Università Roma Tre

ART AND MEDIA: 1950-2000

In the second half of the XXth Century, artistic movements definitively dismantled the notion of the “specificity” of the medium (painting, sculpture etc.), one of the pillars of the modernist aesthetic. From new dada to pop art, from Fluxus to the movements born in the second half of the 1960s, to postmodernist practiced based on appropriation, distinctions between media were abolished and replaced by creative practices in which conceptual, allegorical and performative elements imposed a radical redefinition of the work of art through the annexation of new media (photography, film, video, digital images).
The course deals with key moments of this process from the1850s to the 1970s through close examination of key works from the period, and readings of critical essays on the subject.

General reference:

• Denys Riout, L’arte del ventesimo secolo, Einaudi, Torino 2002; part II (p. 111-189) and IV (p. 253-331).

Essays:

• Roberto Diodato, Antonio Somaini (a cura di), Estetica dei media e della comunicazione, Il Mulino (chapter: "I media come estensioni e come metafore: Marshall McLuhan")
• Walter Benjamin, Aura e choc, Einaudi (parti scelte: Introduzione di A. Pinotti e A. Somaini; Piccola storia della fotografia)
• Jonathan Crary, Le tecniche dell'osservatore, Einaudi 2013, IV capitolo, pp. 102-140

Films:

• Andy Warhol, Sleep; Kiss (1963); Eat; Empire; Screen Tests (1964)
• Stan Brakhage, Dog Star Man (1962)
• Chris Marker, La Jetée (1963)


Suggested textbook:

• Hal Foster et al., Arte since 1900, new edition 2013 (chronology 1950-2000)