The course aims at acquiring autonomous historical analysis and critical interpretation of the artistic phenomena of the contemporary age, with particular regard to the interactions between artistic production and theoretical and aesthetic reflection.
teacher profile teaching materials
The course investigates the genesis and metamorphosis of the concept of modernity in European art from the mid‑nineteenth to the early twentieth century.
Part I – Paris as Laboratory: we examine the rupture introduced by Édouard Manet (Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, Olympia) and the poetics of the city articulated by Charles Baudelaire in Le Peintre de la vie moderne. Topics include the birth of the urban spectator, the aesthetics of the fragment, the impact of new media (illustrated press, photography) and the turn toward pictorial autonomy.
Part II – Avant‑garde Modernism: focus shifts to the fracture inaugurated by Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) and Marcel Duchamp’s ready‑mades (1913‑17). We analyse the dismemberment of pictorial space, the crisis of the art object, and the redefinition of the artist’s role between conceptual gesture and institutional critique.
Through close reading of artworks, manifestos, theoretical texts and socio‑economic contexts, the course highlights subterranean continuities and radical breaks, inviting students to rethink the artistic revolution that unfolded between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
• Bradley Bailey, Dada Meets Dixieland: Marcel Duchamp Explains Fountain, “October” 182, Fall 2022, pp. 61–96 (PDF)
• Charles Baudelaire, Il pittore della vita moderna (PDF)
• Walter Benjamin, Parigi capitale del XIX secolo (passi scelti, PDF)
• William Camfield, Marcel Duchamp's Fountain: Its History and Aesthetics in the Context of 1917
• T. J. Clark, The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers (PDF)
• T.J. Clark, Picasso and Truth, Princeton University Press, 2013 (saggi scelti, PDF)
• Marcel Duchamp. Critica, biografia, mito, a cura di Stefano Chiodi, Electa, Milano 2009 (parti scelte, PDF)
• Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (cataloghi MoMA 1939; 1988)
• John Richardson, A life of Picasso, 1907-1917 (PDF)
• Leo Steinberg, The Philosophical Brothel; In the Algerian Room, in Id. Picasso, Chicago University Press 2022 (PDF)
Additional readings will be announced during the course and recommended to individual students for their research projects.
Fruizione: 20710598-1 STORIA E TEORIA DELL'ARTE CONTEMPORANEA - LM in Storia dell'arte LM-89 R CHIODI STEFANO
Programme
Two Faces of Modernity: Paris–New York 1850‑1917The course investigates the genesis and metamorphosis of the concept of modernity in European art from the mid‑nineteenth to the early twentieth century.
Part I – Paris as Laboratory: we examine the rupture introduced by Édouard Manet (Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, Olympia) and the poetics of the city articulated by Charles Baudelaire in Le Peintre de la vie moderne. Topics include the birth of the urban spectator, the aesthetics of the fragment, the impact of new media (illustrated press, photography) and the turn toward pictorial autonomy.
Part II – Avant‑garde Modernism: focus shifts to the fracture inaugurated by Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) and Marcel Duchamp’s ready‑mades (1913‑17). We analyse the dismemberment of pictorial space, the crisis of the art object, and the redefinition of the artist’s role between conceptual gesture and institutional critique.
Through close reading of artworks, manifestos, theoretical texts and socio‑economic contexts, the course highlights subterranean continuities and radical breaks, inviting students to rethink the artistic revolution that unfolded between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Core Documentation
Essays and books• Bradley Bailey, Dada Meets Dixieland: Marcel Duchamp Explains Fountain, “October” 182, Fall 2022, pp. 61–96 (PDF)
• Charles Baudelaire, Il pittore della vita moderna (PDF)
• Walter Benjamin, Parigi capitale del XIX secolo (passi scelti, PDF)
• William Camfield, Marcel Duchamp's Fountain: Its History and Aesthetics in the Context of 1917
• T. J. Clark, The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers (PDF)
• T.J. Clark, Picasso and Truth, Princeton University Press, 2013 (saggi scelti, PDF)
• Marcel Duchamp. Critica, biografia, mito, a cura di Stefano Chiodi, Electa, Milano 2009 (parti scelte, PDF)
• Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (cataloghi MoMA 1939; 1988)
• John Richardson, A life of Picasso, 1907-1917 (PDF)
• Leo Steinberg, The Philosophical Brothel; In the Algerian Room, in Id. Picasso, Chicago University Press 2022 (PDF)
Additional readings will be announced during the course and recommended to individual students for their research projects.
Attendance
Free choice for students. Attendance is compulsory for anyone who wishes to sit the exam under the “attending-student” option.Type of evaluation
6-credit course Assessment is by a written exam held in class. The test evaluates the candidate’s ability to present and analyse the themes, artworks and texts discussed during lectures and listed in the bibliography, as well as the capacity to read and interpret works of art using appropriate critical terminology and relating them to their historical context. A reduced bibliography, corresponding to the 6-credit exam format (40 hours of coursework), must be agreed upon in advance with the instructor.