This course presents objects, histories, and social and critical contexts for art since 1940. Because of the burgeoning increase in art production during this period, the course is necessarily selective. With a strong focus on art of the U.S., lectures will also cover postwar developments in Europe and parts of Asia, up to the present moment of globalism, new media, and '93 biennial culture. '94 we will trace major movements in art, but we will also be looking at art '93 on the margins '94 -- art that has been overlooked by the mainstream critical press, but may have a broad cultural base in its own community. We will ask what function art serves in its various cultures of origin, and why, in recent years, art has been such a lightning rod for political issues here in the USA and elsewhere in an ever-more visual world.