ARH 1010: History of Art Survey I (Ancient through Medieval) |
The art and architecture of Egypt, Greece, Rome, and medieval Europe, presented in terms of their visual and cultural significance. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 1020: History of Art Survey II (Renaissance through 20th Century) |
A survey of the history of Western art, including the works of Masaccio, Van Eyck, Donatello, Bosch, Michelangelo, and Leonardo; followed by the rise of national styles in the 17th and 18th centuries in France and England. Nineteenth-century neoclassicism, romanticism, realism, impressionism, and postimpressionism, as well as modernism and developments in 20th-century art, are also covered. The discussion is required. Credits: 3 COREQ: ARH1021 Department: Art History |
ARH 1021: History of Art Survey II (Renaissance through 20th Century) Discussion |
A discussion of the history of Western art, including the works of Masaccio, Van Eyck, Donatello, Bosch, Michelangelo, and Leonardo; followed by the rise of national styles in the 17th and 18th centuries in France and England. Nineteenth-century neoclassicism, romanticism, realism, impressionism, and postimpressionism, as well as modernism and developments in 20th-century art, are also covered. Credits: 1 COREQ: ARH1020 Department: Art History |
ARH 1025: Exhibition as Exploration: Topics |
In this seminar-style course, freshmen will explore the aesthetic, historical, and literary context of a given exhibition at the Neuberger Museum of Art. Through close observation, readings, and discussion, students will gain a deep knowledge of the artists in the exhibition, the aesthetic and social questions relevant to the artists’ work, and the curatorial logic guiding the exhibition. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 2050: Introduction to Modern Art |
The work of Courbet, Manet, and the circle of the Impressionists sets the stage for the revolutionary modern movements of the 20th century (e.g., Cubism, Expressionism, Dada, Surrealism). The course concludes with those artists who came to prominence in America at the time of World War II. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 2060: Art Since 1945 |
Introduces the diversity of practices that have dominated the history of art since World War II. Movements include: Abstract Expressionism, postwar European painting, happenings, Fluxus, Pop art, minimalism, conceptual art, performance art, and postmodernism. While European and North American art are emphasized, Asian and Latin American art are also addressed, particularly in the context of increasing globalization. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 2140: Introduction to the Structure and Function of Museums |
Explores a range of topics, including the history of art museums, current theories and methodologies of display, and museum administration. In addition to class discussion, students meet with museum personnel from the Neuberger Museum of Art to learn the basics of museum operations, including curatorial work, exhibition design, registration, education and public programming, marketing, public relations, and finance. Credits: 3 Department: Art History |
ARH 2155: Medieval Art and Architecture |
An examination of painting, sculpture, and architecture during the European Middle Ages, from the end of the Roman Empire through the Gothic era (c. 300–1400). French and Italian art are emphasized, but works from every part of Christian Europe, from England and Spain to the Byzantine Empire, are included. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 2160: Picturing America: Art and American Identity to 1913 |
What is American about American art, and how have questions of race and ethnic and cultural identity shaped our visual culture? Offering an interpretive overview of American history through the lens of American culture, this course traces the formation of American identity from the eve of the European arrival in North America to shortly before the beginning of World War I. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 2230: Early Italian Renaissance Art |
An examination of painting, sculpture, and architecture produced in Italy from the late 13th century to the late 15th century, including Giotto, Masaccio, Donatello, Brunelleschi, Piero della Francesca, and Botticelli. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 2240: Italian High Renaissance and Mannerism |
An examination of painting, sculpture, and architecture in Italy during the 16th century. The course begins with an in-depth study of the works of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Bramante, Giorgione, and Titian, and then traces the evolution of the anticlassical style known as mannerism. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 2265: Greek Art and Architecture |
Developments in Greek sculpture, vase painting, and architecture are traced from the destruction of the Mycenaean palaces (c. 1200 BCE) to the rise of the Roman Empire (1st and 2nd centuries BCE). Topics include the impact of Near Eastern civilizations on early Greek culture, the “classical” style’s florescence in 5th-century Athens, and the creation of the Hellenistic world by Alexander the Great. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 2300: West African Art |
A survey presenting key artistic works from the cultures of West Africa and the Congo region. Students learn about the artistic, social, and political aspects important to these works and the artists that make them. Primary themes include accumulative and multimedia aesthetics, sustainable materials, music and performance, gender, divination, royalty, spirituality, nomadism, collective production, and contemporary art. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 2430: Art, Modernity and Environment |
Begins by examining the relation between landscape and modernity in nineteenth-century painting and photography, ranging from Impressionism to travel and survey photography. We then track modern art’s changing relation to both the natural and built environment through land art, earth art, and the New Topographics movement of the 1960s and 1970s, concluding with contemporary art of the human-altered environment. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 2550: Introduction to the Arts of Africa and the African Diaspora I |
This survey examines the arts and architecture of Africa in a global context from the 13th century to the present. In regional studies of the continent’s vast territory and diaspora, we analyze artworks to consider their roles in daily life, ritual, displays of power and prestige, artistic exploration and innovation, and more. Weekly visits to the Neuberger Museum are required. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 2551: Introduction to the Arts of Africa and the African Diaspora II |
Examines the arts and architecture of Africa in the 20th and 21st centuries, engaging critically with how the field of modern and contemporary African art has developed. Students consider the influence of cross-cultural interactions on artistic practices, concepts of traditional, popular, and high art, colonialism and independence movements, primitivism, the rise of African modernisms, Afro-futurism, and more. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 2650: Italian Art in the 16th Century: Reformations, Explorations, Deviations |
Examines Italian art and architecture of the High Renaissance, Mannerist, and Baroque periods, considering such issues as the status of the artist, the “crisis of the image” during religious reformations, and the place of art in an expanding early-modern understanding of the world. Emphasis is on the development of students’ skills, including formal analysis and critical reading and writing. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 2885: Women Artists and Feminist Criticism |
An introduction to women artists from the Renaissance era through the Enlightenment, including Anguissola, Gentileschi, Vigée-Lebrun, and Kauffmann. Topics include access to professions, constructions of sexuality and gender, and attitudes toward the body in representation. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 2885: Women Artists and Feminist Criticism |
An introduction to women artists from the Renaissance era through the Enlightenment, including Anguissola, Gentileschi, Vigée-Lebrun, and Kauffmann. Topics include access to professions, constructions of sexuality and gender, and attitudes toward the body in representation. Credits: 4 Department: Gender Studies |
ARH 3010: The Avant-Gardes |
Since the 1800s, the avant-gardes have tried to resist the delimited role of fine art in Western culture. In this course, students examine the strategies that avant-garde artists have used to reconnect their art practice with the more contentious areas of social and political life. Credits: 4 PREREQ: ARH2000-2994 Or ARH3000-3994 Or ARH4000-4994 Department: Art History |
