ARTHI 5002: Modern to C ontemporary Art Survey

School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Fall 2017, Tuesday 6-9 pm, MacLean 620

Instructor: Amanda A. Douberley, Ph.D. adoube@saic.edu

Office hours: Tuesday 4-6 pm (by appointment)

The aim of this graduate seminar is to introduce students to critical themes in the history of art
since 1900. Weekly meetings are informed by readings from the textbook, supplemented with
primary texts written by artists, critics, and theorists. Class sessions are student-driven and
discussion-based. Upon completion of the course, students should possess (1) basic tools of
textual and formal analysis; (2) general knowledge of the key movements and philosophies of
art since 1900 and how they relate to one another and their historical contexts; (3) an
understanding of the terms modernism, postmodernism, and contemporary art as they relate
to the history of art.

Required textbooks: (1) Yve-Alain Bois, Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, Hal Foster, David Joselit,
and Rosalind Krauss, Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism, 3rd edition
(New York: Thames & Hudson, 2016), Volume 1 only; (2) Terry Smith, Contemporary Art: World
Currents (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2011).

Recommended textbooks: (3) Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, eds., Art in Theory, 1900-
2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, 2nd edition (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002); (4)
Alexander Dumbadze and Suzanne Hudson, eds., Contemporary Art, 1989 to the Present
(Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013).

Assignments with percentage of course grade:

Class participation & discussion board (40%)
In-class discussion leader (20%)
Close looking assignment (20%)
Final exam (20%)

Written assignments and exams are designed to improve your writing and critical thinking skills.
All assignments must be completed to receive a passing grade. Graduate students must
achieve at least average performance in the course (the traditional grade equivalent of a B- or
80%) in order to earn CR.

Participation and discussion board: You should come to class every week prepared to
pose questions about the assigned readings. To facilitate class discussion, you are required to
post your response to a weekly prompt on the course discussion board via CANVAS. Your post
should address the set of questions contained in the prompt. You are required to cite at least
one assigned reading in your post. Also, you may respond to the posts by other students that

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precede yours. Each post should be at least 250 words (or one typed, double-spaced page).
You will have an opportunity to expand on your ideas during discussion in class.

In- class discussion leader: Each week, at least two students will lead discussion of the
assigned readings. You should refer to that weeks discussion board and bring images to
stimulate further conversation.

C lose looking assignment: This assignment is a 1,250-1,500 word formal analysis of one
work created in the time frame covered in the first half of the course (1880 1945). You must
choose from works on view at the Art Institute, or in the collection of the Ryerson & Burnham
Libraries or the Joan Flasch Artists Book Collection. This assignment will not require outside
research but should be based on your own observations of the works formal characteristics.
Using specific textual references - with citations - from at least one course reading, your essay
should also address how this work responds to and/or complicates the themes and concepts of
twentieth-century art discussed in the course. Further guidelines will be distributed in class.

Final exam: You will be given a take-home written exam due on the last day of class. The
exam will measure your comprehension of course material and will cover important themes and
concepts discussed in our class. Additional information about the exam will be distributed later
in the semester.

For all course assignments, please write in complete sentences. In-text citations or footnotes
are acceptable and required when paraphrasing or quoting unique sources; the same citation
method must be used throughout the document. For a quick guide to citations, see
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html
Unless otherwise indicated, you should submit your work via CANVAS.

Assignments must be turned in on the due date to receive credit. Extensions will be granted
only if you have been sick or had a personal emergency, and can provide documentation from
a doctor or school authority attesting to this fact. Late papers will be docked five points per
day and will not be accepted after seven days have elapsed.

Writing C enter: SAIC offers free, hour-long writing tutorials at the Writing Center, which is
located in the Lakeview Building, 116 S. Michigan Ave, 10th floor. Tutors are available to assist
all currently enrolled students with any stage of the writing process. To schedule an
appointment with a Writing Center tutor, students first need to create an account through the
online sign-up system: https://www.supersaas.com/schedule/saic/WritingCenter. Once
students have set up their own account, they may sign up for appointments. Weekly standing
appointments are available upon request. When students come to their tutoring appointments,
they should make sure to bring their assignments with them and have any work printed out.
Monday Thursday, 4:15pm 7:15pm are designated as walk-in hours.

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Attendance: SAIC policy states that students are expected to attend all classes regularly and
on time.

Students should miss class only with reasonable cause. If a student needs to miss class with
reasonable cause, it is the students responsibility to contact the instructor to receive
instruction for how to make up for the missed class. It is the instructors responsibility to give
this information to the student as his/her/their schedule permits. Missing class for other than a
reasonable cause may jeopardize the students academic standing in the class. Attendance is a
minimum requirement and is not part of your course grade.

