THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART AND AESTHETICS 1
AHT210
Award/Level: BFA / Year 2 & 3
Core or Elective: Elective
Pre-requisites: AHT100
Co-requisites: Nil
Credit Points: 3
Duration: 12 Weeks / 24 Hours
Delivery mode: face to face / on campus
Student Workload: 2 HPW timetabled
2 HPW personal study
Subject Coordinator: Dr Ian Greig
Description
This subject introduces students to the philosophy of art and aesthetics. Conceived within a historical framework, this course traces the evolution of aesthetic philosophy from the classical era to romanticism via the writing of some key thinkers. By contextualising each aesthetic theory within the dominant cultural values of the time, this course will highlight art’s dynamic relationship with broader social, political and religious thinking.
Objectives
This subject aims to provide students with an understanding of some of the complex issues that have historically motivated the philosophy of art and aesthetics in the Western tradition and which continue to underpin some of the questions that theorists, philosophers and historians pose today regarding the nature, value and purpose of art.
Subject Content
Topics include: • Beauty • Art • Sublime • Plato • Aristotle • Plotinus • Augustine • Pseudo-Dionysius • Aquinas • Alberti and Vasari • Hume • Kant • Hegel • Schopenhauer • Nietzsche • Beauty • Art • Sublime • Plato • Aristotle • Plotinus • Augustine • Pseudo-Dionysius • Aquinas • Alberti and Vasari • Hume • Kant • Hegel • Schopenhauer • Nietzsche
Prescribed Reading
There are no prescribed texts for this subject.
Recommended Reading
Readings are provided to students via the AHT website: www.nasaht.com.au
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion students will demonstrate:
• Introductory knowledge of the aesthetic views of key thinkers in the Western tradition who have shaped the evolution of the philosophy of art which continue to underpin some of the questions posed today regarding the nature, value and role of art.
• Familiarity with the complex issues that have motivated the philosophy of art throughout history
• Understanding of the dynamic relationship between art and the broader cultural and social context.
• Ability to effectively evaluate, organise and articulate information and ideas relating to the subject, employing appropriate terminology and referencing sources where applicable.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART AND AESTHETICS 2
AHT211
Award/Level: BFA / Year 2 & 3
Core or Elective: Elective
Pre-requisites: AHT100
Co-requisites: Nil
Credit Points: 3
Duration: 12 Weeks / 24 Hours
Delivery mode: face to face / on campus
Student Workload: 2 HPW timetabled
2 HPW personal study
Subject Coordinator: Dr Ian Greig
Description
The Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics 2 will trace the evolution of aesthetic philosophy from the early twentieth century to postmodernism via the writing of some key thinkers. The course will introduce students to a diversity of positions regarding art and aesthetics and will highlight art’s dynamic relationship with the broader social, philosophical and political thinking that have shaped our understanding of art throughout the last hundred years.
Objectives
The subject aims to provide students with an understanding of some of the complex issues that have historically motivated the philosophy of art and aesthetics in the Western tradition and which continue to underpin some of the questions that theorists, philosophers and historians pose today regarding the nature, value and purpose of art.
Subject Content
Topics include:
• Beauty
• Art
• Sublime
• Heidegger
• Merleau-Ponty
• Benjamin
• Adorno
• Bell
• Fry
• Greenberg
• Duchamp
• Barthes
• Derrida
• Danto
• Baudrillard
• Lyotard
• Crowther
Prescribed Reading
There are no prescribed texts for this subject.
Recommended Reading
Readings are provided to students via the AHT website: www.nasaht.com.au
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion students will demonstrate:
• Introductory knowledge of the diversity of positions regarding art and aesthetics in the twentieth century
• Introductory knowledge of the philosophy of art and aesthetics
• Understanding of the how these continue to inform our understanding of art today.
• Ability to effectively evaluate, organise and articulate information and ideas relating to the subject, employing appropriate terminology and referencing sources where applicable.
MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ASIAN ART
AHT219
Award/Level: BFA / Year 2 & 3
Core or Elective: Elective
Pre-requisites: AHT100
Co-requisites: Nil
Credit Points: 3
Duration: 12 Weeks / 24 Hours
Delivery mode: face to face / on campus
Student Workload: 2 HPW timetabled
2 HPW personal study
Subject Coordinator: Dr Clair Veal
Description
This course is an introduction to modern and contemporary art from Southeast Asia, India, Japan and China. Thematically structured seminars will address key case studies to expose students to a range of relevant art historical approaches and critical perspectives. We will begin with a survey of Asian modernisms through a number of theoretical and historical lenses. The course will also examine the emergence of contemporary Asian art in Australia and internationally, through the rise of biennales, curatorship, digital and new media, and social practice.
Objectives
This course aims to develop students’ knowledge and familiarity with modern and contemporary Asian art, as well as the key art historical, theoretical and critical methods for its analysis. The course is a component of the AHT strategy to integrate Western and Asian art history in the core and elective programs.
Subject Content
Topics include:
• Colonial arts institutions
• Visual culture in post-colonial and nationalist movements
• Gender and sexuality
• Neo-traditionalism and religion
• Photography
• Cold War politics and political radicalism in art; Localism, globalism and regionalism in contemporary Asian art
• Biennales, art fairs and contemporary curatorship Digital and new media art
• Performance and social art practice
• Asian-Australian art
Prescribed Reading
There are no prescribed texts for this subject.
Recommended Reading
Readings are provided to students via the AHT website: www.nasaht.com.au
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion students will demonstrate:
• Evaluated the impact of institutions, curatorship, art history and criticism on the development of Asian art histories and currents of artistic practice.
• Developed knowledge of the key terminology and methodological approaches for researching Asian art.
• Developed the ability to conduct independent research, interpret and organise ideas, and write for a variety of purposes, adjusting tone and terminology as appropriate.
GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN ART
AHT223
Award/Level: BFA / Year 2 & 3
Core or Elective: Elective
Pre-requisites: AHT100
Co-requisites: Nil
Credit Points: 3
Duration: 12 Weeks / 24 Hours
Delivery mode: face to face / on campus
Student Workload: 2 HPW timetabled
2 HPW personal study
Subject Coordinator: Dr Christine Dean
Description
This course charts the history of gender and sexuality in art. Adopting perspectives derived from queer and feminist theory, the elective will focus in particular on the expression and representation of gay, lesbian, trans, post, and non-binary genders in ancient, pre-modern, modernist, and contemporary artistic cultures.
Objectives
This course aims to develop students’ understanding of gay, lesbian, and transgender art and their contemporary and historical roles in politics, society and culture. The elective offers the opportunity for students to engage more deeply in topics discussed in AHT300.
Subject Content
Topics include:
• feminism
• historical and contemporary gay and lesbian art
• transgender art
• museums and institutions collecting
• curating and exhibiting art related to gender and sexuality
• queer theory
• historical and contemporary writings on gender and sexuality in art and post-colonial perspectives on gender and sexuality in a global world.
Prescribed Reading
There are no prescribed texts for this subject.
Recommended Reading
Readings are provided to students via the AHT website: www.nasaht.com.au
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion students will demonstrate:
• Evaluated the significance of gender and sexuality in society and culture.
• Developed knowledge and interpretative skills relating to the historical and contemporary role of gender and sexual expression through an inclusive selection of artistic forms and media.
• Developed connections and associations linking the theory and representation of gender expression in art to the students’ emerging practices through writing and research.
• Develop skills by expressing research verbally through individual presentations.
THE ART OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
AHT213
Award/Level: BFA / Year 2 & 3
Core or Elective: Elective
Pre-requisites: AHT100
Co-requisites: Nil
Credit Points: 3
Duration: 12 Weeks / 24 Hours
Delivery mode: face to face / on campus
Student Workload: 2 HPW timetabled
2 HPW personal study
Subject Coordinator: Dr Michael Hill, Head of Art History & Theory
Description
The subject examines the achievements and techniques of the principal artists of the seventeenth century, an era once described as the Golden Age of painting. The material is organized by region, beginning in Papal Rome in the Counter Reformation, before moving to the monarchical courts of Madrid, Paris, and London. The latter part of the course focuses on the open markets of Amsterdam, Haarlem, and Delft, which first witness the characteristic conditions of modern art production.