ARH 3030: Approaching Benin through Art Criticism and Practice |
Students contextualize Beninese contemporary art and culture into the larger context of West African history. Readings in African history and post-colonial theory accompany hands-on workshops on how to make and write about art while visiting Benin. Students will write response papers, participate in class discussions, and make work using the methods presented in the course. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3030: Approaching Benin through Art Criticism and Practice |
Students contextualize Beninese contemporary art and culture into the larger context of West African history. Readings in African history and post-colonial theory accompany hands-on workshops on how to make and write about art while visiting Benin. Students will write response papers, participate in class discussions, and make work using the methods presented in the course. Credits: 4 Department: Printmaking |
ARH 3107: Flash-points, Fiascos, and Freak-outs: Art and Controversy, 1863-Present |
How and why do certain artworks become embroiled in major public debates, political scandals, and legal disputes? Beginning with the 1863 Salon des Refusés and continuing to the present day through an itinerary that travels the globe, students will examine the role of controversy in defining art, society, and how we imagine the relationship between the two. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3125: The Caravaggio Effect |
The paintings of Michelangelo Mersisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610) had a revolutionary impact on the art world of his era, and the fascination with his extraordinary re-evaluation of pictorial effects continues to this day. This course examines Caravaggio’s art and career and considers responses to his work by other artists, including film directors, up to the present. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3135: Dada and the Readymade |
This seminar focuses on the inception of the “readymade” and the abandonment of traditional forms of painting in the work of Marcel Duchamp, as well as the later development of readymade practices in the context of New York and Paris Dada. The history of the readymade as an artistic strategy is traced. Credits: 4 PREREQ: ARH1010 Or ARH1020 Or ARH2050 Or ARH2060 Department: Art History |
ARH 3145: Collections Research/Neuberger Museum |
Based on objects in the Neuberger Museum of Art. Students undertake independent research projects on works in the museum’s collection, investigating issues of documentation and interpretation. Limited to art history majors. Credits: 3 Department: Art History |
ARH 3151: Craft Revivals |
Examines the relationship between the traditional crafts and the upheavals of modernity. Beginning with the Arts and Crafts movement in the 19th century and continuing to the present day, students explore how craft is framed as protest against industrialization, as utopian model of labor and exchange, and as aesthetic transformation. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3160: American Art to 1913 |
Surveys American painting, sculpture, decorative arts, and architecture until the opening of the Armory Show in 1913. The course explores the distinctiveness of the American art tradition. Credits: 4 PREREQ: ARH1000-2994 Or ARH3000-3994 Or ARH4000-4994 Or HIS1000-2994 Or HIS3000-3994 Or HIS4000-4994 Department: Art History |
ARH 3170: African American Art |
A study of African American painting, sculpture, architecture, prints, drawings, photography, film, and vernacular and popular art. The course begins with the Afro-Atlantic era and covers images made by Southern artists in the 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as artists associated with the “New Negro” movement, the Harlem Renaissance, the civil rights movement, and postmodernism. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3177: Contemporary African Art |
A study of artists and exhibitions from and about Africa, spanning a wide variety of traditional and new media. Important exhibitions like The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945–1994 (2001) and Looking Both Ways: Art of the Contemporary African Diaspora (2004) are analyzed. Themes include framing “Africa,” African identities, memory and place, and popular culture. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3187: Women Artists in the 20th Century |
Focuses on women artists and their place within the art-historical narrative of the 20th century. Students examine both the diverse practices of women artists and the reception of their work by critics, dealers, and collectors. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3187: Women Artists in the 20th Century |
Focuses on women artists and their place within the art-historical narrative of the 20th century. Students examine both the diverse practices of women artists and the reception of their work by critics, dealers, and collectors. Credits: 4 Department: Gender Studies |
ARH 3190: History of Photography |
An introduction to a wide range of photographic practices, from the medium’s conception in the 19th century to the ubiquitous online photo-sharing of today. Lectures have a special focus on the major artistic developments of photography. Topics include the significance of vernacular practices and their historical contexts in different parts of the world. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3197: Global Photography |
Treats the history of photography in a global framework. Topics include the transformation of photography as it spreads from Europe to Africa, the Americas, Asia, and the Middle East; the decentering of European modernism in postmodernism; the role of photography in colonialism and decolonization; and its role in fine art as well as vernacular portraiture, journalism, documentary, and other fields. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3215: Photography: The First Century |
Examines the photographic medium from its earliest forms through the 1920s and 1930s. Topics include technical innovations, manipulations and interventions, function and reception, the relationship to the fine arts, and debates about photography’s claims of realism. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3225: Albrecht Durer and the German Renaissance |
A study of the German painter, printmaker, and draftsman Albrecht Dürer. The artist’s interests in science, politics, religious conflicts, sexuality, and the non-Western world are emphasized. Credits: 4 PREREQ: ARH1000-2994 Or ARH3000-3994 Or ARH4000-4994 Or HIS1000-2994 Or HIS3000-3994 Or HIS4000-4994 Department: Art History |
ARH 3230: Northern Renaissance Art |
Examines the history of painting and sculpture in Northern Europe from the 14th century to c. 1570. Flemish, Dutch, French, German, and Czech works are considered, with emphasis on such artists as the Limbourg Brothers, Van Eyck, Bosch, Dürer, and Bruegel. Credits: 4 PREREQ: ARH1000-2994 Or ARH3000-3994 Or ARH4000-4994 Or HIS1000-2994 Or HIS3000-3994 Or HIS4000-4994 Department: Art History |
ARH 3232: Land of Pleasure and Destruction: What Does Campania Say to Us Today? |
From ancient to neoclassical, Campania’s monuments are overwhelming with the riches of the past. Students delve into the histories of these great works and the ways they have shaped the modern world through the development of revivalist styles, academic disciplines, and tourism as a leisure activity. Includes visits to such historic sites as Pompeii, Paestum, Amalfi, and Naples. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3238: Italian Futurism |
Founded in Italy in 1909, Futurism declared a love of speed, aggression, and technology, and rejected the clichés of nature, love, and antiquity. This course addresses the ways in which Futurists attacked the conventions of art, includes a more general discussion of Futurist art in Italy in relation to its past, and investigates the influence of Futurism in France, Britain, and Russia. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3240: Dutch Art |
Investigates the themes, diverse genres, and major figures in 17th-century Dutch painting. Current problems of interpretation are examined, including the idea that there may have been a specifically northern form of visual thinking. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3251: The Russian Avant-Garde |
Despite a growing interest in the work of the Russian avant-garde, there is still relatively little known about the artists of the late Russian Empire and the early Soviet Union. This course addresses the broad scope and multidisciplinary practice of Russian modernism, from the shocking primitivism of The Rite of Spring to the cold pragmatism of constructivism. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3255: Introduction to Pre-Columbian Art and Civilizations |
