Spring 2004

Instructor: Professor Pepe Karmel

e-mail: pepe.karmel@nyu.edu, tel: 212.992.9536
office hours: Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 3:00-4:00

Grader: Murtaza Vali, e-mail: mv455@nyu.edu
 
 

BASIC TEXT: Irving Sandler. Art of the Postmodern Era: From the Late 1960s to the Early 1990s. New York: HarperCollins/Icon, 1996, rev. ed. 2002.

See additional readings listed for individual classes
WRITING ASSIGNMENT 1: (see link to Elements of an Art Review below)
Imagine you are an art critic. Go in the next week to see current shows in Chelsea. Walk along 21st, 22nd, 24th, 25th, and 26th Streets between 10th and 11th Avenues, and go into as many galleries as you can. (There are lots more galleries in Chelsea, but these streets have the highest concentration.) Take a postcard from each gallery, and also keep written notes on where you went and what each show was like. When you’ve covered all 3 blocks, look back over your notes and decide which exhibition you thought was the most interesting. (Historical shows at the DIA Foundation or other places don’t count.)
Go back to your favorite show, pick one work, and write a page (approx 225-250) words about it. You don’t need to do research for this; I want you to describe your own reaction to the work. On a separate sheet, include a list of all the shows you saw. Hand this paper in by Wednesday 28 January.
WRITING ASSIGNMENT 2:
Pick an artist from the time period of this course (roughly 1973-2003). Find at least three books and/or catalogues and/or articles discussing this artist. At least one of these should be a book or catalogue devoted solely to your artist. (Internet sites do not count as one of your three sources, though you may consult them as well. For scholarly resources available on the Internet, see the attached sheet on “Internet Reference Tools for Art History”.) If you have trouble finding material for your report, come see me during office hours, or at least send me an e-mail. I may be able to give you some helpful suggestions.
If possible, pick a single work by the artist that is discussed in all three texts. Try to find one that evokes contrasting interpretations. Describe the work. Compare different writers’ interpretations of it. (If necessary, take someone’s interpretation of a different work and apply to the work you have chosen.) Analyze the visual and written evidence. Which interpretations does the evidence support? Which does it undermine? What are your own personal reactions to the work? These are valid evidence too.
The text of your paper should run to 7 to 10 double-spaced, typed pages (1800-2700 words), plus endnotes giving credit for sources and citations. No more than a page (225-275 words) should be spent on biography, exhibition history, public acclaim, etc. The point is to focus on the description and interpretation of a single work (please illustrate it with a photocopy or printout), although you may certainly discuss other works to provide a context for the one you’ve chosen. This paper is due April 19.
WRITING ASSIGNMENT 3:
This is the same as the first assignment. Go see a bunch of shows in Chelsea. Imagine you are an art critic. Take notes on everything, then pick one and write a page about it. This time, try to make use of what you’ve learned about art since 1970, but remember that it should serve merely as background to the new art you’re discussing. Review (plus sheet listing shows you saw) to be handed in by April 28.
EXAMS
There will be a mid-term and a final, consisting of simple slide i.d.’s, “extended” identifications, and essay questions.

Elements of an Art Review

Internet Reference Tools for Art History

Lectures:
1. Overview, January 21

Background: The 1960s

2. From Happenings to Post-Minimalism, January 26

Required Reading
Sandler, Chapter 1: “Postminimalism”
Rosalind Krauss, "Sense and Sensibility: Reflection on Post '60's Sculpture," Artforum, vol. 12, no. 3 (November 1973); reprinted in Amy Baker Sandback (ed.), Looking Critically: 21 Years of Artforum Magazine, Ann Arbor, U.M.I. Research Press, 1984, pp. 146-149.

