Art History

This course examines the politicization manifested in works of fiction and the political effects of the creation and the use of artwork. Incorporating an international and comparative dimension, it explores censorship, politics, mobilization, and conflicts within the art world. The course studies several aesthetic registers including cinema, television, literature, and painting to examine the tension present in various worlds of art, between artistic recognition and the politicization of works and creators. It explores the mechanisms of this tension as well as the practices and forms of action and creation through which artists engage and see their creations become objects of disruption.

This course considers travelling artists and artworks in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries and the way in which people and objects interacted, thus shaping different local cultural contexts and places around Europe. Through the study of iconic travels such as those by Albrecht Durer, Raphael, Lorenzo Lotto, Martin van Heemskerk, El Greco, Sofonisba Anguissola, Federico Zuccari, Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi, Pieter Paul Rubens, as well as the travel of major artworks within Europe, the course addresses the dynamics and forms of cultural encounters, their narratives, and meaning for today’s art history and its methodologies. Visits to the collections of Berlin museums (depending upon pandemic restrictions) allow students to study in depth specific artifacts and to learn how to look closely at works of art.

This course provides students with a general overview of how Spanish artists in the 20th and 21st centuries seek references and are influenced by religion, politics, identity, gender and popular culture while simultaneously re-appropriating historical icons and images to provide new readings and modify traditional interpretations. It examines specific art works that have shaped Spain's contemporary history and society such as Picasso's “Guernica,” Dalí's references to psychoanalysis and sexuality, or Miró's multiple interpretations of Abstraction. The course also focuses on the role of the viewer in the 21st century: that of an active viewer that must interact with art works to decode their meanings via the study of Abstract Expressionists such as Tàpies or Saura, the Abstract Geometric such as Chillida, political and social critics such as Arroyo and Grupo Crónica, more well-known contemporary artists, such as García Alix or Plensa, as well as young emerging artists. This course highlights important events in Spanish history such as the Civil War, Franco's dictatorship, the transition to democracy, terrorism or today's current economic and political crisis through the public art works or manifestations that—officially or not—influence the city of Madrid and demonstrate how contradictions become compatible and how a city might become the ultimate example of a Post-Modern society.

This is a historical survey of three thousand years of Chinese visual arts with emphasis on painting. The course covers the historical transformation of Chinese art from the classical towards the modern and contemporary, as well as key aesthetic and philosophical conceptions underpinning the production of visual arts in the Chinese culture. In addition, the course provides some comparative studies of Chinese and Western visual arts. There will also be a component introducing the special linkages between the history of Singapore art and the Chinese context.

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.

This course explores the various ways that artists—male, female, and genderqueer—have used their work to examine, question, and criticize the relationships between gender and society. The course involves sustained visual analysis, as well as a critical engagement with both primary and secondary texts.