form the ground for weekly encounters with works of art in the Art Institute of Chicago, as we compare what we read to what we encounter in person.
Each class meeting has a tripartite structure, as we compare a literary or paraliterary engagement with a work of art, evaluate a scholarly argument about the same piece or its creator, and personally engage the same or similar work in the Art Institute of Chicago. We will respond to the works of art currently on display, and, as warranted, pair the appropriate scholarship with creative works by writers such as Ada Limón, Victoria Chang, Hilton Als, Ben Lerner, Diane Seuss, Mark Doty, Hanif Abdurraqib, Wayne Koestenbaum, Vivek Shraya, Cris Kraus, Teju Cole, Eileen Myles, Gwendolyn Brooks, Paisley Rekdal, Rachel Cohen, Jeffrey Yang, and John Ashbery, among others. Students will write concise analyses of every reading assignment plus a weekly follow-up reflection as preparation for a final hybrid research paper that situates their personal moment of encounter with a work of art in the Art Institute of Chicago within art-historical scholarship. The goal is for students to probe their personal experiences with art for wider cultural implications. |
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| Form and Function in Fashion and Design History | 5028 (001) | Sandra Adams | Fri
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This class explores garments, furnishings and objects from ancient times to the present with a focus on how physical forms fulfill function and desire. Students will engage with fashion, design, and museum collections related to their artistic, scholarly and curatorial practices.
Tangible qnd intangible qualities of fashion, dress and designed objects will be studied using readings, videos, films, historical philosophies, fashion theory journals and anthologies and curators' articles in art/fashion/archaeology exhibition catalogues. Students will visit relevant collctions such as SAIC's Fashion Resource Center, Art Institute and Field Museum. Sources may include philosophers Hegel, Rudolf Steiner and Bachelard, architect Bernard Rudofsky, artists Joseph Beuys and Isamu Noguchi, critic Donald Ritchie, director Wim Wenders, designers Claire McCardell and Yohji Yamamoto, fashion curators Harold Koda, Richard Martin and Andrew Bolton, and fashion journalists Judith Thurman and Robin Givhan, clothing authors Neil MacGregor, Laura Edwards and Lydia Edwards, historical pattern maker Susan North and archaeological writers Elizabeth Barber, and Cathleen Berzock, among others. Students will visit relevant collections such as SAIC's Fashion Resource Center and the Art Institute. Experience garments and designed objects through observational sketching and descriptive writing at collections, museums and libraries to be shared in class visually with quotes from assigned reading.There will be frequent group discussions of assigned topics and readings. A final research project on an instructor-approved course-related topic of student's choice will result in a visual presentation and group conversation and a well-researched, cited 15-20 page original research paper. |
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| Top: Art, Language, Concept | 5060 (001) | Patrick Durgin | Wed
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
This course focuses on the thin line between looking and reading, imagining and writing. It is a course about the ''linguistic turn,'' a critical paradigm shift occasioned by Ferdinand de Saussure and carried on through what we now know as ?post-structuralism.? It is also an exploration of the condition of language after the internet.
Considering the question, ?What is language?? leads us to readings in linguistics from art historical, literary-theoretical, philosophical, and ethnographic disciplines (Benjamin Lee Whorf, Jacques Derrida, Boris Groys, Liz Kotz, Roland Barthes, etc.). The course culminates in units focused on important conceptual and/or contemporary artists who critically intersect questions of signification, medium, materiality, and identity. Such artists include Adrian Piper, Tan Lin, Marcel Broodthaers, William Pope L., Edgar Heap of Birds, etc. We read a lot each week. Active participation in free-associative class discussion, occasional lectures, a research presentation, and a major term paper are required. |
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| A Global History of Architecture, 1750 - 1900 | 5102 (001) | Meng-Hsuan Lee | Mon
6:45 PM - 9:30 PM In Person |
Description
This course investigates how architecture acquired its modernity by shaping the institutions of the modern state. Through comparative analysis of projects from across the Americas, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, as well as Southern and East Asia, this course draws attention to the ways in which architecture came to be understood as an instrument of social reform, a way of imagining community, and a mode of shaping urban and industrial growth.
