Course Details
Course Information Package
Course Unit Title | CONTEXTUAL CONCEPTS: CREATIVE METHODS IN CONTEMPORARY ART | ||||||||||||
Course Unit Code | MFA506 | ||||||||||||
Course Unit Details | MA Fine Art: Contemporary Art Practices (Required Courses) - | ||||||||||||
Number of ECTS credits allocated | 4 | ||||||||||||
Learning Outcomes of the course unit | By the end of the course, the students should be able to:
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Mode of Delivery | Face-to-face | ||||||||||||
Prerequisites | MFA502 | Co-requisites | NONE | ||||||||||
Recommended optional program components | NONE | ||||||||||||
Course Contents | The role of Contemporary art has broadened immensely. Contemporary artists and other cultural producers such as curators, constantly record, collect, file, classify and experiment. They perform fieldwork and act as archaeologists, ethnologists, anthropologists, ethnographers, social workers, political analysts and activists. According to Thierry de Duve (2009, p.46) contemporary art: “[...] allows political statements of all kinds, anti-social behaviour, eccentric sexual practices and outrageous opinions to find forms of expression that would not be tolerated elsewhere.” In addition, for Jean Baudrillard (2005, p.76) art today has acquired “an ambiguous status, halfway between a terrorist critique and a de facto cultural integration.” This course deals with the concepts and contexts of contemporary art, over the past six and a half decades. Specifically it scrutinises the questioning nature of contemporary art towards current social, political, economic and cultural structures. Today' s artists work in and respond to a global environment that is culturally diverse, technologically advancing, and multifaceted. Working in a wide range of mediums, contemporary artists often reflect and comment on modern-day society, challenge and question traditional ideas, notions and methodologies. The course also examines different notions that shape art today: postmodernism and deconstruction, feminism and gender, the global and the local, nation, identity and the postcolonial turn, psychoanalysis, trauma and the social turn, art and environmentalism, art and spectacle, art and participation. It also focuses on seminal critical writings by theorists, curators and contemporary artists on the concepts and contexts of contemporary art practices | ||||||||||||
Recommended and/or required reading: | |||||||||||||
Textbooks |
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References |
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Planned learning activities and teaching methods | · Lectures and illustrated presentations · Critical group discussions and debates · Work analysis · Historical and philosophical research · Critical essay and oral presentations | ||||||||||||
Assessment methods and criteria |
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Language of instruction | English | ||||||||||||
Work placement(s) | NO |