Spring 2010 Advanced Seminars

Advanced Seminar

Permission of the director of undergraduate studies required. Open to departmental majors who are juniors and seniors, have completed the relevant survey course, and have completed one advanced course in a relevant subject area. Given every fall and spring. 4 points.

Exposure in small group discussion format to historical/critical problem(s) of particular present concern to the faculty member offering the seminar. Requires oral report(s) and/or a substantial paper.

V43.0800.001    Seminar I: Politics, Power, and Passion in Renaissance Portraiture

TW    9:30-12:15, Silver 307
Professor TBA

Portraiture was a central aspect of Renaissance painting and sculpture, attracting many of the greatest masters of the era, from Jan Van Eyck, Hans Memling, and Hans Holbein in the north to Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and Titian in the south.  Portraits served multiple, overlapping purposes: asserting political power, proclaiming religious devotion, and recording affectionate ties.  Some portraits were heraldic and impersonal; other intimate and revealing.  This seminar will examine the formal and symbolic evolution of the genre from roughly 1400 to 1600, exploring the changing character and uses of portraiture, and the complex interactions among different national schools. 

V43.0800.002    Reinventing the Art World: Leo Castelli as the First Global Gallerist

W    12:30-3:15, Silver 302
Professor Cohen-Solal

Leo Castelli reigned for decades as America's most influential art dealer. Arriving in New York in 1941, he began as a collector and private dealer, who was friendly with most  Abstract Expressionist artists, but never agreed to show them, as he wanted to "discover new trends" .  Fifteen years later, at the age of fifty, he opened a gallery devoted to the next generation of the New York School.  The first to exhibit Jasper Johns, Castelli quickly emerged as a tastemaker, championing a Who's Who of mid-twentieth century masters, including Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol. Castelli succeeded because of his devotion to his "heroes," putting them on stipend even before he could sell their work.  Building careers by placing pictures with the right collectors rather than the top bidders, he transformed the way that business was done in the art world. 

This seminar will present a social history of the visual arts "field," considering not only the "manifest actors" (i.e. the artists) but also the "dynamic actors" (gallerists, dealers, critics, curators and museum directors) who determine the conditions under which art is produced. Together, the manifest and dynamic actors of the art world turn a certain place at a certain time--in this case, New York between 1955 and 1975—into a "locus" where the history of art is transformed. Such was the case of Leo Castelli, who had a far greater impact on the culture of his time than you might think from reading conventional histories of the New York School. 

V43.0800.003    Seminar III: Media As Medium: Frameworks of Contemporary Art 1990s-Now

R    3:30-6:10, Silver 302
Professor Robinson

Contemporary art since the 1990s has generated meaning in relation to changing global frameworks and technologies. Rather than shaping forms, it places objects in circulation. We no longer read art in terms of one medium – painting, sculpture, photography, film – but the prospect of many media at once, mobilized as an intervention into ever-changing fields of communication. Current artistic practice can be read as a set of “strategies.” In the ever-expanding media landscape of the present, art works operate with the same codes, create meaning in the same ways, and enter our consciousness through global channels that are in wide use.
 
This seminar will consider contemporary art since the 1990s as a set of strategies. It will look at the social/political/mediatic frameworks surrounding a range of recent projects. We will examine how artistic practice today is dependent on such larger structures, situations, and contexts. The artists we focus on are grouped in terms of their use of the different strategies, and the concepts that have emerged as a result. Strategies we will consider are: the photographic, the performative, post studio/post medium, global networks, communal actions/events as art. Artists covered include: Chantal Ackerman, Douglas Gordon, Matthew Barney, Andreas Gursky, Doug Aitken, Steve McQueen, Rodney Graham, Damien Hirst, Gabriel Orozco, Ellen Gallagher, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Liam Gillick, Pierre Huyghe, Zoe Leonard, Emily Jacir, Maria Eichhorn.

V43.0800.004    Seminar IV: Inside the Art Museum

T    2:00-4:45
Professor E. Easton

This course seeks to introduce students to museums, and is designed especially for those who are contemplating a curatorial career.  It will examine how works of art are conserved, presented, and interpreted; how museums function, and what issues are of greatest concern to museum professionals today. Students will learn only from real works of art, with an emphasis on European Painting; classes will take place in curatorial and conservation departments of museums around the city. Other visits to auction houses, private dealers, and a private collection will round out the connoisseurial challenges of curating.  Final projects will involve developing, designing and presenting an exhibition.

V43.0800.005    Seminar V: Imag(in)ing Islam from the Crusades to CNN

F    9:30-12:15
Professor Flood

This seminar will explore the history, historiography, and politics of representing the Islamic cultures of the Middle East in Europe and the United States. It will take a chronological and thematic approach to the representation of Islam, the Middle East, and Muslims, considering Orientalist painting, photography, public exhibitions, and popular culture. It will examine the medieval roots of modern representations of Islam and Muslims, the relationship between textual and visual depictions of both, and ways in which technological developments (the invention of photography, or cinema, for example) facilitated their development. It will engage with recent critiques of Orientalist representation, considering how they might help us re-imagine and re-evaluate contemporary representations of the Islamic world.