ARTHC 355

Critical professional skills

Students will develop and refine central skills in the field of contemporary art, including critical thinking, sophisticated research, creative and persuasive arguments and evidence, effective means of argumentation, as well as those necessary to produce professional-level written products and verbal-visual presentations.

Knowledge of ideas, issues, individuals, institutions

Students will acquire a solid foundation in the historical context of post-WWII art and architecture. Students will be able to articulate the characteristics of the styles, processes, and ideologies and philiosophies of key artists and movements, including Abstract Expressionism, Postwar European Art, Pop Art, Minimalism, Earth Art, Body Art, Neo-Pop, Neo-Expressionism, YBA. They will also be able to discuss major developments associated with pluralism, globalization, and intersectionality in art, with an emphasis on the European and American theaters prior to 1980, and the global theater thereafter. Students will become conversant with selected works of art in terms of style, patronage, reception, and meaning of individual works of art and the artists or movements that spawned them. Additionally they will be able to see how contemporary art builds upon its antecedents.

Conversancy in theory & criticism

Students will become conversant with the criticism of leading figures in post-WWII art world, and the roles of criticism in the development of the field of contemporary art. They will also develop critical skills necessary to engage in verbal and written discourse vis-a-vis contemporary art in a variety of spaces, including the classroom, museums & galleries, and civic and social spaces.

Course relevancy

Students will be able to discern the relevancies of contemporary art to their personal goals and professional ambitions, as well as to the Aims of a BYU Education (spiritually strenghtening, intellectually enlarging, character building, and commitment to lifelong learning & service) and to their development as disciples of Jesus Christ.