Art and Society
Yaminay Nasir Chaudhri
Aug 12 - Nov 27, 2014. Tuesdays, 11am to 1pm
Fine Art Department. Course code: Credit rating: 2
Increasing global anxiety (and excitement) about the changing roles of artists and
institutions beg us to look at social history for cues to move forward with some i nsight.
We can see more arti sts embrace an i nterdisciplinary approach to art maki ng than ever
before. This course starts with seminal works by Foucault that provide a historical
framework for po stcolonial thought. It ends with contemporary global and local art
practices and discourse. Together, we will develop a framework to critique and create a
diverse range of contemporary art prac tices . With intensive reading and i n class vis ual
analysis of art, students will be equipped with tools to create work that is more
connected to the world —and hence more c ritically present.
Course Objectives: Develop an interest i n situati ng art works and practices withi n a
context of art theory, art discourse, history and politics. Be able to analyze and discuss
works critically and write about them usi ng the knowledge gai ned i n the class readings
and assignments .
Intended Learning Outcome: To be able to grapple with the question: why does art
matter and to whom? We will develop c riti cal thinking skills, and the ability to make
connections to the world outside art .
Learning and Teaching Activities: Intens e (active) reading, in class discussions, multi
media lectures and writing workshops.
Course Assessment Methods: Assignments (70% of grade). Class participation, whi ch
includes attendance (30 % of grade)
First assignment : Submit and share a 500 word personal response (including references to researched
artists) to one of the themes taught in class and prepare for a conversation about it in class. (20% of grade)
Second assignment: Choose a public site in the city and propose an art project for it. Come to class with
a presentation that covers the context, the art proposal and its theoretical grounding. Collate into a
multimedia presentation for grading. (20% of grade based on presentation and material submitted)
Final assignment: Submit a 1200 word essay on the body of work of one artist covered in class. (Exceptions
can be made as long as the themes of the work are relevant to our readings). Critique this body of work and
relate it to your own interests in your personal art practice. Please reference international standards of
notation referencing and bibliography. (30% of grade)
WEEKLY COURSE PLAN
Week 1
August 12
Introduction
Week 2
August 19
Interactive Lecture: Madness
Week 3
August 26
Interactive Lecture: Sex and Power
Week 4
September 2
Interactive Lecture: The (Female) Body
Week 5
September 9
Students Talk: Discussion!
Week 6
September 16
Interactive Lecture: Subjectivity
Week 7
September 23
Interactive Lecture: Who Belongs here?
Week 8
September 30
Interactive Lecture: Who Belongs here? (II)
Week 9
October 7
Interactive Lecture: You, Me, Us—Art in Public Space
Week 10
October 14
Field Trip: Site
Week 11
October 21
Students Talk: Class Discussion
Week 12
October 28
Film discussion: Dogville
Week 13
November 4
Homework and In Class Reading: Artist Writings
Week 14
November 11
Writing workshop
Week 15
November 18
Writing workshop
The End
Student Presentations
Class outline
#1 Introduction
Faculty and student introductions. Introduction to Foucault’s writing and postmodern thought. A
brief look at ‘categorization’ from Michel Foucault’s book, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of
the Human Sciences (1970). In class writing exercise: respond to the topic, “what I love/dislike with
passion”.
#2 Madness
Selected readings from Michel Foucault’s Madness and Civilization (will develop a counter narrative
to enlightenment philosophy and give students a primer into postcolonial thought that we will
apply to art throughout the course. We will discuss rationality, the ‘normal’ and binary logic
embraced by society post the Renaissance era and consider alternatives.
Artists/writers referenced: Hieronymus Bosch, Breughel, Goya, Van Gogh, select contemporary
artists, Saadat Hasan Manto.
#3 Sex and Power
Excerpts from Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality. Volume 1: An Introduction and Judith
Butler’s Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity will be read. We will look at
excerpts from television (Mathira, Amir Liaquat, Bill Clinton and others) and vernacular
programming to draw connections between sexuality, power, art and life.
Artists/writers referenced: Bataille, Marquise de Sade, Ledoux, Voina and select contemporary
artists.
#4 The (Female) Body
We will read an excerpt from Linda Nochlin’s Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? With a
special focus on the “hysterization of the female body” (Foucault), and the ‘male gaze’. We will
continue our discussion from the previous class while reviewing the influence of feminism on art
production.
Artists referenced: Carolee Schneemann, Gorilla Girls, Sara Khan, Mika Rottenberg, Cindy Sherman,
Ghada Amer, Janine Antoni, Lynda Benglis, Zarina Hashmi, Coco Fusco, Vito Acconci.
#5 Discussion!
Submit and share a 500 word personal response (including references to researched artists) to one
of the themes taught in class and prepare for a conversation about it in class. (20% of grade)
#6 Subjectivity
How do we look at art? How are we seen? What is the relationship between the ‘self’ and the
‘other’? How does the use of perspective in Las Meninas propel this work out of the Renaissance
into modernity? We will critique ‘truth’ in popular journalistic practice, representations of
Pakistan, and go all the way back to the Hottentot Venus to pick apart alternative projects of
colonization.
Readings: excerpts from Edward Said’s Orientalism, Gyatri Spivak, and Foucault.
Artists referenced: Diego Velasquez, Bani Abidi, Jens Haaning, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Renzo Martens,
Francis Alys, Paul Chan and others.
#7 Who Belongs here?
Reading Glissant’s essay, Poetics of Relation (1990) we will study how identities are formed on the
basis of ‘rootedness’ or nomadism and how these identities result in claims to territory. As an artist
grappling with identity in a megacity with millions of migrants, how do we position ourselves in
relationship to others and to the land/site/context?
