Introduction to Contemporary Art and Culture

Code:

IACC01

Acronym:

IACC

Keywords
Classification	Keyword
CNAEF	Arts

Instance: 2024/2025 - 2S

Active?	Yes
Responsible unit:	Ciências da Arte e do Design
Course/CS Responsible:	Fine Arts

Cycles of Study/Courses

Acronym	No. of Students	Study Plan	Curricular Years	Credits UCN	Credits ECTS	Contact hours	Total Time
AP	75	Plano de estudos de LAP_publicaçao em DR de 24/05/2021	1	-	3	30	81

Teaching language

Portuguese

Objectives

To understand and comprehend the issues of the contemporary artistic and cultural universe;

To recognize and value the diversity of artistic and cultural expressions in the contemporary world;

To critically reflect on different forms of contemporary artistic expression considering cultural and historical contexts;

To understand how the visual arts intertwine with other forms of artistic expression such as literature, music, cinema, and television, highlighting the mutual influences and the joint evolution of these areas;

To provide students with opportunities to interact with professionals from various artistic fields, allowing them to understand the practical realities and possible pathways in the arts field;

To communicate, justify, and debate publicly, clearly, and with supported arguments on the topics discussed in class.

Learning outcomes and competences

The syllabus of this course enables students to understand the relationships between the visual arts and other forms of artistic expression.

Ability to critically analyze various contemporary cultural expressions.

The course encourages connection with the artistic community, providing students with an understanding of the possible pathways in the field of arts.

Working method

Presencial

Program

The following topics will be discussed:

1. Visual Arts and Activism. The visual arts as an instrument of emancipation and subversion. Analysis of emblematic cases where the visual arts were used to challenge social norms, instigating reflection, debate, and in some cases, direct action on issues of social and political relevance.

2. Marginal Pathways in the Visual Arts. The relationships between art brut and/or other genres considered marginal, and contemporary artistic production in the context of academia are addressed. The barriers between these different universes of artistic production, as well as their systems of validation and circulation, will be discussed.

3. Visual Arts and Cinema. The dynamics between cinema and visual arts are explored, focusing on how cinema finds inspiration and solutions in disciplines such as painting and sculpture, and considering cinema’s approach to visual arts through the challenge to narrative and visual conventions established in traditional cinema by experimental filmmakers.

4. Visual Arts and Literature. The sometimes unexpected intersections between visual arts and literature are addressed at different levels, from the way the universe of visual arts has contaminated literary writing, giving rise to branches such as visual poetry, to the relationship with the practice of illustration and the artist’s book.

5. Visual Arts and Music. The relationship between music and visual arts is analyzed from different viewpoints, from how social and political themes present in protest song lyrics of the 1970s or in the pop/rock of the 1980s find reflection in artistic actions, to more evident intersections between the two areas, exemplified by the contribution of visual artists in the creation of album covers and music videos.

6. Visual Arts and Theater. Appropriating the centuries-old concept of the total work of art, the numerous possibilities for collaboration between the visual arts and the performing arts are analyzed, from scenography and the design of light and sound to the contamination of theatrical representation by the discipline of performance.

7. Visual Arts and Photography. This segment of the course addresses the relationship between the visual arts and photography, exploring how these two forms of artistic expression influence and complement each other. The evolution of photography as a form of visual art will be analyzed, from its documentary and social function to its role as an instrument of authorial expression in contemporary art.

8. The Artist as Ethnographer. The approach of the visual arts to the Social Sciences through the adoption of methods close to the ethnographic in contemporary artistic practices. A critical discussion on the ethical implications and challenges faced by these practices.

Mandatory literature

Giorgio Agamben; What is an apparatus?. ISBN: 978-0-8047-6230-4
Claire Bishop; Participation. ISBN: 978-0-85488-147-5
Hal Foster; Postmodern culture. ISBN: 0-7453-0003-0
Boris Groys; In the flow. ISBN: 978-1-78478-351-8
Rosalind E. Krauss; A^voyage on the north sea. ISBN: 0-500-28207-2
Florian Matzner; Public Art. ISBN: 3-7757-9148-5
Charles Merewether; The^Archive. ISBN: 978-0-85488-148-2
Catherine Millet; A^arte contemporânea. ISBN: 972-771-285-1
W. J. Thomas Mitchell; Art and the public sphere. ISBN: 0-226-53211-9
Jacques Rancière; The^Future of the image. ISBN: 978-1-84467-297-4
Nato Thompson; Living as form. ISBN: 978-0-262-53439-0

Complementary Bibliography

Gilda Williams; How to write about contemporary art. ISBN: 978-0-500-29157-3

Teaching methods and learning activities

The course content will be delivered using image presentations, films and/or documentaries, critical texts, guest speakers, and work visits to archives, studios, or art exhibitions of particular interest to the themes taught in this Course Unit.

Evaluation Type

Distributed evaluation with final exam

Assessment Components

Designation	Weight (%)
Apresentação/discussão de um trabalho científico	50,00
Exame	50,00
Total:	100,00

Amount of time allocated to each course unit

Designation	Time (hours)
Apresentação/discussão de um trabalho científico	16,00
Estudo autónomo	35,00
Frequência das aulas	30,00
Total:	81,00

Eligibility for exams

Continuous evaluation.

Presentation/discussion of a text throughout the semester (group work) and individual final written test.

Calculation formula of final grade

Presentation/discussion of a text (50%)

Written test (exam) (50%)

Observations

The support material for the classes (texts in the bibliography, thematic presentation classes, etc.), will be made available through the moodle platform.