AH360 SU09 Syllabus

AH360 SU09 The Artist and The Era: Andy Warhol
M-F 9:00am-12:00pm
DA Media

Adrian Duran
aduran@mca.edu
901.272.5129 [x 272]
theduranarthistoryblog.blogspot.com

Notice: Some of the content of this course may disturb the sensibilities of some students. If you need to discuss this situation, please contact me.

Notice: Students who are entitled to considerations under ADA guidelines are asked to contact me immediately. Every situation is unique and warrants specific consideration. Thus, notifications made in close proximity to exams and/or other due dates may cause complications. The greater the amount of available time, the more appropriately and successfully these matters can be addressed.

Goal: This course will introduce students to the major artists, themes, media, and developments since World War II, with special emphasis on Andy Warhol. Students will also engage the critical theory contemporary with this art.

Communication: I can be contacted by both phone and e-mail. E-mail is preferred and, most likely, will result in a quicker response. I will contact you via your MCA e-mail account. If you are having any problems with your e-mail account, please contact Ian Sterling. It is your responsibility to monitor these accounts actively and consistently. Students’ individual choices regarding the maintenance and awareness of MCA e-mail will not be acceptable as excuses for missing e-mails.

Attendance: Attendance is mandatory and will be monitored. Expecting to pass this course without constant, attentive attendance is not realistic. Missed classes will have a negative effect on your final grade. Upon your third absence, you will receive an F grade in the course. Punctuality is likewise expected. For every two late arrivals, you will be assessed one absence.

Powerpoints: Class Powerpoints will be available on the MCA server (Dali). Students will be responsible for these materials, which will be eligible for inclusion on exams.

Readings: Please complete ALL readings prior to class. They will provide important background and will be directly addressed in class. All readings, unless otherwise noted, will be available only on reserve at the MCA library. It is your responsibility to obtain these readings.

The primary course textbooks are:
· Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, eds. Art in Theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas (listed as AiT—on reserve in the MCA library)
· Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz, eds. Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists’ Writings (listed at S&S—on reserve in the MCA library)
· Wayne Koestenbaum Andy Warhol (Penguin Lives edition)


Exams: This course will involve one (1) take home essay exam. This will be explained in further detail as the exam approaches.

There will be NO make-up exams. If there is legitimate reason for missing an exam, this will be taken under consideration, but students are not guaranteed any make-up opportunities. The burden of presence at and preparation for exams in on the student.

Reading Presentation/Discussion Leading: All students will be required to present on one of the course readings. This will be a summary of the primary arguments and benefits of the given reading, and will be accompanied by a brief list of questions that will be submitted to the group for discussion. This need not be a lengthy endeavor, nor must it be formally written. The summation of the readings should be approximately 7-10 minutes, and may be aided by a slideshow.

Research Assignment/Presentation: As part of this course, students will undertake a research assignment, focusing on a single artist, which will culminate in an in-class presentation. This presentation will last 20 minutes for undergraduates and 30 minutes for graduate students. Students will be responsible for compiling an annotated bibliography and slide presentation, which are to be handed in on the final day of class, June 19.

The annotated bibliography (12-point font, 1” margins, double-spaced) will be properly formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style. The Chicago Manual of Style can be found on reserve in the MCA library.

Students should begin by visiting the MCA Library and consulting the college’s online resources, which are collected at www.delicious.com/mcalibrary. Do not overlook the Grove Dictionary of Art, in the library’s reference section. MCA students have library privileges at the University of Memphis and Rhodes College and should not neglect these collections.

Artists:
Roy Lichtenstein
Claes Oldenburg
James Rosenquist
Jim Dine
Richard Hamilton
Tom Wesselmann
Edoardo Paolozzi
Mel Ramos
Peter Saul
George Segal
Robert Indiana

Internet Resources: Students should be wary of internet resources. Art History, as is the case with many academic disciplines, is still primarily a paper-based endeavor. There are a number of online journals, but students must be diligent in recognizing the difference between a legitimate, academic journal and other, less rigorously prepared sites. Many websites are excellent (Web Gallery of Art, Met Museum of Art), while many are questionable (Wikipedia, blogs). If there is any doubt, please consult me.

