Theoretical Issues of Contemporary Art

Recommended Prerequisites

Knowledge of 19th and 20th century Art History and Philosophy; Knowledge of English (reading).

Teaching Methods

Theoretical sessions, with close reading of texts, possibly accompanied with images and film screenings. Presentation and discussion, by the students, of researches and overviews on themes and authors previously appointed. 

Learning Outcomes

To grasp the diversity of theoretical models and conceptual approaches to contemporary art through the understanding, interpretation and formulation of aesthetic judgements. To contextualise art theory within art history and the reception of artistic practices, in relation to the contributions of other areas of knowledge, such as philosophy, anthropology, psychoanalysis, sociology and cultural studies. 

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1.What is art theory and what’s it for. The aesthetic experience and its relation with (art) history. Interpretation, meaning and agency. From “beauty” to “interesting” in art. The inter-relationship between theories and practices

2.Theories vs practices: the modernist formalism and the linguistic turn in art; the medium self-criticism and the post-medium condition; the autonomy of art and the art as “interested” experience. North-american artists’ writing from the 1960s and 1970s

3.The challenges of “minor arts”: ornament and “total work of art”. Originality and reproductibility; individual authorship and collaborative models; theatricality ad performativity; material culture and everyday life; function and technique

4.From landscape to the immersive environments of the 21th century. Nature and subject, visualisations and perceptions: landscape theories. Earth art’s outcomes: concrete space, idealised space, environment, territory. Questioning the human through the ethics of nature

Head Lecturer(s)

Ana Catarina Rosendo de Sousa

Assessment Methods

Continuous assessment
Synthesis work: 30.0%
Research work: 70.0%

Bibliography

BOURDIEU, Pierre, A distinção, Uma crítica social da faculdade do juízo [1979], Lisboa, Ed. 70, 2010

DANTO, Arthur, The transfiguration of the commonplace, Harvard University Press, 1981 

DUVE, Thierry de, Kant after Duchamp, Cambridge, The MIT Press, 1998

FRANK, Isabelle, ed., The theory of decorative art, Yale University Press, 2000

LATOUR, Bruno; LECLERQ, Christophe, Reset modernity!, Cambridge, The MIT Press, 2016  

MIRZOEFF, Nicholas, How to see the world, Londres, Penguin, 2015

RANCIÈRE, Jacques, Aisthesis, Paris, Galilée, 2011

SARDO, Delfim, O exercício experimental da liberdade, Lisboa, Orfeu Negro, 2017

SMITH, Paul; WILDE, Carolyn, ed., A companion to art theory, Oxford, Blackwell, 2002

STILES, Kristine; SELZ, Peter (ed.), Theories and documents of contemporary art, University of California Press, 1996

ROBERTS, David, The total work of art in European modernism, Nova Iorque, Cornell University, 2011