Online Course in Art: What Materials Tell Us about Modern and Contemporary Art

The Museum’s online art courses offer a unique chance to gain accessible, rigorous training on key themes and concepts in the history of modern and contemporary art from today’s perspective.

Drawing on contributions from experts in specific fields, these courses are based on the Museum’s Collection and dynamic art program.

The study of the materials used in art–their composition, their chemical properties, and their transformation–is a concern with many artists. This course focuses on the stories behind the use of certain materials and the scientific phenomena associated with them, analyzing why they are used to make art, how they are obtained, what their practical applications are, and how they influence aesthetic perception.

Workload: 6 hours (at your own pace)
Target audience: People over 18 who are interested in contemporary art
Language: Spanish
Structure: 4 modules, 16 video lessons, additional resources
Certification: Upon completion of the course, you will get a certificate
Availability: Three months from date of purchase

WHAT WILL YOU LEARN IN THIS COURSE?

The learning objectives of this course are:

1. Offering the keys to the use of materials in modern and contemporary art–their importance, the reasons why they are used, and their technical and aesthetic implications.
2. Providing basic scientific concepts to understand how the history of art runs parallel to the history of science, and how the developments in the science of materials, in chemistry, physics and engineering have changed the course of modern and contemporary art, and the other way around.
3. Introducing the materials artists resort to as part of the code of symbols they use to communicate.
4. Discussing the importance of color and its effects on the perceptions of art.
5. Shedding light on women artists and their real contributions, thus giving them the place they deserve in the history of 20th- and 21st-century art.

Taught by
Deborah García Bello, chemist, science communicator, and researcher of the materials applied to modern and contemporary art.

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