ARTHIST 315 : Contemporary Visual Culture

Visual Culture is an emerging field of study, and the course explores the relation between the two terms ‘visual’ and ‘culture’ as constructions by examining visual forms of expression: architecture, sculpture, painting, and photography. It probes into questions on visual perception, visual culture and visual problems. The course also examines generic and particular icons of public culture, such as those found in comics (including Disney characters) and advertisements. Images from both American and non-western world will be analyzed and placed in their cultural, historical and social context. The course will discuss issues of modernity, modernism, urban experience, technology, primitivism, feminism, identity and mass consumerism in visual culture in the context of various movements and theories, such as realism and neo realism, neo-expressionism, surrealism and postmodernism.