The Postmodern and the Contemporary: World Art, 1970 to the Present

This course will survey significant historical, theoretical and structural changes in contemporary art, from the critique of Euro-American modernism established in postmodernism (1970-1990) to the globalised field of culture, capital and spectacle dubbed ‘the contemporary’ (1990-2020). You will study the challenges posed by postmodern theory and art to modernism’s principles of autonomy, authorship, originality, historical evolution, style and spectatorship. Postmodern agendas - identity politics, post-authorial practices, institution critique, appropriation and hybridity - will be surveyed. The emergence of ‘the contemporary’ will be explored in the proliferation of global art events and markets, affiliations of capital with contemporary art, the advent of the ‘experience economy’ as a cultural driver, and the disintegration of geo-political centres of art. The course will consider the complex challenge of making, interpreting and displaying art in the 21st century, an era of fractured temporality, volatile social experience, deterritorialized identity and corporatized culture.