Learning objectives
he course intends to provide students with the proper methodology and critical awareness for studying and analyzing contemporary art, specifically that of the last decades of the 20th Century, a time in which artists have often engaged with the expressive means of new technologies. Through the course students are expected to acquire a competence allowing them to comprehend and address the specific problem of the subject, also from a technical and lexical point of view.
Prerequisites
Students are required to have proper knowledge of the outline of art history, particularly of the 19th and 20th Centuries.
Course unit content
The course is focused on art in the second half of the 20th Century – in Italy, but with constant attention towards the international scene – and particularly on forms of visual communication exploiting video and photographic technologies.
Full programme
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Bibliography
C. Casero, E. Di Raddo, Anni ’70: l’arte dell’impegno, SilvanaEditoriale, Cinisello Balsamo 2009
Other sources, not yet published, will be recommended during the course.
Teaching methods
Frontal lectures addressing the historical and methodological foundations of the subject, as well as the guidelines for reading the proposed images.
Assessment methods and criteria
During the final exam (oral), students will be required to be able to read the visual documents of contemporaneity, particularly those produced through photo and video technology, in their technical and expressive specificity. It will also be necessary that they show the adequate ability to put their formal elements in relation with their general context of the developments. During each lecture, students will be required to actively participate, addressing the proposed cases and, in the process, enhancing their own ability to analyze and understand the contemporary visual document. The exam will consist of the discussion of the artworks seen in class and the literature dedicated to them, which will be indicated in the course bibliography. Each student will also have to present a written essay on one specific case, through which he/she will have to show an ability to organize a personal study, from the research of sources and the outlining of a conceptual scheme to the actual writing process; in this way students will test their autonomous critical awareness and their communicational skills.
Other information
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