Explores the scope and complexity of pre-Columbian art and civilizations, which flourished in Mesoamerica and the Andes. While these societies were responsible for outstanding achievements in mathematics, astronomy, and agriculture, their most enduring contribution is manifested in their art and architecture. Includes required visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3260: Venetian Art and Architecture |
An examination of the visual arts in Venice and its hinterland from the early Middle Ages to the end of the Venetian Republic in 1797. In addition to in-depth treatment of such artists as Bellini, Carpaccio, Giorgione, Titian, and Tiepolo, the social context of the arts and the unique urban development of Venice are studied in detail. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3261: Aegean Art and Architecture |
A survey of major sites, monuments, and objects of the Greek Bronze Age (c. 3200–1100 BCE). Topics include: the emergence of the first complex civilizations in Europe; the development of regional artistic styles and iconography; interactions with Egypt and the Near East; and the historical reality of later Greek myths. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3270: Art in the Age of Exploration |
A study of the representation of Asians, Africans, and Americans (and their native lands) in European and American art from the end of the Middle Ages to the French Revolution. Some consideration is also given to the impact of non-Western arts on the European tradition. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3285: Design and Culture |
Design is both a noun and a verb. This course deals with the idea of design as a cultural phenomenon and a creative practice. Contemporary design and its making are situated within a broad methodological framework, drawing from existing and emerging theories in anthropology, art history, film studies, criticism, the history of technology, and architecture. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3335: Latin American Art in the Age of Globalization |
Focuses on contemporary Latin American artists working in and out of Latin America: Gabriel Orozco, Guillermo Gomez Peña, Adriana Varejao, Teresa Margolles, Carlos Garaicoa, Betsabeé Romero, Javier Tellez, Nadín Ospina, Tania Bruguera, and Nicolás de Jesus. Students analyze the way these artists address such questions as urban violence, social inequality, pollution, emigration, and national identity. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3335: Latin American Art in the Age of Globalization |
Focuses on contemporary Latin American artists working in and out of Latin America: Gabriel Orozco, Guillermo Gomez Peña, Adriana Varejao, Teresa Margolles, Carlos Garaicoa, Betsabeé Romero, Javier Tellez, Nadín Ospina, Tania Bruguera, and Nicolás de Jesus. Students analyze the way these artists address such questions as urban violence, social inequality, pollution, emigration, and national identity. Credits: 4 Department: Latin American Studies |
ARH 3405: Design History and Theory: 1750–Today |
Examines the history of design as it parallels the history of technology and industrialization. Covering a variety of design disciplines, including architecture and urban planning, graphic design, fashion, and industrial design, this course focuses less on aesthetics than on the cultural programs that have shaped buildings, objects, and communication systems for more than two centuries. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3507: The Fictional Visual Arts |
Examines a selection of poetry, short stories, novels, and films from different historical periods that foreground the visual arts through various means, including the character of the artist, the practices of art, the nature of creativity, and the critical reception of art. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3510: 19th-Century Art |
European art from the French Revolution to 1900, with movements in France, Germany, and England receiving particular attention. Major artists studied include David, Gericault, Delacroix, Ingres, Frederich, Constable, Turner, the Pre-Raphaelites, Daumier, Manet, Degas, Monet, and Gauguin. Credits: 4 PREREQ: ARH1000-1994 Or ARH2000-2994 Or ARH3000-3994 Or ARH4000-4994 Department: Art History |
ARH 3526: Art and/as Performance |
An examination of visual artists who have used performance as an integral component of their practice, with emphasis on post-1950 object-oriented work (rather than theatre or dance). Both primary texts and critical interpretations are studied. Credits: 4 PREREQ: ARH2050 Or ARH2060 Department: Art History |
ARH 3531: New Media and Contemporary Art |
An examination of contemporary art outside of the traditional media of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Looking at painting-based performances of the 1950s, feminist body art, guerrilla television, and current political interventions based in digital media, students identify the strategies artists used to create new forms, and assess their success in modifying our understanding of the world. Credits: 4 PREREQ: ARH1000-1994 Or ARH2000-2994 Or ARH3000-3994 Or ARH4000-4994 Department: New Media |
ARH 3531: New Media and Contemporary Art |
An examination of contemporary art outside of the traditional media of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Looking at painting-based performances of the 1950s, feminist body art, guerrilla television, and current political interventions based in digital media, students identify the strategies artists used to create new forms, and assess their success in modifying our understanding of the world. Credits: 4 PREREQ: ARH1000-1994 Or ARH2000-2994 Or ARH3000-3994 Or ARH4000-4994 Department: Art History |
ARH 3560: African Photography |
Examines photography as a medium used by European colonizers and its subsequent use by Africans for self-definition and liberation. Topics include early studio photography, photographs in cultural outlets like the Nigerian edition of Drum magazine, photography during the apartheid era, and contemporary work. The political and stylistic aspects of portrait, documentary, ethnographic, pop, and abstract images are considered. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3565: Photography in Africa and the African Diaspora |
From photography’s 19th-century origins to contemporary practices, this survey course explores how and why photography became central to arguments about the modernity of African visual art. Moving from one regional focus to the next, students examine photography’s role in expeditionary and ethnographic projects, identity formation, political activism, spirituality, documenting the landscape, and representing the fantastical and the everyday. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3570: Creativity, Genius, and the Renaissance Artist and Architect |
A critical examination of the concepts of creativity and the artist genius in the era of Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, and Gentileschi. Artist biographies are compared with art historical evidence, including painting, sculpture, architecture and other media, to explore the historical contexts of Renaissance art creation. Topics include self-portraiture, women artists, workshop practices, and the artist’s and architect’s differing connections to fabrication. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3605: Madness and Modernism |
A variety of intersections between extreme mental conditions and the production of works of art during the modern period are investigated. Topics include connections between creativity and mental instability, artists with a history of mental disorder, and theories about stylistic or formal affinities between madness and art. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3630: French Art From LaTour to David |
Focuses on the work of French artists from the early modern era to the French Revolution, with special attention to the Gallic obsession with realism, alongside the more abstract aspects of representation. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3650: 20th-Century Sculpture |
Conceptions of what sculpture can be were radically transformed over the course of the 20th century. This course presents a survey of 20th-century sculpture, with emphasis on innovative materials and techniques, the changing relationship between viewer and object, and new modes of exhibition. The work of Duchamp, Bourgeois, Calder, Judd, Hesse, and Smithson, among others, is discussed. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3660: Utopian Architecture |
Emerging from a longstanding literary tradition, examples of utopian architecture give insight into the ideals and fears of the cultures that produced them. This course explores both utopian and dystopian architectural visions, beginning with the Enlightenment works of Ledoux and Boullée and ending with the paper projects of 1960s groups like Archigram and Superstudio. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3670: Postwar Art in Europe |
