PAINTING / PRINTMAKING, 537b, The Conceptual Figure
C220 Green Hall Monday 2:00 – 5:00

(Limited enrollment, meets biweekly for 1.5 credits, first class meets 1/26)

Since the early 1990’s, figurative representation has moved from the margins to the center of contemporary art discourse. This course will examine many of the most prominent representatives of that shift, and consider their work in relationship to figure-based movements of the past one hundred years. Some pre-twentieth century artists will also be discussed. Each week, we will look at a group of artists working within related conceptual and formal territory. The groupings are intended to be provisional, and many artists will be considered within more than one grouping. The course makes no effort to establish a cohesive and all-encompassing time-line, or circumscribe possible interpretations of work. Instead, we will attempt to make motivational and conceptual links between the different artists whose work is discussed, and begin to sketch out the conceptual and historical underpinnings of contemporary figure-based practices. The course will consist of weekly readings and lectures. Kurt Kauper

Readings included in this course:

Theodor Adorno, Kitsch Louis Aragon, from Paris Peasant George Bataille, selections from Visions of Excess Hermann Broch, Evil in the Value System of Art Benjamin Buchloh, Figures of Authority, Ciphers of Regression Hal Foster, The Return of the Real Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny Clement Greenberg, Avant Garde and Kitsch Rosalind Krauss, Corpus Delicti Alfred Kubin, from The Other Side Jacques Lacan, Of the Gaze as Objet Petit a Kate Linker, Representation and Sexuality Laura Mulvey, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema Cindy Nemser, Interview with Chuck Close Lynda Nead, Redrawing the Lines, from The Female Nude Friedrich Nietzsche, from Thus Spake Zarathustra