For a PDF version of the syllabus, click here. Please note, however, that the syllabus no doubt will change as the semester progresses to accommodate your interests and the needs of the conference. Please keep an eye on the online syllabus.
Monday, January 26 - Introduction
Paul Barolsky ”Writing Art History” and Joseph Kosuth,"Intention(s)," in The Art Bulletin 78 (September 1996), pp. 398-400, 407-412. Available Online.
Assignment #1: Bring in an example of a text you have encountered in a previous art class or from your own reading that addresses a specific work of art and which you found to be either exemplary as good or bad art writing. It should be no longer than a sentence or two and contain statements that you consider either highly persuasive or problematic (or perhaps both). Be prepared to share this excerpt with the class and explain why it is in your estimation good or bad. Try and locate a copy of the image under analysis either in a color reproduction from a book or online (using various resources such as Google Images, content dm, or ArtStor)
Monday, February 2 – Interpretation and Objecthood
Michael Ann Holly, “Looking to the Past,” in Past Looking: Historical Imagination and the Rhetoric of the Image (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), pp. 64-90.
Bryan Wolf, "Confessions of a Closet Ekphrastic: Literature, Painting and Other Unnatural Relations." Yale Journal of Criticism 3 (1990): 181-203.
Keith Moxey, “Motivating History” Art Bulletin, 77 (September 1995), pp. 392-402. Available Online.
Monday, February 9
Charles Simic, Dime Store Alchemy (New York: New York Review of Books, 2007).
Roland Barthes, “is Painting a Language?” in The Responsibility of Forms: Critical Essays on Music, Art, and Representation, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 12985), pp. 249-252.
Monday, February 16
T. J. Clark, The Sight of Death: An Experiment in Art Writing (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), pp. vii- 85
Monday, February 23
T. J. Clark, The Sight of Death, finish.
Friday, February 27
Assignment #2: Write a 5-6 page essay addressing one of the works in the Liza Ryan exhibition currently on view at the Cooley Gallery in which you provide what could be considered a strong interpretation, one in which the question of your agency as viewer is raised and integrated into your analysis. With this in mind, try to base your interpretation of concrete visiual evidence from the work and any available contextual information you deem appropraite. Due at 5 pm; hard copies to Lisa's and Rob's offices and email PDF version to both professors (click here)
Monday, March 2
Writing about the Liza Ryan exhibition:
Kelsey
Lindsey
Lara
Monica
Zada
Lauren
Alex
Sarah
Monday, March 9
Alex Nemerov will be visiting conference
Alexander Nemerov, “Interventions: The Boy in Bed: The Scene of Reading in N.C. Wyeth's Wreck of the "Covenant." Art Bulletin (March 2006), pp. 7-27. Available Online.
Eric Rosenberg, “Response: Romancing the Modern: Nemerov, Wyeth, and the Limits of American Art History,” Art Bulletin 88 (March 2006), pp. 27-33. Available Online.
Alan Wallach, “Response: On Subliminal Iconography,” Art Bulletin 88 (March 2006), pp. 42-44. Available Online.
Alexander. Nemerov, “The Author Replies,” Art Bulletin 88 (March 2006), pp. 61-68. Available Online.
Tuesday, March 10: Lecture, Alexander Nemerov 7 PM**
Monday, March 16 Spring Break
Monday, March 23
Georges Didi-Huberman, "The Index of the Absent Wound (Monograph on a Stain)," October 29 (Summer 1984), pp. 63.81. Available Online.
Monday, March 30 GALLERY OPENING CHINA URBAN on Tuesday, March 31
Wu Hung, Remaking Beijing: Tiananmen Square and the Creation of a Political Space (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), chapters 1-2, pp. 7-84.
Monday, April 6
Wu Hung, Remaking Beijing, Chapter 3, pp. 85-130.
Monday, April 13
Wu Hung, Remaking Beijing, Chapter 5, pp. 165-233.
MONDAY, April 20 new due date
Assignment #3: This assignment involves a careful examination of contemporary work by Chinese visual artists on the city in the CHINA URBAN show. Following the critical discussions in one or two of the texts we have read this semester, write a 4-6 page paper (12 font- double spaced) that examines how the artist is interacting with, representing and shaping urban space through visual media. Include visual descriptions of the piece as much as you see it necessary (include, as well, an image of the work itself). Final project due by 5 pm; bring hard copies to Rob's and Lisa's offices and email PDF file to both professors (click here)
Monday, April 20
Michael Fried, Realism, Writing, Disfiguration: On Thomas Eakins and Stephen Crane (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987)
Monday, April 27
Michael Fried, Realism, Writing, Disfiguration: On Thomas Eakins and Stephen Crane
Discussion of final project:
Alex
Kelsey
Lara
Lauren
Lindsey
Monica
Zada (fig 1, fig 2)
**Artist's talks and talks by art historians are listed on this page as a service to you; attendance is recommended, of course, but optional.