Any MORE than two missed classes, whether or not for a reasonable cause, is grounds for No
Credit in all Art History courses. There are no excused absences.

Reasonable cause to miss a class might include:

Illness or hospitalization (the student should contact Health Services, who will relay
information to the faculty in whose class the student is enrolled)
Observation of a religious holiday
Family illness or death

Classes missed during the add/drop period are counted towards absences. The student is
responsible for assignments given during those missed days. Students officially enrolled in a
course will be given credit only if they have responded adequately to the standards and
requirements set by the instructor.

Please be on time! When you are late to class, you disrupt discussion and miss important
information. Be advised that, if you arrive more than ten minutes after the start of class, you will
be marked absent. You are required to ask for permission if you need to leave class early for
any reason and should avoid scheduling appointments during class time. Tardies are
cumulative and may be counted against attendance.

Remember to power down. Electronic devices such as cellphones and pagers must be
turned off and put away before class begins. Laptops, tablets, and e-readers may be used
ONLY to take notes and to view course readings. The use of digital devices in class to perform
non-class related work will not be tolerated. Any student who chooses to ignore this policy will
be asked to leave class and will be marked absent.

Academic Misconduct: Academic misconduct includes both plagiarism and cheating, and
may consist of: the submission of the work of another as ones own; unauthorized assistance on
a test or assignment; submission of the same work for more than one class without the
knowledge and consent of all instructors; or the failure to properly cite texts or ideas from
other sources. Academic integrity is expected in all coursework, including online learning. It is
assumed that the person receiving the credit for the course is the person completing the work.
SAIC has processes in place that protect student privacy and uses LDAP authentication to verify

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student identity. Specific procedures for faculty to follow in the case of academic misconduct
are detailed in the Student Handbook. Additional resources for students: Plagiarism: How to
Recognize It and Avoid It, a short guide prepared by the Faculty Senate Student Life
Subcommitee in 2004. http://www.artic.edu/webspaces/portal/library/plagiarism_packet.pdf
The Flaxman Librarys quick guide titled AVOID PLAGIARISM.
http://www.artic.edu/webspaces/portal/library/plagiarism_quickguide.pdf

Accommodations for Students with Disabilities: SAIC is committed to full compliance

with all laws regarding equal opportunities for students with disabilities. Students with known
or suspected disabilities, such as a Reading/Writing Disorder, ADD/ADHD, and/or a mental
health condition who think they would benefit from assistance or accommodations should first
contact the Disability and Learning Resource Center (DLRC) to schedule an appointment. DLRC
staff will review your disability documentation and work with you to determine reasonable
accommodations. They will then provide you with a letter outlining the approved
accommodations for you to deliver to your instructors. This letter must be presented before
any accommodations will be implemented. You should contact the DLRC as early in the
semester as possible. The DLRC is located within the Wellness Center on the 13th floor of 116
S Michigan Ave. and can be reached via phone at 312.499.4278 or email at dlrc@saic.edu.

C ourse Schedule*

Unit 1
September 5
Introduction

Unit 2
September 12 END OF ADD/DROP
Expression and the Primitive

Art Since 1900: 1900b, 1903, 1907, 1908

CANVAS: Paul Gauguin, Letter to Fontainas (1899); Wilhelm Worringer, from Abstraction and
Empathy (1908); Henri Matisse, Notes of a Painter (1908) in Art in Theory, pp. 18-20, 66-75.

CoCo Fusco and Guillermo Gmez-Pea, interviewed by Anna Johnson, BOMB 42 (Winter
1993).

In-class screening: The Couple in the Cage (1993; 31:00).

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Unit 3
September 19
C ubism and Abstraction

Art Since 1900: 1909, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1915

CANVAS: Wassily Kandinsky, from Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1911); Kazimir Malevich,
From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: The New Realism in Painting (1916); Pablo
Picasso, Picasso Speaks (1923) in Art in Theory, pp. 82-89, 173-183, 215-217.

Terence Hawkes, Structuralism and Semiotics, 2nd edition (New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. 6-
16.

Unit 4
September 26
Avant- Gardes

Art Since 1900: 1914, 1916a, 1919, 1920, 1921b

CANVAS: Tristan Tzara, Dada Manifesto 1918 (1918); Richard Huelsenbeck, First German
Dada Manifesto (1918); Nikolai Punin, The Monument to the Third International (1920);
Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova, Programme of the First Working Group of
Constructivists (1922) in Art in Theory, pp. 252-259, 336-339, 341-343.

