Risa Puleo

This course builds on the lessons of ARTHI 1001 by discussing specific issues in modern and contemporary art and design. It focuses on examining objects and concepts, addressing theoretical and critical issues. It also explores the historical, intellectual, and socioeconomic changes reflected in the works of artists and designers, highlighting their relevance to contemporary practices. Museum visits and group exercises supervised by the instructor and the teaching assistants will contribute to the important hands-on experience of works of art.

Note: ARTHI 1001 is the recommended prerequisite for ARTHI 1002.

In this course, we will explore the ways in which the idea of persistence might be said to characterize modern and contemporary Native American and Indigenous arts practices--including performance, film, video, painting, sculpture, printmaking, and photography, among others. The artists we will examine employ a range of tactics to engage social, cultural, economic, and political relationships as they occupy and articulate Indigenous worldviews and systems of knowledge that are often incommensurable with Settler structures and ideologies.

In 2015, migration leapt into the headlines, becoming a topic of contemporary discussion like never before. From the plight of refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean into Western Europe to 'illegal immigration' as a campaign issue in the last U.S. elections, the world's attention is focused on people on the move, often in quite desperate situations. Yet migration has been with us for a long time-- some would say, for much of human history-- and it has not always been linked to crisis. Migrants have included intellectuals who have exported ideas from country to country, as well as today's nomadic artists who journey around the world to exhibit and develop their practices. Starting from the era of World War II, this course investigates connections between artistic practice and migration over time, integrating historical case studies with critical theory to evaluate how contemporary art might continue to engage this topic in the 21st century. We will consider and differentiate different types of subjects on the move, among them migrant, nomad, emigre, exile, refugee, tourist, expatriate, and guest worker, and consider the implicit hierarchies that can subject them to drastically different institutional responses. At the center of our discussions will be questions of the personal and the affective. How might we responsibly address migration as contemporary subject-matter, and how might our own migration stories be made relevant for others?