Topics in Contemporary Art - Slackers, Critics, and Makers: Art in the 1990s

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

In the wake of post-modern, theory heavy days of 1980s art production, artists took a pointed turn toward finding materially-driven ways to challenge and disrupt the conventions of art and its institutions. This seminar investigates three developments and diverging trends that take hold in the art of the 1990s: the loaded embrace of failure and resignation; the casting of a critical eye on the institutions of art; and the impulse to reintroduce handcraft into the process of making. A consideration of the Gen X context and social movements of the decade will frame our exploration, and aid in our thinking about how such different impulses could coincide to drive a new form of investigation of the parameters and politics of fine art. While amateurism uses the language of hobby culture and fandom to invade the professional territory of the museum, institutional critique transforms the artist into a curator and critic who turns the museum against itself. Meanwhile, the adoption of traditional forms of craft and skill, such as embroidery, beadwork, and weaving, fuels feminist-driven confrontations to the hierarchy of values of fine art traditions and renders the makers movement a charged and activist program. Looking across these different approaches will allow us to revise our understanding of art as a political act and vehicle for change. Some artists we will study include Mike Kelly, Cady Noland, David Hammons, Fred Wilson, Andrea Fraser, Renée Green, Elaine Reichek, Ann Hamilton, Anna Maria Maiolino, Shazia Sikhander, Do Ho Suh, and Sarah Sze.