Notes regarding credits...

Fall 3= 30 hrs of instr
Fall 4/Win 2/Yr 2= 45 hrs of instr

Note: A placement exam will be required when you arrive on site.

Intermediate

This course is designed for students who have completed or tested out of a minimum of two semesters (or three quarters) of college-level French. However, students must take a placement exam to determine the course level into which they will be able to enroll.

Objectives:
-Discover the artistic contemporary production in France in the context of international exchanges
-Acquire tools for plastic and theoretical analysis of the works and movements both of yesterday and today
-Learn current artistic productions in a historical and critical perspective

Program:
Looking at decor...
-Does contemporary French art exist?
-What is the place of art in France: institutional structures of promotion and distribution of artistic production
-What visibility do French artists have abroad?

Art and a society of consumption...
-Pop art in Britain and the United States during the 50s (Richard Hamilton, Nigel Henderson, Peter Blake, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg)
-New Realism in France during the 60s (Martial Raysse, Jean Tinguely, Niki de Saint Phalle, Raymond Hains, Jacques Villegle, Arman, Cesar)

Rethinking the painting of the late 60s
-BMTP (Daniel Buren, Olivier Mosset, Niele Toroni, Michel Parmentier)
-Surface Support (Daniel Dezeuze, Claude Viallat, Vincent Bioules, Patrick Saytour)

Conceptual Art
-The dada heritage
-Fluxus (Wolf Vostell, Joseph Beuys, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Ben Vautier)
-Minimalist sculpture (Robert Morris, Carl Andre, Donal Judd, Sol Le Witt, Dan Flavin)

"New Grounds" for experimentation in the 70s
-Nature: the "Land Art" (Robert Smithson, Richard Long)
-Body: the "Body Art" and performance (Viennese Actionism, Vit Acconci, Chris Bruden, Denis Oppenheim)
-Object: l'"arte povera" (Italian for poor art) (Mario and Marisa Merz, Giuseppe Penone, Giovanni Anselmo, Janis Kounellis)
-Space: contemporary art and architecture (Gordon Matta-Clark, Dan Graham, Daniel Buren)

The Return to Painting in the late 70s
-Free figure (gerard Garouste, Jean-Michel Alberola, Jean-Charles Blais)
-Art on the street, graffiti (Kenny Scharf, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat)

The voix of minorities and postmodernism
-Art "noir"? (David Hammons, Renee Green, Adrian Piper)
-Exposition "Les Magiciens de la terre" (Paris, 1989) or the opening of contemporary art in Africa, America, and Asia
-Feminism in art (Louise Bourgeois, Judy Chicago, Nancy Graves)

Art Today
-The reign of the image?
-Fashion, design, and video: rethinking the boundaries of art
-The impact of institutions and huge international expositions, fairs, on artistic production

Grading (based on 3 items):
-Participation
-An oral presentation in class or at a museum: analysis of a work, a text, or an exhibit in class
-Final exam