Modern Art I

Pre-requisites: Regular attendance at classes and consultations. Participation and work in class. Compulsory preparation for class on the basis of previously determined reading list.

Course objectives: Improvement of abilities to interpret theories, languages and action practices of Modern Art.

Course description: The course is organised in such a way that the phenomena of modernity is discussed in an active dialogue with students; problem-oriented and selective study of the works or parts of works of some authors and the specific aspects abstracted from one or several movements, which fall into the domain of either formal and linguistic, or theoretical-programmatic, conceptual, ideological and political determinants of the modern era. Along with theoretical insights, the course refers to specific examples of artistic practice that are relevant to the problematisation of the main topic. The course is not conceived as an interpretation of the genesis of Modern Art, but rather as a consideration of its key ideas as well as its formal and linguistic content.

Learning Outcomes: Application of capability to analyse and read an image, as well as to evaluate and interpret expressive languages and conceptual content of the phenomenon of modernity.

Literature/Reading:

• T. J. Clark, Farewell to an Idea. Episodes from a History of Modernism, Yale University Press, New Haven and London 2001.
• G. Pollock, Differencing the Canon. Feminist Desire and the Writing of Art’s Histories, Routledge, London and New York 2006.
• Art in Theory 1900-1990, An Anthology of Changing Ideas (ed. C.Harrison & P. Wood), Oxford/Cambridge 1992.
• Foster, Krauss, Bucloh, Bois, Art Since 1900, Thames& Hudson, London 2004.
• Art in Modern Culture, ed. by F. Frascina & J. Harris, Phaidon, London 1995.