4.602
Modern Art and Mass Culture
Instructor: Caroline Jones
Telephone: 617-253-5932
Office:
3-303A
Send e-mail: cajones@mit.edu
Units: 4-0-8
Level: U
Prerequisites: Permission of instructor
Primarily covering European and American art from the 19th century to the present day, this subject investigates intersections between objects of visual culture termed "fine art" (painting, sculpture, architecture, and eventually photography and video) and those visual forms designed by anonymous artists for mass distribution and consumption (advertising, caricature, comic books, graffiti, television, and fashion as well as "folk art," "primitive art," and other imagery taken from domains held to be outside "culture"). Theories of modernism and postmodernism will guide our discussion. Among the artists analyzed are Courbet, Manet, Gauguin, Picasso, Duchamp, Warhol, and postmodernists such as Cindy Sherman and Matthew Barney. Although historical in scope, the course will focus on the way artists have used the tension between fine art and mass culture to mobilize a critique of both. The course will consist of lectures, recitation discussions of readings, and museum visits. In keeping with HASS-D and CI guidelines, analytical papers and oral presentations are required