Handouts for Discussion in Lecture
 Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author,” originally published in Aspen, no. 5/6 (for Stephane Mallarmé), Fall/Winter 1967, issue edited by Brian O'Doherty; reprinted in Roland Barthes, Image/Music/Text, New York: Hill and Wang, 1977, pp. 142-48 (excerpts).
Lawrence Weiner, from “Documentation in Conceptual Art,” Arts, vol. 44, #6 (April 1970); reprinted in Gregory Battcock (ed.) Idea Art: A Critical Anthology (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1973), pp. 174-75.
Robert Morris, “Notes on Sculpture,” Part 2, Artforum, October 1966; reprinted in Robert Morris, Continuous Project Altered Daily: The Writings of Robert Morris (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1993), excerpts, pp. 11 and 15.
Sam Wagstaff, Jr., "Talking with Tony Smith," Artforum, vol. 5, no.4 (December 1966); reprinted in Gregory Battcock (ed.), Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology, New York, E.P. Dutton, 1968, excerpt, p. 386

Suggested Reading
 Anna Chave, “Minimalism and the Rhetoric of Power,” Arts, January 1990, pp. 44-63
Thomas Crow, “Saturday Disasters: Trace and Reference in Early Warhol,” in Thomas Crow, Modern Art in the Common Culture (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1996), pp. 49-65.
Michael Fried, “Art and Objecthood,” Artforum, June 1967; reprinted in Gregory Battcock, Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1968), pp. 116-147.
Barbara Haskell. BLAM! The Explosion of Pop, Minimalism, and Performance 1958-1964. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1984.
Allan Kaprow, “The Legacy of Jackson Pollock,” Art News, October 1958; reprinted in Pepe Karmel (ed.), Jackson Pollock: Interviews, Articles, Reviews (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1999), pp. 84-89.
Rosalind Krauss, “A View of Modernism,” Artforum, vol. 11, no. 1 (September 1972), pp. 48-51.
Rosalind Krauss, “Notes on the Index, Parts 1 and 2,” October, no’s 3 and 4, Spring and Fall 1977; reprinted in Rosalind Krauss, The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1985), pp. 196-220.
Sol LeWitt, “Sentences on Contemporary Art,” Art-Language (England), May 1969, and O-9 (New York), 1969; reprinted in Ursula Meyer, Conceptual Art (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1972), pp. 174-75.
Linda Nochlin, “The Realist Criminal and the Abstract Law,” Art in America, vol. 61, no. 5 (September 1973), pp.54-61.
Barbara Rose, “ABC Art,” Art in America, October-November 1965; reprinted in Gregory Battcock, Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1968), pp. 274-297.
Calvin Tomkins, “Robert Rauschenberg,” in The Bride and the Bachelors: Five Masters of the Avant-Garde (revised ed, New York: Viking Compass, 1968), pp. 189-237.
Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett. Popism: The Warhol ‘60s. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980.
Tom Wolfe, The Painted Word. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1975.

The 1970s

3. Performance: Men and Women, January 28

Required Reading
Sandler, Chapter 3: “First-Generation Feminism, and Chapter 12, “The Consumer Society and Deconstruction Art,” pp. 416-420
Cindy Nemser, "Subject-Object: Body Art," Arts, vol. 46, no. 1, September-October 1971, pp. 38-42.
Cindy Nemser, “[Interview with] Eleanor Antin,” in Cindy Nemser, Art Talk: Conversations with 12 Women Artists, New York: Scribner’s, 1975, pp. 266-301.

Suggested Reading
Willoughby Sharp, "An Interview with Joseph Beuys," Artforum, vol. 8, no. 4, December 1969, pp. 40-47.
Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, "Beuys: The Twilight of the Idol -- Preliminary notes for a Critique," Artforum, vol. 18, no. 5 (January 1980), pp. 35-43.
Cindy Nemser, "An Interview with Vito Acconci," Arts, vol. 45, no. 5, March 1971, pp. 20-23.
Rosalind Krauss, “Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism,” October 1 (Spring 1976), pp. 51-64.

