ARTH 287: American and European Art 1945 to the Present



ARTH 287: American and European Art 1945 to the Present

Fall 1999

Thursday 6:30-9:10

Meyerson B2

Instructor: Samantha Kavky

Office: Jaffe 306, 215-898-1922, Fridays 11-2

Home: 215-568-8344; E mail: skavky@sas.upenn.edu

This course offers a general survey of 20th century art, in America and Europe, from 1945 to the present. Major movements and artists will be presented both chronologically and thematically. Issues of particular interest will include: the politics of the avant-garde, the intersections between fine art and popular culture, representations of sexual and racial identity, censorship, activism, the environment, the museum, public art, and the ongoing debate between Modernist and Post-modernist views. The course will consist of weekly lectures, discussion and three museum trips.

Texts:

Reading packet available at Campus Copy Center, 3907 Walnut Street

Henry Sayre, Writing About Art, 3rd ed., 1995

Richard Hertz, ed. Theories of Contemporary Art, 1985

Available at the Penn Book Center, 130 S. 34th St. Books and recommended readings can be found at the Reserve Desk at the Furness/Fisher Fine Arts Library

Lecture images will be posted on-line at http:\\

Requirements:

Participation will count for a percentage of the grade. This will include class discussion, attendance of lectures and museum trips, as well as the presentation of one article to the class.

There will be two exams--a one hour midterm and a two hour final. There will be three writing assignments: a formal comparison of two works from the Philadelphia Museum of Art (3-5 pages), a critical paper requiring research (8-10 pages), and a journal of summaries and responses to specific essays and articles. I will not accept late papers. Plagiarism will result in a failing grade.

Participation 10%, Journal 10%, Formal Analysis 20%, Midterm 20%, Research Paper 20%, Final Exam 20%

Syllabus

9/9: Introduction: Modernism / Post-Modernism

Recommended Reading: Leo Steinberg, “Contemporary Art and the Plight of its Public,” (1962) in Other Criteria, 3-16

9/16: The New York School / Abstract Expressionism

Hans Hofmann, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Helen Frankenthaler; Francis Bacon, Alberto Giacometti, Louise Bourgeois, Isamu Noguchi, David Smith

Readings: Harold Rosenberg, “The American Action Painters,” (1952) in The Tradition of the New, 23-39; Clement Greenberg, “‘American-Type’ Painting,” (1958) in Art and Culture, 208-229; Bradford Collins, “Life Magazine and the Abstract Expressionists, 1948-51: A Historiographic Study of a Late Bohemian Enterprise,” The Art Bulletin 73 (June 1991), 283-308; Sayre, Introduction and Chapter 1, 1-26

For Further Reading: Max Kozloff, “American Painting During the Cold War,” and Eva Cockcroft, “Abstract Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold War,” in Francis Frascina, ed., Pollock and After, The Critical Debate (1985); Ann Gibson, Abstract Expressionism, Other Politics (1997); Serge Guilbaut, How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art: Abstract Expressionism, Freedom and the Cold War (1983); Irving Sandler, The Triumph of American Painting, A History of Abstract Expressionism (1970)

9/23: Assemblage, Environments, Happenings / Early Pop

Alan Kaprow, Jim Dine, Claes Oldenberg, Richard Hamilton, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, George Segal, Marisol, Edward Kienholz

Readings: Alan Kaprow, “The Legacy of Jackson Pollock,” Art News (October 1958): 24-26, 48-51; Leo Steinberg, “The Flatbed Picture Plane,” excerpt of “Other Criteria,” (1972) and “Jasper Johns: The First Seven Years of His Art,” in Other Criteria, (1962) 82-91, 17-54; Sayre, Chapter 2, 27-58

9/25: Visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art (alternate date 9/29 if needed)

Comparison Paper Assigned

9/30: Pop Art

Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenberg, Robert Indiana, James Rosenquist, Tom Wesselmann, Richard Artschwager

Readings: Clement Greenberg, “Avant-Garde and Kitsch,” (1939) in Art and Culture, 3-21; Benjamin Buchloh, “Andy Warhol’s One-Dimensional Art: 1956-1966,” in Andy Warhol: A Retrospective, Kynaston McShine ed. (1989) 39-61; Robert Rosenblum, “Andy Warhol: Court Painter to the Seventies,” (1979) in Hertz, 55-62; Sayre, Chapter 3, 59-83

For Further Reading:; Thomas Crow, “Saturday Disasters: Trace and Reference in Early Warhol,” Art in America 75 (May 1987): 129-136; Robert Hughes, “The Rise of Andy Warhol,” (1982) in Brian Wallis, ed. Art After Modernism: Rethinking Representation, 45-57; Steven Madoff ed., Pop Art: A Critical History (1997); Barbara Haskell, Blam! The Explosion of Pop, Minimalism and Performance 1958-1964 (1984); Christin Mamiya, Pop Art and Consumer Culture, American Super Market, (1992)

