Contemporary Art, 1945-Present

Surveys major questions that have engaged art and its historians since World War II, exploring how ideas rooted in the postwar period shaped artistic practice through the turn of the twenty-first century. Focuses primarily on European and American art histories, while highlighting the global turn in art theory and exhibition in order to address the vexed relationship between globalization and attempts to challenge historical margins and centers. Critically examines changing ideas about when and where the contemporary is found in art.