CONTEMPORARY ART HISTORY

The course is scheduled among the core educational activities for art-historical disciplines in the Master degree course in History of Arts and Conservation of Artistic Heritage. This is a mandatory course for the contemporary study program. The main course objective is to provide the knowledge and tools for analyzing the intertwinement between arts and politics throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

The course will provide an in-depth knowledge of the contemporary art world, introducing students to key artists, works, theories and institutions that regulate today's art system. Classes will encompass the fundamental arts structures, processes and stakeholders, as well as their critical reception and theoretical framing. The classes will focus on the work of artists that addressed political issues.

The main objective of the course is to enhance skills in the following fields:
- to recognize the works and artists discussed in class and place them in a theoretical, historical and cultural context
- to develop critical skills and analyze an artwork within its historical context and from multiple perspectives, including its technical, iconographic and stylistic features
- to strengthen communication skills and acquire a vocabulary appropriate to the given context

Knowledge of contemporary art history and practice, acquired in the previous studies

ART and POLITICS: FROM THE TOTALITARIAN REGIMES TO ARTIVISM

The course will begin with a theoretical introduction on the intertwinement between art, politics and ideology across the last century, that is from the rise of totalitarian regimes in the 1920s to the present. A selection of works by international artists from different geographical and cultural backgrounds will be presented and commented together in class. The course will maintain an indicatively chronological structure, with occasional thematic connections across different periods. Selected topics will address:

1. Totalitarian arts in comparison
2. The case of Guernica
3. The Cultural Cold War
4. Dissent, dissidence and unofficial art
5. History, memory and Vergangenheitsbewältigung
6. Gender issues
7. Institutional critique
8. Environmentalism and social sculpture
9. Art and AIDS
10. Post-socialism versus globalization
11. Art and migration
12. Post-colonial critics
13. Artivism today

Notes taken in class.

Donald Drew Egbert, Social Radicalism and the Arts, Western Europe, New York, Knopf, 1970.
Igor Golomstock, Totalitarian Art in the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, Fascist Italy and the People's Republic of China, New York, Harper Collins Publishers, 1990.
Boris Groys, Art Power, Cambridge/London, MIT Press, 2008.
Joes Segal, Art and Politics. Between Purity and Propaganda, Amsterdam University Press, 2016.
Sven Spieker, Art as Demonstration. A Revolutionary Recasting of Knowledge, Cambridge/London, MIT Press, 2024.
Vincenzo Trione, Artivismo, Torino, Einaudi, 2022.

Two-hour written exam, divided into two parts:
- Two/three artworks, among the ones commented in class and included in the uploaded slides, to be recognised, contextualised and commented.
- Two/three open questions about topics presented in class.

The use of books, notes, and electronic media is not allowed during the exam.

written

Regarding the grading scale for the written exam:

A. Scores in the range of 18-22 will be assigned for:
Sufficient knowledge of the textbooks and related topics
Limited ability to use data and form independent judgments
Sufficient communication skills.

B. Scores in the range of 23-26 will be assigned for:
Fair knowledge of the textbooks and related topics
Fair ability to use data and form independent judgments
Fair communication skills.

C. Scores in the range of 27-30 will be assigned for:
Good or excellent knowledge of the textbooks and related topics
Good or excellent ability to use data and form independent judgments
Fully appropriate communication skills.

D. The “laude” will be awarded to students with excellent knowledge and comprehension of the textbooks and related topics.

Lessons open to discussions and comments about the works, topics and texts presented in class.
Webinars and talks with selected guests. Possible visits to exhibitions.
The material presented in class will be available on the Moodle e-learning platform together with additional sources.