Objectives
This subject aims to develop understanding of the careers of the principal artists of the Baroque period. Students will gain awareness of the conditions of patronage and the social status of artist; woman artists; religious and mythological themes; the decorum of the genres, such as history painting, landscape, and portraiture.
Subject Content
Topics include:
• Ceiling painting
• Caravaggio
• Gentileschi and Reni
• Poussin and Claude
• Bernini
• Borromini
• The Speaking Likeness
• Velazquez
• Rubens
• Van Dyck
• Hals
• Vermeer
• Rembrandt
Prescribed Reading
There are no prescribed texts for this subject.
Recommended Reading
Readings are provided to students via the AHT website: www.nasaht.com.au
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion students will demonstrate:
• Gained an understanding of the principal artistic achievements, techniques and artists of the seventeenth century
• Developed their understanding of the artistic genres of history painting, landscape and portraiture in the context of the seventeenth century, displaying improved skills of visual analysis
• Developed critical awareness of the effects of social influences on the status of art in the context of the seventeenth century
• Demonstrated an ability to effectively evaluate, organise and articulate information and ideas relating to art in the seventeenth century, employing appropriate terminology and referencing sources where applicable.
AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT: REASON AND FEELING IN THE 18TH CENTURY
AHT214
Award/Level: BFA / Year 2 & 3
Core or Elective: Elective
Pre-requisites: AHT100
Co-requisites: Nil
Credit Points: 3
Duration: 12 Weeks / 24 Hours
Delivery mode: face to face / on campus
Student Workload: 2 HPW timetabled
2 HPW personal study
Subject Coordinator: Dr Georgina Cole
Description
The eighteenth-century was an era of revolutionary political upheaval, philosophical investigation and artistic change. Through the Enlightenment reexamination of the foundations of human civilisation, society, and relationship to nature, almost all aspects of knowledge were radically transformed. This course focuses on the intersection of art and ideas in the eighteenth century, examining representations of gender, race, social identity, politics, space, feelings and subjectivity, as well as its aesthetic theories. Through a range of seminar topics we will explore the contradictory, yet characteristic fusion of reason and feeling in eighteenth-century culture.
Objectives
The aims to develop an understanding of the major themes of eighteenth-century art in England and France including the stylistic categories of the Rococo and Neoclassicism, the role of patrons and art academies, issues of gender, and the impact of Enlightenment ideas on works of art.
Subject Content
Topics include:
• Art and the Enlightenment
• Science and spectacle
• Childhood
• Feelings and fears
• Race and Enlightenment’s others
• Portraiture and social identity
• Rethinking gender
• Space and the self
Aesthetics
• Goya and the Enlightenment
Prescribed Reading
There are no prescribed texts for this subject.
Recommended Reading
Dorinda Outram, Panorama of the Enlightenment
(London: Thames and Hudson, 2006).
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion students will:
• Develop a body of knowledge about Enlightenment ideas and eighteenth-century art
• Develop extended and refined skills of visual analysis in relation to social and intellectual context
• Acquired abilities of critical thinking and reflection
• Develop skills of research, interpretation and writing, and through oral presentations, cultivate speaking skills and interpretation
INDIGENOUS ART
AHT217
Award/Level: BFA / Year 2 & 3
Core or Elective: Elective
Pre-requisites: AHT100
Co-requisites: Nil
Credit Points: 3
Duration: 12 Weeks / 24 Hours
Delivery mode: face to face / on campus
Student Workload: 2 HPW timetabled
2 HPW personal study
Subject Coordinator: Alex Trompf
Description
This subject provides an introduction to the arts of indigenous peoples in Africa, the Americas and the Pacific. The subject also introduces a range of Modernist, Post-Modernist and Post-Colonial theoretical frameworks and examines how they apply to understanding of indigenous arts.
