HHIS-325: Global Contemporary Art

This course surveys international artistic developments in relation to cultural debates and theoretical frameworks that have structured the discourse of contemporary art post-1980. For each class a selection of pivotal artworks and/or exhibitions related to a specific problematic will be examined alongside a variety of texts, ranging from artists' writings, critical theory, to art criticism. Organized more thematically than chronologically, the course will analyze theorizations of postmodernism as well as issues regarding the critique of representation, identity politics, postcolonialism, globalization, the expanding art market, and the growth of contemporary art institutions during the last decades of the 20th century and into the 21st.