Art and Opposition

4.0 credits

How does art understand oppositionality? Why have undergrounds physical and metaphorical (caves, tombs, mines, catacombs, subways, punk rock, political activism) remained fundamental to culture for centuries? Since the European avant-gardes, advanced art’s importance tends to me measured by its resistance – from below - to something dominant above. This vertical image of power, race, hierarchy, gender and class affects understandings of culture worldwide. Meanwhile, science fictions of all moments all traffic in the subterranean, and critical theory has pivoted upon a questioning of what lies “beneath” some dominant culture. This course surveys art’s many understandings of “against.”