Onsite Course: An Introduction to Contemporary Art

How to Look at Contemporary Art with Your Own Eyes

The onsite course series Approaching Art is an introduction for those who want to get basic knowledge and references in contemporary art.

Approaching Art VII offers the tools you need to appreciate and enjoy contemporary art—or maybe reject it—on the basis of rigorous criteria.

The Museum’s art program and other examples from the international art scene will be used to illustrate some of the concepts discussed in the course, which will focus on the origins and background of what we understand as “contemporary art,” review the formal and technical disruptions that resulted from the introduction of certain technologies in late-19th-century artistic practices, and finally analyze the situation of art today, from those approaches that seem to validate anything as art to those that challenge the reality of today’s global art.

Objetives

• To give an overview of Western modern and contemporary art using basic concepts and a specialized lexicon that enable participants to feel confident in the field, building their own criteria and critical views.
• To share knowledge of specific artists and works as well as critical figures in the contemporary art scene, along with their influences and contributions, and their artistic, socio-political, and historical context.
• To discuss the origins and background of contemporary art, the revolutionary technologies associated to it, and its development into today’s global art.
• To shed light on women artists and give them the place they deserve in the history of 20th- and 21st-century art.
• To encourage participants to look at art “with their own eyes,” experiencing the works physically, and to share new knowledge in practical ways during exclusive guided tours of the Museum exhibitions.

Conducted by:
Andere Larrinaga Cuadra, Professor of the Department of Music and Art History of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU); faculty member and Vice-Chancellor for Quality in the UPV/EHU School of Fine Arts.

Structure and Contents