DU2321 Other modernisms
This blended course looks beyond the established canons of modern art and design which give preference to the avant-garde and individual 'great artists.' The course examines the topic from an international perspective, acknowledging modernism as a global phenomenon. It introduces topics such as women's contributions to modern visual culture, art and design of minority groups, folk modernities, and global entanglements of modernity (with e.g. the USA, Mexico, or India). The course is delivered as a series of lectures on selected topics that challenge the western canon of modernism. The scope of modernism is explored through talks by invited international speakers with expertise on different aspects of modernism. A study visit of an exhibition in Vienna is an indispensable part of the course.
Taught with Marta Filipová at the Department of Art History, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno
Autumn 2023
DU2389 Exoticism within: Images of Roma and ‘Gypsies’ in Central European Art and Visual Culture
This course offers a a critical account of Roma and “Gypsy” stereotypes in the art and visual culture in Central Europe since the nineteenth century and examines these in light of current debates on whiteness and decolonisation. It examines the ways in which art both reflected and also shaped the image of the Roma in Central European society. The course not only considers "Gypsy" images but also introduces Romani cultural emancipation and explore contemporary art projects by Romani artists from the Czech Republic, Slovakia and
Hungary.
Taught at the Department of Art History, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno
Spring 2023 and Spring 2024
DU2323 Vienna and Beyond: Art and Architecture in Austria-Hungary, 1873-1918
This course offers a critical account of art and architecture in Austria-Hungary from 1873, the year of the World Fair in Vienna, to 1918, when Austria-Hungary collapsed. Its main focus is on Vienna, but it will also discuss examples from other sites in the Habsburg Empire, e.g. Prague, Budapest, for comparison and context.
It examines the ways in which art and architecture both reflected and also shaped the cultural politics of the late nineteenth-century in Vienna and elsewhere in Austria-Hungary. The course considers not only central and well-known individual artists and architects such as Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Otto Wagner and Koloman Moser, but also broader thematic topics, including, for example, museums and exhibitionary practices, debates on folk and vernacular culture, historicism and national traditions, gender and sexuality; urbanisation and the experience of modernity; photography and mass media.
Being delivered in English, the course will also include a session on the use of academic English and styles of writing.
Taught with Matthew Rampley, Marta Filipová and Christian Drobe at the Department of Art History, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno
Spring 2020