Objectives
The subject aims to develop students’ understanding of the complex interplay of the social, religious, cultural and historical contexts that conditioned the creation and reception of indigenous arts of Africa, the Americas and the Pacific.
Subject Content
Topics include:
• Introduction to the Forest of Symbols: anthropological theories of art
• Myth and the Shape of Things: The Dogan of Mali
• Masks- the Good, the Bad and the Ugly: rites of passage, secret societies, boy soldiers and late masks
• The Royal Arts of Africa I: the theatre of the state
• The Royal Arts of Africa II: Ife, Benin and the Yoruba Kingdoms
• Meso-American Beginnings: The arts of the Olmec and of Teotihuican
• The Forest of Kings: the royal arts of the Maya
• Visiting the Lords of Hell: Mayan myth
• The Pyramids of Sacrifice: art and the Aztec state
• Fighting with Gifts: the art of the N.W. Coast of the U.S. and Canada
• The Arts of Melanesia I: the arts of the Asmat, Papuan Gulf and Sepik
• The Arts of Melanesia II: the Malagan of New Ireland
• The Arts of Polynesia: Hawaiian art, the arts of the New Zealand Maori
Prescribed Reading
There are no prescribed texts for this subject.
Recommended Reading
Readings are provided to students via the AHT website: www.nasaht.com.au
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion students will have:
• Gained a familiarity with the arts of the indigenous peoples of Africa, the Americas and the Pacific; identifying, classifying and broadly interpreting relevant art works
• Developed an awareness of the range of theoretical frameworks applied to the understanding of indigenous arts and of the influence of indigenous arts on the development of Modernism
• Developed critical awareness of the social, religious, cultural and historical contexts that have conditioned the creation and reception of the art forms studied
• Demonstrated an ability to effectively evaluate, organise and articulate information and ideas relating to indigenous arts, employing appropriate terminology and referencing sources where applicable
ABORIGINAL ART
AHT218
Award/Level: BFA / Year 2 & 3
Core or Elective: Elective
Pre-requisites: AHT100
Co-requisites: Nil
Credit Points: 3
Duration: 12 Weeks / 24 Hours
Delivery mode: face to face / on campus
Student Workload: 2 HPW timetabled
2 HPW personal study
Subject Coordinator: Alex Trompf
Description
This subject provides an introduction to the arts of Aboriginal Australia. The subject also introduces a range of anthropological, Modernist, Post-Modernist and Post-Colonial theoretical frameworks to demonstrate how they apply to the understanding of aboriginal arts.
Objectives
The subject aims to develop students’ understanding of the complex interplay of the social, religious, cultural and historical contexts that conditioned the creation and reception of Aboriginal art in Australia.
Subject Content
Topics include:
• Rover Thomas
• Emily Kngywarreye
• Papanyu Movement
• Albert Namatjira and Hermansberg landscape
• Ten Canoes and representation of Aboriginal society in cinema
• Clifford Thomas
• Michael Tjakamara
• Kinship systems in Aboriginal society
• Role of dance and body paint
• Dreaming
Prescribed Reading
There are no prescribed texts for this subject.
Recommended Reading
Readings are provided to students via the AHT website: www.nasaht.com.au
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion students will have:
• Gained a familiarity with the arts of the indigenous peoples of Australia
• Developed an awareness of the range of theoretical frameworks applied to the understanding of aboriginal arts.