4. Feminism and the Revaluation of Decoration, February 2

Required Reading
Sandler, Chapter 3: “First-Generation Feminism” and Chapter 4: “Pattern and Decoration Painting”
Melissa Meyer and Miriam Schapiro, “Waste Not Want Not: An Inquiry into What Women Saved and Assembled [Femmage],” Heresies, Winter 1978

Suggested Reading
Judy Chicago [Judith Gerowitz], Through the Flower: my struggles as a woman artist, Garden City, Doubleday, 1975 (revised ed. Garden City, Anchor Books, 1982): pp. 52-57 and 70-92.
Carol Duncan, “The MoMA’s Hot Mamas,” Art Journal, Summer 1989, pp. 171-78; reprinted in Carol Duncan, The Aesthetics of Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 189-207.
Linda Nochlin, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” in Thomas B. Hess and Elizabeth C. Baker (eds.), Art and Sexual Politics (New York: Collier/Macmillan, 1973), pp. 1-43.

5. Feminism and the Gaze, February 4

Required Reading
Sandler, Chapter 12, “The Consumer Society and Deconstruction Art,” pp. 390-395, and 408-416
Craig Owens, “The Medusa Effect, or The Spectacular Ruse,” in Barbara Kruger, We won’t play nature to your culture (exh. Cat.), London: Institute of Contemporary Art, 1983; reprinted in Craig Owens, Beyond Recogniation: Representation, Power, and Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), pp. 191-200.


Suggested Reading
 Douglas Crimp, “Pictures,” October 8 (Spring 1979), pp. 75-88.
Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Screen, 1975; reprinted in Laura Mulvey, Visual and Other Pleasures (Bloomington: Indian University Press, 1989), pp. 14-26.
Craig Owens. “The Discourse of Others: Feminists and Postmodernism.” In Hal Foster, ed. The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Post-Modern Culture. Townsend, Wash.: Bay Press, 1983, pp. 57-82.

6. Documentation (1) February 9

Required Reading
Sandler, Chapter 12, “The Consumer Society and Deconstruction Art,” pp. 375-386, and pp. 399-406
Ulf Erdmann Ziegler, “The Bechers’ Industrial Lexicon,” Art in America, June 2002, pp. 92-101, 140-141, 143.

The Early 1980s

7. The Institutional Critique and the Intentional Fake, February 11

Required Reading
Sandler, Chapter 2: “The Impact of 1968 on European Art,” and Chapter 12, “The Consumer Society and Deconstruction Art,” pp. 386-390.
Rosalind Krauss, “The Cultural Logic of the Late Capitalist Museum,” October 54 (Fall 1990), pp. 3-17.
Dave Hickey, “Unbreak My Heart, An Overture,” in Air Guitar: Essays on Art & Democracy (Los Angeles: Art Issues, 1997), pp. 9-17.

Suggested Reading
"What is a Museum? A Dialogue between Allan Kaprow and Robert Smithson," Arts Yearbook, "The Museum World," 1967; reprinted in The Writings of Robert Smithson (ed. Nancy Holt), New York: New York University Press, 1979, pp. 59-66.
Cheryl Bernstein [Carol and Andrew Duncan], “The Fake as More,” originally published in Gregory Battcock (ed.), Idea Art (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1973), pp. 41-45; reprinted in Carol Duncan, The Aesthetics of Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 216-18.
Douglas Crimp, “On the Museum’s Ruins,” October 13, Summer 1980; reprinted in On the Museum’s Ruins (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1993), pp. 44-64.
Thomas Crow, “The Return of Hank Herron: Simulated Abstraction and the Service Economy of Art, “in Thomas Crow, Modern Art in the Common Culture (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1996), pp. 69-84.
Hans Magnus Enzensberger, "A Determined Effort to Explain to a New York Audience the Secrets of German Democracy," 1979; reprinted in Enzensberger, Political Crumbs (London and New York: Verso, 1990), pp. 53-69 [cf. Hans Haacke].
Eleanor Heartney, “Art Impresarios: The Conjuring of the Critic-Curator,” in Eleanor Heartney, Critical Condition: American Culture at the Crossroads (Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 86-95.
Lucy Lippard, "The Art Workers' Coalition," Studio International, November 1970; reprinted in Gregory Battock (ed.), Idea Art: A Critical Anthology, New York, E.P. Dutton, 1973, pp. 102-115.
Craig Owens, “The Allegorical Impulse: Toward a Theory of Post-Modernism,” Parts 1 and 2, October 12, Spring 1980, pp. 67-86; October 13, Summer 1980, pp. 58-80.