If the postwar period famously represented the ascendency of American art, what art forms emerged simultaneously in traditional European centers? This course examines seemingly antithetical practices in France, Italy, Germany, and elsewhere: Art Informel, nouveau réalisme (new realism), Arte Povera, neoexpressionist painting, body art, conceptualism, Young British Art, etc. How has the changing European political landscape affected art and its institutions? Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3710: Artists on Art |
An examination of critical and theoretical writing by artists about art. The course considers texts from various eras, but focuses primarily on 20th-century and contemporary material. Artists’ writings are analyzed in the context of art criticism as a whole, and students also have the opportunity try their hand at criticism. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3745: Islam and Its Neighbors: 7th-10th Century |
Islam burst forth from its cradle in Arabia and onto the world stage during the 7th century CE. The first caliphates were characterized by important military, diplomatic, and cultural encounters with the Christian Byzantine and Carolingian Empires. This course explores the art, literature, and architecture of these societies, with a focus on artistic adaptations, assimilations, and differences. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3770: Islamic Spain and Sicily in the Middle Ages |
The Islamic conquests of Spain and Sicily brought Muslim culture to European shores for the first time. These conquests resulted in a dynamic artistic exchange among Muslim, Christian, and Jewish medieval traditions in the region. Critical issues for consideration include the impact of trade and diplomacy on this exchange and the lasting influence of Islamic art on the West. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3775: Father of the Arts: Renaissance Drawing |
Explores the role of drawing in Renaissance art. Developments in paper-making technology and graphic media allowed artists to create and use drawings in different ways, until drawings came to be seen as finished artworks in their own right, products of the artist’s unique hand. Emphasis is on the development of students’ skills, including formal analysis and critical reading and writing. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3815: Mexican Art From the Revolution to the NAFTA Era |
A broad look at modern and contemporary Mexican art, using an interdisciplinary and comparative approach. Special emphasis is on the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) and its aftermath throughout the 20th century. Students analyze links between the visual arts (including mural painting, prints, and photography) and the literature, the popular scene and the mainstream, the street art and the gallery art. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 3815: Mexican Art From the Revolution to the NAFTA Era |
A broad look at modern and contemporary Mexican art, using an interdisciplinary and comparative approach. Special emphasis is on the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) and its aftermath throughout the 20th century. Students analyze links between the visual arts (including mural painting, prints, and photography) and the literature, the popular scene and the mainstream, the street art and the gallery art. Credits: 4 Department: Latin American Studies |
ARH 3880: Junior Seminar in Art History |
Provides art history majors with an opportunity to examine the nature of the discipline by analyzing and comparing the writings of several art historians. The seminar concentrates on the work of a single artist in light of various art historical approaches. This writing-intensive course requires a variety of short essays and concludes with a research paper and class presentation. Limited to art history majors. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 4000: Writing Art Criticism |
Students focus on developing competence in both critical style and content. Focusing on visual art, the course explores different kinds of critical voices, from belle-lettristic to theoretical. Readings and discussions analyze examples by leading critics. Writing assignments aim for students to develop an engaging argument, and the importance of revision, clear thinking, and descriptive ability is stressed. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 4006: Investigating Normal |
Explores ideas of the “normal” and “non-normal” in art and design today. Through readings, guest speakers, and projects, the class investigates both traditional and unusual depictions of bodies, race, and gender, along with the art and design practices developed in order to represent and understand them. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 4015: Contemporary Art and the Sublime |
Examines the resurgence, or persistence, in recent art of the sublime: an experience of overwhelming grandeur. Why have contemporary artists (Matthew Barney, Edward Burtynsky, Tacita Dean, Olafur Eliasson, Andreas Gursky, Bill Viola, and others) turned to an 18th-century aesthetic theory in order to address the pressing issues of our time: climate change, the expansion of technology, and economic globalization? Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 4025: Exhibition I |
Participants in this seminar propose, research, plan, and coordinate an exhibition series and related public programming to be undertaken the following semester (as part of the course, Exhibition II). These exhibitions will take place in the Neuberger Museum, other sites around campus, or in a combination of Museum-based and other locations. Credits: 4 PREREQ: ARH4035 Or ARH4037 Department: Art History |
ARH 4026: Exhibition II |
Participants in this seminar coordinate an exhibition series and related public programming based on the plans and preparations of the previous semester (conducted as part of the course, Exhibition I). These exhibitions take place in the Neuberger Museum, other sites around campus, or in a combination of Museum-based and other locations. Credits: 3 PREREQ: ARH4025 Department: Art History |
ARH 4030: Exhibition Seminar |
In this seminar, students and the instructor co-curate an exhibition for the Neuberger Museum of Art. The class works on all aspects of the exhibition with the instructor and museum staff. Students learn about the various functions of departments, including curatorial, education, exhibition design, development, and public relations, putting exhibition theory into practice. Exhibition topics vary. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 4035: Museology |
An investigation of the historical development and function of museums. Students examine the growth of collections and exhibitions, along with the various roles that museums have played in relation to art history and society around the world. Central to this course and its final project is the question: “What should a museum be in the 21st century?” Credits: 4 PREREQ: ARH2140 Or ARH4030 Or ARH4715 Department: Art History |
ARH 4037: Critical Curatorial Studies |
A rigorous examination of the historical, theoretical, and concrete concerns of curatorial practice. Course-work culminates in a complete exhibition proposal. Credits: 4 PREREQ: ARH2050 Or ARH2060 Department: Art History |
ARH 4040: Obscenity and Censorship in Contemporary Art |
Considers the validity of obscene imagery—eroticism, violence, scatology, racism, and hate speech—in recent artistic practice. Students investigate the struggle to define the terms “art” and “obscenity” and the efforts to censor such art. What are the artistic, critical, and political effects of engaging with obscenity? What are the motivations and effects of attempting to censor it? Credits: 4 PREREQ: ARH2060 Department: Art History |
ARH 4045: The Art of the Document |
Addresses the tension between art and document, or making and recording, in twentieth-century visual culture. The first half investigates the aesthetics and politics of documentary photography and film, including conflicts between realism and modernism. The second half examines the use of documents and documentation by postmodern art and subsequent transformations in the style, form, and truth-content of documentary practices. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 4060: History of the Art Market |
Since the 1990s, the art market has become integral to an understanding of contemporary art practices. This course introduces the economic foundation of the art market and the practices of participants. The focus is on the history of the primary market, where new works of art produced “on spec” are introduced to the public in a retail setting. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 4105: Aesthetics and Politics |
The relationship between artistic practice and the social realm is addressed, with emphasis on the development of the avant-garde in the 19th and 20th centuries, the role of artists in contemporary political discourse, and the theoretical discourse that constitutes the larger debate on these issues. Credits: 4 PREREQ: ARH1000-1994 Or ARH2000-2994 Or ARH3000-3994 Or ARH4000-4994 Department: Art History |
