|
|
4000 Level Art History, Theory, and Criticism
Course Descriptions
4000 | 4100 |
4200 | 4300 |
4400 | 4500 |
4600 | 4700 |
4800 | 4900
ARTHI 4000
Independent Study Art History
Undergraduate Projects gives the student the opportunity to
explore a specific problem in the student’s area of concentration,
carried out independently but with a faculty adviser. A schedule of
conferences is usually established at the semester’s beginning.
Instructor signature required for registration. Open to students at
junior level and above.
ARTHI 4001
Cooperative Education Internship
Undergraduate cooperative education internships in art history, theory,
and criticism allow students to work in part-time, art-related co-op
positions in approved organizations and institutions. Students are assigned
a co-op faculty adviser and are responsible for attending two seminars
during the semester. Students are required to work 14 hours per week,
earning a total of 210 hours for every 3 credit hours.Call the Cooperative
Education Program at 312. 629-9160 for further information. Approval
of the director of the Cooperative Education program is required. Open
to students at junior level and above.
ARTHI 4002
Senior Seminar in Art History
This course is intended for advanced students interested in developing
and researching topics in art history of their own choosing. Students
enrolled in the seminar develop and pursue individual research projects,
compile bibliographies, compose outlines and abstracts, and produce
a final research paper. Class meetings offer a forum to consider possible
topics for research, to discuss research methods, share ideas, critique
student work, and address writing problems. This course is required
for students pursuing the BFA with an emphasis in art history, theory,
and criticism, and is open to interested advanced students. Prerequisite:
ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4006
Interdisciplinary Deluxe:
Alternative Strategies
This is a seminar for upper-level undergraduates from all studio areas.
The seminar will include a mix of activities: readings and discussion,
the production of artists statements, visits to museums and galleries,
meetings with artists and curators and presentations of work by seminar
participants. The emphasis of the course is on expanding the idea of
audience to include work that has a non-institutional framing; community-based
work and public projects will be closely examined to further extend
concepts of art-making. This seminar can be taken for art history or
studio credit.
Students who wish to earn Studio credit should register for UGDIV 4006.
Open to all students junior level and above. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001
and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4010
Still Going: Art Making over the Long Term
This class is intended to serve as a capstone experience for graduating
seniors, providing them with opportunities to further develop skills
of introspection, self assessment, and critique that are crucial to
sustained creative work. The class will consist of individual and interdisciplinary
group critiques, selected readings and discussion, and visiting artists
who will be asked to focus their talks on the psychological, emotional,
and intellectual motivations, challenges, and rewards of the varied
paths that they have taken. This seminar is open to junior and senior
undergraduate students. This course can be taken for Art History or
Studio credit. Students who wish to earn studio credit should take UGDIV
4010. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
return to top
ARTHI 4197
British Art, Hogarth to Beardsley: Satire, Romantic Vision, and Insolence
Over a span of some 150 years, British art encompassed the satirical
wit of Hogarth, Blake’s visionary creations, the landscapes of
Constable and Turner, and the oft-derided “taste” of the Victorian
era, and its critical responses, from the Pre-Raphaelites and William
Morris, to the egocentricities of the American ex-patriot Whistler,
and the controversial work of Beardsley in the 1890s. This cursory inventory
can only hint at the breadth and diversity of the visual arts in Britain
circa. 1750–1900, a period more commonly identified with the arts
in France. This course examines British art and the society and culture
in which it developed, seen against a backdrop of appropriate currents
of European art of the period. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4198
British Art of The Modern Era
By the 1880s British artists were rejecting attitudes shaped by cultural
insularity and conservatism in the visual arts. New groups and individual
artists sought to establish closer ties with avant-garde movements on
the continent. Inevitably, the cultural and political impact of the
modern era was evinced in British art, notably in the works of the World
War I generation and its artistic progeny. In exploring the arts of
Britain from the 1880s through major recent figurative works, this course
includes Sickert, the Bloomsbury Group, the Vorticists, Henry Moore,
Barbara Hepworth, David Bomberg, and Lucien Freud, as well as writings
by major critics of the period. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
return to top
ARTHI 4241
Art of the French Romantic Era
This course examines the nature of the French Romantic tradition, including
questions surrounding the “romantic temperament,” and problems
of the romantic interpretation of art. In addition to the visual material,
writings such as Delacroix’s diaries will be closely studied. Artists
covered in the course include the major French Romantic artists, Gericault,
Delacroix, Gros, Ingres, and Girodet. Their works will be examined from
several points of view, including ideological, psychological, autobiographical,
and semiotic. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4243
Impressionism
This course offers a critical and aesthetic evaluation of Impressionism
and its influences. Major artists such as Manet, Cezanne, Monet, Renoir,
Morisot, Degas, and others are studied. The class includes slide lectures,
discussions of theoretical documents, and analysis of works in the Art
Institute’s rich collection. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI
1002.
ARTHI 4244
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism both defines and embraces a diversity of stylistic
concerns and theoretical positions at the close of the nineteenth century.
Post-Impressionist artists, notably the four major figures, Cézanne,
Gauguin, van Gogh, and Seurat, shared common interests in various aspects
of naturalism before exploring new means of artistic expression and
developing their distinctive styles by the mid-1880s. Neo-Impressionism,
Synthetism, Symbolism, and the pervasive decorative style, Art Nouveau,
are examined as significant components of Post-Impressionism. Post-Impressionist
art, rich in literary and theoretical associations, is considered in
its larger context, not infrequently reflecting and confronting the
complexities of societal issues and attitudes in Europe at the turn
of the century. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4245
Symbolists and Decadents
This course is concerned with the origins and issues of late nineteenth-century
Symbolism, with further attention to the strains of the movement regarded
as “decadent.” Symbolism pervaded many areas of the visual
arts and literature, and among its diverse adherents in France, England,
and other European countries to be considered are Gauguin, the Nabis,
Khnopff, Munch, Beardsley, Redon, Huysmans, Mallarmi, and Wilde. Prerequisite:
ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4246
Turn of The Century:
London, Paris, and Vienna
This course examines the distinctive character of the visual arts (painting,
sculpture, architecture, graphic arts, and decorative arts) in three
major centers of European culture at the close of the nineteenth century.