8. Advertising & Commodities, February 18

Required Reading
Sandler, Chapter 10: “Media Art,” and Chapter 11: “Postmodernist Art Theory”

Suggested Reading
Fredric Jameson, “Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,” New Left Review, no. 146, July-August 1984, pp. 53-92.
Fred Pfeil, “’Making Flippy-Floppy’: Postmodernism and the Baby-Boom PMC,” 1985; reprinted in Pfeil, Another Tale to Tell: Politics and Narrative in Postmodern Culture (London: Verso, 1990), pp. 97-125.
Judith L. Goldstein, “The Female Aesthetic Community,” Poetics Today, vol. 14, no. 1, 1993, pp. 143-163; reprinted in George E. Marcus and Fred R. Myers, eds., The Traffic in Culture: Refiguring Art and Anthropology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 310-329.
Thomas Crow. “These Collectors, They Talk About Baudrillard Now,” in Hal Foster, ed., Discussions in Contemporary Culture, 2 (Seattle: Bay Press, 1988), pp. 1-8.

9. Street Art February 23

Required Reading
Sandler, Chapter 12, pp. 395-400, and Chapter 15, “Commodity Art, NeoGeo, and the East Village Art Scene”
Rene Ricard, "The Radiant Child," Artforum, vol. XX, no 4, December 1981, pp. 35-43.
Karen Finley, “Enter Entrepreneur,” from The Constant State of Desire, 1987, published in Karen Finley, Shock Treatment (San Francisco: City Lights, 1990), pp. 6-10.

Suggested Reading
Jeffrey Deitch, “The Times Square Show,” Art in America, September 1980.
Alan Moore and Marc Miller, “The ABCs of No Rio and its Times,” in ABC No Rio Dinero: The Story of a Lower East Side Art Gallery (NY: ABC No Rio, 1985), pp. 1-7.
Walter Robinson, “Collaborative Projects and Rule C,” in Moore and Miller, ABC No Rio Dinero: The Story of a Lower East Side Art Gallery (NY: ABC No Rio, 1985), pp. 10-11.

10. New Image Painting & the Return of Narrative, February 25

Required Reading
Sandler, Chapter 6, “New Image Painting,” Chapter 7, “The Art World of the 1970s,” and Chapter 8, “American Neoexpressionism,” pp. 240-47, 254-260

Suggested Reading
Rosalind Krauss, “A View of Modernism,” Artforum, vol. 11, no. 1 (September 1972), pp. 48-51 [on art history as “narrative”].
Fred Pfeil, “Plot and Patriarch in the Age of Reagan: Reading Back to the Future and Brazil,” 1986 in Pfeil, Another Tale to Tell: Politics and Narrative in Postmodern Culture (London: Verso, 1990), pp. 227-242.
[Rent and see Back to the Future and Brazil, both 1985, if you haven’t done so; also, Blade Runner, 1982]

11. Neo-Expressionism in New York, March 1

Required Reading
Sandler, Chapter 8: “American Neoexpressionism,” and Chapter 13: “The Art World in the First Half of the 1980s”
Rene Ricard, “Julian Schnabel’s Plate Paintings at Mary Boone,” Art in America, November 1979, pp. 125-26 (handout)
Eleanor Heartney, “David Salle: Impersonal Effects,” Art in America, June 1988; reprinted in Eleanor Heartney, Critical Condition: American Culture at the Crossroads (Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 99-111.