• Developed critical awareness of the social, religious, cultural and historical contexts that have conditioned the creation and reception of the art forms studied
• Demonstrated an ability to effectively evaluate, organise and articulate information and ideas relating to indigenous arts, employing appropriate terminology and referencing sources where applicable
ARCHITECTURE: THE ART OF THE CITY
AHT221
Award/Level: BFA / Year 2 & 3
Core or Elective: Elective
Pre-requisites: AHT100
Co-requisites: Nil
Credit Points: 3
Duration: 12 Weeks / 24 Hours
Delivery mode: face to face / on campus
Student Workload: 2 HPW timetabled
2 HPW personal study
Subject Coordinator: Dr Michael Hill, Head of Art History & Theory
Description
Architecture was once considered the mother of the arts, in the sense that it both played host to the other arts and united on an abstract level universal elements of design and structure. Although this is no longer a common view, architecture remains an intimate, if poorly understood, member of the visual arts, framing its everyday practices and expressing on a monumental level many of its wider ambitions. Moreover, architecture articulates the civic community; the built environment is one of the clearest indicators of who we are and what we have been. The course takes the perspective on architecture that goes beyond individual buildings, examining also the structure of the city and types of transport and circulation. No prior knowledge of architecture is assumed.
Objectives
The subject aims to develop students’ recognition and understanding of a range of architectural styles and periods, building terminology and structural principles, and issues of urbanism.
Subject Content
Topics covered include:
• Classicism
• Medieval city
• Renaissance order
• Architectural decorum
• Industrialisation
• Modern masters, including Wright, Le Corbusier, Mies, Aalto, Utzon, and Kahn
• Doors and windows
• Skyscrapers
• Post-modernism
• Cars and circulation
• Urbanism
Prescribed Reading
There are no prescribed texts for this subject.
Recommended Reading
Readings provided via www.nasaht.com.au
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion students will have:
• Knowledge required to identify specific Architectural styles and periods;
• Knowledge of building terminology and of key structural principles such as tension, compression, and loads; materials
• Knowledge of basic issues of urbanism, such as circulation, density, etc.
• Demonstrated an ability to effectively evaluate, organise and articulate information and ideas relating to architecture, employing appropriate terminology and referencing sources where applicable
WOMEN IN ART
AHT224
Award/Level: BFA / Year 2 & 3
Core or Elective: Elective
Pre-requisites: AHT100
Co-requisites: Nil
Credit Points: 3
Duration: 12 Weeks / 24 Hours
Delivery mode: face to face / on campus
Student Workload: 2 HPW timetabled
2 HPW personal study
Subject Coordinator: Lorraine Kypiotis
Description
The course will examine the ways in which female artists and the images made by them are presented in the context of social, political and cultural history. Further, it will look at examples of women artists in the tradition of western civilisation up to and including post–modernism.
Objectives
The aim of this course is to raise the awareness of the centrality and complexity of gender issues in the master narrative of western art. It will attempt to stimulate students’ thinking in regard to, and questioning of, the relationship between art production & gender.
Subject Content
Areas of study include:
• Art production and gender
• The mythology of culture
• The history of women in art
• The body: representation and gender
• Women, portraiture and the mask
• The contemporary art market
• The cult of celebrity
Prescribed Reading
There are no prescribed texts for this subject.
Recommended Reading
Readings provided: www.nasaht.com.au
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion students will demonstrate:
• Familiarity with some of the most influential ideas and the historical debates related to feminism and women in art.
• Understanding of the social and cultural contexts surrounding the production of art by women including the effects of different types of patronage upon the display and consumption of these works.
• Appreciation for the wider context of art making within society in terms of both the economic and ideological factors behind its display in collections, museums and galleries.
• Ability to effectively evaluate, organise and articulate information and ideas relating to the subject, employing appropriate terminology and referencing sources where applicable.
SPACE IN PAINTING
AHT235
Award/Level: BFA / Year 2 & 3
Core or Elective: Elective
Pre-requisites: AHT100
Co-requisites: Nil
Credit Points: 3
Duration: 12 Weeks / 24 Hours
Delivery mode: face to face / on campus
Student Workload: 2 HPW timetabled
2 HPW personal study
Subject Coordinator: Dr Georgina Cole
Description
This subject takes a historical and cross-cultural perspective to explore and consider how and why painters have represented three-dimensional spaces on two-dimensional planes in the history of art.
Objectives
The subject aims to increase students’ understanding of the diversity of systems of spatial representation and the impact of cultural, social and psychological attitudes to architecture, interiors and cities on the
subjects and imagery of art.
