ARTH 367 - Revolutionary Art and the Politics of Form in North America and Europe, 1917-1945

FC ARHU

4 credits
Of what service is art to a revolution? Can art itself be revolutionary? Between World Wars I and II, changes in artistic production coincided with geopolitical and economic changes within and between the wars’ central powers, namely the United States, the Soviet Union, and Germany. There, revolutionaries and counterrevolutionaries debated over what art suited their political goals. Should it be abstract or representational, didactic or dialectical? This course follows these debates through artistic tendencies including Dada, Constructivism, the Harlem Renaissance, and Socialist Realism and writings by Vladimir Lenin, W. E. B. Du Bois, Meyer Schapiro, Lu Märten, and more.

Prerequisites: A 200-level course in ARTH.