This brief, yet vibrant and rich artistic era is looked at in the context
of the changing urban social and cultural fabric of London, Paris, and
Vienna. London, then at the end of the long Victorian period, is largely
identified with the public persona of Oscar Wilde and the “decadent”
art of Aubrey Beardsley, while fin de siécle Paris is
most vividly recalled through the art of Toulouse-Lautrec and the pervasive
decorative style, l’art nouveau. In the same period, a more complex
image of Viennese culture emerges, in the city of Klimt, Hoffmann, Schnitzler,
and Freud. This cultural era is assessed at the close of our own century
and millennium. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
return to top
ARTHI 4307
T wentiethth-Century Women Artists In Europe
This class is a study of the particular contributions of women artists
of the early twentieth century in Europe, and an investigation of how
they exemplify and diverge from the notions of “mainstream”
avant-garde practice of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The
course addresses the works of women, such as Sonia Delaunay, Natalia
Goncharova, Hannah Hoch, Suzanne Valadon, and Eileen Agar. The way in
which women have been culturally positioned and represented during this
period is studied alongside the work of women artists. Prerequisite:
ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4323
Dada and Surrealism
This course investigates two movements which share a social/political
agenda for a revolution in human consciousness; they differ, however,
in their attitude toward the uses of psychoanalytic theory, towards
style, and towards the value of direct political action by artists.
Theoretical writings are analyzed in detail, and a wide spectrum of
artists (e.g., Picasso, Mirs, Duchamp, Ernst, de Chirico, Magritte)
are studied. Photography and film, as well as painting and sculpture,
are examined as vehicles of "convulsive beauty." Prerequisite: ARTHI
1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4331
The Bauhaus and The International Style
This course examines the developing attitudes toward design principles
and their applications to various media, the problems of design for
industry, the process of design education, and the culmination of these
attitudes in the Bauhaus. Emphasis is on discussion of conflicting ideologies
and on the visual comparison and analysis of products of the Bauhaus
and architecture of the international style. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001
and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4340
Prague, Vienna, Berlin: Designing the New Order
This course takes a cross-disciplinary approach to focus on the art,
architecture, design (both industrial and product design), and the decorative
arts for the years 1880-1940 in Prague, Vienna, Berlin, and Budapest.
These historically important cities—current cultural hot spots—were
home to a vibrant and lively world of shared artists and art movements,
and the 60 years between 1880 and 1940 in particular, provide a fascinating
vantage point from which to see out own contenporary era, as well as
the earlier histories of Romanticism, Neoclassicism, the Baroque, the
Renaissance, the Gothic era, and even the 1960s. Prerequisite: ARTHI
1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4341
American Figurative Painting Since 1950
This course explores the direction of American painting since the 1950s
and is concerned with the observation of the figure, as well as with
the investigation of content as it pertains to the artist’s idea
of the function of his/her work and its relation to various figurative
traditions. Among the artists whose works are discussed are Jack Beal,
Paul Georges, Alfred Leslie, Alice Neal, Philip Pearlstein, and Sylvia
Sleigh. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4342
American Painterly Realism:
Fairfield Porter and His Circle
Before the heralded “return to realism” in the early 1960s,
many American painters were working representationally within the abstract
art climate. These artists were not reactionary but had fused the spirit
and techniques of Abstract Expressionism with nineteenth-century subject
matter. This class takes an in-depth look at the life and art of Fairfield
Porter, widely considered to be central to painterly realist. This class
then examines the other major painterly realists who were both influenced
and influential to the formations of Porter’s style including Jane
Freilicher, Neil Welliver, Wolf Kahn, and Alex Katz. Prerequisite: ARTHI
1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4345
Art, Architecture, and Design: Chicago and The World
This course will have three components: lectures, field trips, and design
tutorials. The lectures, most of which will be given by guest speakers
from the Chicago area, will focus on design history and theory as it
applies to historic and contemporary architecture, furniture making,
landscape design, the visual arts, and industrial design. Although lecturers
will put their topics into a national and international context, they
will emphasize examples drawn from Chicago and the Midwest. Field trips
will include bus and boat tours of Chicago architecture and of the Frank
Lloyd Wright home and studio in Oak Park, ongoing inner-city historic
preservation efforts, a visit to the Herman Miller Company in Michigan
and to showrooms in the Merchandise Mart, and visits to the studios
of furniture makers and environmental artists. The projects will include
a course journal and a proposal developed during the three
design tutorials. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4354
Art Nouveau In Europe and America
We discuss Art Nouveau’s various interpretations in France, Belgium,
Germany, Austria-Hungary, Scandinavia, and the U.S., and follow its
progress through Spain, Italy, Russia, and the Hispanic Caribbean, even
Brazil and Argentina. In addition to the usual class lectures, this
class includes significant contact with original objects: ceramics,
jewelry, metalwork, clothing and textiles, books and graphics. The class
includes excursions to the Art Institute, the Newberry Library, and
several private collections. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4355
Modern Art in Central and Eastern Europe
It may well be argued that art production and appreciation in Central
and Eastern Europe has been as rich as that in the west, although relatively
little is known about the region’s legacy. This course investigates
the arts of Central and Eastern Europe, an area that lacks not art and
cultural heritage, but Western art historical exposure. Through this
seminar students not only understand the richness of the nations in
this region, but also gain a more comprehensive understanding of European
modernism as a whole. This class is based mainly in the twentieth century,
but background work in previous centuries is also undertaken. Prerequisite:
ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4356
Art and Theory of Weimar Germany
In the years in between World War I and the takeover of the National
Socialists, Germany was embroiled in democratic debate, financial upsets,
and cultural innovations. These were the years when Bertolt Brecht,
Walter Benjamin, Siegfried Kracauer, Ernst Bloch, Hannah Hoch, John
Heartfield, George Grosz, Marianne Brandt and Kurt Schwitters came of
age and changed the cultural landscape through their criticism and/or
visual art. This course examines the art, history and theory of Weimar
Germany from 1918 through 1933, exploring the joint interests of artists
and critics in engagement with the mass media, alternative sexualities,
aesthetics, and political conflicts. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI
1002.
