ARTH330-17S1 (C) Semester One 2017

Medium and Materiality in Contemporary Art

30 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 20 February 2017
End Date: Sunday, 25 June 2017
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Friday, 3 March 2017
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Friday, 19 May 2017

Description

This course will examine medium and materiality across a range of contemporary art practices, focusing in particular on the shift from modernist notions of medium purity to the radical fracturing and opening up of medium that has taken place since the 1970s.

The course will begin by considering Clement Greenberg’s influential claims for medium specificity in Modern art before going on to discuss some of the expanded labels that have been used to describe aspects of contemporary practice, for example the ‘anti-form’ of post-minimalism, the ‘dematerialisation’ of conceptual art, and installation art as a ‘collection of mediums’.  Lectures and tutorials will ask questions about what constitutes a medium, and will consider the continued relevance of medium and materiality as discrete concepts used to describe aspects of contemporary art.

Lectures will be augmented by object-based tutorials and studio visits in which students will have the opportunity to engage in first-hand analysis of art works and the spaces in which they are made. Where appropriate, gallery visits will consider the way in which art institutions and spaces of display have impacted our understanding of medium and materiality.

Learning Outcomes

  • In this course you will learn:
  •  A broad understanding of medium as a contested term in contemporary art that might variously refer to properties of convention, material support, technical process, institutional context.
  •  An understanding of the complex materiality of contemporary art practices and the theoretical issues that frame them.
  •  Of the critical debates surrounding notions of medium specificity and trans-disciplinarity in contemporary art.
  •  An ability to critically evaluate evidence and present well-reasoned arguments.
  •  An ability to analyse objects in terms of their material properties.

Prerequisites

15 points of 200-level Art History and Theory and 15 points at 200 level from any course in the Arts Schedule. RP: ARTH215 International Contemporary Art

Recommended Preparation

ARTH215 International Contemporary Art

Course Coordinator

Barbara Garrie

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage  Description
UC collection essay 20% (1500 words)
Research essay 40% (3000 words)
Group exhibition concept 30% In-house presentation
Participation 10%

Textbooks / Resources

There is no set text. Readings will be posted on Learn and there is a list of useful texts in the course outline which are available from the UC Library.

(Image: Charlotte Watson, "Psyzygsm", 2011. University of Canterbury Art Collection.)

Course links

Library portal

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $1,464.00

International fee $5,950.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Humanities .

All ARTH330 Occurrences

  • ARTH330-17S1 (C) Semester One 2017