ARH 4120: The Invisible Seventies |
The 1970s are often thought about in frivolous terms, as the decade of disco and bell-bottoms. In art, this period is often overshadowed by the radical avant-gardes of the 1960s and new developments in art during the 1980s. This seminar reconsiders the art and culture of the ’70s in the context of social and political currents of the period. Credits: 4 PREREQ: ARH2050 Or ARH2060 Department: Art History |
ARH 4125: Minimalisms |
Drawing on both contemporary artists’ and critics’ writings and recent historical accounts, students consider minimalist art of the 1960s as a well-defined movement comprising a specific group of artists, versus “minimalism” as a diffuse tendency appearing in sculpture, painting, film, music, and dance. The relationship of minimalism to subsequent practices—postminimalism, process and land art, and conceptualism—is also explored. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 4130: Contemporary African-American Art: East Coast-West Coast |
African-American artistic trends since 1968 are examined by using the binary of East Coast-West Coast as appropriated from hip-hop culture, particularly in Los Angeles, Oakland, and New York. Both the limits of hip-hop aesthetics in the visual arts and the limits of thinking about “black aesthetics” as a stable or quantifiable style are tested. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 4202: The Inclusive Museum |
Explores the ways in which ability and disability are conceived, represented, and negotiated in museum culture. Weekly discussions, visiting lecturers and screenings will examine key theoretical concepts, practical case studies, as well as the use of educational and internet-based media as assistive technologies. Specific topics will include: museums and the establishment of norms; the category of “assistive technology”; inclusive architecture and design; staring and other practices of looking; disability and performance art; media advocacy and activism. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 4225: Theories of Painting |
Painting has long been accompanied by theories describing its abilities to attract, deceive, and even harm. This course looks at key theories and debates in the history of the medium (e.g., Rubenistes vs. Poussinistes, painting’s role among pluralistic practices) to better understand how both making and seeing a painting are colored by a history of ideas. Credits: 4 PREREQ: ARH1020 Or ARH2050 Department: Art History |
ARH 4300: Theorizing Design |
Why design? Why consume? What is desire? Are you what you make? Are you what you consume? How does design communicate? Design is a complex activity that touches on fields as diverse as psychoanalysis and anthropology. This course provides a theoretical understanding of design practice, production, and use (consumption). Topics include graphic and digital design, furniture, architecture, and industrial design. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 4340: American Art and Architecture in the Age of the Machine |
Focuses on objects and movements influenced by industrialization and mechanization in the U.S. between 1900 and 1940. Topics include the rise of the skyscraper in American architecture and its effect on painters and printmakers, the advent of the automobile and the assembly line’s replacement of the factory worker, and Dada’s expression of the havoc reeked during World War I by new machine-age technology. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 4445: Seminar: Rauschenberg |
The work of Robert Rauschenberg is examined in the context of postwar neo-avant-garde activities in the U.S. and in relation to the work of contemporaries like Jasper Johns and John Cage. Students also review recent theoretical debates about the meaning and significance of the artist’s work. Some background in the study of modern or contemporary art is useful. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 4460: Field Trips to New York Museums and Galleries |
A practical course in art criticism, which meets regularly in New York. Contemporary works of art form the basis for lectures, discussions, and written essays. Credits: 4 PREREQ: ARH1000-2994 Or ARH3000-3994 Or ARH4000-4994 Department: Art History |
ARH 4590: Pre-Columbian Aesthetics in Modern Latin American Art |
Since the late 1800s, pre-Columbian art and history have inspired Latin American artists. This course investigates that phenomenon through an in-depth study of the work of individual artists, including Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, as well as more contemporary figures. Students are also introduced to pre-Columbian art and architecture. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 4590: Pre-Columbian Aesthetics in Modern Latin American Art |
Since the late 1800s, pre-Columbian art and history have inspired Latin American artists. This course investigates that phenomenon through an in-depth study of the work of individual artists, including Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, as well as more contemporary figures. Students are also introduced to pre-Columbian art and architecture. Credits: 4 Department: Latin American Studies |
ARH 4620: Van Gogh in Context |
Although Vincent van Gogh is one of the world’s best-known and most beloved artists, his work is often reduced to simplistic notions of madness and genius. This course expands students’ understanding of the artist by exploring his connection to the contemporary contexts of mechanical reproduction, national identity, and urban culture. Credits: 4 PREREQ: ARH1020 Or ARH2050 Or ARH3000-4994 Department: Art History |
ARH 4705: Art and History After 1989 |
This seminar focuses on uses of history—as both subject and method—in art around the turn of the 21st century. Within a globally comparative frame, students investigate contemporary theories and practices that take stock of the past in order to reimagine the future at a moment when the world seems simultaneously more connected and more fractured than ever before. Credits: 4 PREREQ: ARH1020 Or ARH2050 Or ARH2060 Department: Art History |
ARH 4710: Exoticism in Modern Art |
Explores reciprocal influences of Western and non-Western art in the modern period. Topics include diverse artistic movements like “Orientalism,” “Japonisme,” and “Primitivism.” The class also examines the impact of non-Western art on specific artists, including Delacroix, Manet, Whistler, Picasso, and Pollock. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 4715: Collect, Display, Exchange |
This seminar delves into the historical, theoretical, and practical aspects of museum and exhibition practices in the U.S., from encyclopedic museums to storefront galleries. In addition to classroom discussion, students visit arts institutions in the area to consider collection and exhibition-related issues and to learn more about the operational function and structure of museums. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 4770: African Art and Film |
African art and visual culture are considered in the context of African film. African youth, who make up most of the continent’s population, have had a marked effect on many sociopolitical phenomena. The films screened address African youth culture and such issues as the new independence (1960s), post-apartheid South Africa, youth rebels, religious fundamentalism, HIV, hip-hop and digital culture, and global emigration. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 4820: Food and Feasting in the Visual Arts |
The visual record of the production and consumption of food and drink are examined in this seminar. Topics include food in the still life, the representation of gluttony, and the prominent position of sacred feasts and food miracles in religious art. The primary focus is on Western art, but examples from other traditions are considered. Credits: 4 PREREQ: ARH1000-1994 Or ARH2000-2994 Or ARH3000-3994 Or ARH4000-4994 Department: Art History |
ARH 5000: Writing Art Criticism |
Students focus on developing competence in both critical style and content. Focusing on visual art, the course explores different kinds of critical voices, from belle-lettristic to theoretical. Readings and discussions analyze examples by leading critics. Writing assignments aim for students to develop an engaging argument, and the importance of revision, clear thinking, and descriptive ability is stressed. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5006: Investigating Normal |
Explores ideas of the “normal” and “non-normal” in art and design today. Through readings, guest speakers, and projects, the class investigates both traditional and unusual depictions of bodies, race, and gender, along with the art and design practices developed in order to represent and understand them. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5010: The Avant-Gardes |