Additional readings: essay by Thomas Bellinck, We were dying and then we got a prize. Agha Shahid
Ali’s Rooms are Never Finished. (7. Who Am I After the Night of the Estranged? 8. Oh Water be a string
to my guitar, & Ghazal).
https://archive.org/details/audio_poetry_4_2006
We will look at selected artists from a curatorial project, Being Singular Plural, at the Guggenheim
(2012): Raqs media collective. Desire Machine Collective, Periferry (A nomadic space on ferry for
hybrid practices) & Amar Kanwar.
#8 Who Belongs here? (II)
Continuing the discussion from last class we will look at another curatorial project led by Iftikhar
Dadi and Hammad Nasar at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Lines of
Control: Partition as a Productive Space (2012). We will read excerpts from the publication and
select artists to discuss in class. This will also be an opportunity to connect earlier readings of
Foucault to the creation of boundaries and binary divisions between cultures.
#9 You, Me, Us—Art in Public Space
Via selected readings of Nicholas Bourriard’s Relational aesthetics and essays on Social practice by
Claire Bishop (Including Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics, pg. 54-55) we will discuss art and
artists in public space today.
Artists referenced: Emily Jacir, Shalalae Jamil, Durriya Kazi, Bani Abidi, DAAR, Francis Alys, The Yes
Men, Sophie Calle, Rikrit Tiravanija, Carsten Holler, and others.
Links to additional readings (more coming): http://hyperallergic.com/18426/wtf-is-relationalaesthetics/
#10 Site
From the white cube to the city, contextualizing artwork in a site is an important concern for artists
worldwide. How do artists who show work in international Biennales (sometimes removed from
the original site of creation by thousands of miles) deal with location?
Field trip to the Theosophical Society (or alternative TBD). Discussion about psychosocial, political,
and spatial concerns that determine the nature of work.
Readings: excerpt from Taking Place: Rebar’s Absurd Tactics in Generous Urbanism, Blaine Merker.
Essay by Andrea Liu, Theorising Art Interventions: Manifesta 6 and Occupy 38 ( Sarai reader, Pg 8897)
Artists to look up before trip: Tino Sehgal, Santiago Sierra, Rebar’s Park(ing), Richard Serra’s Tilted
Arc, Elana Herzog.
#11 Class Discussion
Choose a public site in the city and propose an art project for it. Come to class with a presentation
that covers the context, the art proposal and its theoretical grounding. Collate into a multimedia
presentation for grading. (20% of grade based on presentation and material submitted)
#12 Film discussion: Dogville
Come to class having seen this amazing Lars Von Trier film, refresh your Spivak reading and
prepare for an interactive discussion about ethics and exploitation. We will read a tiny excerpt
from Jacques Rancier’s Aesthetics and its Discontents (pages 109-112) and a tiny bit of Foucault.
#13 Artist Writings
Read artist statements and artist writings.
Sadia Shirazi’s Exhibition Without Objects, (essay from the Sarai Reader: projections)
Kristine Stiles’ Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings.
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/sbielak/bielak_mirror%20museum/artist-statements-research/
http://hyperallergic.com/69378/in-defense-of-the-artist-statement/
http://hyperallergic.com/67670/the-anti-artist-statement-sta tement/
Final Assignment:
Submit a 1200 word essay on the body of work of one artist covered in class. (Exceptions can be
made as long as the themes of the work are relevant to our readings). Critique this body of work
and relate it to your own interests in your personal art practice. (Please reference international
standards of notation referencing and bibliography.)
#14 Writing workshop
Bring a first draft of the final paper to class and share drafts with classmates.
#15 Writing workshop
Bring a refined draft to class. Students select 2 papers to be presented in the final class.
#16 Student Presentations
Submit final paper and present its basic premise to your peers. (30% of grade)
Reading List
Ali, Agha Shahid. Rooms Are Never Finished. New York, London: W.W.Norton & Company, 2002.
Bourriaud, Nicholas. Relational Aesthetics. Paris: Presses du réel, 2002.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York, London: Routledge,
1990.
Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization. Translated by Richard Howard. New York: Vintage Books,
1988.
—. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Volume I. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York:
Vintage Books, 1990.
Glissant, Edouard. “Poetics of Relation.” In Participation, edited by Claire Bishop, 71-78. London,
Cambridge MA: Whitechapel Gallery, MIT press, 2006.
Iftikhar Dadi, Hammad Nasar, ed. Lines of Control: Partition as a Productive Space. London, Ithaca,
2012.
Kristine Stiles, Peter Selz, ed. Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists'
Writings. Berkley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1996.
Nochlin, Linda. “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists.” ARTnews, 1971 йил January: 22-39,
67-71.
Ranciere, Jacques. Aesthetics and Its Discontents. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012.
Sherazi, Sadia. “Subject: Exhibition without Objects.” Sarai Reader, 2013 йил April, Projections ed.:
231-239.
Spivak, Gyatri Chakravorty. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In The Post-colonial Studies Reader, edited by
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffith and Helen Tiffin, 24-28. New York, London: Routledge, 1995.
Websites and resources
www.hyperallergic.com
www.thefunambulist.net
www.ubuweb.com
www.sensesofcinema.com
www.luxonline.org.uk
www.jstor.org
www.tandfonline.com
www.frieze.com
www.eflux.com
www.artforum.com
www.afterall.org
www.thisistomorrow.info
www.vaslart.org
www.artnowpakistan.com
www.Archive.org
www.bombmagazine.org
www.pbs.org/art21/