| WEEK # | FIRST SESSION TOPIC | SECOND SESSION TOPIC | READINGS | KEY DATES |
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| 1: Introduction; Surrealism in Exile | | Introduction: the Aesthetic and Ideological Context for Abstraction following WWII in the United States and Europe | Irving Sandler, The Triumph of American Painting (TAP), Harper and Row (1970), 1-28. | | | 2: Surrealism to Abstract Expressionism | The Unconscious made Visible: Matta, Masson, Miro, Calder, Noguchi, Moore; Formalizing the Intuitive: Arshile Gorky, John Graham, and Hans Hofmann | "I am Nature:" Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner. Screening of Hans Namuth's influential 1951 film, Jackson Pollock. | Dore Ashton, The New York School: A Cultural Reckoning, Viking (1973), University of California Press reprint 1992; Intro. and Chapters 4-7.
Hans Hofmann, "Search for the Real," photocopy excerpts on reserve. begin reading Caroline Jones, Machine in the Studio, pp. 1-41. Recommended: Sandler, TAP: 29-71. | | | 3: Abstract Expressionist "Action" to "Field" | Gesture/ Field: Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Philip Guston, Robert Motherwell VERSUS Rothko, Newman, Reinhardt | Abstract Expressionist Sculpture: David Smith's "Drawing in Space" versus Bourgeois's and Nevelson's Intimate Worlds; Roszak, Lipton, Ferber. | Ashton, chapters 8-11, 13, 15.
Ellen Johnson, American Artists on Art, from 1940-1980, Harper and Row (1982), 1-39.
Clement Greenberg, "`American-Type' Painting," Art and Culture, 208-229. Harold Rosenberg, "Parable of American Painting," (1954) and "American Action Painters" (1952), from Harold Rosenberg, Tradition of the New, McGraw-Hill (1965), 13-22 and 23-39. finish reading Jones Chapter 1, Machine in the Studio, pp 41-59. Recommended: Sandler, TAP: 92-137, 233-268. Lisa Phillips, The Third Dimension: Sculpture of the New York School, pp. 9-44, plus entries. | | | 4: Abstract Expressionish Abroad: Precursor, Export, Zeitgeist? | Rothko, Still, and the San Francisco School; Tobey, Matthieu, Yoshihara and the promotion of an "ecole du Pacifique" | Body/Gesture in Europe: (Giacometti, Dubuffet, Fautrier), Tachisme, l'art informel, CoBrA, the d'affichistes, the "Nouveaux Realistes" (Arman, Yves Klein), Nikki de Saint-Phalle, Jean Tinguely. | Caroline A. Jones, Bay Area Figurative Art, (BAF), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and University of California Press (1989), chapter 1.
Recommended: Sandler, TAP: 148-192, 225-232, 269-275. Thomas Albright, Art in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-1980, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. Skim and consult pictures, Chapters 1-4. | Take-home essay question handed out | | 5: The Fifties into Sixties: International Neo-Dada | John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and the question of a homosexual aesthetic | The "Gutai" group in Japan; extending AbEx gesture into performance | Johnson, 72-78.
