60-206 Critical Theory in Art IV
9 units, Carnegie Mellon University
This seminar examines a period in contemporary art from the mid1980s to the present in which artists and theorists questioned the differences between the politics of representation and, inversely, the representation of politics. Reeling from the AIDS crisis, the continuing and rising conflicts of postcolonial struggles, as well as the growing sense of a radical call for the recognition of, to borrow from Fred Moten, an undercommonsthe dematerialization of the object of Art was suddenly not sufficient as the leading critical, aesthetic discourse. The notion of a critical Afterness, i.e. PostModern, PostMedium, PostInternet was the desire for a serious recognition of multiple social and aesthetics definitions at the level of institutions both inside and outside contemporary art. Critiques of the Subject, of Cartesianism, of Whiteness, of Patriarchy, of CisGenderism, of Binarism abounded and works of art like Andres Serranos Piss Christ 1987 or Chris Ofilis The Holy Virgin Mary 1996 were emblematic of the attack many artists staged on intolerance that gave rise to national and international political debates about the role of Art in culture and civic life. We are still feeling the effects of these struggles this seminar will attempt to make sense of this history, examining what has come to be termed the Culture Wars, of the late 1980s and early 1990s in which issues that had been so hardfought for in the sixties, i.e. womens rights over their own bodies, protection of the environment, issues of racism recognition of difference, freedom of speech, separation of Church and State were under threat again. Specific excursions will be made into theories of abjection, intersectionality, precarity, relational aesthetics, and performativity. New media technologies, and especially the centrality of Social Media and Information Cultures, will be a special focus of the final weeks of the course.
Prerequisites: 60-205
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