PrerequisitesOpen to MARC and MSHP students, or with permission of instructor |
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| Urbanization and its Discontents | 5111 (001) | Shiben Banerji | Thurs
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This seminar examines debates that informed the theory and practice of modern city-making. Readings include Charles Baudelaire, W.E.B. Du Bois, M.K. Gandhi, Siegfried Kracauer, Octavio Paz, Huey P. Newton, Jane Jacobs, Saskia Sassen, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Artistic works and designs analyzed include Nadar?s Egouts de Paris, garden suburbs in Cape Town, Corbusier?s Chandigarh, Doxiadis in Baghdad, the Ford Foundation plan for Calcutta, self-help housing in Lima, Anand Patwardhan?s Humara Shahar, and HBO?s The Wire.
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| Survey of Modern and Contemporary Design | 5120 (001) | Lara Allison | Fri
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This lecture course surveys design history, from 1750 to the present day. It introduces the ideas that have driven design in the modern era. Critical and interdisciplinary investigations of artifacts, built environments, and texts throughout the course seek to establish essential links between designers, objects, and users in the history and culture industry of design.
Representative texts of design criticism, design theory, and design history supplement lectures, and are starting points for material analysis. The course emphasizes creative ways of probing material sources to introduce the relationship between design history and current design practices. Students spend one hour participating in discussion labs that investigate and elaborate on use and function in relation to an object introduced by a student in the group. Students Are asked to develop 'scripts' for interpreting meaning from design examples discussed in group. In addition to in class assignments, students are required to write a graduate level research paper. |
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| How To Be A Neoliberal Artist In 14 Easy Lessons | 5125 (001) | Seth Kim-Cohen | Wed
8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person |
Description
Neoliberalism is the political-economic system under which we live. Yet few of us can describe its features. As artists, how do we contribute to, or resist, this system? We will look at examples of how artists negotiate the art market, institutions, and the politics of cultural production, focusing on projects that engage these issues explicitly. Students will develop research projects pertaining to both art history and global economic-political history over the past half-century.
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| Networks and Latin American Art | 5344 (001) | Daniel Ricardo Quiles | Wed
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This course focuses on the role of international networks in the history of modern and contemporary Latin American art. Reflecting critically on the recent surge in popularity for Latin American art as reflected in a major initiatives such as the 60-odd exhibitions of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA: A Celebration Beyond Borders in 2017, we will trace the activity of key figures abroad as well as links that existed between different cities and countries within the region. Attention will be paid to the less-discussed question of how ?peripheral? artists affect the international milieus in which they participate. Topics include exchanges between the region?s prewar avant-gardes and their European counterparts; the stakes of indigenism for the Americas as a whole; developmentalist cultural networks running North-South, South-North, and South-South; the peregrinations of advocates of participatory abstraction in the 1950s and 1960s; networks of political art and activism in the 1960s; the spread of cybernetics as a social and artistic model in the 1970s; Latinx art in the United States and its interconnection of artistic milieus in Los Angeles, Mexico City, New York and San Juan; the rise of biennials and their implications for contemporary Latin American art; and a present moment marked by crisis, a resurgence of neofascist populism, and artistic responses that aim for solidarity with parallel situations in other parts of the world.
We will attend to different varieties of networks: artistic (in the sense of Pierre Bourdieu?s ?position-taking?), ideological, informational, economic, political, and medial. Some of these networks overlap, while others, such as contemporaneous political and artistic circuits, remained at vexing, mutually aware distances. If networks can form between artists, between artists and institutions, and exclusively between institutions, they can also be seen as more elusive conditioning factors of perception, communication, and aesthetics. Our aim will not only be to do art history, but to reflect on how histories are crafted, and indeed, how international networks flourish in contemporary scholarly and curatorial practice devoted to Latin American modern and contemporary art?a field still very much in formation. How is this art being accounted for, both at home and abroad? Is its deeply cosmopolitan, networked character adequately represented and explicated amidst what Manuel Castells calls our ?network society?? Is the network the ultimate conduit for innovation, or a hermetic, exclusivist circuit? This seminar will incorporate events and exhibitions related to Latin American art in Chicago this fall, including Kaira M. Caba?as' lecture at SAIC (Sept. 12) and Pop America at Block Museum (curated by Esther Gabara, October 2). In addition to the term paper, class members will write a short review of the latter show, relating this curatorial intervention to historical class readings and discussion. |
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| Networks of Performance Art | 5611 (001) | Nora Annesley Taylor | Tues
3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person |
Description
This class takes a critical look at contemporary performance art practices by focusing on the ways in which performance art is presented to audiences around the world. It examines not only world performance events and workshops but also study ways in which performance artists connect to one another and establish communities through performance festivals and workshops as well as via documentation, archival practices and re-performance. It also studies how artists embody history and identity through performance.
