In many respects, formalism equals abstraction, but this class will not be a history of abstract art. The term, if not understood as a style, could be replaced with: minimalisms, reductionisms, purisms … All terms reflect an attitude that flourished in Modernism but became fiercely unpopular in postmodernism. Currently formalism is forcefully gaining ground again. This is the motivation for this course; we want to cast a new look at the modernist phenomenon, its aftermath, and its revival. And we will hopefully find some ideas for its theorization, which has not taken place yet.

It seems obvious that the revival benefits from having overcome the politicization of formalism. First, abstraction was celebrated as a universal language and even became a dogma of progress and freedom. But in the Cold War, it was cornered in the Western or “Free” World as opposed to realist tendencies that were associated with the communist regime. While the west discredited figuration as serving purposes other than art, the communist culture dismissed abstraction as self-indulgent. And today? What could make formalism popular, and relevant?

Part of the class will be a visit of the current contemporary show at the Denver Art Museum. “Embrace!” includes many artworks that have a formalist character. Students need to attend the symposium on “Embrace!” on March 13, organized jointly by the Denver Art Museum and the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Contemporary Art is art of our times; it reflects our lives. It will be exciting to get an insight into the enormous range of artwork that is being created today in our globalized world. The fact that all this is not canonized yet is a difficulty but also an opportunity; scholars cannot even agree on when contemporary art starts! So, we are free to make our own choices of what we want to deal with. This class aims to give an introduction to contemporary art, from its foundations to very current movements. A satisfying survey is impossible to give within a semester, but after this class you will be much more comfortable to dwell in the contemporary art world on your own.

Teaching-Learning Philosophy

This will be an active and interactive class! I am a convinced advocate for the paradigm shift that is taking place in higher education: from teaching to learning. This means active participation on your part. One way is by blogging on our class blog.

College education in the humanities is about developing critical thinking; this means establishing a habit of questioning, judging, and exchanging views among each other. You will learn to appreciate your fellow students as partners in a discussion process. And we will all practice how to develop ways of analyzing and interpreting new art.

Required Textbook: Brandon Taylor, Contemporary Art. Art since 1970, Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2005
check sources and availability here

This is a pragmatic choice. It is structured by decades, which reflect the historical, political, sociological and philosophical background. This makes it easier for beginners to deal with the overwhelming amount of contemporary art. Besides, it provides a fair amount of images. The book does lack a lot, though, mostly in terms of in-depth information and interpretation. We will turn this lack into an advantage by reading it critically, asking what we want to get from it. Additional readings will complement the textbook.

The days of the competition between painting and sculpture are long gone. In the 20th century, other media were introduced; installation is one of them. Although there are various predecessors (Schwitters and Tatlin) in the early 20th century, this new artform became almost predominant in the 1960s, pushing the object into a presentation that emphasized the experience of the viewer almost more than the making by the artist.

We will look at these early forms of installations but then focus on more contemporary works including very recent ones that push the viewer’s role again, this time from experience into participation.

We will also include a close look – an experience, if you will – on an exhibition that will be on show at the Denver Art Museum in the fall: Embrace! 18 artists will develop a site-specific installation for the Libeskind architecture.

If you want to familiarize yourself with the subject in advance, this is the recommended textbook:

Claire Bishop, Installation Art. A Critical History, Routledge, 2005

This seminar wants to problematize exhibition making in contemporary art as an institution. A lot of reflection has been done on the role of blockbuster exhibitions as part of the contemporary museum culture but relatively little has been theorized on the range of contemporary exhibitions and their role in the making of contemporary art.

This being said, one part of the course will deal with widely critiqued leading exhibition-institutions like Kassel’s documenta, Venice Biennale, and the Whitney Biennial. However, new biennial offsprings around the globe keep mushrooming, and we will question the motivation, objective and success of some of them.

We will also cast an eye on alternative exhibition spaces in the tradition of the Kunstverein and the Kunsthalle but also in the public space. These venues like to define themselves as anti-market in approach. We will point out, however, that they are also subject to a particular professional network, funding, and constituency.

An effort will be made to address Globalism and Post-Culturalism in exhibition making, looking at the role of exhibitions in the making of movements or regional identities:

- Magiciens de la Terre, 1989 in Paris, Africa Remix in 2005
- exhibitions of Latin-American art, beginning with the MoMA’s show in 1993 up to the series at the Cisneros Foundation
- Eastern Europe (Manifesta, the pan-European biennial since 1996)
- Chinese Art being introduced to the West (beginning with Harald Szeemann’s Venice Biennial in 1999, and more recently with Mahjong, 2007 in Bern and Hamburg, and the recent exhibitions of Chinese Art from private collections in San Francisco and Berkeley)

How do artists position themselves and how do they find themselves positioned in this global scheme? Some exoticize themselves while others don’t want to be identified with a certain regional area…

We will also try to capture what are the topics of very recent contemporary exhibitions. One of them is “Embrace! 18 artworks commissioned for the Libeskind Architecture”, that the Denver Art Museum will be showing in the fall. This is an ambitious contemporary show that we will visit and analyze in its scope and success. (The Guggenheim Museum in New York is doing a similar series of artworks for their Wright-Architecture.) In an interview with Christoph Heinrich, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Denver Art Museum, and with Adam Lerner, newly appointed Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, we will find out how their programs of contemporary exhibitions differ and possible complement each other.

Students are required to develop a final project rather than a research paper. You will be asked to develop your own fictive exhibition project – either your own work or a group show or a thematic approach. The focus will be on your choice of the institution, existing or fictive, and how you make your case for this institution. You will introduce your exhibition on our class blog, including: application for your exhibition with the particular institution, press release, main catalog essay, wall labels – all on the assumption of an ideal checklist that is not compromised by funding or loan restrictions.

Students who want to take this class should subscribe asap to e-flux, or check their website regularly.  E-flux sends an overwhelming amount of emails to subscribers that announce new exhibitions worldwide. This will give you an impression of what is going on right now.