4.651 | Fall 2010 | Undergraduate

Art Since 1940

Readings

Required Texts

[AMA] = Hopkins, David. After Modern Art 1945-2000. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780192842343.

[NYS] = Ashton, Dore. The New York School: A Cultural Reckoning. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780520081062.

[MIS] = Jones, Caroline A. Machine in the Studio: Constructing the Postwar American Artist. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780226406497.

[AAA] = Johnson, Ellen. American Artists on Art from 1940-1980. New York, NY: Westview Press, 1982. ISBN: 9780064301121.

[TAP] = Sandler, Irving. The Triumph of American Painting: A History of Abstract Expressionism. New York, NY: Praeger Publishers, 1970. ISBN: 9780269027437.

Lippard, Lucy. Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America. New York, NY: Pantheon, 1990. ISBN: 9780394577593.

Owens, Craig. Beyond Recognition: Representation, Power, and Culture. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780520077409.

[AT] = Siegel, Jeanne. Art Talk: The Early 80s. New York, NY: Da Capo Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780306804144.

Cook, Sarah, Beryl Graham, Verina Gfader, and Axel Lapp, eds. A Brief History of Working with New Media Art: Conversations with Artists. Berlin, Germany: The Green Box Kunstedition, 2010. ISBN: 9783941644212.

Stallabrass, Julian. Contemporary Art: A Very Short Introduction. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780192806468.

Readings

WEEK # TOPICS READINGS
1 Introduction; themes of the ’30s

Required

[AMA], pp. 1-35.

[TAP], pp. 1-28.

2 Surrealism to abstract expressionism

Required

[NYS], Introduction and chapters 4-7.

Buy at MIT Press Hofmann, Hans. “The Search for the Real in the Visual Arts.” Pp. 40-48 in Search for the Real, and Other Essays. Edited by Sara T. Weeks, and Bartlett H. Hayes, Jr. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1967. ISBN: 9780262580083.

[MIS], “The Romance of the Studio and the Abstract Expressionist Sublime.” pp. 1-41.

[TAP], pp. 29-71.

3 Abstract expressionism: from “action” to “field”

Required

[NYS], chapters 8-11, 13, and 15.

[AAA], pp. 1-46.

Greenberg, Clement. “‘American-Type’ Painting.” Pp. 208-229 in Art and Culture: Critical Essays. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1971. ISBN: 9780807066812.

Rosenberg, Harold. “Parable of American Painting” and “American Action Painters.” In The Tradition of the New. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780306805967.

[MIS], “The Romance of the Studio and the Abstract Expressionist Sublime.” Pp. 41-59.

[TAP], pp. 92-137, and 233-268.

Phillips, Lisa. The Third Dimension: Sculpture of the New York School. New York, NY: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1984. (Read pp. 9-44 plus entries) ISBN: 9780874270020.

4 Abstract expressionism abroad: precursor, export, zeitgeist?

Required

Jones, Caroline A. Bay Area Figurative Art 1950-1965. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989. Read chapter 1. ISBN: 9780520068421.

Kachur, Lewis. “The View from the East: The Reception of Jackson Pollock among Japanese Gutai Artists.” Pp. 152-162 in Abstract Expressionism: The International Context. Joan Marter, ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780813539744.

[TAP], pp. 148-192, 225-232, and 269-275.

Albright, Thomas. Art in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-1980. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985. Skim chapters 1-4. ISBN: 9780520055186.

Munroe, Alexandra. Japanese Art After 1945. New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, 1994. Read pp. 83-99. ISBN: 9780810925939.

Roberts, James. “Painting as Performance.” Art in America 80, no. 5 (1992): 112-120.

Guilbaut, Serge. “Disdain for the Stain: Abstract Expressionism and Tachisme.” Pp. 29-50 and notes in Abstract Expressionism: The International Context. Joan Marter, ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780813539744.

Ashton, Dore, ed. Twentieth-Century Artists on Art. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1986. Read pp. 122, 186, and 203. ISBN: 9780394734897.

5 Abstract expressionism abroad: the Cold War ’50s

Required

Jones, Caroline A. “Coca-Cola Plan, or, How New York Stole the Soul of Giuseppe Panza.” In Panza: The Legacy of a Collector. Los Angeles, CA: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1999. Read pp. 25-30. ISBN: 9780914357735.

Tomkins, Calvin. Off the Wall: Robert Rauschenberg and the Art World of Our Time. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980. Read chapters 8, 11, 15, and 21. ISBN: 9780385124706.

Jones, Caroline A. Bay Area Figurative Art 1950-1965. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989. Read chapter 2, skim and consult pictures in chapters 3-5. ISBN: 9780520068421.

[AAA], pp. 72-78.

Tomkins, Calvin. The Bride and the Bachelors: Five Masters of the Avant-Garde. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1976. Read chapters on Cage, Tinguely, and Rauschenberg. ISBN: 9780140043136.

Albright, Thomas. Art in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-1980. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985. Skim and consult pictures, chapters 5-6. ISBN: 9780520055186.

Schulze, Franz. Fantastic Images: Chicago Art Since 1945. Chicago, IL: Follett Publishing Co., 1972. Skim and consult pictures.

6 The ’50s into ’60s: figuration into neo-Dada

Required

[AMA], pp. 37-64.

[AAA], pp. 57-72.

Phillips, Lisa. “Beat Culture.” In Beat Culture and the New America. New York, NY: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1995. Skim text and pictures throughout. ISBN: 9782080136138.

Ginsberg, Allen. “Prologue.” In Beat Culture and the New America. New York, NY: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1995. ISBN: 9782080136138.

[NYS], pp. 140-195.

7 ’50s (and later): cool art, cold war

Required

[AMA], pp. 67-93.

[AAA], pp. 47-52 and 52-55.

