FALL 2001

This information effective for Fall 2001.
Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.

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Art

[ART-152]

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152. Controversies in Art

Instructor: E. G. Crichton

This course will focus on several U.S. art exhibitions that have generated controversy. Through lectures, readings, visual media, and discussion, students will critically examine the curatorial visions, art, exhibition reviews, public and institutional response, and broader cultural, historical and political context that surrounded the controversies. Student assignments will include critical writing about an ongoing exhibition and development of an exhibition proposal.

The specific exhibitions covered will be:

• Sensation at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1999.
• The Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum in 1993
• The Bad Girls shows in both New York and Los Angeles in 1994
• The Perfect Moment at the Cincinnati Museum of Art in 1989
• The Decade Show at the New Museum in 1990
• Womanhouse in Los Angeles in 1972
• The Peace Exhibition in Los Angeles in 1967

These exhibitions will form the structure for a broader look at the question "When and how does art generate controversy?" The class will examine the forms, media, and content of the art that generated controversy, including issues such as sexual and racial representation, identity politics, body and gender representations, and anti-war activism. For historical background, the class will touch on earlier art controversies such as The Armory Show in 1913, the Surrealists shows of 1925, 1939, and 1942, the 1936 Degenerate Art Show in Germany, Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century shows in the 1940's, the work of Mexican muralists in the US during and after the WPA era, and the This is Tomorrow show in London in 1952. More contemporary controversies will include body performance art of the 1960's, activist art groups such as the Guerrilla Action Group, the Gutai group in Japan, Gran Fury and the Guerrilla Girls, and artists like Fred Wilson who have confronted museum practices.

Students will be evaluated on the basis of participation in class discussion, two critical art reviews, an exhibition proposal, and a final exam. This course satisfies the General Education code for Art. No other UCSC course covers this material. Resource requirements: a room suitable for both lecture and discussion with media viewing capability for slides (2 projectors), video, CD ROM, and computer projection.

Reading List

• Arousing Sensation: A Case Study of Controversy Surrounding Art and the Erotic, editor Sylvie Guilbert
• Arresting Images: Impolitic Art and Uncivil Actions, by Steven C. Dubin
• Art and Outrage: Provocation, Controversy, and the Visual Arts, by John Albert Walker
• Art Matters: How the Culture Wars changed America, editors Brian Wallis, Marianne Weems, and Philip Yenawine
• Challenging Racism in the Arts: Case Studies of Controversy and Conflict, by Carol Tator, et al.
• Critical Issues in Public Art: Content, Context, and Controversy, editor Harriet F. Senie and Sally Webster
• Displays of Power: Controversy in the American Museum from the Enola Gay to Sensation, by Steven C. Dubin
• The Passionate Camera: Photography and Bodies of Desire, editor Deborah Bright
• The Secret Museum: Pornography in Modern Culture, by Walter Kendrick
• Unsettling Sensation: Arts Policy Lessons from the Brooklyn Museum of Art Controversy, editor Lawrence Rothfield