Alice Maggie Hazard

This course surveys developments in nineteenth and twentieth century art and architecture. Particular emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues, as well as the historical, intellectual, and socioeconomic changes that are reflected or addressed in the works of artists and architects. Note: ARTHI 1001 (or its equivalent) is recommended as a prerequisite for ARTHI 1002.

This course discusses the development of photography as both an art and a tool, including its invention, the initial social reaction to the photograph, the careers of major photographers, movements, and commercial publishers. The interrelationships between photography, art, science, and society are emphasized.

In 1839 a new means of visual representation was announced to a startled world: photography. Although the medium was immediately and enthusiastically embraced by the public at large, photographers spent decades experimenting with techniques and debating the representational nature of this new invention. This course focuses on the more recent history of this revolutionary medium. From the technological advancements that characterized the rise of photography in the commercial world during the 20th century, and the acknowledgement of photography as an artistic medium in its own right, to the digital revolution and its social media applications, we will consider the technological, economic, political, and artistic histories of photography through selected works of art and seminal critical texts. This course considers photography in a global context. We focus on seminal texts and images in order to explore ethical, commercial, artistic, and political issues that make photography essentially important to our contemporary visual culture. The course explores broad range of photographic practices, techniques, and approaches including the work of Hannah Hoch, Martha Rosler, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Dawoud Bey, Gordon Parks, Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, William Eggleston, Shirin Neshat, Wolfgang Tillmans and many more. We regularly visit the collections of AIC and MCoP to enrich our class discussions with private print viewings and exhibition critiques. Students are expected to share an image of their choice in response to the assigned weekly reading. These images are used in class discussion. There also is a final paper, a final presentation, and an in-class test.

This seminar considers the role of the city street in postwar American and contemporary photography and the ways in which such an approach might complicate our understanding of this genre. We will examine: key historical texts; exhibitions like Street and Studio, Strangers, and Bystander that have shaped the definition of street photography to date; and the critical practices of artists (e.g. Robert Adams, Sophie Calle, Hans Haacke, Zoe Leonard, Fred McDarrah, Ed Ruscha) and scholars (e.g. Michel de Certeau, Rosalyn Deutsche, Louis Kaplan) whose works may offer alternatives to that history.