ARTHI 4371
Duchamp and After
Marcel Duchamp made certain moves that transformed the nature of the
game. These include: basing painting on chrono-photography; the readymade;
resuming the tradition of representation in a "desiring machine"
in glass; presenting an archive of texts as having the same status as
the art-object; introducing chance into the process of production of
the work; reproducing and recycling his own work in various ways; playing
with gender; making a peep-show that turned the viewer into a voyeur
and a spectacle to others. The first part of the course will look in
some detail at these and other innovations in Duchamp's work, together
with their philosophical and theoretical implications. The second part
will consider European and American artists who can be seen either as
taking up and developing the implications of Duchamp's moves, or building
on the transformed conceptions of what an artist can be and do that
are implied by them. Among these artists will be Yves Klein, Piero Manzoni,
Marcel Broodthaers, Alighiero e Boetti, Robert Smithson, Dan Graham,
Mary Kelly, Adrian Piper, and Thomas Hirschhorn. Prerequisite: ARTHI
1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4372
Minimalism and Related Movements
This course considers the primary meanings and major figures associated
with Minimalism. Using a multidisciplinary approach, students analyze
the theories as well as production, distribution, and critical reception
of minimal art. Ideas of abstraction, objectivity, literalness, seriality,
theatricality, and scale are discussed in reference to film, video,
painting, and sculpture.
Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4390
Failure in Twentieth-Century Art
This course is concerned with the concept and meaning of “failure”
as it pertains to some or all of the following: Modernism, Cubism, Futurism,
Dada, Chants, Automatism, Expression, Late Modernism, Readymades, Appropriation,
Assimilation, Sex, Language, and Pop. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI
1002.
return to top
ARTHI 4451
Asia @ Internet
This first offering of an experimental course is designed to serve as
a collaborative exploration, and critique, of the visual and performing
arts of Asia as promoted or displayed on the World Wide Web. Individual
students will be encouraged to become country-specific or thematic specialists
so that all the class can be directed on a weekly basis to the best
content links, while being spared the inordinate on-line times that
would otherwise be required to find comparable material on their own.
Thus, approximately one hour of each class session will be devoted to
a seminar-like exchange of downloaded sample material and oral critiques.
The balance of class time will be conducted like a standard art history
class consisting of slide-illustrated lectures, with the proviso that
key documents and images will be made available for out-of-class review
via the instructor’s personal Web page. Non-required options available
to participating students will include an e-mail discussion list, and
opportunity to design and post personal Web pages in lieu of writing
a conventional research paper. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4461
Japanese Painting
This course examines the rich and diverse Japanese painting tradition
from cultural, historical, and religious viewpoints. Of special interest
are the various schools of landscape painting; narrative scrolls combining
literature, calligraphy, and illustration; Buddhist painting including
Zen-inspired work in monochrome ink; the fantastic screens of the Kano
and Rimpa schools; and works by contemporary artists of the twentieth
century. The course also is concerned with the unique qualities of Japanese
art and Japan’s position in, and relation to, the art of Asia in
general. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4462
Religious Art of East Asia
Throughout history, art and religion have shared an intimate relationship.
Traditionally, religious institutions have been the primary patrons
of arts, and religious themes have served as an important source of
inspiration for their work. In this class, we explore various aspects
of religious art in China, Japan, and Korea. We begin with early Chinese
ritual and funerary art through the Han dynast, proceeding to examine
the development of large-scale institutionalized religions like Taoism
and Buddhism in China in the medieval period, and how these traditions
shaped the concurrent growth of art. We them follow the spread of Buddhism
into Korea and Japan, and see how models for Buddhist images changed
as they traveled, as well as how Buddhism interacted with indigenous
traditions like Shintoism. Returning to China, we outline later movements
in Chinese religious art, and compare these developments with trends
at the same time in Japan. In order to highlight the historical growth
of East Asian religious art and the interaction between the artistic
traditions of different regions, the class is structured chronologically
as well as geographically. The class emphasizes the social conditions
that influenced the growth of religion and art, the relationship between
religious and artistic institutions, and the interplay of culture, religion,
and art in East Asia. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4467
Japanese Gardens
From the opulent estates of the aristocracy to the austere gardens of
Zen monasteries, the magic and beauty created in Japanese gardens has
intrigued the world. This course analyzes the structure and meaning
of the garden in Japan within historical, political, philosophical,
and religious contexts. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4468
Japanese Art Since 1945
This course examines major movements in Japanese art during the past
fifty years. While examining Japanese culture during the second half
of the twentieth century, we will explore Japan’s position in the
international art world, and such important movements as Gutai, Mono-ha,
Fluxus, Hi Red Center, Group Ongaku, Butoh, and the Neo-Dada Organizers.
Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4469
Japanese Culture Through Cinema
This course explores the history of Japanese culture and film to the
present day, with a strong concentration on historical, social, political,
and artistic contexts. Japanese film is explored for its rich intertextual
play with the other arts, architecture, literature, and tradition. The
works of such major directors as Kurosawa, Ichikawa, Mizoguchi, and
Ozu are studied along with some of the major monuments of Japanese art
and literature.
Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4483
Found Objects in Twentieth-Century Art
Ever since Marcel Duchamp mounted a bicycle wheel on top of a stool
and called it art, artists have turned to everyday objects as compelling
artistic material. Through lectures, readings and gallery/museum visits,
this course examines the history of found object art and explores the
philosophical implications which arise from bringing the real world
into the artistic arena. Looking at the work of such artists as Meret
Oppenheim, Man Ray, Robert Rauschenberg and Arman, as well as more recent
work by Annette Messager, Ann Hamilton, Jason Rhoades, Jeff Kooons,
and Leonardo Drew, students consider various manifestations of the found
object as fetish, commodity, anthropological prop, and diaristic memorabilia.
Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4495
Art in China: The Twentieth Century
China’s history abounds in upheaval and dramatic change, but with
the coming of the modern age, China has suffered some of the most extraordinary
and violent events in its long heritage. Modern China is a story of
profound internal conflicts, exacerbated and illuminated by its difficult
encounter with the West. In this course, we study the art of this constantly
shifting world. We weigh the responses of modern Chinese artists to
the rich traditions of their own past, to the unfolding events of their
own history, and to ideas they considered foreign. During the course,
students are expected to learn the principal issues and actors in modern
Chinese art, as well as the major events and issues of modern Chinese
history. Students are required to keep up with current events in China.
Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
return to top
ARTHI 4504
The Prairie School and Frank Loyd Wright
This course examines the career of America’s best-known architect
alongside the work of his followers. Consideration is given to the origins
of the Prairie School, how it achieved broad patronage, and why its
popularity declined after World War I. Also examined are the Prairie
School’s eclecticism, its relationship to modernism, and its principles
of organic design. On-site explorations include Wright’s Oak Park
Home and Studio and the Wright Prairie School Historic District in Oak
Park. Other architects considered for their interpretations of the style
are W.B. Griffin, B. Byrne, Tallmadge and Watson, W. Drummond, and G.W.
Maher. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4505
History of American Commercial and Civic Architecture
This course is a study of commercial, civic, and other public architecture
(both high style and vernacular examples), and their response to the
social, economic, and technological changes which transformed American
society. European, Middle Eastern, and Asian influences will be traced
and examined. Field trips are included. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and
ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4506
Origins and Theories of Skyscrapers: How a Tall Building Works
This course is concerned with the conception, development, and construction
of the skyscraper. Since tall office buildings flourished in Chicago
as nowhere else during the last century, we will use the Loop as a learning
laboratory. This course includes selections from the theoretical literature
on the nature of tall buildings, and the exploration of the evolution
of this building type. Presentations by practitioners and class members
are included as well. Starting with the history of, and theories about,
this building type and its early stages in nineteenth-century Chicago,
the class examines the following topics: the early history of the tall
office building: embracing the machine age; the impact of zoning ordinances
on urban form; the role of the real estate developer; the architecture
and the design process; systems synthesis: engineering and construction;
and making space comfortable: the role of the interior architect. Prerequisite:
ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4508
Chicago Architecture and Public Sculpture
Between its incorporation in 1833 and the World’s Fair of 1933,
Chicago was internationally the most important site for development
of modern architecture. From the commercial buildings of Burnham and
Root or Adler and Sullivan to the domestic architecture of Frank Lloyd
Wright and the Prairie School, Chicago was on the “cutting edge.”
This architectural “century of progress” is explored through
field trips and on-site lectures. Chicago and its suburbs are the class’s
“museum.” Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4509
History of American Residential and Institutional Architecture
This course examines the history of American housing, the architecture
of religion, and the buildings of educational and other institutions.
The focus will be on how these buildings responded to the changes in
American society and the impact of technology. Prevalent and vernacular
styles will be examined as well as their precedent in foreign architecture.
Field trips are included. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and
ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4510
Issues in Contemporary Architecture & Design
This course will examine seminal issues that shaped architectural and
design practices throughout the twentieth century, and which continue
to actively inform students' own design work. Drawing on projects and
theories produced during the twentieth century, the class will discuss
such issues as classicism and modernism, form and function, public and
private, “interior” (design) and “exterior” design
(architecture), etc. Each class will be devoted to a single topic illustrated
by short readings and visual materials. Seminar reports and field trips
will supplement presentations by the instructor. Prerequisite: ARTHI
1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4511
Twentieth-Century Architectural Theory
This seminar traces the evolution of twentieth-century architectural
theory, with the visual arts serving as paradigm. The antithetical position
of the modern aesthetic in relation to the classical ideal of beauty
will be briefly assessed. This will be followed by an in depth review
of the cubist-induced cogno-perception of space and its impact on the
semantic codification of modern architecture. Attention will be given
to the tumultuous history of the Modern Movement, the expansion of the
modernist design repertoire during the 1950s and the assimilation of
popular culture via Pop Art during the 1960s and 1970s. Lastly, the
ligitimacy of the current reinstatement of the modern aesthetic will
be extensively debated in class. This course is taught by a practicing
architect. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4512
Integrated Visions: Twentieth-Century Art Environments
In lectures and field trips this course explores the rich genre of art
environments—combinations of art, architecture and/or landscape
architecture—including religious grottos, sculptural and garden
environments, transformed interior spaces, and other integrated artistic
visions, that are site- and life-specific. The course examines issues
surrounding art from beyond the mainstream; environments in their social,
political, and cultural contexts; home as a locus for creative expression;
and site preservation. One scholarship for further research or travel
will be awarded to a student at the end of the semester, based on a
final project. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4524
Painted Books, East and West
This course traces parallel developments in the art of manuscript illumination
through four great cultural traditions: Christian Europe, the Islamic
Middle East, and Hindu and Buddhist Asia. The readings and lectures
will survey a wide variety of texts, including ritual manuals, epic
romance, fable literature, erotic verse, and compendia on music or the
seasons. Individual student projects will concentrate on a single genre,
with the option of experimenting in visual translation, i.e., painting
gouache miniatures to illustrate a text from one tradition within the
stylistic parameters of another. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI
1002.
ARTHI 4540
Graphic Design of the Avant-Garde
This course functions both as a survey course and an analysis of topics
in avant-garde design and art in Europe and the U.S. from 1910–1940.
In this course, we look at the graphic work of artists affiliated with
avant-garde art movements who were pioneers of design such as F. T.
Marinetti, John Heartfield, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Kurt Schwitters, and
Herbert Bayer. We also look at leading American designers such as Lester
Beall, who were influenced by the European avant-garde yet with different
relationships to politics. Topics considered include the lure of mass
culture, the cult of the machine, the efficacy of political propaganda,
and the rise of advertising. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4541
Cultural Study and Issues: Graphic Design
The graphics of marketing and political propaganda illustrate how graphic
design moves fluidly between subsets of the larger U.S. culture to attempt
unified fields of communication and consensus. Using specific examples,
we look at different commercial and political strategies, the role of
the individual designer, and issues of audiences and power. Prerequisite:
ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4542
Far Out: Art and Design in the 50s, 60s, and 70s
Electric, outrageous, erotic, natural, blatant, rebellious, synthetic,
vital. This class will explore some of the struggles in art and design
that defined the analog times now known as the 50s, 60s, and 70s. As
American mass media, art and culture formulated the products and icons
that became the envy of the world, Japan perfected most everything mechanical,
and the Germans and Italians lent it style. See the rational and ergonomic
designs that vied with funny cars, panty hose, and synthetic products
galore in a society driven by product envy. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001
and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4543
Art, Artifice and Embodiment
In an age of the artificial, what is the critical role and function
of the aesthetic experience? How can we re-understand the possibilities
opened for “art” and “design,” particularly in terms
of the subject and the embodiment of the subject in artifice? Examining
ideas from, amongst others, Adorno, Agamben, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vattimo,
and Virillio (as well as from a range of readings drawn from and looking
at recent critical and aesthetic practice across art, architecture and
design), and including analysis of case studies of recent projects,
this seminar will sketch a new critical aesthetics of embodiment, examining
in particular notions of encounter, embodiment, intervention, oscillation,
dilation, singularity, negotiation, and potentiality. Prerequisite:
ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4560
Defining Twentieth-Century Dress: History, Exhibition, and Literature
This course focuses on the relationship of art and dress. Students will
engage in a multi-disciplinary perspective based on material culture
analysis examining the evolution of twentieth and twenty-first century
dress and alternative exhibition practices. Concentrating on the two
major polarizing directions in the field of fashion in the last twenty
years, students will study the issues of uncritical dress history tradition
and theoretical exploration originating from the development of cultural
studies. Through critical readings and lectures students will discuss
methodologies of artists and designers like Sonia Delauney, Picasso
(costumes of ballet), and Yves Saint Laurent (Mondrian collection).
