ARTH 351 - Studies in the History of Sculpture: Destructive Tendencies, 1960 to the Present

• W - 15:00-17:30
• EV-1.605
• INSTRUCTOR: DR. JOHANNE SLOAN

Since the 1960s, the sculptural object has been subject to multiple permutations – being   fabricated out of heterogenous materials, fragmenting into multi-part installations, or becoming site-specific, for instance. This course approaches the history of contemporary sculpture from the perspective of “destructive tendencies.” Through a range of critical writings and art practices (ranging from Danh Vo’s dismantled Statue of Liberty, to Merle Laderman Ukeles’s celebration of garbage, to Aganetha Dyck’s bee-sculptures that simultaneously destroy and create) we will explore different aspects of this destructive tendency. This includes iconoclasm directed at monuments, the aesthetics of the ruin, assemblage-work made out of trash, gestures of ideological violence, as well as principles of repair and regeneration.