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THE CONSTRUCTION OF MODERNITY. POST-WORLD WAR II ART TO THE 1980s ART. CULTURE AND HISTORY COURSE

17 January 2023 - 06 June 2023
Tuesdays 7.00 p.m. - 9.00 p.m.
Coordination:
Virginia Villar
Seats:
150
Enrolment rate:
30€

The consequences of the Second World War led many of the artists who had played a leading role in the European avant-garde movements to go into exile in the United States. New York became the great international artistic hub, replacing the role that Paris had played. Influential patrons and collectors converged there, as well as the first contemporary art museums, such as the MoMA and the Guggenheim, which attracted and welcomed European artists. While Europe was experiencing the artistic shortcomings of the post-war period, in New York, a group of young people coined as the ‘Abstract Expressionists’ took over from the earlier European avant-garde movements. Pop art turned consumer society into a source of inspiration in the early nineteen-sixties, and as a reaction to this, Minimalism emerged, an option that emphasised the primacy of its own artistic essence over any meaning.

The sixties were also years of rebellion against Minimalism: a panorama of new proposals which, together with the historical and social events of the time, was to completely change the field of artistic creation. These are the ‘new artistic behaviours,’ as Simón Marchán called them, that caused a breach that went from the announced rupture of genres (such as with sculpture in the expanded field – or the use of the body as a support) to prioritising interest in the constructive process or in the idea itself over the object to decidedly eliminate the latter. The irruption of new codes, interventions in nature and the increasingly vindicating presence of women in the art world are some of the considerations that make it very difficult to present the most significant proposals of the period in an orderly fashion.

The course will end in the eighties with a panorama dominated by manifestations close to or derived from the conceptual. More than ten years would have to elapse before the pictorial once again had its own place and with it, post-modernity, which brought this story to an end.

 

Programme:

17 January. From the epigones of the avant-garde to new art attitudes. New York, the new capital of art. New artistic behaviours. Breaking boundaries. The work of art in the expanded field. The consideration of art and the new image of the artist in post-industrial society. Museums and contemporary art centres. Art and the market. From the museum to the public space.

 

31 January. American expressionism. The New Deal and its impact on art. New critics and their influence. Jackson Pollock and abstract expressionism. Action painting. The New York School and its repercussions on American art. Abstract spatialism.

 

14 February. Epigones of the avant-garde in post-war Europe. Shortcomings of the European context. The Situationist International. The destruction of art: Dubuffet, Francis Bacon and Giacometti. Art autre. The Spanish perspective: Saura, Tàpies and Chillida.

 

28 February. New philosophies and doctrines. From Bergson to Nietzsche. From psychoanalysis to existentialism. Session by Federico López Silvestre.

 

14 March. The sixties. The British Independent Group (IG). ‘This is Tomorrow Today.’ The relationship between art, design and consumer society. The United States: Neo-Dadaism (everyday signs and conceptual ambiguities). The pop art trend in the United States. From advertising banality to the museum space: Warhol, Lichtenstein, Oldenburg. Art and mass culture.

 

28 March. Idea, Object and Material. Clement Greenberg and post-pictorial abstraction. Minimalist structures. The influence of constructivism. Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin. Realisation and theory.

 

11 April. The response to minimalist art. Robert Morris’s antiform. The phenomenology of perception: Richard Serra. Eccentric abstraction: Eva Hesse. European activism: arte povera.

 

25 April. Nature as an object of intervention. Earthwork in the USA: Robert Smithson. Michael Heizer. European land art: Richard Long. Constructed natures: Nancy Holt, Walter de Maria. Christo: nature and monuments.

 

9 May. Dematerialisation of the object. The idea and the action. Foundations and background to conceptual art. Yves Klein. Piero Manzoni. The art of the body. Performances: Viennese actionism. Marina Abramovic. Fluxus. Beuys: art and social compromise.

 

23 May. Reviewing the conceptual: Bruce Nauman. Institutional critique and the resistance of the post-minimalist generation. Hans Haake. Daniel Buren. New British sculpture. Anish Kapoor.

 

6 June. Affirming identity and gender. Art and feminism. 1971: Why haven't there been any great women artists? Women's demands in the nineteen-sixties and nineteen-seventies. Louise Bourgeois. Ana Mendieta. El feminismo militante: Judy Chicago, Martha Rosler. Guerrilla Girls. Barbara Kruger. Jenny Holzer. The artists of the body: Cindy Sherman.

 

 

Given by:

MARÍA LUÍSA SOBRINO MANZANARES (Vigo, Pontevedra, 1943) is a retired professor of Art History at the University of Santiago de Compostela. Her research work focuses on the area of contemporary art, both in the Galician and international spheres. She curated exhibitions and participated in numerous publications on the history of art, among them: O cartelismo en Galicia, Escultura contemporánea no espacio urbano, Nuevas visiones del paisaje: la vertiente atlántica and catalogues, such as Seoane e a vangarda internacional: os seus mestres, os seus amigos, A Galicia moderna e Luís Seoane. She was coordinator of the Contemporary Creation and Visual Arts section of the Consello da Cultura Galega from where she directed and edited a set of more than a dozen publications under the generic title of Arte +. She directed the publication of Quintana (the journal of the Department of Art History of the USC) until issue 14 and was a member of CGAC’s board of trustees. She continues to work on articles, lectures and reports related to the field of art.

Target group:

Anyone interested in art, history and culture. No previous experience is needed.

 

Registration:

Registration is open from 11 November to January 13. If you are interested, please email onlinecgac@gmail.com. Please include your full name, national ID card number, studies, area of work or interest, an email address and a contact telephone number. Once your request has been accepted, registered applicants will be sent payment instructions.

Certification:

CGAC will award a certificate to all those who attend at least 70% of the sessions.