Module Directory

This module will present the development, successes and failures of modernism over the late 20th century, and the eventual dissolution of modernist practice into the disparate possibilities of post-modernism.

This module will trace the development of modern and contemporary art from World War 2 to the early 1980s, with particular attention paid to the social rhetorics of art, and the impacts of artistic practice on wider cultures. What have artists done, and how has their work changed the world?

The aims of this module are:

• To expose students to the widest possible range of modern and contemporary art practice after 1945, and to give them the opportunity to consider this work in a number of different contexts, including those of national origin, of media, of politics and of institution.


• To make clear the intricate connections between artistic practice, art history, theory and criticism, and the wider culture in which art is produced. Art has power.

By the end of this module, students will be expected to have knowledge and understanding of:

1. Aspects of modern and contemporary art and architecture from 1945 to the present.


2. Key political, social and cultural histories of the period.


3. In greater depth, a number of artists, architects, exhibitions and events in the period, including their reception and social impacts.


4. The role of different media, national contexts or ideological standpoints in forming the practices of contemporary artists.


5. The role of art historians, art critics and aesthetic philosophers in shaping the reception and even production of art and architecture.


6. How to use their visual memory.

In the earliest days of the Cold War immediately following World War II, the fundamental world-views of the Soviet Union and the United States were set against each other in military, political, ideological and cultural terms.

In 1947, the United States government sponsored an international art exhibition, "Advancing American Art", which aimed to showcase the stars of the American post-war avant-garde. The exhibition aimed to demonstrate and spread the cultural values of individualist, creative, forward-thinking, democratic America around a world threatened by authoritarian Communism.

Even after the show was withdrawn following public scepticism of the high modernism their taxes were funding, art remained a key tool in the diplomatic arsenal of the USA, resulting the establishment of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a front organisation run covertly by the CIA itself.

In the service of espousing a vision of American culture distinct from the rigid, repressive modes of the USSR, the Congress actively and aggressively promoted American modernism in general, and the Abstract Expressionism as epitomised by Jackson Pollock in particular. Modern art was a CIA weapon.

The module will first cover the artistic movements which emerged from the tumultuous events of World War 2, from Abstract Expressionism in America, Socialist Realism in the USSR and Neo-Dada and Pop art to Performance and Postcolonialism in art. The term will conclude with Postmodernism, Appropriation and the effects of Mass Media.

Lectures will focus variously on movements (minimalism, neo-dada, pop), themes (feminism, politics), media and methods (sculpture, performance, new media), particular national or regional contexts (USA, Europe, Latin America), or broader philosophical debates (such as modernism and postmodernism).

The course is intentionally broad in both its scope and its approach, intended to provide students with an overview of the issues at stake in art and culture during the post-war period and the powerful and lasting impacts art and art history has had on culture, politics, and ideology.

This module will be delivered via:

• One 2-hour combined lecture and seminar per week.
• An exam in January before the start of term.

Week 8 is Reading Week.