111-320/420 Art and Mass Culture in the 1960s

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Subject Description:

This subject uses interdisciplinary methodologies to study the interaction of art and mass culture. The 1960s will be studied as a pivotal moment in the transition from modern to postmodern culture. The visual arts of the 1960s are studied in conjunction with other cultural practices (television, advertising, fashion, popular music) and historical phenomena (the Vietnam War, counter-cultural movements, the rise of consumer culture). Through a series of case studies, the ideological, cultural, artistic and philosophical shifts that we know call postmodernism will be explored. The primary focus will be on the United States, but studies will also incorporate Australia and Europe. Key issues addressed will include; the relationship of art and life (modernist autonomy or postmodernist interaction); the possibilities for agency and activism (protest movements, art as critique of society); shifting notions of subjectivity (counter-cultural spiritualism, communalist subcultures, bureaucratised and mechanised art); modes of consumption (interactive art, fashion, live music); gestures of refusal (neo-primitivism, post-object art, feminism, drug culture).

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