Suggested Reading
Thomas McEvilley, “The Case of Julian Schnabel,” in Julian Schnabel: Paintings 1975-1986, London: Whitechapel Gallery, 1986.

12. Neo-Expressionism in Italy and Germany, March 3

Required Reading
Sandler, Chapter 9: “The Italian Transavantguardia and German Neoexpressionism,”
Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, "Figures of Authority, Ciphers of Regression," October 16, Spring 1981, pp. 39-68; reprinted in Brian Wallis, ed., Art after Modernism: Rethinking Representation (New York: New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1984), pp. 107-135.

Suggested Reading
Neo-Expressionism readings from Kristin Stiles and Peter Selz, Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists’ Writings, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996, pp. 61-62, 254-268.
Andreas Huyssen, "Anselm Kiefer: The Terror of History, The Temptation of Myth," in October 48, Spring 1989, pp. 25-45
Donald B. Kuspit, "Flak from the 'Radicals': The American Case Against German Painting," in Jack Cowart, ed., Expressions: New Art from Germany (St. Louis Art Museum, 1983), pp. 43-55; reprinted in Brian Wallis, ed., Art after Modernism: Rethinking Representation (New York: New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1984), pp. 136-151.

13. Globalism: The Quest for Myth, March 8

Required Reading
Sandler, Chapter 16, “The ‘Other’: From the Marginal into the Mainstream,” pp. 541-542
Arjun Appadurai, “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy,” Public Culture, vol 2, 1990, pp. 1-24.
Benjamin Buchloh. “The Whole Earth Show: An Interview with Jean-Hubert Martin.” Art in America, vol. 77, May 1989, pp. 150-159, 211, 213.

Suggested Reading [The “Primitivism” Debate]
Thomas McEvilley, “Doctor Lawyer Indian Chief,” Artforum, vol. 23, November 1984, pp. 54-61 (see also Rubin & Varnedoe replies in next issue of Artforum).
James Clifford, “Histories of the Tribal and the Modern,” Art in America, vol. 72, April 1985, pp. 164-177, 215.
[More on “Magiciens de la Terre” a.ka. “The Whole Earth Show”]
Eleanor Heartney, “The Whole Earth Show, Part II,” Art in America, vol. 77, July 1989, pp. 90-97; reprinted in Eleanor Heartney, Critical Condition: American Culture at the Crossroads (Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 139-147.
Lynn M. Hart, “Three Walls: Regional Aesthetics and the International Art World,” in George E. Marcus and Fred R. Myers, eds., The Traffic in Culture: Refiguring Art and Anthropology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 127-150.
Fred R. Myers, “Representing Culture: The Production of Discourse(s) for Aboriginal Acrylic Paintings,” Cultural Anthropology, vol. 6, no. 1, 1991, pp. 26-62; reprinted in George E. Marcus and Fred R. Myers, eds., The Traffic in Culture: Refiguring Art and Anthropology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 55-95.
Michelle Wallace, “Modernism, Postmodernism and the Problem of the Visual in Afro-American Culture,” in Russell Ferguson et al, eds., Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Culture (Cambridge, MA: MIT), 1990, pp. 39-50

14. MID-TERM EXAM March 10
The Later 1980s
15. Allegorical Abstraction (1), March 22

Required Reading
Reread: Sandler, Chapter 15, “Commodity Art, NeoGeo, and the East Village Art Scene”
Peter Halley, Collected Essays, 1981-87, Zurich: Bruno Bischofsberger Gallery, New York: Sonnabend Gallery, 1988: “Notes on the Paintings” (1982), pp. 22-23; “Statement” (1983), pp. 24-25; “Against Post-Modernism: Reconsidering Ortega” (1981), pp. 26-46.