10/7: Post-Painterly Abstraction / Minimalism

Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella; Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Tony Smith, Dan Flavin, Carl Andre, Richard Serra, Sol Le Witt; Ad Reinhardt, Agnes Martin, Robert Ryman, Brice Marden

Readings: Clement Greenberg, “Modernist Painting,” Arts Yearbook 4 (1961), repr. in F. Frascina and C. Harrison eds., Modern Art and Modernism: A Critical Anthology, 5-10; Michael Fried, “Art and Objecthood,” Artforum (June 1967), repr. in G. Battcock ed., Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology, 116-147; Rosalind Krauss, “The Originality of the Avant-Garde: A Postmodernist Repetition,” October (Fall 1981), repr. in The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths, 151-170; Sayre, Chapter 4, 84-107

For Further Reading: Anna Chave, “Minimalism and the Rhetoric of Power,” Arts Magazine 64 (January 1990): 44-63; Krauss, Grids, Format and Image in 20th Century Art (1980); David Batchelor, Minimalism (1997)

Comparison Paper Due

10/14: Earthworks / Site Specific Art / Public Art

Walter de Maria, Michael Heizer, Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, Robert Morris, Richard Long, James Turrell, Christo, Alice Aycock, Mary Miss, Ana Mendieta, Robert Irwin, Maya Lin, Richard Serra

Readings: Elizabeth Hess, “A Tale of Two Memorials,” Art in America (April 1983), 121-128; Robert Storr, “‘Titled Arc’: Enemy of the People?” Art in America (September 1985), 90-97

For Further Reading: Rosalind Krauss, “Sculpture in the Expanded Field,” (1979) in Hertz, 215-224; John Beardsley, Earthworks and Beyond: Contemporary Art in the Landscape, (1998); Jeffrey Kastner, Land and Environmental Art (1998); Suzanne Lacy, ed. Mapping the Terrain, New Genre Public Art (1995)

Films: Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty; Christo’s Running Fence

10/21: Mid-term Exam

Journal due

Critical Paper Assigned

10/27: Conceptual Art / Process Art / Performance

Yves Klein, Joseph Beuys, Piero Manzoni, Joseph Kosuth, Walter de Maria, John Baldassari, Robert Morris, Eva Hesse, Richard Serra, Bruce Nauman, Chris Burden, Vito Acconci, Laurie Anderson

Readings: Joseph Kosuth, “Art After Philosophy,” (1969) repr. in Ellen Johnson, ed. American Artists on Art from 1940-1980, 134-137; Thomas McEvilley, “Yves Klein, Messenger of the Age of Space,” Artforum 20 (January 1980), 38-51; Donald Kuspit, “Beuys: Fat, Felt and Alchemy,” Art in America 68 (May 1980), 79-89; David Bourdon, “An Eccentric Body of Art,” (1973) in Gregory Battcock ed., The Art of Performance, 183-193; Thomas McEvilley, “Art in the Dark,” (1983) in Hertz, 287-305

For Further Reading: Benjamin Buchloh, “Beuys: The Twilight of the Idol: Preliminary Notes for a Critique,” Artforum 18 (January 1980), 35-43; Gregory Battcock, ed., Idea Art: A Critical Anthology (1973); Roselee Goldberg, Performance: Live Art Since 1960 (1998)

10/30: Visit to the Institute of Contemporary Art (Alternate date 11/3 if needed)

11/4: Feminist Art /Performance / Art Institutional Critiques

Judy Chicago, Carolee Schneemann, Hannah Wilke, Eleanor Antin, Mary Kelly, Cindy Sherman; Daniel Buren, Hans Haacke, Marcel Broodthaers

Readings: John Berger, excerpt from Ways of Seeing, (1973) 45-64; Judith Barry and Sandy Flitterman, “Textual Strategies: The Politics of Art Making,” Screen (Summer 1980), repr. in R. Parker and G. Pollock eds., Framing Feminism: Art and the Women’s Movement 1970-1985, 313-321; Judith Williamson, “A Piece of the Action, Images of ‘Woman’ in the Photography of Cindy Sherman,” from Consuming Passions: The Politics and Images of Popular Culture, (1985) 91-113; Daniel Buren, “The Function of the Museum,” (1970) in Hertz, 189-192

For Further Reading: Henry Sayre, “Three Performances: Laurie Anderson, Eleanor Antin, and Carolee Schneemann,” in The Object of Performance: The American Avant-Garde Since 1970, (1989) 145-173; Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” (1975) in Brian Wallis, ed., Art After Modernism, 361-373; Craig Owens, “The Discourse of Others: Feminists and Postmodernism, “ (1983) in Hal Foster, ed., The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, 57-77