Feminist work and performance art will also be studied. Individual research
is encouraged through the SAIC Fashion Resource Center where linking
documentary data to material culture enables students to contextualize
visual examples and printed matter in a multi-layered way. The collective
final project will result in an exhibition at a local gallery where
the invitation, press kit, signage, space design, and various connecting
media, including garment display, will be created. Offered in the fall
semester only. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4570
Critical Issues in Fiber and Material Studies
Cloth forms and textiles find their meaning in relationship to interaction—in
their making, in their use, in their cultural references and material
implications.
--Presence of Touch exhibition catalogue, 1996
The above quotation emphasizes the way that contemporary artists, working
in fiber and related materials, are engaging with increasingly complex
and challenging issues. Identity, gender, race, the body, colonialism
and post-colonialism, authenticity and imitation, memory, tradition,
and innovation are some areas that have been addressed in artwork and
written texts. This course provides the opportunity for students interested
in fiber and material studies to “interact” critically with
written, visual, and material work. Students are expected to read texts
analytically and to present and discuss ideas. Seminars facilitate engagement
with theoretical and contextual writing and provide students with the
experience and confidence to express critical comment to their peers,
verbally and through personal research and writing. Prerequisite: ARTHI
1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4580
Alternative Animation: 1960-2000
This class is a survey of alternative animation, primarily from the
United States, Canada and Europe, with some work from Asia. Students
will look at this work in relationship to experimental work in film,
video, performance, and installation. Students write two papers for
the class, one at midterm and a final. Students are exposed to a world
of cinema that is vital though often ignored in discussions of contemporary
Cinema. The class will view works by Jim Dine, Tony Oursler, Red Grooms,
Robert Breer, Larry Jordan, Susan Pitt, Jan Svankmajor, Caroline Leaf,
Janie Gieser, and William Kentridge, to name a few. Readings for the
class address ideas about manipulation of sculptural objects, puppetry,
narrative and allegory, the real and the unreal. Prerequisite: ARTHI
1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4581
Image Japan
While most of the recent studies on Japanese film are geared towards
the examination of traditional aspects, this course mainly focuses on
the mentality and cultural development of post-war popular culture reveals
a real picture of post-war Japan, a land in which Western and traditional
life-styles coexist. One of the most interesting issues on modern Japan
is how the adaptation of Western culture develops into a new idea of
Asian life. The general concept of modern Japanese culture has been
digested fairly well by business communities, yet the artistic interpretation
of the issue has not been understood well enough. This course focuses
on a comprehensive study of this issue via popular culture and cinema.
The class presents post-war and contemporary works, as well as other
types of visual products such as TV shows, commercials, and slides.
Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4582
Another Place/Another Time:
Other Urban Worlds
The nexus between cinema, architecture, and place. Cinema as a travelling
medium, as a medium of urban life, as a medium of cities and spaces.
This course examines ten cities or locations that filmmakers have returned
to over the course of film history, defining both a sense of place and
a sense of cinema’s history. The definitions of past, present,
and future from different moments in the twentieth century, and the
complex relations that make up the idea of locations and its representations
are explored in detail. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4583
Film and the Influence of the Beats
The Beats are usually defined in terms of a literary movement which
occurred from the 1950s through the mid-1960s. Their influence, however,
had much broader and long lasting effect in social, cultural, and political
terms. This course will be an interdisciplinary exploration of the Beat
Generation as it intersected with mainstream and experimental film,
art, writing, music, and American culture of the 1950s. We will examine
how that influence is still felt today. The strategy will be one of
recasting and resorting: looking at films and readings that will allow
evaluation of the entire movement. Included in this revision will be
several topics that are often overlooked or ignored when labeling the
Beats. Some of these topics will include: the contribution women made
in the movement and the long term effect of these rebels; the political
charge of the individual; and the “Beat battle” of creative
process as defined by Kerouac and Burroughs. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001
and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4584
History of Film Comedy
Laughter is, of all the expressions of mind and heart, the most enigmatic.
Can anything be laughable? Is laughter a response to a distorted reality?
Is comedy always social critique? Aesthetically, the comic film holds
a special place in contemporary film theory. Historically, at least
three theories of humor explain laughter. This class will examine the
great comic films, from Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, W. C. Fields,
and Mae West to the contemporary work of Jacques Tati, Woody Allen,
and John Waters. We will look at the evolution of the genre including
its roots in early vaudeville and dance revues through the sophisticated
and clever screwball comedies of the forties, to the romantic classics
of the fifties and a variety of directions since then. There will be
a required one-hour discussion section in addition to the three-hour
lecture/screening. Students must also attend two outside screenings,
complete a research paper, and take a final exam. Prerequisite: ARTHI
1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4585
Deconstructing Disney
This course aims at analyzing both the Disney studio’s creative
output and the cultural significance of Disney’s economic enterprises.
The class screens early cartoons, classic animated features, animated
features of the 1980s and 1990s, and recent live action films. These
are compared with works produced by alternative animators. Topics addressed
include how Disney discourse constructs notions of gender, race, class,
family, and nation. In addition, the class looks at the intersection
between Disney works and politics, as well as the ways many of the recent
works function as a site of contested signification. Some time is devoted
to a study of the reception of Disney works in other cultures. The course
ends by addressing the Disney empire and consumerism, theme parks, Disney
stores, and Disney hotels. An attempt is made to understand how this
has affected American culture (as well as culture abroad) and how Disneyfication
has influenced architecture and entertainment in America. Prerequisite:
ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4586
Brakhage/Godard: Reinventing Cinema
The achievements of Stan Brakhage and Jean-Luc Godard stand at seemingly
opposite edges of the radically innovative cinemas that emerged in the
1960s. Archly Modernist, Brakhage jettisons sound and language, creating
a lyrical first-persom cinema which aspires to the sublime of pure image.