Since the 1800s, the avant-gardes have tried to resist the delimited role of fine art in Western culture. In this course, students examine the strategies that avant-garde artists have used to reconnect their art practice with the more contentious areas of social and political life. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5015: Contemporary Art and the Sublime |
Examines the resurgence, or persistence, in recent art of the sublime: an experience of overwhelming grandeur. Why have contemporary artists (Matthew Barney, Edward Burtynsky, Tacita Dean, Olafur Eliasson, Andreas Gursky, Bill Viola, and others) turned to an 18th-century aesthetic theory in order to address the pressing issues of our time: climate change, the expansion of technology, and economic globalization? Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5025: Exhibition I |
Participants in this seminar propose, research, plan, and coordinate an exhibition series and related public programming to be undertaken the following semester (as part of the course, Exhibition II). These exhibitions will take place in the Neuberger Museum, other sites around campus, or in a combination of Museum-based and other locations. Credits: 4 PREREQ: ARH5035 Or ARH5037 Department: Art History |
ARH 5026: Exhibition II |
Participants in this seminar coordinate an exhibition series and related public programming based on the plans and preparations of the previous semester (conducted as part of the course, Exhibition I). These exhibitions take place in the Neuberger Museum, other sites around campus, or in a combination of Museum-based and other locations. Credits: 3 PREREQ: ARH5025 Department: Art History |
ARH 5030: Exhibition Seminar |
In this seminar, students and the instructor co-curate an exhibition for the Neuberger Museum of Art. The class works on all aspects of the exhibition with the instructor and museum staff. Students learn about the various functions of departments, including curatorial, education, exhibition design, development, and public relations, putting exhibition theory into practice. Exhibition topics vary. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5035: Museology |
An investigation of the historical development and function of museums. Students examine the growth of collections and exhibitions, along with the various roles that museums have played in relation to art history and society around the world. Central to this course and its final project is the question: “What should a museum be in the 21st century?” Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5037: Critical Curatorial Studies |
A rigorous examination of the historical, theoretical, and concrete concerns of curatorial practice. Course-work culminates in a complete exhibition proposal. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5040: Obscenity and Censorship in Contemporary Art |
Considers the validity of obscene imagery—eroticism, violence, scatology, racism, and hate speech—in recent artistic practice. Students investigate the struggle to define the terms “art” and “obscenity” and the efforts to censor such art. What are the artistic, critical, and political effects of engaging with obscenity? What are the motivations and effects of attempting to censor it? Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5045: The Art of the Document |
Addresses the tension between art and document, or making and recording, in twentieth-century visual culture. The first half investigates the aesthetics and politics of documentary photography and film, including conflicts between realism and modernism. The second half examines the use of documents and documentation by postmodern art and subsequent transformations in the style, form, and truth-content of documentary practices. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5060: History of the Art Market |
Since the 1990s, the art market has become integral to an understanding of contemporary art practices. This course introduces the economic foundation of the art market and the practices of participants. The focus is on the history of the primary market, where new works of art produced “on spec” are introduced to the public in a retail setting. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5101: Proseminar: Method and Theory in Art History |
The major theoretical orientations and methodologies associated with art historical study are discussed and critiqued. Methods reviewed range from connoisseurship to the iconographical and social-historical. Theories surveyed include formalist, Marxist, literary, feminist, psychoanalytic, and new-historicist concerns that dominated 20th-century interpretative practice. Required for MA students. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5105: Aesthetics and Politics |
The relationship between artistic practice and the social realm is addressed, with emphasis on the development of the avant-garde in the 19th and 20th centuries, the role of artists in contemporary political discourse, and the theoretical discourse that constitutes the larger debate on these issues. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5107: Flash-points, Fiascos, and Freak-outs: Art and Controversy, 1863-Present |
How and why do certain artworks become embroiled in major public debates, political scandals, and legal disputes? Beginning with the 1863 Salon des Refusés and continuing to the present day through an itinerary that travels the globe, students will examine the role of controversy in defining art, society, and how we imagine the relationship between the two. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5120: The Invisible Seventies |
The 1970s are often thought about in frivolous terms, as the decade of disco and bell-bottoms. In art, this period is often overshadowed by the radical avant-gardes of the 1960s and new developments in art during the 1980s. This seminar reconsiders the art and culture of the ’70s in the context of social and political currents of the period. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5125: Minimalisms |
Drawing on both contemporary artists’ and critics’ writings and recent historical accounts, students consider minimalist art of the 1960s as a well-defined movement comprising a specific group of artists, versus “minimalism” as a diffuse tendency appearing in sculpture, painting, film, music, and dance. The relationship of minimalism to subsequent practices—postminimalism, process and land art, and conceptualism—is also explored. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5130: Contemporary African-American Art: East Coast-West Coast |
African-American artistic trends since 1968 are examined by using the binary of East Coast-West Coast as appropriated from hip-hop culture, particularly in Los Angeles, Oakland, and New York. Both the limits of hip-hop aesthetics in the visual arts and the limits of thinking about “black aesthetics” as a stable or quantifiable style are tested. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5135: Dada and the Readymade |
This seminar focuses on the inception of the “readymade” and the abandonment of traditional forms of painting in the work of Marcel Duchamp, as well as the later development of readymade practices in the context of New York and Paris Dada. The history of the readymade as an artistic strategy is traced. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5145: Collections Research |
A graduate-level independent study based on objects in the Neuberger Museum of Art. Students undertake independent research projects on works in the museum’s collection, investigating issues of documentation, provenance, condition, and interpretation. Credits: 3 Department: Art History |
ARH 5150: Craft Revivals |
Examines the relationship between the traditional crafts and the upheavals of modernity. Beginning with the Arts and Crafts movement in the 19th century and continuing to the present day, students explore how craft is framed as protest against industrialization, as utopian model of labor and exchange, and as aesthetic transformation. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5161: American Art to 1913 |
Surveys American painting, sculpture, decorative arts, and architecture until the opening of the Armory Show in 1913. The course explores the distinctiveness of the American art tradition. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5171: African American Art |
A study of African American painting, sculpture, architecture, prints, drawings, photography, film, and vernacular and popular art. The course begins with the Afro-Atlantic era and covers images made by Southern artists in the 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as artists associated with the “New Negro” movement, the Harlem Renaissance, the civil rights movement, and postmodernism. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5177: Contemporary African Art |