Subject Content
Topics include eastern and western cosmology and creation images, the development of perspective in the Renaissance, space and sexuality, ruins in art, fragments
and psychosis in modernity, dream spaces in Surrealism, and Cezanne’s transformations of the picture plane.
Prescribed Reading
There are no prescribed texts for this subject.
Recommended Reading
Recommended reading lists will be provided.
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion students will have:
• An understanding of diverse systems of spatial representation in painting
• A strong knowledge of how the analysis of space contributes to the interpretation of images
• An understanding of the representation of space in painting as a constant dialogue between past and present specific to different cultures and aesthetic theories
• Demonstrated improved skills of visual analysis relating to space in two-dimensional images
• Demonstrated an ability to effectively evaluate, organise and articulate information and ideas relating to space in painting, employing appropriate terminology and referencing sources where applicable
ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL DISCOURSE
AHT247
Award/Level: BFA / Year 2 & 3
Core or Elective: Elective
Pre-requisites: AHT100
Co-requisites: Nil
Credit Points: 3
Duration: 12 Weeks / 24 Hours
Delivery mode: face to face / on campus
Student Workload: 2 HPW timetabled
2 HPW personal study
Subject Coordinator: Dr Michael Hill, Head of Art History & Theory
Description
Drawing on philosophy, aesthetics, and anthropology, the subject examines key problematics within modernity, including: the economic and ideological role of art in late capitalism, the impact of new media, and the allegorical significance of industrial technologies, and such as the rise of robotics and artificial intelligence.
Objectives
The aim of this subject is to increase students’ knowledge and understanding of contemporary cultural discourses and their manifestations in transdisciplinarity and material culture. Students will develop skills in critical reading and discussion of theorists such as Adorno and others of the Frankfurt school; they will be introduced to trans-disciplinarity and the analysis of material culture.
Subject Content
Topics include:
• Relational aesthetics
• Late capitalist cultural production
• Anthropological and sociological perspectives on\ art history
• Information theory and digital media
Prescribed Reading
There are no prescribed texts for this subject.
Recommended Reading
Recommended reading lists will be provided via the AHT web-site: www.nasaht.com.au
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion students will have:
• Knowledge and understanding of contemporary cultural discourses and their manifestations in trans-disciplinarity and material culture.
• Introductory knowledge of the theories of the Frankfurt School
• Introductory knowledge of trans-disciplinarity with particular reference to “thing” theory.
• Demonstrated an ability to effectively evaluate, organise and articulate information and ideas relating to the subject, employing appropriate terminology and referencing sources where applicable
MUSEUMS, GALLERIES AND CONTEMPORARY SPACES OF DISPLAY
AHT257
Award/Level: BFA / Year 2 & 3
Core or Elective: Elective
Pre-requisites: AHT100
Co-requisites: Nil
Credit Points: 3
Duration: 12 Weeks / 24 Hours
Delivery mode: face to face / on campus
Student Workload: 2 HPW timetabled
2 HPW personal study
Subject Coordinator: Lorraine Kypiotis
Description
This subject introduces students to the rise and development of Museums and Galleries providing an historical and theoretical overview of traditional cultures of display and the role of the museum within a social and cultural framework. The subjects also considers alternative exhibition spaces and cultures of display and their place within the contemporary Visual Arts, and the role of museum workers including curators and behind the scenes staff.
Objectives
This subject aims to broaden students’ understanding the various cultural and historical contexts of the rise and development of museums and the more specific relationship between the artifact and audience as cultural material.
Subject Content
Areas of study include:
• Cabinets of Curiosity
• The rise of the modern museum
• Spaces of experience
• Strategies of display
• The museum as social space
• Destination architecture
• The power of the artifact
• The museum without walls
Prescribed Reading
There are no prescribed texts for this subject.
Recommended Reading
Readings provided AHT web-site: www.nasaht.com.au
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion students will demonstrate:
• Familiarity with some of the most influential ideas and the historical debates related to museology
• Skills to analyse the social and cultural contexts surrounding the production of art including the effects of different types of patronage upon the display and consumption of artefacts they will develop.