The post-modern Godard insists that cinema and language are inextricably
bound in a dance of intertexuality and pastiche. While Brakhage mines
the inner space of subjective perception, Godard explores the surfaces
of the social and political landscape of late capitalism. Both invented
unique cinematic languages, the impact of which redefined personal,
poetic, political, and philosophical expression through cinema. Their
films and ideas continue to influence the theory and practice of media
culture, from MTV and Pulp Fiction to the emerging cinemas
of the developing world and contemporary new media art practices. By
placing these filmmakers next to each other, students will trace the
evolution of two major artists and watch as their films argue with each
other about the personal and political, image and sound, authorship,
sexuality, and lines between modernism and postmodernism in cinema.
Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4587
Hong Kong Cinema
This course will focus on the major Hong Kong film genres: Triad films,
martial arts films (kung fu and wuxia pian), historical dramas, comedies,
and melodramas, as well as the directors who made innovative contributions
to these formulas, including John Woo, Tsui Hark, Jackie Chan, Ann Hui
King Hu, and Wong Kar-wai. The films will be viewed in the context of
the social and political reality that existed in Hong Kong in the decades
preceding its return to Mainland China and also in terms of the new
global economy that has affected all national cinemas. The course will
also focus on various aspects of Chinese and Hong Kong culture and how
these elements play a part in the meaning and visual economy of the
works. Finally, special attention will be given to the spectacular effects
that have become cherished characteristics of Hong Kong cinema and the
postmodern aesthetics that mark the works of Wong Kar-wai. Prerequisite:
ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4590
Narrative and Image in the Films of French New Wave
This course will explore the rise of the French New Wave through a study
of works by Resnais, Goddard, Bresson, and Truffaut. We consider the
role of film as a revolutionary medium and question how these filmmakers
reconsidered the nature and meaning of narrative form in film. Issues
include the remaking of memory, the expression of class politics, and
the ironizing of history. The course is designed for both undergraduates
and graduates. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4591
Hypertextual and Hypervisual Narrative Practice and Theory
This seminar is designed for students interested in exploring theories
of digital media for creative narrative work and explores the theories
and practices of narrative expression in web environments. Through research,
traditional and hypertextual readings, as well as individual and group
projects, students explore how text, image, and sound function in hypermedia.
The course will consider how multi-linearity, time-based constructions,
and interactivity work in digital narrative projects, and how they may
serve to re-imagine enduring conventions of narrative form in differing
arts, from linear film to the printed novel. Topics explored include
the relationship of language to sound and image, the border between
fiction and non-fiction material in hypermedia, the nature of hypertextual
geographies and the navigation of multilinear stories, the integration
of original work with found materials on the web, and the relationship
of hypertext design to a variety of storytelling traditions. Prerequisite:
ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4594
Gay/Lesbian Issues in Film
This course is designed not only to showcase important films and videos
created by gay and lesbian media artists, but more importantly to offer
a forum to explore some of the most critical issues faced by the gay
and lesbian community. Films and videos are carefully selected to allow
class discussion of the following questions: Is there a gay aesthetic?
What elements define gay attitudes within the community and in society
at large? What are some of the ways gay/lesbian sexuality has been expressed
or exposed on the screen? AIDS? What are the historically important
break-through works? How are current “representations” (especially
on television) of the gay and lesbian helping or hurting the community?
Attempting not to isolate issues as only gay or lesbian, the course
functions both to celebrate works of excellence and expression, and
to mainstream the work and the issues into broader contexts. Prerequisite:
ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4595
Visualizing the Unconscious:
Reality and Surreality in Film
This seminar, designed both for graduates and undergraduates, will explore
the ways various filmmakers challenge the conventions of film and other
arts in representing the workings of the unconscious. In discussing
the depiction of memory, dreams, and altered or unconscious states of
mind in film and other arts, the class will discuss how humans understand
and express the ways the mind orders visual information through associative
and narrative processes. Course work includes the intensive study of
particular film sequences to question how dreams and memories develop
specific qualities of time, space, tone, and meaning. The films included
are works by Buñuel, Welles, Hitchcock, Resnais, and Bergman,
with selected short readings by Foster, Breton, and Freud. Prerequisite:
ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4596
Film and The Uses of Memory
This course will investigate thematic and structural uses and conditions
of memory in film. We will focus on specific groupings of films and
topics in order to create a constructive framework for analysis: avant
garde films will shed light on the existential link between the film
process and memory: films by women will be investigated for the ways
in which alternative narratives attempt to recapture cultural and personal
memory; documentary films will be examined for their relationship to
“truth” and history; the disjunction of time and space and
the inscription of memory will be examined in modernist films; the privileging
of topography in film will be investigated for the relationship created
between place and memory; and finally, films which polemicize the holocaust
will be analyzed regarding representation, memory, and history. Prerequisite:
ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
return to top
ARTHI 4614
Performance in Everyday Life
This course takes a conceptual view of human beings as performers and
views everyday life as performance as defined by Erving Goffman, a leading
performance theorist. Other theoretical readings will come from the
disciplines of performance, anthropology, sociology, film, video, and
art. Students will assist in leading critical discussions on the readings,
and will also keep journals documenting their own everyday life practice.
The course focuses on performance, video, installation, and film artists
who create work inspired by or in response to the perception of everyday
life events as performance. Assignments include one review of a work
by a time-arts artist, a mid-term, and a final paper. Prerequisite:
ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4630
Word and Image: Photographic Text
The course uses the phenomenon of the photographic book to examine the
interplay and rivalry between text and image that plays a central role
in the art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Examples of work
to be studied in detail: Brassai, Paris at Night; Roland Barthes,
Camera Lucida; Wright Morris, The Home Place; Walker
Evans and James Agee, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men; and P.
