Pre-seminar: 3 hours per week, 2 semesters

This course is open to all students, both international and Polish, who wish to discuss contemporary art in English.

This course surveys the diverse projects of postmodern art in the light of contemporary art theory. The course will be composed of two parts: field trips to Warsaw galleries (first part), and  close examination of major theoretical statements on postmodern art (second part), the overall aim being to trace some of the conceptual threads that run through current artworks and art criticism. We will also cooperate with various human rights organizations such as International Humantarian Fundation for immigrants and torture victims, as well as the organization Sławek for rehabilitation of former prisoners.

         During the winter term we will try to explore the current Polish artscape while visiting the most prominent galleries in Warsaw and meeting their curators. /Centre for Contemporary Art, National Gallery of Art The Zachęta Gallery, Galeria Foksal, National Museum, etc./

          The second – theoretical part will be structured as discussion-oriented classes. We will refer to recent texts representative of the conteporary state of  art criticism and theory, with  the emphasis on present American and French aesthetics. We will read articles by: Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard, Fredric Jameson, Richard Rorty, Ihab Hassan, Arthur Danto, George Dickie, and Scott Lash. 

Each student will be required to give a short presentation  of a chosen text followed by an open class discussion.

       The aim of the seminar is to introduce students to  the most significant theoretical statements concerning the current state of art and prepare them to carry out further research in the field.

Course Requirements:

Regular attendance and participation - both terms.

/Active participation in class discussions is an important element of the final grade/.

spring term: 1/ Presentation of one text,

                     2/ Presentation of one selected artist from one's country

1.      Jean-François Lyotard, Answering the Question: What Is Postmodernism?,  [in:] Docherty, Thomas, ed. Postmodernism: A Reader.  New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993. pp. 35-46, The Postmodern Condition A Report on Knowledge.

2.   Jean-François Lyotard, The Differend. Phrases in Dispute, 1989 University of Minnesota Press.

3.   Sigmunt Freud, Psychoanalysis.

4. Jacques Lacan, The Mirror Stge as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience.

5.   Jacques Derrida, “Differance”  [in:]  A Derrida Reader. Between the Blinds, New York 1991, pp. 59 – 80, Derrida on Lichtensteiger.de.

6    Jacques Derrida, The Truth in Painting, Chicago 1987, pp. 81 -114.

7.  Jacques Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, Routledge, 2001.

8. Richard Rorty, “Private Irony and Liberal Hope” [in:]: Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Cambridge 1989, pp.73 -95.

      9.   Artur Danto, Bruce Nauman, "The Nation" May 8, 1995.

      10 .  Arthur Danto, The Artworld, "The Journal of Philosophy", Vol. 61, No. 19, American

            Philosophical  Association Eastern Division Sixty-First Annual Meeting. (Oct. 15, 1964), pp. 571-

             584.

     11.   Artur Danto, "The Original Creative Principle": Motherwell and Psychic Automatism, in Rosand     

            D.( ed. ) (1997) Robert Motherwell on Paper, pub. Harry N Abrams.

      12.  Scott Lash, Economies of Signs and Space, London 1996.

      13.   Arthur C. Danto, “The End of Art: A Philosophical Defense” [in:] History and Theory, Vol.

  37, No. 4,  Theme Issue 37: Danto and His Critics: Art History, Historiography and After the End 

  of Art. (Dec., 1998), pp. 127-143.

      14.  Jasper Johns, Gray The Art Institute of Chicago, Yale University Press, New Heaven and London,       

               2007.

      15.   Jeffrey Weiss, Marc Rothko, National Gallery of Art Washington, Yale University Press, 1998.

16   J.-F. Lyotard, "Philosophy and Painting in the Age of Their Experimentation", in The Lyotard 2. 

       Reader, Andrew Benjamin, editor. Oxford, UK, and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1992.

17.   Richard Rorty, “Private Irony and Liberal Hope” [in:]: Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity,  

      Cambridge 1989, pp.73 -95.

18.   Jean-Luc Nancy, Pleasure in Drawing, Fordham,New York 2013.

19.   Jean-Luc Nancy, Multiple Arts: The Muses II, Stanford California 2006.

20.   Klaus Theweleit, Preliminary findings in: Male Fantasies, University of Minnesota Press,1987.