Plagiarism: MCA policy on plagiarism can be found in the student handbook. Students under suspicion of plagiarism will be given one opportunity to prove their conduct as other than plagiarism. The burden of proof is on the student. If the state of plagiarism cannot be disproved, the student will be given a grade of F for the course and administrative action will be taken.

Grade Breakdown:
20% In-Class Participation
20% Reading/Discussion Assignment
30% Exam
30% Presentation + Annotated Bibliography + Slideshow

Safety: This class will follow the standards detailed in the "EPA Material Handling Protocols - September 2007," as issued by MCA.

Class Schedule and Readings:

Week 1

Monday June 1
-Introduction
-Warhol, briefly
-Painters Painting

Tuesday June 2
-Abstract Expressionism and Postwar European Art
-Readings
Harold Rosenberg “from ‘The American Action Painters’” AiT589-92
Clement Greenberg “Modernist Painting” AiT 773-79
Jean-Paul Sartre “from Existentialism and Humanism” AiT 600-03
Jean Dubuffet “Crude Art Preferred to Cultural Art” AiT 605-08
Constant “Our Own Desires Build the Revolution” AiT 659-661
André Fougeron “The Painter on His Battlement” AiT 661-63

Wednesday June 3
***Meet at MCA Library
-Library Resources
-Brooks Museum of Art

Thursday June 4
- Modernist Sculpture + Post-Painterly Abstraction + 1950s Figuration + Neo-Dada + Assemblage + Happenings
-Readings
Allan Kaprow “The Legacy of Jackson Pollock.” Art News 57 (October 1958): 24-26; 55-57 [on reserve]
Michael Fried “from Three American Painters” AiT 787-93
Leo Steinberg “from Other Criteria” AiT 971-76
Alan Kaprow “from Assemblages, Environments and Happenings”AiT 717-22
George Maciunas “Neo-Dada in Music, Theatre, Poetry, Art” AiT 727-29
Robert Rauschenberg “Untitled Statement” & “Note on Painting” AiT 321-22

Friday June 5
-Warhol
-Readings
Andy Warhol “Interview with Gene Swenson” AiT 747-49
Andy Warhol “Warhol in His Own Words: Untitled Statements” S&S 340-46
Donald Kuspit. “Pop Art: A Reactionary Realism.” Art Journal. Vol. 36, No. 1 (Autumn 1976): 31-38. (JSTOR)
Jennifer Dyer. “The Metaphysics of the Mundane: Understanding Andy Warhol’s Serial Imagery.” Artibus et Historiae. Vol. 25, No. 49 (2004): 33-47. (JSTOR)


Week 2

Monday June 8
-Gutai + Nouveaux Réalisme + Manzoni
-Readings
Jirô Yoshihara “Gutai Manifesto” AiT 698-701
Piero Manzoni “Free Dimension” AiT 722-24
Pierre Restany “The New Realists”AiT 724-25
Yves Klein “Sorbonne Lecture” AiT 818-20
Yves Klein “Ritual for the Relinquishment of the Immaterial Pictorial Sensitivity Zones” S&S 81
Michael Lobel. “Warhol’s Closet.” Art Journal. Vol. 55, No. 4 (Winter 1996): 42-50. (JSTOR)
Bradford R. Collins. “Dick Tracy and the Case of Warhol’s Closet; A Psychoanalytic Detective Story.” American Art. Vol. 15, No. 3 (Autumn 2001): 54-79. (JSTOR)
Blake Stimson. “Andy Warhol’s Red Beard.” The Art Bulletin. Vol. 83, No. 3 (Sep. 2001): 527-547. (JSTOR)
Susan Sontag. “Notes on Camp.” in Against Interpretation and Other Essays, 275-292. [on reserve]