• Appreciation for the wider context of art making within society in terms of its economics and the ideological factors behind its display in collections, museums and galleries
• Ability to evaluate, organise and articulate information and ideas relating to museology,employing appropriate terminology and referencing sources where applicable.
SPACE AND FORM IN MODERN
SCULPTURE
AHT258
Award/Level: BFA / Year 2 & 3
Core or Elective: Elective
Pre-requisites: AHT100
Co-requisites: Nil
Credit Points: 3
Duration: 12 Weeks / 24 Hours
Delivery mode: face to face / on campus
Student Workload: 2 HPW timetabled
2 HPW personal study
Subject Coordinator: Dr Michael Hill, Head of Art History & Theory
Description
The course examines the artists and ideas of modern sculpture.
Objectives
The course aims to explain the change in figurative content of sculpture in the wake of Rodin in the late nineteenth century, and the consequent emergence of abstraction and emphasis on space rather than form. The use of materials – such as steel, plastic, glass, and recycled junk – is explained in terms of sculpture’s ethical duty to poetically transform the industrial material of contemporary life. The course also explains the significance of siting, and the difference between indoor and outdoor work.
Subject Content
The course is organized chronologically, focused on the careers of individual sculptors, including: Auguste Rodin, Constantin Brancusi, Umberto Boccioni, Naum Gabo, Antoine Pevsner, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Pablo Picasso, Julio Gonzalez, David Smith, Anthony Caro, Eva Hesse, Christo, Richard Serra, Rachel Whiteread, Anish Kapoor, and Jessica Stockholder.
Prescribed Reading
There are no prescribed texts for this subject.
Recommended Reading
Recommended reading lists will be provided via the AHT web-site: www.nasaht.com.au
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion students will have:
• Gained a broad understanding of the history and chronology of modern sculpture from Rodin to Kapoor
• Developed their understanding of the specific themes, techniques and media associated with modern sculpture
• Demonstrated improved skills of visual analysis relating to sculpture
• Demonstrated an ability to effectively evaluate, organise and articulate information and ideas relating to sculpture, employing appropriate terminology and referencing sources where applicable
MAGNETIC FIELDS: SURREALISM AND ITS INTERLOCUTORS
AHT261
Award/Level: BFA / Year 2 & 3
Core or Elective: Elective
Pre-requisites: AHT100
Co-requisites: Nil
Credit Points: 3
Duration 12 Weeks / 24 Hours
Delivery mode: face to face / on campus
Student Workload: 2 HPW timetabled
2 HPW personal study
Subject Coordinator: Dr Jaime Tsai
Description
Following le hazard objectif – the “path of objective chance” – the Surrealists traversed the boundaries of geography, bourgeois morality and disciplinary specificity in search of the absolute liberation of the mind. This course examines the emergence and philosophical foundations of Surrealism, its literary and ideological contexts, and its pervasive influence and legacy in twentieth century art and thought.
Objectives
The subject aims to develop students’ understanding of the historical and theoretical conditions for the emergence of surrealism after World War I and the wider significance of surrealism in modernist culture.
Subject Content
Drawing from a diverse range of practices and mediums (painting, sculpture, film, photography, installation, performance) and disciplines (literature, ethnography, philosophy), we will consider André Breton’s vision for the movement as the fusion of Dadaist irreverence with Marxist ideology and Freudian psychoanalysis, as well as the counter-movements formed by dissenting members (Georges Bataille, Michel Leiris). Particular focus is given to the significance of Surrealist interventions in metropolitan life (a magnetic field of desire and potential revolution), to a broader trajectory of French urban encounters, from Baudelairean flaneury through to Situationist détournement. Other themes include the role of journals in the aesthetic and theoretical dissemination of revolutionary ideals, the deinstrumentalising role of the Surrealist object, Surrealist exhibition and display, mad love and Sadist eroticism, ethnography and anti-colonial politics, and the renewal of myth and the sacred.
Prescribed Reading
There are no prescribed texts for this subject.
