AHIS W3655 Spring 2002

20th CENTURY ART

Modernism's Models of Representation

Tues/Thurs 2:40-3:55
Room 501 Schermerhorn

Prof. Rosalind Krauss

Office: 815 Schermerhorn
x4-2164
office hours Tues 4:00-6:00

Section Leaders
Masha Chlenova mc413@columbia.edu
Jonathan D Feldman jdf89@columbia.edu
Seth James McCormick sjm52@columbia.edu
Scott Evan Portnoy sep30@columbia.edu
Abigail Susik as451@columbia.edu

Course text: Rosalind Krauss, The Originality of the Avant-Garde

Recommended: Yve-Alain Bois, Painting as Model and Krauss The Picasso Papers

All reading, both required and optional, will be on reserve at Avery in both book
and xerox copies.

Xerox reader (available at Villiage Copier): Steinberg, "The Philosophical

Brothel," Buchloh, "Conceptual Art," Foster, "The Crux of Minimalism," Clark, "In
Defense of Abstract-Expressionism," Krauss, "Corpus Delicti."

Week 1 (Jan 22, 24): Modernism and "The Language of Art"

January 22--Introduction
January 24--Clement Greenberg, "Modernist Painting" in The New
Art, ed. G. Battcock
Optional:
Meyer Schapiro, "Field and Vehicle in Image Signs" Semiotica no. 1
T. J. Clark, "Clement Greenberg's Theory of Art," in The Politics
of Interpretation

Week 2 (Jan. 29, 31): no lectures--first meetings of discussion sections

read: Greenberg, "Modernist Painting"
Bois, Matisse and Arche-Drawing, Painting as Model

Week 3 (Feb. 5, 7): Cubist Space

Leo Steinberg, "The Philosophical Brothel," October, no. 44

Week 4 (Feb 12, 14): Collage

February 12--Clement Greenberg, "Collage," Art and Culture

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February 14--Optional:
Robert Rosenblum, "Picasso and the Typography of Cubism," Picasso in
Retrospect, l973

Week 5 (Feb. 19, 21): Collage II

February 19--Rosalind Krauss, "In the Name of Picasso," The Originality

of the Avant-Garde
February 21--Optional:
Yve-Alain Bois, "Kahnweiler's Lesson," Painting as Model
Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics
(selected readings)
Rosalind Krauss, The Picasso Papers, Chapter 1

Week 6 (Feb. 26, 28): The Abstract Difference

February 26--Mondrian, "Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art," and Malevich,
"Suprematism," in Modern Artists on Art, ed. Robert Herbert
February 28--Optional:
Yve-Alain Bois, "Mondrian's New York," Painting as Model
Robert Welsh, "The Birth of de Stijl: The Subject Matter of
Abstraction," Artforum (April l973)
Jakobson, Why Mama and Papa
Krauss, Grids, The Originality of the Avant-Garde

Week 7 (March 5, 7): Duchamp and the Master Signified

March 5 and 7--Optional:

Octavio Paz, "The Castle of Purity" Marcel Duchamp: Appearance Stripped
Bare
Gilles Deleuze, The Anti-Oedipus (selected readings)

Week 8 (March 12, 14): Duchamp's Index

March 12--Rosalind Krauss, "Notes on the Index: Part I" Originality. . .

March 14--Optional:
Emile Benveniste, "The Nature of Pronouns," Problems in General
Linguistics
Roland Barthes, Elements of Semiology

Week 9 (March 26, 28):

March 26--Midterm exam

March 28--Independent Museum Visit

Week 10 (April 2, 4): The Surrealist Double

April 2 and 4--Rosalind Krauss, "The Photographic Conditions of

Surrealism, "The Originality of the Avant-Garde

Week 11 (April 9, 11): In the Labyrinth

April 9--Rosalind Krauss, "The Originality of the Avant-Garde," The

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Originality . . .
April 11--Optional:
Michel Foucault, This Is Not a Pipe
Gilles Deleuze, "Plato and the Simulacrum," October, no. 27
Krauss, Corpus Delicti, October, no 33
Week 12 (April 16, 18): Jackson Pollock

April 16--Rosalind Krauss, "Reading Jackson Pollock, Abstractly,"

The Originality . . .
April 18--Optional:
Clement Greenberg, "After Abstract Expressionism," in Henry
Geldzahler, ed. New York Painting l940-l970
T. J. Clark, "Jackson Pollock's Abstraction," in Guilbaut, ed.
Reconstructing Modernism

Week l3 (23, 25): Graffiti: The Abstract-Expressionist Mark

April 23--Harold Rosenberg, "The American Action Painters"; T. J. Clark,

"In Defense of Abstract-Expressionism" (October no. 69).
April 25--Midterm exam

Week 14 (April 30, May 2): The Flatbed Picture Plane

April 30--Leo Steinberg, "Other Criteria," Other Criteria

April 30--Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Reproduction,"

Illuminations
May 2--Benjamin Buchloh, "Conceptual Art 1962-1969" October no. 55
Hal Foster, The Crux of Minimalism.

Week 15 (May 7, 9): Modernism/Postmodern

May 9--Optional:
Jacques Derrida, "Signature/Event/Context," in Margins of Philosophy
Roland Barthes, S/Z (pp. 3-58)

May 14: Final Exam

Other course work:

for undergraduates, a 4_6 page paper will be assigned by Section Leaders.

Graduate Students will be assigned a longer paper by the instructor.