Suggested Reading
Eleanor Heartney, “Rehabilitating Abstraction,” New Art Examiner, January 1988; reprinted in Eleanor Heartney, Critical Condition: American Culture at the Crossroads (Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 32-41.
16. Transgressive Sexualities, March 24

Required Reading
Hal Foster, "Armor Fou," October, no. 56 (Spring 1991), excerpts: pp. 65-68, 87-97.

Suggested Reading
Douglas Davis, “The Contemporary Art Crisis Redux,” Art in America, vol. 89, no. 4, April 2001, p. 33.
Eleanor Heartney, “Social Responsibility and Censorship,” Sculpture, January 1990; reprinted in Eleanor Heartney, Critical Condition: American Culture at the Crossroads (Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 42-48.
Dave Hickey, “Nothing Like the Son: On Robert Mapplethorpe’s X Portfolio,” in The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty (Los Angeles: Art Issues, 1993), pp. 27-37.
Rosalind Krauss, "Corpus Delicti," in Rosalind Krauss and Jane Livingston, L'Amour Fou: photography & surrealism (exh. cat.), Washington and New York: The Corcoran Gallery and Abbeville Press, 1985, excerpts: pp. 36, 54-67, 85-95, 152, 166, 192.
17. Abject Lessons, March 29

Required Reading
Mike Kelley interview in Trevor Fairbrother et al, The BiNational: American Art of the Late 80s, exh. cat., Boston: Institute of Contemporary Art and Museum of Fine Arts, 1988, pp. 115-117.
Simon Taylor, “The Phobic Object: Abjection in Contemporary Art,” in Craig Houser, Leslie C. Jones, and Simon Taylor, Abject Art: Repulsion and Desire in American Art (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1993), pp. 58-83.

Suggested Reading
R.D. Laing, “The Schizophrenic Experience,” “Transcendental Experience” (excerpt), and “The Psychotherapeutic Experience” (excerpt), in The Politics of Experience (New York: Pantheon, 1967), pp. 100-130, 131-133, 54-55.
Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, 1980, trans. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982
Hamza Walker, “Don’t Throw Out the Shaman with the Bathwater,” and Ann Temkin, “What’s better science than creating me?” in Ann Temkin and Hamza Walker, Raymond Pettibon: A Reader, exh. cat., Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1998, pp. 217-224 and 238-243
18. Public Art and the Search for Community, March 31

Required Reading
Clara Weyergraf-Serra and Martha Buskirk, Richard Serra: Tilted Arc, Eindhoven: Van Abbemuseum, 1988, esp. “Letter from William Diamond to Dwight Ink,” May 1, 1985, pp. 138-147, and “Paper Presented by Richard Serra to the Tilted Arc Site Review Advisory Panel, December 15, 1987, pp. 183-192.

Suggested Reading
Michele H. Bogart, “The Rise and Demise of Civic Virtue,” in Herriet F. Senie and Sally Webster (eds.), Critical Issues in Public Art: Content, Context, and Controversy, New York: HarperCollins, 1992, pp. 175-188.
Tom Finkelpearl, “Introduction: The City as Site,” in Finkelpearl, ed., Dialogues in Public Art (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000), pp. 2-51.
Roger Gilroy, “Projection as Intervention (Interview with Krzysztof Wodiczko),” New Art Examiner, vol. 16, no. 6, 1989, pp. 29-31.
Jane Kramer, “Whose Art is It, Anyway?,” The New Yorker, December 21, 1992; reprinted in Whose Art is It, Anyway?, Durham: Duke University Press,1994.
Harriet F. Senie, The Tilted Arc Controversy: Dangerous Precedent?. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2002.
The 1990s and Beyond
19. Identity Politics, April 5

Required Reading
Sandler, Chapter 16: “The ‘Other’: From the Marginal into the Mainstream”
Coco Fusco, “Passionate Irreverence: The Cultural Politics of Identity,” in Elisabeth Sussman, ed., 1993 Biennial Exhibition, New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1993, pp. 74-85; reprinted in Coco Fusco, English Is Broken Here: Notes on Cultural Fusion in the Americas (New York: The New Press, 1995), pp. 25-36.

