Christopher Cutrone

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.

The issues of modern philosophy have been inseparable from critical aspects of social modernity, such as the issue of 'capitalism.' From the 18th Century Enlightenment and 1789 French Revolution to the social revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries, philosophers have radically interrogated problems of consciousness and subjectivity in terms of modern society, and have been concerned with possibilities for social transformation and emancipation. This course begins with the trajectory from Rousseau and Adam Smith to Kant and Hegel, proceeding to Marx and his followers Lukacs, Korsch and Althusser, and opposing accounts of revolutionary possibilities by Heidegger, Foucault and Adorno.

Freud's psychotherapeutic practice and analytic theory of the complex nature of the human psyche, for instance his 'discovery' of unconscious mental processes, were profoundly influential for a variety of thinkers and practitioners, including Frantz Fanon, and critical theorists of the Frankfurt School such as Theodor W. Adorno. In this course, we read widely from Freud's writings and those he influenced, including the above authors, with attention to the societal implications of Freud's approach to subjectivity.

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.

Adorno is well known for his scathing critique of 'culture industry.' But what is usually missed is that Adorno's critique of 20th Century cultural forms was dialectical, concerned with their potential for both emancipation and domination, and was aimed equally at modern practices of 'hermetic' art as well as those of 'popular' culture, anticipating issues in 'post'-modernist cultural criticism.

In this course we address the Frankfurt School critical theory of experience and aesthetic subjectivity in modern social life in context, reading works by Benjamin, Kracauer and Marcuse, and then focusing on works by Adorno in considering the analytical and explanatory as well as critical power of certain enduring if problematic and contested categories such as 'commodification' and 'democratization' for a dialectic of modern forms of art and culture as forms of social subjectivity.

Course assignments include in-class team presentations on the readings, a midterm paper and a final paper.

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.

This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework.