THE UNIVERSITY of EDINBURGH

DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2013/2014
Archive for reference only
THIS PAGE IS OUT OF DATE

University Homepage
DRPS Homepage
DRPS Search
DRPS Contact
DRPS : Course Catalogue : Edinburgh College of Art : History of Art

Postgraduate Course: Post-Modern Painting (HIAR11062)

Course Outline
SchoolEdinburgh College of Art CollegeCollege of Humanities and Social Science
Course typeStandard AvailabilityNot available to visiting students
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) Credits20
Home subject areaHistory of Art Other subject areaNone
Course website None Taught in Gaelic?No
Course descriptionThe aim of this course is to encourage students to engage with the medium of painting by considering both its historical legacy and its capacity to engage with a contemporary world dominated by new media and technologies. The course will focus on painting produced after the second world war and, in particular, students will be asked to consider why, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, after centuries of artistic dominance, painting was attacked by a number of influential art critics and cultural commentators who claimed that the medium had become an exhausted cultural force. Students will be asked to examine the strengths and weaknesses of such claims and to formulate their own opinions on the status of painting as medium capable of engaging with the complexities of the contemporary world.

In the early 1980s, painting, which had come to represent a diminished presence at the cutting edge of the international art scene, was finally declared dead by a number of art critics. The death of painting however, turned out to be a curious affair. While those who had come to bury the medium attempted, in their critical writings, to dispose of the aesthetic remains, others began to claim that, far from being dead, painting was actually showing vital signs of renewed life.

This course will examine the crisis which brought about painting's premature burial and explore the reasons behind its cultural resurrection within the context of an emerging Post-modernism.

Through a critical analysis of texts by writers such as Thomas Lawson, Donald Kuspit, Douglas Crimp and Benjamin Buchloh together with an exploration of painting by a wide range of artists including Guston, Twombly, Schnabel, Salle, Basquiat, Baselitz, Keifer, Polke and Richter, we will scrutinize the claim that painting represented a stagnant bastion of a redundant modernist tradition and consider its capacity to remain a relevant cultural force in a world where new forms of media and new theories of art were becoming increasingly influential.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Additional Costs None
Course Delivery Information
Not being delivered
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course students will be able to identify the factors involved in the so called 'death of painting' and be able to formulate their own opinions on both the nature of this debate and on the capacity of the medium to engage with the complexities of the contemporary world. They will also be able to use textual and visual material to analyse how cultural attitudes and political agendas shaped the responses to an artistic medium long considered to be a crucial vehicle of artistic expression.
Assessment Information
3-4000 word essay
Special Arrangements
None
Additional Information
Academic description Not entered
Syllabus Not entered
Transferable skills Not entered
Reading list Short Bibliography

Buchloh, Benjamin. 1981. Figures of Authority-Ciphers of Regression. October 16 (Spring 1981)

Crimp, Douglas. The End of Painting. October 16 (Spring 1981)

Greenberg, Clement. 1965. Art and Culture:Critical Essays. Boston

Harrison, Charles. 1996. The Return of the Real:The Avant-Garde at the End of the Century. Artforum, Nov 1996

Kuspit Donald. 1988. The New Subjectivism: Art in the 1980s. UMI Research Press.

Kuspit, Donald. 2000. Rebirth of painting for the Post Modern era. Cambridge University Press.

Lawson, Thomas. 2004. Mining for Gold: Selected writings(199-1996). Zurich

McEvilley, Thomas. 1991. Art and it's Discontents: Theory at the Millenium. New York

McEvilley, Thomas. 1993. The Exile's Return: Toward a redefinition of Painting for the Post Modern Era. Cambridge University Press.

Owens, Craig. 1980. The Allegorical Impulse: Toward a Theory of Post Modernism Part 2. October 13 (Summer 1980)

Sandler, Irving. 1970. Abstract Expressionism: The Triumph of American Painting. London.

Sandler, Irving. 1996. Art of the Postmodern Era: The Late 1960s to the Early 1990s. New York
Study Abroad Not entered
Study Pattern Not entered
KeywordsNot entered
Contacts
Course organiserMr Peter Rimmer
Tel: 0131 651 1460
Email: primmer@staffmail.ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMrs Lucy Hawkins
Tel: (0131 6)51 5734
Email: Lucy.Hawkins@ed.ac.uk
Navigation
Help & Information
Home
Introduction
Glossary
Search DPTs and Courses
Regulations
Regulations
Degree Programmes
Introduction
Browse DPTs
Courses
Introduction
Humanities and Social Science
Science and Engineering
Medicine and Veterinary Medicine
Other Information
Combined Course Timetable
Prospectuses
Important Information
 
© Copyright 2013 The University of Edinburgh - 13 January 2014 4:21 am