A study of artists and exhibitions from and about Africa, spanning a wide variety of traditional and new media. Important exhibitions like The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945–1994 (2001) and Looking Both Ways: Art of the Contemporary African Diaspora (2004) are analyzed. Themes include framing “Africa,” African identities, memory and place, and popular culture. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5187: Women Artists in the 20th Century |
Focuses on women artists and their place within the art-historical narrative of the 20th century. Students examine both the diverse practices of women artists and the reception of their work by critics, dealers, and collectors. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5190: History of Photography |
An introduction to a wide range of photographic practices, from the medium’s conception in the 19th century to the ubiquitous online photo-sharing of today. Lectures have a special focus on the major artistic developments of photography. Topics include the significance of vernacular practices and their historical contexts in different parts of the world. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5193: 20th-Century Photography |
Examines the history of photography within both the historical and the neo-avant-gardes. Special attention is given to photographic activities of the Weimar Republic, the Soviet avant-garde, surrealism, and American pictorialism, modernism, and FSA documentary work, as well as the postwar formations of the New York School, conceptual art, and photographic postmodernism. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5197: Global Photography |
Treats the history of photography in a global framework. Topics include the transformation of photography as it spreads from Europe to Africa, the Americas, Asia, and the Middle East; the decentering of European modernism in postmodernism; the role of photography in colonialism and decolonization; and its role in fine art as well as vernacular portraiture, journalism, documentary, and other fields. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5202: The Inclusive Museum |
Explores the ways in which ability and disability are conceived, represented, and negotiated in museum culture. Weekly discussions, visiting lecturers and screenings will examine key theoretical concepts, practical case studies, as well as the use of educational and internet-based media as assistive technologies. Specific topics will include: museums and the establishment of norms; the category of “assistive technology”; inclusive architecture and design; staring and other practices of looking; disability and performance art; media advocacy and activism. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5215: Photography: The First Century |
Examines the photographic medium from its earliest forms through the 1920s and 1930s. Topics include technical innovations, manipulations and interventions, function and reception, the relationship to the fine arts, and debates about photography’s claims of realism. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5225: Theories of Painting |
Painting has long been accompanied by theories describing its abilities to attract, deceive, and even harm. This course looks at key theories and debates in the history of the medium (e.g., Rubenistes vs. Poussinistes, painting’s role among pluralistic practices) to better understand how both making and seeing a painting are colored by a history of ideas. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5250: The Russian Avant-Garde |
Despite a growing interest in the work of the Russian avant-garde, there is still relatively little known about the artists of the late Russian Empire and the early Soviet Union. This course addresses the broad scope and multidisciplinary practice of Russian modernism, from the shocking primitivism of The Rite of Spring to the cold pragmatism of constructivism. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5285: Design and Culture |
Design is both a noun and a verb. This course deals with the idea of design as a cultural phenomenon and a creative practice. Contemporary design and its making are situated within a broad methodological framework, drawing from existing and emerging theories in anthropology, art history, film studies, criticism, the history of technology, and architecture. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5300: Theorizing Design |
Why design? Why consume? What is desire? Are you what you make? Are you what you consume? How does design communicate? Design is a complex activity that touches on fields as diverse as psychoanalysis and anthropology. This course provides a theoretical understanding of design practice, production, and use (consumption). Topics include graphic and digital design, furniture, architecture, and industrial design. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5325: Master’s Colloquium I: History and Theory of Modern Art |
A seminar that considers topics and theoretical models that inform students’ understanding of modern and contemporary art. Within this framework, critics, art historians, and artists are invited to give lectures and lead seminars on their particular research interests. Required for MA students. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5326: Master’s Colloquium II: Critical Issues in Contemporary Art |
A directed investigation of a specific set of issues in contemporary art and culture. The focus, which changes from year to year, introduces students to critical and theoretical models central to contemporary cultural analysis. Invited artists, art historians, and critics participate through individual lectures, seminars, or directed collaborations with students. Required for MA students. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5335: Latin American Art in the Age of Globalization |
Focuses on contemporary Latin American artists working in and out of Latin America: Gabriel Orozco, Guillermo Gomez Peña, Adriana Varejao, Teresa Margolles, Carlos Garaicoa, Betsabeé Romero, Javier Tellez, Nadín Ospina, Tania Bruguera, and Nicolás de Jesus. Students analyze the way these artists address such questions as urban violence, social inequality, pollution, emigration, and national identity. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5340: American Art and Architecture in the Age of the Machine |
Focuses on objects and movements influenced by industrialization and mechanization in the U.S. between 1900 and 1940. Topics include the rise of the skyscraper in American architecture and its effect on painters and printmakers, the advent of the automobile and the assembly line’s replacement of the factory worker, and Dada’s expression of the havoc wreaked during World War I by new machine-age technology. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5395: Land Art |
Considers the art movement referred to as land art (or, alternatively, as environmental art) that developed in the late 1960s out of the sculptural and process arts phenomena. Artists central and peripheral to the discourse on this movement are discussed. The time frame explored extends from the 1960s to the global contemporary and DIY sustainability art movements. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5405: Design History and Theory: 1750–Today |
Examines the history of design as it parallels the history of technology and industrialization. Covering a variety of design disciplines, including architecture and urban planning, graphic design, fashion, and industrial design, this course focuses less on aesthetics than on the cultural programs that have shaped buildings, objects, and communication systems for more than two centuries. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5445: Seminar: Rauschenberg |
The work of Robert Rauschenberg is examined in the context of postwar neo-avant-garde activities in the U.S. and in relation to the work of contemporaries like Jasper Johns and John Cage. Students also review recent theoretical debates about the meaning and significance of the artist’s work. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5460: Field Trips to New York Museums and Galleries |
A practical course in art criticism, which meets regularly in New York. Contemporary works of art form the basis for lectures, discussions, and written essays Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5507: The Fictional Visual Arts |
Examines a selection of poetry, short stories, novels, and films from different historical periods that foreground the visual arts through various means, including the character of the artist, the practices of art, the nature of creativity, and the critical reception of art. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5510: 19th-Century Art |
European art from the French Revolution to 1900, with movements in France, Germany, and England receiving particular attention. Major artists studied include David, Gericault, Delacroix, Ingres, Frederich, Constable, Turner, the Pre-Raphaelites, Daumier, Manet, Degas, Monet, and Gauguin. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5526: Art and/as Performance |
