Critical and Theoretical Studies 3 (FINA20029)

This subject deals with the critical formulation of vanguard “high” modernism in the 1960s and its contestation by varieties of late modernist and postmodernist art and culture which develop throughout subsequent decades up to the millennium. The course is oriented by the proposition that the reactions to high modernism invoke an “expanded field” of art during this period: with the emergence of performative modes of art and new cross-media and inter-media art forms; with a revitalized convergence of design, fashion, music, cinema and visual art; with the invention of new media; and with artistic and critical challenges to modernist doctrines of vanguard progress, authenticity and originality.