Course detail

Art After 2000 2

FaVU-4AA2000-2Acad. year: 2026/2027

The content of the course, which is a follow-up of the eponymic course from the winter semester, is contemporary art practice. Since it is not yet possible to take a sufficient distance from contemporary art practice to talk about "art history", the course does not aim to create a timeless canon. What matters in the selection of themes is their current relevance. The content of the summer semester focuses specifically on tendencies in contemporary art and themes that emerged during the second decade of our century.

Language of instruction

English

Number of ECTS credits

4

Assignment to study programme types

Bachelor's, Master's

Mode of study

Not applicable.

Guarantor

doc. Mgr. Jan Zálešák, Ph.D.

Department

Department of Art History and Theory (KTDU)

Entry knowledge

Orientation in the development of post-war and contemporary art.

Rules for evaluation and completion of the course

Credit is awarded based on attendance and active participation in seminars. The exam is taken by submitting an essay. The required length of the essay is between 1,500 and 2,000 words (excluding the bibliography). The essay will be assessed using the criteria of factual and linguistic correctness, ability to reason, and to work correctly with sources and literature.

Teaching takes place in the classrooms / hours determined by the timetable. Compulsory attendance (2 unexcused absences are tolerated). Making up missed classes is done in agreement with the teacher in the form of alternative assignments.

Aims

The aim of the course is to introduce students to the topics, trends and approaches that have had a significant place in contemporary art over the last quarter of a century. Knowledge of current art practice and themes that have resonated in major exhibition venues should help students to critically articulate their own position and creative direction.
Students will gain an overview of the development of contemporary art in the last 25 years. They will know how technological developments (the transition to the post-internet situation) have influenced not only the modes of art dissemination but also the forms of art. They will be aware of the connections between contemporary philosophy and contemporary art, as well as the ways in which contemporary art responds to the growing awareness of the unsustainability of a global economy programmed for a regime of unlimited growth.  

Study aids

Not applicable.

Prerequisites and corequisites

Not applicable.

Basic literature

Not applicable.

Recommended reading

Heather DAVIS – Etienne TURPIN, Art in the Anthropocene (eds.). London: Open Humanities Press. Online (EN)
Christoph COX – Jenny JASKEY – Suhail MALIK, Realism, Materialism, Art. Berlin: Sternberg press, 2015. (EN)
Jane BENNETT, Vibrant Matter, Duke University Press, 2010. (EN)
Lauren, CORNELL – Ed HALTER – Cory ARCANGEL. Mass effect: art and the internet in the twenty-first century. Cambridge, Massachusetts – London: The MIT Press, 2015. (EN)
Nicolas BOURRIAUD, Postproduction, Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2005 (second edtion with new preface). (EN)
Omar KHOLEIF, You are here: art after the internet. Manchester – London: Cornerhouse – SPACE, 2014. (EN)
Robin MACKAY – Armen AVENASIAN (eds.), #ACCELERATE#. Falmouth: Urbanomic: 2015. (EN)
Rosi BRAIDOTTI – Maria HLAVAJOVA (eds.), Posthuman Glosary, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. (EN)
T. J. DEMOS, Against the Anthropocene. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2017. (EN)
VAN DER TUIN – DOLPHIJN (eds.), New Materialism: Interviews and Cartographies, Open Humanities Press, 2012. https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/256718 (EN)
Vincent MOSCO, Becoming Digital – Towards a post-internet Society. Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited, 2017. (EN)
Zbyněk BALADRÁN – Václav JANOŠČÍK (eds.), Reinventing Horizons. Praha: tranzit.cz, 2016. (EN)

Classification of course in study plans

  • Programme FAAD Master's 1 year of study, summer semester, compulsory
  • Programme ZST-NBIP Master's 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
  • Programme ZST-NX Master's 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
  • Programme ZST-BX Bachelor's 1 year of study, summer semester, elective

Type of course unit

 

Lecture

16 hours, compulsory

Teacher / Lecturer

doc. Mgr. Jan Zálešák, Ph.D.

Syllabus

1. Art after New Media. The lecture will focus on the rise and sudden “disappearance” of post-internet art. It will try to show it as a tendency that both develops the earlier phase of internet art and builds on it in a specific way. At the same time it will seek to identify the "external" impulses that led to the rapid rise and fast decline of interest in this label.

2. Art and accelerationism. The intersections of philosophical affirmations of techno-optimism and contemporary art. Examples of artistic practice and exhibition projects in which the theme of accelerationism resonated around the mid-2010s. Examples of critical reactions linked in particular to a growing awareness of the environmental crisis.

3. The return of the object. Negotiations between object-oriented ontology / speculative realism / new materialism, and contemporary art. The lecture will briefly introduce abovementioned philosophical tendencies and will seek to indicate their relation to object-based art, which is one of the "afterlives” of the post-internet.

4. Art and the Anthropocene 1. An introduction to the key concepts (anthropocene, capitalocene, climate change/crisis). Eco art and environmental art in historical perspective. Important artworks and exhibition projects from the 1970s to the present.

5. Art and the Anthropocene 2. An introduction to the key concepts – ecofeminism, new materialism, posthumanism – and their relation to contemporary art. Examples of important artworks and exhibition projects.

Each of these five topics is followed by a seminar in which a selected text is critically analysed in a guided discussion (texts are provided to students well in advance of the seminars).

Seminar

10 hours, compulsory

Teacher / Lecturer

doc. Mgr. Jan Zálešák, Ph.D.