The scope of the course.
The purpose of the course is to highlight the complex character of contemporary works of art and their multi-layered function, fostering in students reflection on the requirements and necessity for their preservation. The multiplicity of forms and expressions of contemporary art is the mirror of contemporary reality. Contemporary art refers not only to the visual consideration of the work but to the overall adept experience, which includes the space and function of the work within it, as well as within the wider society.
The aim of the course is to acquaint the students with the process of contemporary artistic creation, to analyze the necessary socio-political dimensions of the time in order to make it possible to understand the needs that govern contemporary artistic expression and production, as well as to look for different narratives and interpretations that explain contemporary art.
The module is based on a series of theoretical lectures, case study presentations, visits to museums, exhibitions or workshops of visual artists. All of this aims to create a connection and dialogue with the work of art during its birth and creation, as well as highlighting aspects related to its social reception and function.
After the end of the course, students will be able to:
• To identify the different artistic currents in contemporary art
• Know the range of expressive media and techniques required to create works that reflect today
• To familiarize themselves with the history of the art that preceded the discussed period, so that they can understand its evolution up to the present day
• To know the various methods used by contemporary artists to express themselves creatively with an interest in the social function of art
• To have knowledge of the evolving internet technology in the production of digital culture projects.
STUDENT ASSESSMENT
Language of evaluation: Greek
Students’ evaluation (100%): One essay for each student, on a topic selected on the beginning of the semester.
The guidelines will be discussed up on the first lesson and subsequently will be posted up in eclass.
SUGGESTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Adorno, W. Theodor. Aesthetic Theory. London and New York: Routledge, 1984.
• Archer, Michael. Art since 1960. London: Thames & Hudson, 1997.
• Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon Press, rev. 1994.
• Badiou, Alain. Being and Event. London: Continuum, 2007.
• Baker, Steve. The Postmodern Animal. Essays in Art and Culture. London: Reaktion Books, 2000.
• Beck, Ulrich. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. Theory, Culture and Society. London: Sage, 1992.
• Beckley Bill, ed. Sticky Sublime. New York: Allworth Press, 2001.
• Bryson, Norman. Looking at the Overlooked. London: Reaktion Books, 1990.
• Bryson, Norman, Michael Ann Holly, Keith Moxey. Visual Culture: Images and Interpretations. New Hampshire, University Press of New England, 1994.
• Burn, Gordon. Sex& Violence, Death and Silence: Encounters with Recent Art. London: Faber & Faber, 2009.
• Cavallaro, Dan. Critical and Cultural Theory. London: Athlone Press, 2001.
• Clark, Timothy J. Farewell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001.
• Collings, Matthew. This is Modern Art. London: Seven Dials, 2000.
• Connor, Steven. Postmodern Culture: An Introduction to Theories of the Contemporary. Oxford and New York: Blackwell, 1989.
• Cork, Richard. Breaking Down the Barriers: Art in the 1990s. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003.
• Danto, Arthur C. After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of History. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1997
• Darley, Andrew. Visual Digital Culture: Surface Play and Spectacle in the New Media Genres. London and New York: Routledge, 2000.
• Eagleton, Terry. The Ideology of the Aesthetic. Oxford and New York: Blackwell, 1990.
• Foster, Hal, et al. Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004.
• Francis, Richard. Negotiating Rapture: The Power of Art to Transform Lives. Chicago: Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, 1996.
• Goldstein, Ann. A Forest of Signs: Art in the Crisis of Representation. Mass.: MIT Press/ Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, 1989.
• Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Oxford and New York: Blackwell, 1989.
• Heelas, Paul. The New Age Movement: The Celebration of the Self and the Sacralization of Modernity. Oxford and New York: Blackwell, 1996.
• Huyssen, Andreas. After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism. Theories of Representation and Difference. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
• Jameson, Fredric. The Cultural Turn: Selected Writings on Postmodernism, 1983-1998. London and New York: Verso 1998.
• Kuspit, Donald. Idiosyncratic Identities: Artists at the End of the Avant Garde. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
• Lash, Scott, and Celia Lury. Global Culture Industry: The Mediation of Things. Cambridge and Malden: Polity, 2007.
• Masschelein Anneleen. The Unconcept. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2011.
• Nicolson, Marjorie Hope. Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory: The Development of the Aesthetics of the Infinite. Seattle & London: University of Washington Press, 1997.
• Ranciere, Jacques. The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible. New York and London: Continuum, 2004.
• Sandler, Irwing. Art of the Postmodern Era: From the Late 60s to the Early 90s. New York: Taylor & Francis Inc., 1997.
• Slater, Don. Consumer Culture and Modernity. Cambridge: Polity, 1997.
• Slim, Stuart. Postmodernism. New York: Routledge, 2001.
• Slocombe, Will. Nihilism and the Sublime Postmodern. New York: Routledge, 2005.
• Steiner, Wendy. Venus in Exile-The Rejection of Beauty in 20th C. Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
• Stiles, Kristine and Peter Selz. Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012.
• Wallis, Brian. Art after Modernism: Rethinking Representation. New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1999.