With Alexis Salas
This introductory course explores global contemporary art produced between 1960 and 2018, with a focus on art in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, along with the practices of artists of color in the Euro-America. The course challenges art history’s Euro-American-centrism by considering the multiple histories that artwork produced on the so-called “periphery” or in the “Global South” propose. It addresses the following questions: How do global consumerism, art markets, and international biennials interact with national or ethnic identities and local practices? How does contemporary art both participate in and stand apart from the world in which and for which it was made? How do contemporary artists critique both institutions and the art historical canon? The course meets biweekly at a Five College museum to view art in person. Course assignments include visual analysis of an art object, group presentation on a region, catalogue entry style object report on an art object at a Five College collection. By the end of the course, students will have developed visual analysis skills as well as a contemporary art vocabulary.