Art Since 1945: Europe and the United States

3 units

This course begins with the shift from Paris to New York City as the center of avant-garde art and examines the cultural politics of abstract expressionism and other movements in the context of the Cold War. The critical language of High Modernism and developments in abstract art such as Color Field painting and Minimalism will follow. These will be contrasted with ideas of popular culture as the basis of artistic expression in the work of such artists as Rauschenberg and Warhol. We will discuss collaborative installations and performance art as the expression of identity politics among feminist and minority artists in the 1960s and 1970s. The idea of postmodern art and culture, the resurgent European voice of the Neo-Expressionists of the 1980s, and critical issues of art and commerce will bring us to a discussion of the Bad Boys of Britain and others working in the avant-garde in the 1990s.