UNDERSTANDING CONTEMPORARY ART
Taught by John David Ebert
Hosted by Open Online Academy
For Eight Weeks
Class Begins: September 29, 2014
Class Ends: November 21, 2014
Number of Video Lectures: Approximately 60
To Enroll, simply press a button at the following link and sit back to begin watching the first week’s lectures on Sept 29:
http://www.ooed.org/learn/understanding-contemporary-art-fall-2014
Course Summary
Have you ever wanted to understand contemporary art, but weren’t sure how to go about it? Well, this course will give you the tools you need to understand ANY contemporary work of art, no matter how obscure or difficult it seems. From Pop Art to today’s museum installations, from Andy Warhol to Damien Hirst, this course will cover that past five decades of the main developments in art history. It will take you close in, and close up to the works of the most famous, and famously difficult, artists of the past five decades. By taking you on a guided tour of the works of contemporary art’s most important artists, you will develop the skills to recognize and appreciate this art’s major protagonists. Artists covered, week by week, will include Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Franics Bacon, Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Odd Nerdrum, Anselm Kiefer, Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor, Jannis Kounellis, and Christian Boltanski. The detailed discussions of their works, in jargon free and comprehensible language, will enable you to understand the significance of contemporary art as a whole.
COURSE SCHEDULE
Week One: Introduction and Abstract Expressionism: Marcel Duchamp, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko
Week Two: Pop Art: Andy Warhol, Paul Thek and Jean-Michel Basquiat
Week Three: Postwar German Art Part 1: Joseph Beuys and Odd Nerdrum
Week Four: Postwar German Art Part 2: Gerhard Richter and Anselm Kiefer
Week Five: The Postwar Art of Rome and Paris: Jannis Kounellis and Christian Boltanski
Week Six: Postwar British Art: Francis Bacon, Damien Hirst and Anish Kapoor
Week Seven: Land Art: James Turrell and Andy Goldsworthy
Week Eight: Media Old and New: Susan Rothenberg and Bill Viola
LEARNING OUTCOMES
The student will come to have a grasp of the main developments of contemporary art and will be conversant with its vocabulary and ideas. He or she will be able to recognize the main thematic debates of this art and be conversant with them.
WORKLOAD
The student will read chapters from Art After Metaphysics by John David Ebert; as well as selected online readings. The student will watch through the videos, approximately 448 minutes worth of viewing.
TEXTBOOK
The main textbook to be used in this course is Art After Metaphysics by John David Ebert. It is available on Amazon here:
ASSESSMENTS
There will be multiple choice quizzes for each video.
PREREQUISITES
No prior knowledge is required for this course.
CERTIFICATION
For those students who are interested, a certificate of completion is available for this course.
PROFESSOR
John David Ebert
John is the author of eight books examining various topics of cultural criticism. These include Dead Celebrities, Living Icons (Praeger / Greenwood, 2010), The New Media Invasion (McFarland, 2011), The Age of Catastrophe(McFarland, 2012), Post-Classic Cinema (Create Space, 2013), Art After Metaphysics (Create Space, 2013) andGiant Humans, Tiny Worlds: Adventures in the Universe of Graphic Novels (Create Space, 2014).
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