Unit 5
October 3
Building a New World

Art Since 1900: 1917b, 1923, 1925a+c+d

CANVAS: Charles Edouard Jeanneret (Le Corbusier) and Amde Ozenfant, Purism (1920);
Walter Gropius, The Theory and Organization of the Bauhaus (1923); Theo van Doesburg, El
Lissitsky, Hans Richter, Declaration of the International Fraction of Constructivists of the First
International Congress of Progressive Artists, (1923) in Art in Theory, pp. 239-242, 309-316.

Denise Markonish, You Say You Want A (Infinite) Revolution, in Iigo Manglano-Ovalle,
Gravity Is a Force To Be Reckoned With (North Adams, Mass.: Mass MoCA, 2010), pp. 12-25.

In-class screening: Avant-garde film.

Unit 6
October 10
Photography in Relation to the O ther Arts

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Art Since 1900: 1916b, 1918, 1927b, 1929, 1935

CANVAS: Rosalind Krauss, Stieglitz/Equivalents, October 11 (Winter, 1979): 129-140;

Dorothy Norman, Alfred Stieglitz: An American Seer (1960), and Lszl Moholy-Nagy, From
Pigment to Light (1936), in Vicki Goldberg, ed., Photography in Print: Writings from 1816 to
the Present (Albuquerque: Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1981), pp. 271-272, 339-348.

Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility: Second
Version, in The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other
Writings on Media, edited by Michael W. Jennings, Brigid Doherty, and Thomas Y. Levin
(Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 2008), pp. 19-55.

Unit 7
October 17 CLOSE LOOKING ASSIGNMENT DUE
Realisms Between the Wars

Art Since 1900: 1924, 1931a, 1933, 1934b, 1937a, 1943

CANVAS: Diego Rivera, The Revolutionary Spirit in Modern Art (1932); Andr Breton, from the
First Manifesto of Surrealism (1924) in Art in Theory, pp. 421-424, 447-453.

Alain Locke, The Legacy of the Ancestral Arts (1925) in Locke, ed., The New Negro (New
York: Atheneum, 1992), pp. 254-267.

Reading on public art in Chicago TBA.

Unit 8
October 24
Becoming C ontemporary in EuroAmerica

World Currents: General Introduction and Ch. 1, Late Modern Art Becomes Contemporary, pp.
8-43.

CANVAS: Clement Greenberg, Modernist Painting (1960); Donald Judd, Specific Objects
(1965); Robert Morris, Notes on Sculpture 13 (1966-7); Michael Fried, Art and Objecthood
(1967); Leo Steinberg, from Other Criteria (1968-72) in Art in Theory, pp. 773-779, 824-846,
971-976.

Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author (1968) in Image, Music, Text, trans. Stephen Heath
(New York: Hill and Wang, 1977), pp. 142-148.

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Unit 9
October 31 LAST DAY TO WITHDRAW
The C ontemporary Art Boom

World Currents: Ch. 2, pp. 44-79.

CANVAS: Tim Griffin, Worlds Apart: Contemporary Art, Globalization, and the Rise of
Biennials and Geeta Kapur, Curating in Heterogeneous Worlds, in Contemporary Art, pp. 5-
16 and 169-170, 178-191.

Unit 10
November 7
Russia and (East of) Europe; South and C entral America, the C aribbean

World Currents: Ch. 3 + 4, pp. 82-149.

CANVAS: Jan Verwoert, Form Struggles and Irene V. Small, Medium

Aspecificity/Autopoietic Form, in Contemporary Art, pp. 70-83 and 105-106, 117-125.

Unit 11
November 14
C hina and East Asia; India, South and Southeast Asia

World Currents: Ch. 5 + 6, pp. 150-195.

CANVAS: Ina Blom, Inhabiting the Technosphere: Art and Technology Beyond Technical
Invention and David Joselit, Conceptual Art 2.0 in Contemporary Art, pp. 137-138 and 149-
68.

Unit 12
November 21
O ceania; Africa

World Currents: Ch. 7 + 8, pp. 196-235.

CANVAS: Liam Gillick and Maria Lind, Participation and Sofa Hernndez Chong Cuy,
Publicity and Complicity in Contemporary Art, in Contemporary Art, pp. 202-213 and 224-
231.

Unit 13
November 28
West Asia; World Pictures: Making Art Politically

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World Currents: Ch. 9 + 10, pp. 236-273.

CANVAS: Andrea Giunta, Activism and T.J. Demos, Life Full of Holes: Contemporary Art
and Bare Life, in Contemporary Art, pp. 232-244 and 265-266, 287-297.

December 5 C ritique Week NO CLASS

Unit 14
December 12 TAKE-HOME FINAL EXAM DUE
C limate C hange: Art and Ecology; Social Media: Affects of Time; C oda:
Permanent Transition

World Currents: Ch. 11, 12 + 13, pp. 274-325.

*The instructor reserves the right to adjust the course schedule; announcements will be made
in class and via CANVAS.