Suggested Reading:
Eleanor Heartney, “Identity Politics at the Whitney,” Art in America, May 1993; reprinted in Eleanor Heartney, Critical Condition: American Culture at the Crossroads (Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 166-177.
20. Documentation (2), April 7

Required Reading
Calvin Tomkins, “The Big Picture [Andreas Gursky],” The New Yorker, January 22, 2001, pp. 61-71.

Suggested Reading
Tamar Garb, interview with Christian Boltanski, in Didier Semin et al, Christian Boltanski (London: Phaidon, 1997), pp. 8-40.
21. The Return of Narrative (2), April 12

Required Reading

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, “Interview,” in Dan Cameron, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, J.M. Coetzee, William Kentridge (London: Phaidon, 1999), pp. 6-35.

Suggested Reading
Jean-Christophe Ammann, “Introduction: Violence and Beauty,” in Bill Viola, Reasons for Knocking at an Empty House: Writings 1973-1994, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995, pp. 13-21.
David A. Ross, “A Feeling for Things Themselves,” in David A. Ross and Peter Sellars, Bill Viola, exh. cat., New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1998, pp. 19-29.
Anne M. Wagner, “Performance, Video, and the Rhetoric of Presence,” October 91 (Winter 2000), pp. 59-80.
Lynn Zelevansky. Sense and Sensibility: Women Artists and Minimalism in the Nineties. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1994.
22. Teen Spirit: Loss and Lust, April 14

Required Reading
“Interview: Chuck Close talks with Lisa Yuskavage,” in Lisa Yuskavage, exh. cat., Chicago: Christopher Grimes Gallery, and Los Angeles: Smart Art Press, 1996, pp. 21-32.
Roberta Smith, “A Bread-Crumb Trail to the Spirit of the Times,” New York Times, July 17, 2003, p. E41 [reprinted from NYTimes.com].
23. Allegorical Abstraction (2), April 19

Required Reading
John Rajchman, “Abstraction,” in Constructions, Cambridge, MA: M.I.T., 1998, pp. 55-75.
Lance Relyea, "Abstract Art," in Colour Me Blind! Malerei in Zeiten von Computergame und Comic, ed. Ralf Christofori, Stuttgart: Wurttembergischer Kunstverein, 1999, pp. 14-18.
24. Allegorical Installation, April 21

Required Reading
Adam Gopnik, “Empty Frames,” The New Yorker, November 25, 1991, pp. 110-120.
James Meyer, “The Functional Site,” in Documents no. 7, Fall 1996, pp. 20-29.
25. The New International Style (1), April 26

Required Reading

Philippe Vergne, “Globalization from the Rear: ‘Would you care to dance, Mr. Malevich?,” Philippe Vergne et al, in How Latitudes Become Form: Art in a Global Age (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2003), pp. 8-27
Tim Griffin et al, “Global Tendencies: Globalism and the Large-Scale Exhibition [panel discussion], Artforum, vol. 42, no. 3, November 2003, pp. 152-163, 206, 212.

Suggested Reading
Homi K. Bhaba. “Beyond the Pale: Art in the Age of Multicultural Translation.” 1993 Biennial Exhibition. New York: Whitney Museum, 1993.
Luis Camnitzer, “Contemporary Colonial Art,” 1969 lecture; reprinted in Alexander Alberro and Blake Stimson, eds., Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), pp. 224-230.
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, 1980 (trans. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), Chapter 12, “1227: Treatise on Nomadology,” pp. 351-423, Chapter 14, “1440: The Smooth and the Striated,” pp. 474-500.
26. The New International Style (2), April 28
Texts to be determined.
27. Discussion Section or Artist Talk, May 3
28. Final Exam May 5, 12:00-1:50