Università Roma Tre

Art and new media in the 20th century

During the 20th century the artistic movements challenged the centrality of traditional media (painting, sculpture, etc.). From Dada to Pop Art, from Cubism to Surrealism and up to the Sixties, avant-garde art redefined the nature of the work of art, of its theoretical and material characters, and the artistic use of new media (photography, film, video) became integral to the creative practices.

The course addresses the key moments of this process during the period 1900-1970, through a close examination of key works and figures and guided readings of essential texts on the subject.

Classes are all available on Stream. Accessible from this page: https://www.uniroma3.it/en/persone/cFpYMElOZE1jSTNiTjFtQ1p0NlhaSTJqSkFpU2VJMEc0cFpHamZ1LzFoRT0=/ricevimento/

• Philippe Dubois, L’atto fotografico, Urbino 2009, pp. 25-108 [PDF]
• Claudio Marra, Fotografia e pittura nel Novecento, Milano 2012
• Denis Riout, L’arte del ventesimo secolo. Protagonisti, temi, correnti, Einaudi, Torino 2002.

Textbook

• Hal Foster et al., Art since 1900, Thames & Hudson [PDF]

Some of these texts are available on the course channel repository on Teams.

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.

1)
S. Bordini (a cura di), Arte contemporanea e tecniche. Materiali, procedimenti, sperimentazioni, Carocci, Roma 2007

F. Poli (a cura di), Arte moderna. Dal Postimpressionismo all’Informale, Electa, Milano 2007 (i seguenti saggi: C. Zambianchi, Le ricerche postimpressioniste, pp. 10-29; M. Lorandi, Simbolismo, pp. 30-53)[PDF download area, professor's website]

V.I. Stoichita, Dello sguardo ostacolato. Per una storia dell’Impressionismo, in “Annali della Fondazione Europea del Disegno”, Il Melangolo, Genova 2009, pp. 65-87 [PDF download area, professor's website]

V.I. Stoichita, La pittura impressionista vista da e con Schapiro: Caillebotte e l’intreccio visivo, in Meyer Schapiro e i metodi della storia dell’arte, a cura di L. Bortolotti, C. Cieri Via, M.G. Di Monte, M. Di Monte, Mimesis Edizioni, Milano – Udine 2010, pp. 105-113 [PDF download area, professor's website]

W. Benjamin, L’opera d’arte nell’epoca della sua riproducibilità tecnica, prima stesura dattiloscritta (1935-1936) [PDF download area, professor's website]

2)
Selection of images available for attending and non-attending students [PDF download area, professor's website].