Examines the development of performance and body-oriented work as a major mainstream in contemporary art practice, beginning with the work of Fluxus and happenings and continuing to the present. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5530: New Media and Contemporary Art |
An examination of contemporary art outside of the traditional media of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Looking at painting-based performances of the 1950s, feminist body art, guerrilla television, and current political interventions based in digital media, students identify the strategies artists used to create new forms, and assess their success in modifying our understanding of the world. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5560: African Photography |
Examines photography as a medium used by European colonizers and its subsequent use by Africans for self-definition and liberation. Topics include early studio photography, photographs in cultural outlets like the Nigerian edition of Drum magazine, photography during the apartheid era, and contemporary work. The political and stylistic aspects of portrait, documentary, ethnographic, pop, and abstract images are considered. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5565: Photography in Africa and the African Diaspora |
From photography’s 19th-century origins to contemporary practices, this survey course explores how and why photography became central to arguments about the modernity of African visual art. Moving from one regional focus to the next, students examine photography’s role in expeditionary and ethnographic projects, identity formation, political activism, spirituality, documenting the landscape, and representing the fantastical and the everyday. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5570: Creativity, Genius, and the Renaissance Artist and Architect |
A critical examination of the concepts of creativity and the artist genius in the era of Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, and Gentileschi. Artist biographies are compared with art historical evidence, including painting, sculpture, architecture and other media, to explore the historical contexts of Renaissance art creation. Topics include self-portraiture, women artists, workshop practices, and the artist’s and architect’s differing connections to fabrication. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5590: Pre-Columbian Aesthetics in Modern Latin American Art |
Since the late 1800s, pre-Columbian art and history have inspired Latin American artists. This course investigates that phenomenon through an in-depth study of the work of individual artists, including Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, as well as more contemporary figures. Students are also introduced to pre-Columbian art and architecture. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5604: Madness and Modernism |
A variety of intersections between extreme mental conditions and the production of works of art during the modern period are investigated. Topics include connections between creativity and mental instability, artists with a history of mental disorder, and theories about stylistic or formal affinities between madness and art. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5620: Van Gogh in Context |
Although Vincent van Gogh is one of the world’s best-known and most beloved artists, his work is often reduced to simplistic notions of madness and genius. This course expands students’ understanding of the artist by exploring his connection to the contemporary contexts of mechanical reproduction, national identity, and urban culture. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5650: 20th-Century Sculpture |
Conceptions of what sculpture can be were radically transformed over the course of the 20th century. This course presents a survey of 20th-century sculpture, with emphasis on innovative materials and techniques, the changing relationship between viewer and object, and new modes of exhibition. The work of Duchamp, Bourgeois, Calder, Judd, Hesse, and Smithson, among others, is discussed. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5660: Utopian Architecture |
Emerging from a longstanding literary tradition, examples of utopian architecture give insight into the ideals and fears of the cultures that produced them. This course explores both utopian and dystopian architectural visions, beginning with the Enlightenment works of Ledoux and Boullée and ending with the paper projects of 1960s groups like Archigram and Superstudio. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5670: Postwar Art in Europe |
If the postwar period famously represented the ascendency of American art, what art forms emerged simultaneously in traditional European centers? This course examines seemingly antithetical practices in France, Italy, Germany, and elsewhere: Art Informel, nouveau réalisme (new realism), Arte Povera, neoexpressionist painting, body art, conceptualism, Young British Art, etc. How has the changing European political landscape affected art and its institutions? Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5700: Exoticism in Modern Art |
Explores reciprocal influences of Western and non-Western art in the modern period. Topics include diverse artistic movements like “Orientalism,” “Japonisme,” and “Primitivism.” The class also examines the impact of non-Western art on specific artists, including Delacroix, Manet, Whistler, Picasso, and Pollock. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5705: Art and History After 1989 |
This seminar focuses on uses of history—as both subject and method—in art around the turn of the 21st century. Within a globally comparative frame, students investigate contemporary theories and practices that take stock of the past in order to reimagine the future at a moment when the world seems simultaneously more connected and more fractured than ever before. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5711: Artists on Art |
An examination of critical and theoretical writing by artists about art. The course considers texts from various eras, but focuses primarily on 20th-century and contemporary material. Artists’ writings are analyzed in the context of art criticism as a whole, and students also have the opportunity try their hand at criticism. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5715: Collect, Display, Exchange |
This seminar delves into the historical, theoretical, and practical aspects of museum and exhibition practices in the U.S., from encyclopedic museums to storefront galleries. In addition to classroom discussion, students visit arts institutions in the area to consider collection and exhibition-related issues and to learn more about the operational function and structure of museums. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5770: African Art and Film |
African art and visual culture are considered in the context of African film. African youth, who make up most of the continent’s population, have had a marked effect on many sociopolitical phenomena. The films screened address African youth culture and such issues as the new independence (1960s), post-apartheid South Africa, youth rebels, religious fundamentalism, HIV, hip-hop and digital culture, and global emigration. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5775: Performance Art in the West African Diaspora |
An analysis of the roots and reinvigorations of West African performance art featuring the artist’s body, with emphasis on manifestations in Europe, the United States, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and especially Afro-Brazil. Topics include griot styles; contemporary African fashions and pop culture; and musical call and response as adapted for dance, sculpture, painting, film, fashion, and photography. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5815: Mexican Art From the Revolution to the NAFTA Era |
A broad look at modern and contemporary Mexican art, using an interdisciplinary and comparative approach. Special emphasis is on the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) and its aftermath throughout the 20th century. Students analyze links between the visual arts (including mural painting, prints, and photography) and the literature, the popular scene and the mainstream, the street art and the gallery art. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5990: Master's Thesis I |
Supervision of research and writing of the master’s thesis. ARH 5990 and 5991 must be taken in consecutive semesters. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |
ARH 5991: Master's Thesis II |
Supervision of research and writing of the master’s thesis. ARH 5990 and 5991 must be taken in consecutive semesters. Credits: 4 Department: Art History |