11/11: New Image Painting / Neo-Expressionism

Philip Guston, Neil Jenney, Susan Rothenberg, Jonathan Borofsky, Jennifer Bartlett; Sandro Chia, Enzo Cucchi, Francesco Clemente, Georg Baselitz, A. R. Penck, Sigmar Polke, Anselm Kiefer, Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Salle, Julian Schnable, Gerhard Richter

Readings: Barbara Rose, “American Painting: “The Eighties,” (1980) in Hertz, 63-77; Craig Owens, “Honor, Power and the Love of Women,” Art in America (January 1983), 7-13; Hal Foster, “The Expressive Fallacy,” Art in America (January 1983), 80-83, 137

11/18: Appropriation / Simulation / Neo-Geo

Sherrie Levine, Jenny Holtzer, Barbara Kruger; Peter Halley, Jonathan Lasker, Allan McCollum, Haim Steinbeck, Jeff Koons

Readings: Douglas Crimp, “Appropriating Appropriation,” (1983) in Hertz, 157-162; Hal Foster, “Subversive Signs,” (1982) in Hertz, 179-188; Craig Owens, “Allan McCollum: Repetition and Difference,” (1983) in Beyond Recognition, 117-121; Jeanne Siegel, “After Sherrie Levine,” Arts Magazine 59 (June 1985) 141-44; Peter Halley, “On Line,” New Observations 28 (1985), repr. in Brian Wallis, ed., Blasted Allegories, 329-334

For Further Reading: Jean Baudrilliard, “The Precession of Simulacra,” (1983) in Brian Wallis, ed., Art After Modernism, 253-281

12/2: Politics: Censorship / Activism / Race and Identity

Robert Maplethorpe, Andre Serrano; Act-up, Guerrilla Girls, Keith Haring; Faith Ringold, Betty Saar, Carrie Mae Weems, Lorna Simpson, Adrian Piper, Glenn Ligon

Readings: NEA articles on reserve; Douglas Crimp, “AIDS: Cultural Analysis/ Cultural Activism,” October 41-44 (Winter 1987), 3-16; look at Confessions of the Guerrilla Girls (1995)

For Further Reading: Nina Felshin, ed. But is it Art? The Spirit of Art as Activism (1995)

Critical Papers Due

12/4: Visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art (alternate date 12/8 if needed)

12/9: Art Now / Review

Kiki Smith, Robert Gober, Charles Ray, Bill Viola, Matthew Barney, Jeff Wall, Tony Oursler, Rachel Whiteread, etc., ICA or video?

12/16: Final Exam

Also on Reserve:

General Surveys and Anthologies:

Arnason, H.H. History of Modern Art, 4th ed. New York: Abrams, 1998.

Causey, Andrew. Sculpture Since 1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Fried, Michael. Art and Objecthood: Essays and Reviews, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Risati, Howard, ed. Postmodern Perspectives: Issues in Contemporary Art, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1998.

Sandler, Irving. Art of the Postmodern Era, from the Late 1960s to the Early 1990s. New York: Icon, 1996.

Stiles, Kristine and Peter Selz, eds. Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art, A Source Book of Artists Writings. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.

Wheeler, Daniel. Art Since Mid-Century: 1945 to the Present. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1989

Period Studies:

Crow, Thomas. The Rise of the Sixties: American and European Art in the Era of Dissent. New York: Abrams, 1996.

Foster, Hal. The Return of the Real, The Avant-Garde at the End of the Century. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996.

Ratcliff, Carter. The Fate of a Gesture: Jackson Pollock and Postwar American Art. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1996

Siegel, Jeanne. Painting After Pollock: Structures of Influence. Amsterdam: G & B Arts, 1999.

Weintraub, Linda. Art on the Edge and Over: Searching for Art’s Meaning in Contemporary Society 1970s-1990s. Litchfield, CT: Art Insights, 1996.

On Single Artists:

Chave, Anna C. Mark Rothko: Subjects in Abstraction. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.

Hopps, Walter and Susan Davidson. Robert Rauschenberg: A Retrospective. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 1998.

Krauss, Rosalind. Cindy Sherman. New York: Rizzoli, 1993.

Landau, Ellen G. Jackson Pollock. New York: Abrams, 1989.

Saltzman, Lisa. Anselm Kiefer and Art After Auschwitz. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Tempkin, Ann. Thinking Is Form: The Drawings of Joseph Beuys. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1993.

Varnedoe, Kirk. Jackson Pollock. New York: MoMA, 1998.

Varnedoe, Kirk. Jasper Johns: A Retrospective. New York: MoMA, 1996.

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