Calvin Tomkins, Off The Wall: Robert Rauschenberg and the Art World of Our Time, Penguin (1981), chapters 8, 11, 15, 21. Alexandra Munroe, Japanese Art after 1945: Scream Against the Sky, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994. Recommended: Irving Sandler, The New York School (NYS), Harper and Row (1978), 140-95. Calvin Tomkins, The Bride and the Bachelors: Five Masters of the Avant-Garde, Penguin (1976), chapters on Cage, Tinguely, Rauschenberg. De Antonio and Mitch Tuchman, Painters Painting, New York: Abbeville, 1984, and view the laserdisk of Emile de Antonio, Painters Painting. James Roberts "Painting as Performance," Art in America, May 1992, 113-118. | Suggested paper topics handed out, due at last class. | | 6: Fifties (and later): Hot Art/Cold War | Bay Area Figurative Art: The View from the West Coast; California Funk and Chicago's "Hairy Who" | The Beats; Environments and Happenings in the US (Fluxus begins) | Johnson, 57-72
Jones, BAF, chapter 2; skim and consult pictures, chapters 3-5. Lisa Phillips, Beat Culture and the New America (1995). Read "Prologue" by Allen Ginsberg, "Beat Culture" by Lisa Phillips, skim text and pictures throughout. Recommended: Barbara Haskell, Blam! The Explosion of Pop, Minimalism, and Performance: 1958-1964 Whitney Museum of American Art (1984). Skim and consult pictures. Sandler, NYS, 196-213. Albright, Art in the SF Bay Area. Skim and consult pictures, Chapters 5-6. Franz Schultze, Fantastic Images: Chicago Art Since 1945, Chicago: Follett, (1972). Skim and consult pictures. | | | 7: Midterm | | MIDTERM
Note: Topic for 10-15 page paper should be chosen and research underway. | | Midterm short paper due. | | 8: Sixties Abstraction - An Industrial Aesthetic | "Post-Painterly Abstraction" and Formalist Sculpture; Greenberg's reign | Frank Stella and Minimal Art: the Corporate Icon (Andre, Judd, Flavin, Morris) | Johnson, pp. 105-123, 179-184. Jones, Chapter 3, "Frank Stella, Executive Artist," Machine in the Studio, 114-188. Recommended: Irving Sandler, American Art of the 1960s, (AAS), New York: Harper & Row, 1988; Introduction, Chapters 1 and 10 (pp. 1-44, 242-281). James Meyer, Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties, (New Haven: Yale, 2001) | | | 9: Sixties Figuration -- Encounters with Mass Culture | Warhol's Factory; Pop Art and another kind of Industrial Aesthetic (Lichtenstein, Oldenburg, Rosenquist, Dine, Marisol) | The Independent Group (London); German "Capitalist Realism"; Arte Povera (Italy) | Johnson, 79-104. Jones, Chapter 4, "Warhol's Factory..." in Machine in the Studio, pp. 189-267. Robert Rosenblum, "Pop Art and Non-Pop Art," Art and Literature 5 (Summer 1964), anthologized in John Russell and Suzi Gablik, Pop Art Redefined, New York: Praeger, 1969, pp. 53-56. Recommended: Sandler, AAS, Chapters 3, 4, 7, and 8 (pp. 60-104, 143-222) Marco Livingstone, Pop Art: An International Perspective, New York: Abrams, 1990 skim and consult pictures. Tate Gallery of Art, Gerhard Richter (London: 1991) | | | 10: Seventies Pluralism: Realism, Conceptual Art | Modes of Realism shading into conceptualism: Photorealism in US versus Lucian Freud, Malcolm Morley in UK | Early Conceptual art: Sol LeWitt, John Baldessari, Richard Artschwager; International conceptualism and Fluxus | Johnson, 125-168 Siegel: Baldessari 37-50, Richter 105-118 Farver et al., Global conceptualism: points of origin, 1950s-1980s Recommended: Monographs by Alicia Legg et al., Sol LeWitt (Museum of Modern Art, 1978), Coosje van Bruggen, John Baldessari (New York: Rizzoli, 1990). | | | 11: Pluralism cont.: Process, Environmental, and Performance Art | Performance/Intervention abroad: Joseph Beuys, Daniel Buren, Bruce Nauman, Helio Oiticica, Cildo Meireles | Sculptors of Land, Poets of Light: Robert Smithson and De Maria, Heizer, Long (UK) Morris, Flavin, Irwin, Turrell; screening of Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty | Johnson, 169-224 Siegel: Beuys 77-83 Jones, Chapter 5, "Robert Smithson...." in Machine in the Studio, pp. 268-343. Recommended: Sandler, AAS, chapters 14, 15, and Epilogue. Schimmel, Paul. Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art/ New York: Thames and Hudson, 1998. | | | 12: End of the Mainstream? | Women buck the Canon: Louise Bourgeois to "Womanhouse" and "The Dinner Party," process/performance artists: Eva Hesse, Jackie Winsor, Hannah Wilke, Carolee Schneeman, Laurie Anderson, Adrian Piper. | African Americans: Bearden, Puryear, Saar, Piper, Wilson; Native Americans: Luna, Durham | Johnson, 246-249 Interviews with Eva Hesse and Judy Chicago in Lucy Lippard, From the Center: Feminist Essays on Women's Art, New York: E.P. Dutton, 1976, 214-230. Lucy Lippard, Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America, New York: Pantheon, 1990. Read chapters on "Naming," "Telling," and "Turning Around," skim pictures throughout. Recommended: Amelia Jones, ed., Sexual Politics: Judy Chicago's Dinner Party in feminist art history, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996; Jones essay. Corinne Robins, "Art and Politics," from The Pluralist Era: American Art 1968-1981, New York: Harper & Row, 1984, pp. 37-75. Barbara Matilsky, Fragile Ecologies, exhibition catalogue. Helen A. Cooper, ed., Eva Hesse (Yale U. Press, 1992) | Note: Papers due in 2 weeks! | | 13: Political Art | Political Interventions, public art: Hans Haacke, Maya Lin, Mel Chin; Mapplethorpe, AIDS Demo-graphics, Krzysztof Wodiczko | | Seigel: Haacke 63-74 Douglas Crimp and Adam Rolston, AIDS Demo-graphics, Seattle: Bay Press, 1990; skim and consult pictures. Recommended: Krzysztof Wodiczko, Critical Vehicles: Writings, Projects, Interviews, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999. | | | 14: Post-Modernism | The End of American Hegemony? Italian "Bad Boys" (Mario Merz), Clemente, Chia, Cucchi; German Neo-Expressionists (Baselitz), Kiefer, Richter; US Neo-Expressionism with Graffitists Basquiat, Haring; "Bad" Painting, New Image, etc. Salle and Schnabel vs. Bartlett, Rothenberg, Murray | Appropriation Art: Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer, Sherrie Levine, Jeff Koons, Haim Steinbach; "Neo Geo": Peter Halley, Philip Taaffe. | Johnson: 225-244; 260-266 Siegel: Clemente, Cucchi 121-151; Schnabel, Salle 153-175; Longo 197-210, Halley, Levine 235-255; Sherman, Holzer, Kruger 269-311. Hal Foster, "Re: Post," in Brian Wallis, ed., Art After Modernism: Rethinking Representation, (AAM) New York: New Museum, 1984, pp. 188-201. Douglas Crimp, "Pictures," pp. 175-187, and other essays in AAM. Craig Owens, "The Discourse of Others: Feminists and Postmodernism," in Owens, Beyond Recognition, Berkeley and Los Angeles, U.Cal. Press, 1992, pp 166-190. Recommended: Craig Owens, "The Allegorical Impulse: Toward a Theory of Postmodernism," parts 1 and 2, Beyond Recognition pp. 52-87. (Part one is also in AAM pp. 203-235.) Lisa Dennison, ed., Angles of Vision: French Art Today, New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1986. Thomas Krens et al., Refigured Painting: The German Image 1960-1988, New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1989.
Essays by Hal Foster and Thomas Crow in Endgame: Reference and Simulation in Recent Painting and Sculpture, Boston: Institute of Contemporary Art, 1986.
Kate Linker, Love for Sale: The Words and Pictures of Barbara Kruger, New York: HN Abrams, 1990.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, A Forest of Signs
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Image World: Art and Media Culture.
| Note: Papers due in class. | | 15: Installation Art, New Media, and Biennial Culture | Installation Art, Video, and New Media in context; class summary and review | | | | | 16: Final Exam | | | | Final Exam |
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