This course examines past and present-day contributions by artists of African descent to the vibrant traditions, critical debates, and aesthetic developments, throughout the history of art in the United States. Informing, and reinforced by, the country's emergent national identity, African American Art is a major locus for exploring intersections between art and Americanisms at national and international levels. Attention to the visual, political, and sociocultural dimensions of the country's art and artists begins with its colonial history and spans to the present moment, enriching understandings about an expansive array of media–drums, quilts, paintings, sculptures, installations, performances, sound art and more–that radically impact the challenges and possibilities of creative expression. Centuries of identity formation, war, politics, social and cultural change, economic shifts, and new technologies, will require active consideration of concepts that crucially inform knowledge production, including gender, nationality, race, and the cultural work of art across time.

HISTART Distribution Requirements: Modern and Contemporary; Europe and the US