Mik Czerwinski

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.

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.

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 U.S. gained status as a significant site of design culture in the 20th century due to factors including its industrial strength, an influx of immigrants bringing global influences, and its export of consumer culture and propaganda during and after the Cold War. This course covers key developments of an American design culture, with an emphasis on using local collections of architecture, furniture, products, graphic design, and fashion. Design movements and topics we will cover include: industrialization and the survival of craft (Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Chicago's Columbian Exposition); the home as a site for technology and style (Christine Frederick, Le Corbusier, Bauhaus Dessau/Bauhaus Chicago); gender and race as represented in design (Bronzeville, Case Study Houses); activism within design and changing senses of design?s role in society (Buckminster Fuller, Victor Papanek, Robert Venturi/Denise Scott Brown). Assignments include research, writing, and class presentations on an object of design history in a Chicago collection (such as the Art Institute, Flaxman Special Collections, Fashion Resource Center, or a local significant building), and brief reading responses. The final project asks, ?what is 21st Century American Design Culture?? and asks students to compare a work from the turn of the millennium to a comparable object of today.