H. Emerson, Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads. Prerequisite:
ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4645
Chicago Photography:1937 to the Present
This course traces the development of photography in Chicago, beginning
with the arrival of Moholy-Nagy and the founding of the new American
Bauhaus in 1937; through subsequent development of the school with the
teaching of Gyorgy Kepes, Harry Callahan, and Aaron Siskind; and finally,
the work of their students and the establishment of photography programs
at the School of the Art Institute and elsewhere. Prerequisite: ARTHI
1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4646
New Vision: Photography Between the Wars
This course chronicles the periods when photographers both rejected
and moved beyond their medium’s Victorian roots to confront modernist
theory and the new social reality. Beginning with the intellectual and
technical transformation brought about by World War I, the course examines
the twin European photographic directions (abstraction and the New Objectivity)
and the American artists’ addiction to urban imagery. Prerequisite:
ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4670
Advanced History of Video
This course allows students to develop more sophisticated ways to make
sense of the intersection of video art, television studies, and contemporary
art practices, and to place video art within the larger sphere of art
history. To strengthen students’ abilities to understand dialectical
thinking as currently applied by art historians, the course includes
writings by Thomas Crow, T. J. Clark, and Terry Eagleton, as well as
the work of critical theorists working more exclusively in television
studies and popular culture. A variety of work is screened each week,
from television talk shows to European avant-garde, as well as low budget,
grass roots video projects. The class explores how cultural differences
are played out in current video art practices in Europe, Central America,
and South America. Prerequisite: ARTHI 2670.
ARTHI 4672
Television and The Making of Culture
This course is intended to give students a critical overview with which
to re-frame the many questions surrounding broadcast television and
its relationship to society. Students will approach TV from a number
of angles: as a technology with a particular history, as institutions,
and as various forms with intentions and meanings. A wide range of readings,
including those by Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall, Mimi White, Jesus
Martin Barbero, and Michelle Mattelart, will be complemented by discussions
and presentation of television, film, and video work. Screenings will
include examples of broadcast television as well as works by filmmakers
and artists which take up TV in attempts to pose questions about the
nature of broadcast forms and institutions, spectatorship, and consumer
culture itself. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4680
Electronic Arts in France and Europe
This course maps the development of the electronic arts in France and
Europe through lectures that present both the history and the theory
of the field. Lectures address both the works of individual artists
and groups of artists. Major artists, such as Nicolas Schoffer or Piotr
Kowalski, have pioneered the field in France and Europe. Currently artists
are exploring hypermedia, Web, interactive art and virtual reality,
but also animation, telecommunications, language, fireworks and dance.
The course shows how current creation is rooted in a strong historical
background of concepts and bodies of work. The focus is on the specificity
of French and European electronic art compared to the rest of the world.
Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
return to top
ARTHI 4701
What is Modern Painting?
What is Postmodern Painting?
Now that modernism, and even postmodernism, are supposedly dead, it
is finally becoming clear that people have no good understanding of
either. In this course students will read several of the most important
texts on the subject, by Lyotard, Krauss, Clark, Steinberg, Staten,
and Crow. The class is a discussion format, and will make several studio
and museum visits. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4711
Things: Objects, Meanings, and Memories
How and why do “things” evoke responses in human beings? Why
do we choose to live with certain things and reject others? This course
addresses these and similar questions with reference to examples of
“things” and their relationships with people at different
times and in different cultures and focuses specifically on “cultural
objects,” “gendered objects,” and “memory objects.”
Theoretical context is provided by texts from a range of scholarly disciplines
including anthropology, sociology, design history and cultural studies.
Students are encouraged to draw on examples from their own fields and
experiences. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4724
Structuralism to Post-structuralism
This course investigates the theoretical shifts leading from structuralism
into post-structuralism. The impact of this latter movement on the arts,
particularly photography, is woven into class lectures and discussions.
Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4745
Theories of Art and Technology
This seminar-style course examines the nature of technology in terms
of reproduction and communication within the context of art making,
digital media, virtual reality, and the Internet. The course begins
with the theories of Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, Jacques Ellul,
and Marshall McLuhan and culminates with those of (among others) Jean
Baudrillardd, Donald Idhe, Michael Heim, Donna Haraway, Arthur Kroker,
Mark Poster, Joseph Lockard, Sherry Turkle, and Lebbeus Woods. Students
read relevant material, participate in the in-class discussions, do
research and present their research to the class. The course culminates
with the writing of a synoptic or research type of paper; these final
papers being put on line at James Hugunin’s web site U-Turn
(www.uturn.org) and made available
for public perusal. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
return to top
ARTHI 4802
To the Museum and Beyond
This course critically traces an archeology of postmodern cultural production,
display, criticism, and radical political intervention by examining
paradigmatic modern cultural institutions in general, and museums in
particular. Analyses of modern socio-cultural politics according to
Foucault and Benjamin will provide a basis for a critical examination
of the cultural economies of which modern museums are the key agents
and the materializations. Increasingly, the work of these authors has
been taken up and deployed by contemporary cultural historians and theorists
as a means of gaining critical perspectives on the complicated relationships
between capitalism, urbanism, colonialism, consumerism, and, in the
more critically adventurous cases, sexism, racism, and classicism. Prerequisite:
ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4811
Nationalism and Art
This course explores the phenomenon of nationalism as it has been expressed,
both subtly and violently, through the visual arts. National sentiment,
expressed visually, often results in a highly-charged visual narrative
that can be used not only to explore the history of art, but the history
of politics as well. Students learn about the decisive role that art
has played in shaping nation-states, in galvanizing national sentiment,
and in prompting political (or other) actions against other nation-states.
Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4812
Visualized Communities
This course examines ways in which our modern culture uses images to
build a sense of community. Readings begin with Benedict Anderson's
ground-breaking work, Imagined Communities. Examples of the different
ways in which communities define themselves through images include the
use of portraits to establish social positions and build membership
in groups; the use of photographs to hold family members together; identity-oriented
works of art; and images fed to a mass culture to create a sense of
unity. Examples studied in class include, among others, James Van Der
Zee's The Harlem Book of the Dead; the catalogue for the exhibition
Too Jewish; the Web site AKAKurdistan; and news coverage of the World
Trade Center and Pentagon bombings. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI
1002.
