ART H 220 A: Survey of American Art

Art Now

All students enrolled in this course will receive W credit. 

Lecture M/W 2:30-3:50 in Fisheries 102, compulsory writing sections on Tuesdays in the Art Building

Professor Adair Rounthwaite, vadair@uw.edu, office hours Wednesday 12:45-1:45pm in Art Building 367, and by appointment on Zoom, https://washington.zoom.us/my/adairrounthwaite

TAs:

Inji Kim, injikim@uw.edu, 11:30 section in Art 004 and 12:30 section in Art 312, office hours Tuesday 3-4 in Art 008, Zoom link for meetings: https://washington.zoom.us/j/92012563016

Giordano Conticelli, conticg@uw.edu, 9:30 and 10:30 sections in Art 004, office hours Monday 12-1 in Art 008

Marta Minujín, Parthenon of Books at Documenta 14, 2017

Course description

Contemporary art today confronts viewers with a bewildering array of images, objects, and processes. This can leave viewers thinking: can anything count as “art?” And what’s the point of it all? In this class, we explore how contemporary art connects artists and viewers in forms of creative engagement with pressing social and political issues. We will see how artists use diverse strategies to help us consider who we are, how our world is changing, and how we can best inhabit it together. Across a set of themes that address the state of contemporary global culture, students will discuss how today’s art speaks to both individual and collective life.

The course trains students how to express these ideas in clear, structured pieces of writing. We focus on the levels of description, contextualization, and analysis as key steppingstones in writing about art. 

Learning goals

In this class, students will:

• Become familiar with a wide range of contemporary art practices of the past twenty years, and with important milestones in the modern art from which they evolved.
• Learn to describe artworks in detail, both orally and in writing. 
• Learn how to write in a way that uses historical, social, and political context to help the reader understand contemporary art.
• Craft their own written analyses of contemporary artworks that draw on description and context to make convincing arguments about what the work achieves and the kinds of experience it creates for viewers. 

Evaluation overview

Assignment sequence A: Quiz #1 writing and Quiz #2 writing (1% total) + Paper A (19%) + Paper A rewrite (20%) = 40%

Assignment sequence B: Quiz #3 writing and Quiz #4 writing (1% total) + Paper B (34%) = 35%

First quiz = 1% (for completion)

Remaining four quizzes = average of 14%, with your lowest grade dropped

Class and section participation via Poll Everywhere and paper mini-exercises = 10%

Oral participation = potential 1% bonus for excellent contributions

There is no final exam during the exam period.

Full syllabus:

Rounthwaite Art Now Fall2023 v3.docx