Recommended Reading
Recommended reading lists will be provided via the AHT website: www.nasaht.com.au
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion students will have:
• Understanding the historical and theoretical conditions for the emergence of surrealism after World War I
• Familiarity with the principal surrealist artists of the 1920s and 30s.
• Understanding of the wider significance of surrealism in modernist culture
• Ability to effectively evaluate, organise and articulate information and ideas relating to the subject, employing appropriate terminology and referencing sources where applicable
RELATIONAL SPACES: ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY ART
AHT262
Award/Level: BFA / Year 2 & 3
Core or Elective: Elective
Pre-requisites: AHT100
Co-requisites: Nil
Credit Points: 3
Duration: 12 Weeks / 24 Hours
Delivery mode: face to face / on campus
Student Workload: 2 HPW timetabled
2 HPW personal study
Subject Coordinator: Dr Jaime Tsai
Description
This course explores the diverse practices of the last hundred years that deal self-consciously with our relationships to space and place. More specifically, this course examines themes of memorial connections to site, street practice and political provocation, destroyed and transformed places, imaginary locations and journeys, sites of transition and in-between places, binaries of inside/outside, near/far and intimacy/ expanse, museological spaces and their relationship to spectatorship and display, psychological investments in space, and some of the issues around the relationship between indigenous art and space.
Objectives
The subject aims to develop students’ understanding of varied spatial practices that have challenged institutional categorisation, and to consider the legacy of such practices in contemporary art. The course also aims to show how various practices – particularly derived from photography and video/film, and consisting of the documentation of land art, public art, performance and installation – have challenged the institutional categorisation of art.
Subject Content
Topics include:
• Heterotopia
• Marcel Duchamp’s Travelling Museum
• Schwitters’ installations to Kaprow’s happenings and performance
• Architecture of Tarkovsky
• Encounters with the Everyday
• The Role of Place in Indigenous Art
• Graffitti/Street Art/Political Art.
Prescribed Reading
There are no prescribed texts for this subject.
Recommended Reading
Readings provided via AHT website: www.nasaht.com.au
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion students will have developed:
• Knowledge of varied spatial practices that have evolved over the last 100 years that deal selfconsciously with our relationships to space and place
• Knowledge of historical foundation and various contexts of those practices
• Ability to consider the legacy of those practices in contemporary art
• Ability to effectively evaluate, organise and articulate information and ideas relating to those practices, employing appropriate terminology and referencing sources where applicable
AUSTRALIAN ART: FIRST FLEET TO MODERNISM
AHT263
Award/Leve: BFA / Year 2 & 3
Core or Elective: Elective
Pre-requisites: AHT100
Co-requisites: Nil
Credit Points: 3
Duration: 12 Weeks / 24 Hours
Delivery mode: face to face / on campus
Student Workload: 2 HPW timetabled
2 HPW personal study
Subject Coordinator: Lorraine Kypiotis
Description
The subject examines the cultural growth of Australia via its art, architecture and institutions from the Colonial era through to the early Twentieth century.
Objectives
This subject aims to develop students’ understanding of the specific themes and issues within the history and chronology of Australian art from the late 18th century through to early Modernism.
Subject Content
The course will focus on the themes of Landscape and Identity, as well as issues involved in mapping the “strange and wondrous land” of Terra Australis, and the establishment of the city of Sydney as a cultural entity. Artists discussed will include, but not be limited to, the Port Jackson Painter, Augustus Earle, Eugene von Guerard, Streeton, McCubbin and Roberts, Lambert, Proctor and Preston..
Prescribed Reading
There are no prescribed texts for this subject.
Recommended Reading
Recommended readings will be provided via the AHT website: www.nasaht.com.au
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion students will have:
• Gained a broad understanding of the history and chronology of Australian art from the late 18th century through to early Modernism.
• Developed their understanding of the specific themes and issues associated with Australian Art.
• Demonstrated improved skills of visual analysis relating to artworks produced during this era.
• Demonstrated an ability to effectively evaluate, organise and articulate information and ideas relating to Australian Art, employing appropriate terminology and referencing sources where applicable.