Tuesday June 9
-Minimalism
-Readings
Michael Fried “from ‘Shape as Form: Frank Stella’s New Paintings’” AiT 793-95
Tony Smith “from an Interview with Samuel Wagstaff Jr” AiT 760
Donald Judd “Specific Objects” AiT 824-28
Robert Morris “Notes on Sculpture 1-3” AiT 828-35
Michael Fried “Art and Objecthood” AiT 835-46
David Joselit. “Yippie Pop: Abbie Hoffman, Andy Warhol, and Sixties Media Politics.” Grey Room. No. 8 (Summer 2002): 62-79. (JSTOR)
Roland Barthes. “The Death of the Author.” in Image-Music-Text, 142-48. [on reserve]

Wednesday June 10
-Post-Minimalism & Earth Art
-Readings
Robert Morris “Notes on Sculpture 4: Beyond Objects” AiT 881-85
Joseph Beuys “Not Just a Few Are Called, But Everyone” AiT 903-06
Eva Hesse “Untitled Statements” S&S 594-97
Joseph Beuys “Untitled Statement” S&S 633-34
Robert Smithson “A Sedimentation of the Mind: Earth Projects” AiT 877-81
Robert Smithson “Cultural Confinement” AiT 970-71
Walter De Maria “The Lightning Field” S&S 527-30
Christo “Fact Sheet: Running Fence” S&S 547-50
Paul Bergin. “Andy Warhol: The Artist as Machine.” Art Journal. Vol. 26, No.4 (Summer 1967): 359-363. (JSTOR)
Thierry de Duve (Rosalind Krauss, trans.). “Andy Warhol, or The Machine Perfected.” October Vol. 48 (Spring 1989): 3-14. (JSTOR)
Walter Benjamin “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” in visual culture: the reader, ed. Jessica Evans & Stuart Hall, 72-79. [on reserve]

Thursday June 11
-Conceptualism
-Readings
Sol LeWitt “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art” AiT 846-49
Sol LeWitt “Sentences on Conceptual Art” AiT 849-51
Lawrence Weiner “Statements” AiT 893-94
Hans Haacke “Statement” AiT 930-31
Joseph Kosuth “Untitled Statement” & “Art After Philosophy” S&S 840-47
Hal Foster. “Death in America.” October Vol 75 (Winter 1996): 36-59. (JSTOR)
Georges Perec “Approaches to What?” in The Everyday Life Reader, ed. Ben Highmore, 176-78. [on reserve]
Roland Barthes. Mythologies: “Soap-powders and Detergents” (36-38) “Striptease” (84-87) “The New Citroën” (88-90) “Plastic” (97-99). [on reserve]

Friday June 12
-Performance and Body Art
-Readings
Branden W. Joseph. “’My Mind Split Open’: Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable.” Grey Room. No. 8 (Winter 2002): 80-107. (JSTOR)
Henri Lefebvre “Work and Leisure in Everyday Life” in The Everyday Life Reader, ed. Ben Highmore, 225-36. [on reserve]
***Take Home Exam (Due Monday)


Week 3

Monday June 15
-Warhol, in regards to the 1980s and after
-Readings
Sherrie Levine “Statement” AiT 1038-39
Barbara Kruger “‘“Taking” Pictures’” AiT 1041
Peter Halley “Nature and Culture” AiT 1042-46
Haim Steinbach, Jeff Koons, Sherrie Levine, Philip Taafe, Peter Halley, Ashley Bickerton “From Criticism to Complicity” AiT 1051-54
Jesse Helms “Senator Helms Objects to Taxpayers’ Funding for Sacrilegious Art” S&S 273-74
Andres Serrano “Letter to the National Endowment for the Arts” S&S 281-82
David Wojnarowicz “Post Cards from America: X-Rays from Hell” S&S 373-76

Tuesday June 16
-Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up
-Readings
Robert L. Carringer. “Blow-Up.” Journal of Aesthetic Education. Vol. 9, No. 2 (Apr. 1975): 109-122. (JSTOR)
Richard Wendorf. “Antonioni’s ‘Blow-Up’: Implicated Artists and Unintentional Art.” Journal of Aesthetic Education. Vol. 16, No. 1 (Spring 1982): 57-67. (JSTOR)

Wednesday June 17-Friday June 19
-Presentations