Topic en civilisation américaine

Curiosity, motivation, fluency in English.

Twentieth-century American art

How did artists of the twentieth century use their work to respond to their unique personal experiences and moment in history? By focusing on broad, defining themes, embodied in the works of pivotal artists (such as Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol), we shall look at how art provided means for re-imagining America, visualizing what it had become, and where it might go in a century of turbulent change.

The course shall be organized around three main themes:
1.    Nature and the ways diverse artists responded to the transformation of the landscape from pastoral to industrial;
2.    How artists demonstrated the perpetual inclination to reinvent both personal and national identity;
3.    The ways key artists like Stuart Davis, Warhol, and Basquiat invited us to look critically at our material culture and everyday lives.
We shall also provide a context of social history and parallel developments in American literature, music, and film.

Kristine Stiles & Peter Selz, Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists’ Writings (1996).

Oral presentations.
One mid-semester written evaluation.
One final written evaluation on week 12.