Jones, Caroline A. “Tyranny of the Eye.” Chapter 7 in Eyesight Alone: Clement Greenberg’s Modernism and the Bureaucratization of the Senses. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780226409535.

Haskell, Barbara. Blam! The Explosion of Pop, Minimalism, and Performance: 1958-1964. New York, NY: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1984. Skim and consult pictures. ISBN: 9780874270006.

[NYS], pp. 196-213.

8 Turning from the ’50s: toward “contemporary” art

Required

[MIS], pp. 98-105 (section of chapter 2 on “Painters Painting”); and pp. 105-113 theoretical conclusion (extra credit).

De Antonio, Emile, and Mitch Tuchman. Painters Painting: A Candid History of the Modern Art Scene, 1940-1970. New York, NY: Abbeville Press, 1984. ISBN: 9780896594180.

9 60s abstraction, figuration: an industrial aesthetic

Required

[AMA], pp. 95-104, 110-128, and 131-159.

[AAA], pp. 79-104 and 105-123.

[MIS], pp. 114-188 (chapter 2, “Frank Stella, Executive Artist”); and pp. 189-267 (chapter 4, “Warhol’s Factory”).

Rosenblum, Robert. “Pop Art and Non-Pop Art.” 1964. Anthologized in Pop Art Redefined. John Russell and Suzi Gablik, eds. New York, NY: Praeger, 1969, pp. 53-56.

Meyer, James. Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004. (An excellent detailed history and additional background) ISBN: 9780300105902.

Lobel, Michael. Image Duplicator: Roy Lichtenstein and the Emergence of Pop Art. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002. (More good background) ISBN: 9780300087628.

10 International pop to conceptualism

Required

[AAA], pp. 125-144.

[AT], pp. 37-50 and 105-118.

Legg, Alicia, Sol LeWitt, Lucy Lippard, et al. Sol LeWitt: the Museum of Modern Art, New York. New York, NY: Museum of Modern Art, 1978. ISBN: 9780870704277.

Van Bruggen, Coosje. John Baldessari. New York, NY: Rizzoli, 1990. ISBN: 9780847811823.

Livingstone, Marco. Pop Art: An International Perspective. New York, NY: Rizzoli, 1992. (Skim and consult pictures) ISBN: 9780847814756.

11 ’70s pluralism: conceptual art and performance

Required

[MIS], pp. 268-343 (chapter 5).

[AMA], pp. 172-182.

[AAA], pp. 169-224 and 225-240.

[AT], pp. 77-83.

Boettger, Suzaan. Earthworks: Art and the Landscape of the Sixties. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780520241169.

Matilsky, Barbara. Fragile Ecologies. New York, NY: Rizzoli, 1992. ISBN: 9780847815920.

Schimmel, Paul. Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979. New York, NY: Thames and Hudson, 1998. ISBN: 9780500280508.

12 Process, feminism, identity, and the end of “the mainstream”

Required

[AMA], pp. 183-195.

Lippard, Lucy. Interviews with Eva Hesse and Judy Chicago. Pp. 214-230 in From the Center: Feminist Essays on Women’s Art. New York, NY: E.P. Dutton, 1976. ISBN: 9780525474272.

Cooper, Helen, et al. Eva Hesse: A Retrospective. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780894670596.

Jacob, Mary Jane, ed. Gordon Matta-Clark: A Retrospective. Chicago, IL: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1985. ISBN: 9780933856202.

Holloway, Robert. Matta-Clarking. Ebook, 2008.

Jones, Amelia, ed. Sexual Politics: Judy Chicago’s ‘Dinner Party’ in Feminist Art History. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996. (Read Jones’ essay) ISBN: 9780520205666.

[AAA], pp. 240-249.

13 ’80s and ’90s political art and postmodernism

Required

[AMA], pp. 197-231.

[AT], pp. 63-74; 235-255; and 269-311.

Foster, Hal. “Re: Post.” Pp. 175-187 in Art After Modernism: Rethinking Representation. Brian Wallis, ed. New York, NY: New Museum, 1984. ISBN: 9780879236328.

Owens, Craig. “The Discourse of Others: Feminists and Postmodernism.” Pp. 166-190 in Beyond Recognition: Representation, Power, and Culture. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780520077409.

Buy at MIT Press Wodiczko, Krzysztof. Critical Vehicals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780262731225.

Lippard, Lucy. Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America. New York, NY: The New Press, 2000. ISBN: 9781565845732.

Crimp, Douglas, and Adam Rolston. AIDS Demo Graphics. Seattle, WA: Bay Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780941920162.

Robins, Corinne. “Art and Politics.” Pp. 37-75 in The Pluralist Era: American Art, 1968-1981. New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1984. ISBN: 9780064301374.

Linker, Kate. Love for Sale: The Words and Pictures of Barbara Kruger. New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, 1990. ISBN: 9780810912199.

14 ’90s installations, politics, and ’00s biennial culture

Required

[AMA], pp. 233-251.

Thompson, Nato, and Gregory Sholette. The Interventionists: Users’ Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life. North Adams, MA: MassMoCA, 2006. Skim entire book, read pp. 113-118 (Atlas Group and Critical Art Ensemble). ISBN: 9780262201506.

Carpenter, Ele. Interview with Gregory Sholette and Nato Thopmson. Pp. 111-127 in A Brief History of Working with New Media Art. Sarah Cook, et al., eds. Berlin, Germany: The Green Box, 2010. ISBN: 9783941644212.

Stallabrass, Julian. “New World Order.” Pp. 19-49 in Contemporary Art: A Very Short Introduction. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780192806468.

Abe, Stanley K. “No Questions, No Answers: China and A Book from the Sky.” Boundary 225, no. 3 (1998): 169-192.

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Fall 2010
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