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| Fluxus | 5612 (001) | Simon Anderson | Fri
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
This course aims to give a thorough grounding in a phenomenon, which has been called 'the most radical and experimental art movement of the sixties.' In this seminar, students investigate the politics, theory, aesthetics, and practice of Fluxists, whose activities deliberately confused the borders between painting, poetry, music, sculpture, and life. Their work raises problems which echo dada and agitprop, while prefiguring punk and, arguably, postmodernism.
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| Contemporary Art Criticism: The Review, Opinion Piece, Critical Essay | 5754 (001) | Lori Waxman | Thurs
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
Art criticism-the description, analysis, exegesis, contextualization, and judgement of art-is perceived as being a bit bedraggled of late. It just doesn't seem to be doing its job. It is either lumbering under the ponderous weight of crusty deconstructive theory, or fleeing to the safety of the academy with its self-perpetuating and self-fulfilling hermeticism. It is crippled by the strangling constraints of political correctness, wallowing in a solipsistic subjectivism, stuck in celebrity self-aggrandizement, and floundering in a vest undifferentiated sea of relativism. What to do? This seminar comprises reading, writing, and discussion of art criticism and cultural commentary, including a concise historical survey and many field trips to visit area exhibitions, curators, and artists. The current state of criticism is assessed by readings of contemporary art writing in journals, weeklies, daily newspapers, and on the web. Special attention is devoted to understanding different audience for practical as well as theoretical reasons. Emphasis is placed on developing new critical strategies to address new types of artistic practice-installation, video, digital media, interactive and socially engaged projects and service oriented practices-and on new venues for art criticism-new journals, 'zines, CDroms, and the internet. This is accomplished though visiting art exhibitions, class discussion of critical strategies, writing and presenting one analytical research paper.
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| Benjamin and History: The Future of the Subject | 5814 (001) | Christopher Cutrone | Mon
12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person |
Description
Walter Benjamin's cultural criticism sought to grasp the nature of the dramatic social upheavals and transformations of his time (1892-1940). His work tried to discern emancipatory possibilities in contemporary social developments and the emergence of new cultural forms such as photography and cinema, but it was nonetheless preoccupied by problems of recovering past social and cultural history. His stated goal was to grasp the nature of modern forms of being and consciousness and their transformations of subjectivity and experience.
In readings from Benjamin?s major essays, this course seeks the critical intention of his cryptic utterances on problems of modern subjectivity in social history, which have provoked musings on presence, temporality, memory, and the sense of history in modern and present-day social and cultural criticism. Other readings include works from among Benjamin's sources in criticism, literature and philosophy such as Baudelaire, Nietzsche, Bergson, Proust, Kafka and Brecht. Course assignments include in-class team presentations on the readings and a final paper. |
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| Thesis Tutorial | 5999 (001) | Nora Annesley Taylor | Thurs
3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person |
Description
The thesis, as the final requirement to be fulfilled for the Masters of Art degree in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism, demonstrates the student's ability to present a lucid, sustained work of scholarly research and critical thinking on a specific topic in the field of 19th, 20th and 21st-century art. The thesis indicates the student's thorough command of the available documentation and scholarly research on the subject and suggests clearly-defined objectives and a methodologically-sound approach to a fresh assessment of the topic. This seminar assists the student in selecting, researching, analyzing, designing, organizing, and writing the Art History thesis. Students learn how to select and narrow their topic by organizing materials; preparing an outline, abstract, and bibliography; and defending their proposal before a faculty panel. During this semester, they select their thesis committee and complete most of the research. This seminar is required for the Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism and is taken in the second or third semester of course work.
PrerequisitesYou must be a Master of Art History student to take this course. |
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| Thesis Tutorial II | 6999 (001) | Lisa Wainwright |
TBD - TBD In Person |
Description
This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework.
PrerequisitesPrerequisite: ARTHI 5999. |
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Take the Next Step
Visit the graduate admissions website or contact the graduate admissions office at 312.629.6100, 800.232.7242 or gradmiss@saic.edu.
