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Contemporary Art and Social Justice - HOA00108M

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  • Department: History of Art
  • Module co-ordinator: Dr. Ana Bilbao Yarto
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: M
  • Academic year of delivery: 2023-24

Module summary

This module has two main focuses: participatory and socially engaged art on the one hand and the decolonial turn in aesthetics on the other. These sets of artistic practices will be analysed as key components of the development of contemporary art.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 1 2023-24

Module aims

Through various positions and case studies, we will discuss how contemporary artistic practices have experimented with an extensive range of media, production methods, dissemination, and engagement to achieve social and environmental justice. We will also map the distinctive historical trajectories of art from the 1990s to the present and analyse the key moments in which these practices have challenged and reconfigured our very understanding of art.

Module learning outcomes

By the end of this module, the student should have the following:

  • a greater understanding of art’s socio-political potential;

  • a firm grasp on the conditions that paved the wave for the emergence of contemporary art in Western and non-Western contexts;

  • awareness of the distinction between modern, postmodern, contemporary, and new media art;

  • familiarity with the work of a wide variety of artists, the production of seminal exhibitions and events in the period, including their reception and social impact;

  • the role of various media in forming contemporary artists' practices.

  • further insights into the question of whether art has a role to play in achieving social and environmental justice

Assessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
Assessed Essay		 N/A 100

Special assessment rules

None

Reassessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
Assessed Essay		 N/A 100

Module feedback

You will receive feedback on assessed work within the timeframes set out by the University - please check the Guide to Assessment, Standards, Marking and Feedback for more information.

The purpose of feedback is to help you to improve your future work. If you do not understand your feedback or want to talk about your ideas further, you are warmly encouraged to meet your Supervisor during their Office Hours.

Indicative reading

  • Anderson, Stephanie B. "Museums, Decolonization, and Indigenous Artists as First Cultural Responders: A Case Study at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights." Museum & Society 17, no. 2 (2019): 173-192.
  • Bailey, David, Ian Baucom and Boyce, Sonia. "Shades of Black: Assembling the 1980s." In Shades of Black: Assembling Black Arts in 1980s Britain, edited by David A. Bailey, Sonia Boyce and Ian Baucom. New York: Duke University Press, 2005.
  • Bishop, Claire. "Art of the Encounter: Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics." Circa, no.114 (2005): 32-35.
  • Bishop, Claire. "The Social Turn: Collaboration and its Discontents." Artforum 44, no. 6 (Feb 2006): 179-185.
  • Bishop, Claire, et al. Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship. London: Verso, 2012.
  • Bleiker, Roland. Aesthetics and World Politics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
  • Bleiker, Roland. "Visual Global Politics." In Mapping Visual Global Politics, 1-29. London: Routledge, 2018.
  • Bogerts, Lisa. "Mind the trap: Street Art, Visual Literacy, and Visual Resistance." Street Art & Urban Creativity Scientific Journal 3, no. 2 (2017): 6-10.
  • Bourriaud, Nicolas. Relational Aesthetics. Paris: Les presses du réel, 2002.
  • Buikema, R.L. "Performing Dialogical Truth and Transitional Justice: The Role of Art in the Becoming Post-Apartheid of South Africa." Memory Studies 5, no. 3 (2012): 282-292.
  • Degot, Ekaterina. "The Artist as Director: ‘Artist Organisations International’ and its Contradictions." Afterall 40, no. 1 (2015): 20-27.
  • Emmelhainz, I. "Art and the Cultural Turn: Farewell to Committed, Autonomous Art?" E-flux 42. 2013. https://www.e-flux.com/journal/42/60266/art-and-the-cultural-turn-farewell-to-committed-autonomous-art/
  • Giunta, Andrea. "Politics of Representation: Art & Human Rights." Hemispheric Institute. 2010. https://hemisphericinstitute.org/en/emisferica-72/7-2-essays/politics-of-representation-art-a-human-rights.html
  • González, Jennifer. Subject to Display: Reframing Race in Contemporary Installation Art. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2008.
  • Kester, Grant H. "Another Turn (Letter to Editor)." Artforum International 44, no. 9 (2006): 22-24.
  • Kester, Grant H. The One and the Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a Global Context. London: Duke University Press, 2011.
  • Lagarde, Marcela. "A qué llamamos feminicidio?” In Por la vida y la libertad de las mujeres, 7-10. Mexico City: Cámara de Diputados del Congreso de la Unión, LIX Legislatura, 2005. https://catedraunescodh.unam.mx/catedra/mujeres/menu_superior/Feminicidio/2_Info_nac/12.pdf
  • Longoni, Ana. "Photographs and Silhouettes: Visual Politics in the Human Rights Movement of Argentina." Afterall 25, no. 1 (2010): 5-17.
  • Mouffe, Chantal. "Artistic Activism and Agonistic Spaces." Art and Research 1, no. 2 (Summer 2007): 1-5. http://www.artandresearch.org.uk/v1n2/mouffe.html
  • Mignolo, Walter D. "Coloniality is Far from Over, and So Must Be Decoloniality." Afterall 43, no. 1 (2017): 38-45.


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University is constantly exploring ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary by the University. Where appropriate, the University will notify and consult with affected students in advance about any changes that are required in line with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.