ARTH 267 - The Avant-Garde: Art, Music, and Art-Music, 1950-1980

FC ARHU

4 credits
This course examines social, technical, and discursive connections between fine art and music in mid-twentieth-century Europe, North America, and Japan. In these years, visual artists turned their attention to avant-garde music, while composers figured music in visual and conceptual terms familiar to modernist art. Looking at and listening to examples of their often interdisciplinary work, we will examine the changing relationships between once-distinct forms. What does it mean to say that a painter “improvises”? How is minimalist music like (and unlike) minimalist sculpture? What are the grounds of such comparisons, and what are the risks of making them?

Prerequisites: one 100-level course in ARTH.