ARTH 43.01 Feminist and Queer Video Art: "I’m asking – does it exist? What is it? Whom is it for?"
John Perreault, the first openly gay art critic at the Village Voice, published the phrase “I’m asking – does it exist? What is it? Whom is it for?” as the subtitle of an article on "Gay Art" for Artforum in 1980. Expanding upon Perreault’s nuanced consideration of how art works accumulate identities and address particular audiences, this undergraduate course will explore feminist and queer moving image-making practices in the United States between the 1950s-1990s. While eschewing a strictly chronological approach, we will consider art practices in relation to specific historical thresholds, from the intensification of nonviolent direct action in the 1950s and 1960s, to the Stonewall rebellions of 1969, to the emergence of AIDS activism in the late 1980s and 1990s. We will consider the term video expansively, inclusive of TV art, installation, and video’s dialogue with film, holography, and print publications. This course leaves open what feminist and queer art practices look like and perform, and what methodologies might be most useful in writing about them. However, the course aims to challenge the ways in which art historical narratives, including alternative ones, have eclipsed the role of artists of color. Students will be required to reflect upon video footage and on readings in a series of short papers and assignments. Shorter videos will be screened in class, but some weeks require an extra screening during the X-hour session.
Cross Listed Courses
FILM 41.22 WGSS 66.22