ARTHI 4823
Art, Activism, and Response
Despite the long history of art of political or social protest, many
activists have found their work overlooked or rejected because of its
political content. However, in recent years institutions have privileged
activist art in projects that have in themselves become controversial—the
1993 Whitney Biennial exhibition, or Sculpture Chicago’s “Culture
in Action” project are just two examples. The course is divided
into two parts: the first provides an overview of activist and protest
art from the early twentieth century until today. The second part of
the term will focus on issues raised by some of the artworks and the
responses engendered: issues of censorship, multiculturalism, public
funding, community collaboration, activism along gender/racial/ sexual
lines, arguments of “quality” vs “inclusiveness,”
and the role of art in society at large are among those topics. Prerequisite:
ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4842
Sexuality in Art and Art History
This course investigates the diverse ways in which sexuality has figured
in art production and through art history. We examine artists’
strategies for employing sexuality in their artmaking, whether explicitly
(as in the case of much contemporary feminist, lesbian, and gay art)
or through coded or veiled means. The central concern of the course
is the connection between sexuality and representation. How have artists
used representation to establish personal, political, and social goals
for their art, vis-á-vis sexuality? How is sexuality
represented? How have practices of representation been used as central
metaphors for discussions of sexual identities and communities? How
have art, criticism, and art history been central to debates about feminism,
gay, lesbian, and bisexual identity, and sexual practices? The course
introduces students to the core ideas through a series of case studies,
including Jasper Johns, Robert Mapplethorpe, 1970s feminist art, performance,
and contemporary photography. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4850
Zen and the Arts
This course examines the arts and aesthetics of Zen Buddhism. Special
emphasis is placed on ink painting traditions, the art of calligraphy,
the tea ceremony, and Zen gardens. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI
1002.
ARTHI 4870
Origins Of Modernism
This course discusses the 1860s as critical to the subsequent development
of modern art. The transitional changes that distinguish this decade
are treated as they relate to all media of the visual arts. This course
examines both the motivation and sources of modernism and the cultural
milieu that engendered them. Included are: the influence and contributing
aesthetic of Baudelaire and Mallarmé; Degas and “low”
art; and Manet and art about art. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI
1002.
ARTHI 4871
Classical Ideas And Images in twentieth-Century Art
Although the general understanding of the evolution of twentieth-century
modernism is that of reactions to the classic and academic tradition
of the past, many central figures of the twentieth-century avant-garde
have, in fact, a deep involvement with classical ideas, themes, and
subjects. The course explores these paradoxical phenomena in Futurism,
Cubism, Dada, Surrealism, and more recent movements. Prerequisite: ARTHI
1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4890
Modern Gastronomy, Art, And Culture
The history, preparation, serving, and environment of food are thematically
considered, as well as the aesthetic cultural, psychological, sexual,
and symbolic implications of various cuisines, culinary events, and
food rituals. Topics will be multiculturally examined and illustrated
using all media of the visual arts. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI
1002.
ARTHI 4891
Road Stories and Highways in American Mythology
This course explores the tradition of the “road story” and
of highways in American film, photography, song, and writing. The goal
of the course is to open up the metaphor of the highway and the mythologies
surrounding it, and the journeys of American travelers from bikers to
truck drivers. Course work includes a number of short creative and critical
projects exploring the narrative and visual dimensions of the metaphor
of the highway. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4892
Memory and Monuments
This course investigates the role of monuments, memorials, and commemoration
in contemporary visual culture. These functions play an important part
in how people understand historical accounts of the past of our nation,
our social groups, our families, and our individual lives. After a series
of readings about memory and monuments chosen from among works by Maurice
Halbwachs, Paul Connerton, Sigmund Freud, Michel de Certeau, and others,
the class will study in detail some special cases of commemoration ritual,
memorial practice, and monuments. Students will also choose individual
topics that can be studied first-hand: monuments in the Chicago area,
commemorative or memorial practices that can be observed (such as Hallowe’en
or Day of the Dead practices), sites on the internet, ritual practices
associated with holidays (such as Veteran’s Day, Columbus Day,
or Thanksgiving), or any aspect of contemporary visual culture that
can be traced to a commemorative function. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001
and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4893
Addressing the Body
This course explores how and why contemporary artists and fashion designers
have become intrigued with the human body. Discussion will focus on
artists working with fiber and installation (e.g. Magdalena Abakanowiscz,
Louise Bourgeois, Caroline Broadhead). Students will consider how the
body has been addressed as a subject in sculptural representation and
in the construction of garments, as opposed to merely being dressed.
Active in this process are fashion designers such as Rei Kawakubo in
Japan, or Martin Margiela in Belgium, and their contemporaries, whose
designs have been described variously as “late-” or “post-”
modern. Issues of identity, gender, sexuality, and femininity are explored
in the process. Questions wil be raised regarding the boundaries between
art and fashion—are they becoming blurred? If so, what challenges
or problems does this present for creative practitioners? Prerequisite:
ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4894
Consuming Objects: The Mall, the Collection, the Trash Can
In contemporary Western culture, consumption has become a pleasure,
fueled by desire rather than need. Consumer choices are as much emotional
as pragmatic. What then do the designed artifacts we choose tell us
about who we are and how we behave? How is our identity and status represented
by what we consume? Why do we treasure the old as well as celebrate
the new? This course examines these and related questions through the
study of material culture, from the site of purchase (the mall), to
the repository of certain chosen things (the collection or the museum),
to the final cultural theory, sociology, anthropology, and the history
and theory of design. Consideration is given to issues of choice, taste,
status, authenticity, imitation, nostalgia, sustainability, collecting,
meaning and memory, in relation to the design, mass-production and use
of consumer goods. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
ARTHI 4895
Food and Dining as American Cultural Metaphor
In North America food has had a prolific pictorial and literary cultural
history. This course discusses defining a cuisine regionally, historically,
and aesthetically, as well as dealing with issues like food and modern
transportation, e.g., the drive-in, dining cars; dining traditions (cafeterias,
diners); the sociology of food fads and trends; multiculturalism and
the “American” diet; issues of fat and thin; gender and domesticity;
and American food icons (the hamburger or hot dog). Examples are drawn
from architecture, design, film, literature, painting, performance,
sculpture, and video. Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
return to top
ARTHI 4911
Corporate Culture: Curatorial Practices
This course is designed to give students a comprehensive overview of
exhibition practices through hands-on curating in a corporate space.
In addition to lectures and readings on the historical, theoretical,
and practical aspects of curating, students will design an actual exhibition,
choose the work, install it, and provide an educational component for
a pre-determined corporate site. This course is for those students seriously
interested in learning how to curate and work with a corporate patron.
Prerequisite: ARTHI 1001 and ARTHI 1002.
|
