Art History

This course examines global postmodern and contemporary art from the 1950s to the present day. It discusses transformations in media, authorship, spectatorship, display, and distribution, along with globalization of art through art markets, biennales, artistic networks, and museum franchises. Students learn about key developments such as Pop, Minimalism, conceptual art, performance, computer art, and the Social Turn, with particular emphasis upon how these have been interpreted, expanded, and challenged by artists outside of Western metropolitan centers in, for example, Brazil, China, India, Ireland, Japan, and Oceania. In addition to the themes and contexts of postmodern and contemporary art, students engage with relevant debates concerning economic and cultural globalization, transcultural exchange, Indigeneity, and postcolonial politics. 

This course examines the relationship between visual art and technology, through a history of new media and the emergence of mass audiences. The aim is to illuminate a constellation of artifacts, publics, power dynamics, and patterns of experience that are equally significant to art history and to media studies; the methods of formal analysis, historical contextualization, and critical self-reflexivity will be foregrounded. Case studies are chosen to explore the origins of mass media and modern visual culture from the nineteenth century to the present. We will consider the experimental and competitive environments of creative practice and technical innovation; tensions between democratization and commercialization in the circulation of images, identities, and world-views; powers of voicing, silencing, belonging and exclusion in spaces of representation and the formation of publics; and the changing social and perceptual conditions of spectatorship. We will examine the effects of participatory and immersive frameworks that gather large heterogeneous audiences in a shared space (such as festivals, exhibitions, panoramas, and cinema) and images for the masses that are optimized for isolated, partitioned interfaces (such as print, photography, virtual reality, and social media).

This course presents a thematic introduction to Irish art, architecture, and design in its broader international context. Subjects are connected across periods and styles – the focus not on presenting individualized summarized histories but rather considering how aspects of Irish visual history are connected and have evolved over time. Lectures include the identification of key works from Irish art and architecture, addressing fine, applied, and popular art-forms. Throughout the course, Irish visual history is discussed in its artistic, social, and cultural contexts together with its place in a broader international perspective.

This course addresses philosophical and methodological questions relevant to criticism of the arts, especially the question of value and evaluation. It discusses the issues regarding interpretation of artworks, examining theories of interpretation with examples of actual artworks. It also examines various aspects of art's value including aesthetic value, cognitive value, moral value, etc. It then moves on to the issue of applying standards of evaluation to some controversial cases found in the area such as erotic art, public art and popular art. Finally, some meta-critical issues are addressed.

This course is about arts and artists in the Nusantara, the archipelagic Malay–Indonesian world. Attention is drawn to the art making and distribution processes which are not only determined by artists but also involves other stakeholders. This includes critics, museum personnel, gallery owners, collectors, art consumers, interest groups as well as the state. The political, social, cultural and economic contexts in the Nusantara at different time periods are considered to explain the kinds of artworks that emerge. Topics include gender and race in the arts, art and activism, censorship and patronage.

This course examines how art and visual culture in Europe and the United States both reflected and shaped the cultural discourses of politics, class, gender, race, religion, and science that accompanied these ongoing changes. Particular attention will be paid to processes of industrialization, urbanism, and colonialism and their effects on art’s making and reception from the French Revolution (1789) through the beginning of World War I (1914). In addition to painting, drawing, and sculpture, we will chart the development of emerging media from new printmaking technologies to photography and early film. 

This course examines perspectives on biomedicine through the lens of art. Students follow a series of original podcasts that bring together leading Australian scientists and artists to discuss how real-world scientific problems can be solved through artists’ creative thinking. The topics investigated represent the most pressing biomedical concerns including death, stem cell technology, the brain and consciousness, cancer, personhood and infectious diseases.

The course presents a study of twentieth century art by examining the works of prominent artists of various avant-garde movements from 1905 through 1960. It discusses art prior to World War I (fauvism, German expressionism, cubism, futurism, Russian avant-garde); art during World War I (dada, neo-plasticism, Russian constructivism and realism); art between World War I and World War II (Bauhaus, the return to order, trends of the 1930s); architecture prior to World War II; and art after World War II (American informalism, abstract expressionism, geometric abstraction).

This course discusses the various creative fields in which Barcelona has been a pioneer. Topics include: urban design, art, culture, design and fashion, theater, dance, music.

The course examines several approaches to key players – director, curator, patron, architect – through case studies, site and/ or virtual visits, analyses, review-writing, and a practical exercise in curating. Part I departs from the concept of museum script to consider the agency of curatorship. Part 2 considers forms of agency exercised by modern patrons in public museums. Students research an aspect of curatorship for their term paper.